It was quarter of eleven when Jurka’s car left Belvoir. Along the shore
road it sped, a low, fleeting shadow lured by its own projecting rays,
as if some sinister genie of the night were drawing it irresistibly on
towards the city glow in the west.
The Count smoked thoughtfully, leisurely, selecting cigarettes from a
black and gold enameled case as one selects favorites from a seraglio.
Fate had tendered him the information he had come to America after,
and he already contemplated a pleasurable return to Switzerland first,
and then to Sofia with the profits from what he cleverly dubbed Love’s
plunder.
He had recognized them the instant Carlota had stepped into the full
light. First the tiara with its splendid center ruby, the Zarathustra,
and the curious Byzantine setting. The ruby was one of the three
greatest in the world. It had been taken, centuries before, from a
shrine of the Zoroastrians beyond the Caspian country. Slipping from
hand to hand it had brought untold carnage and horror to the land whose
queen wore it on her brow. Only half a century before it had been
coveted by a woman of the Balkans whose ambition led her throneward.
She had been maid of honor to an emotional, harassed queen, and had
stepped over her dead body to wed her son. The price of the ruby had
been one keen, swift knife-thrust through her heart and another for the
blundering, love-blind prince. Ten years after, the ruby had been found
in a Cairo curio-shop by one who knew its value, and had been sent
out to seek the jewel marts of Amsterdam. It had been returned to the
Bulgarian state coffers until Paoli, in the zenith of her beauty and
fame, had received it from the hands of the crown prince, mounted in
the tiara with other gems fit to bear it company.
The girl Carlota could not be aware of the value or tremendous
significance of the rubies, Jurka reflected, else why should she
subject herself to the danger of wearing them in public? Taken with the
necklace and stomacher, they represented an immense sum, entirely apart
from their peculiar antiquarian value. Yet she had donned them for this
charity fête as if they had been paste.
Touching the mother-of-pearl button concealed in the buff suède
cushions, he drew a small, black-belted card-case from his breast
pocket, and opened a folded oblong of thin tracing-paper. Drawn upon
it delicately was a perfect sketch of the settings holding the crown
rubies. Jurka held it close to the shaded bulb, studying the detail
carefully until the car approached the city.
“Choose quiet streets,” he ordered through the speaking-tube. “Make
haste!”
His early arrival was unexpected by Georges, and the valet stood on
guard as the key sounded in the outer lock.
“Pardon, excellenza,” he begged. “I did not know whom to expect.”
“Find me Steccho at once. Take him in a taxi to the Park entrance at
Columbus Circle. Dismiss the car there and walk into the shadows of
the Park. I will pick you up a hundred yards beyond the Monument at
twelve-thirty.” He paused to glance at his own reflection in the long
mirror, adding, as to his chauffeur, “Make haste!”
Back at Belvoir Carlota had dressed while Jacobelli paced up and down
outside her door. The maid assisted her excitedly, fondling the jewels
and gown as she packed them.
“You were a triumph, Miss Roma,” she said. “They talk of nothing but
you outside.”
Carlota did not answer. Her face was pale and determined. Jacobelli had
telephoned the Lafayette after demanding from her Maria’s whereabouts.
He had had the Marchese paged, and had asked him most sarcastically
where he imagined Carlota might be at that hour. Where, returned the
old Marchese genially, but in her own bed, reposing restfully, after a
most severe headache?
“She is not that,” stormed Jacobelli. “She is out here--at Belvoir,
Long Island, at the home of Mrs. Nevins, wasting her voice for charity
with a person who claims he is her teacher. I bring her back with me at
once.”
The Marchese protested that Carlota could not have any wrong
intentions, that Maria must not be alarmed.
“Alarmed!” repeated Jacobelli solemnly. “I would so alarm her that
never would she permit the girl out of her sight until her début.
I tell you this is not a joke, Veracci. She has scaled the wall of
Tittani, mark me. You will understand when you see this man. Meet us at
the apartment. Not only has she sung here to-night, but she has wasted
also the Paoli jewels. She has worn the priceless rubies of Margherita
as if they were garnets.”
He lingered in the corridor booth, and Ames watched eagerly for a
glimpse of Carlota before she left. Mrs. Nevins was delicately,
pointedly cynical and distant with him.
“My dear Mr. Ames, can’t you see that this is all rather unpleasant
for me? Of course the girl is very pretty and her voice is a rarity,
but, after all, was it not somewhat unprofessional and unsportsmanlike
of you to enter her in a race for amateurs, as it were?”
“But I never dreamt for an instant that she was from a famous or
professional family,” Ames denied earnestly. “I don’t believe that
ranting old rascal, anyway, not until I hear it from her own lips.”
“No?” she smiled. “Of course I did not know she was engaged to you. But
you believe Count D’Istria surely. It all places me in a most delicate
situation and jeopardized the success of the entire evening. Nathalie
will be prostrated to-morrow. She had such faith in you.”
“But I can explain everything,” Ames replied moodily. Why on earth was
Carlota lingering so long when Jacobelli might reappear any instant.
“I fear the opportunity is lost, although I do not doubt your aptitude
for explaining anything.” She gave him her hand with a little, pitying
smile. “She will be Jacobelli’s pupil after to-night, Mr. Ames. If
you will send me your bill for expenses and services of Miss Roma and
yourself, my secretary will mail you a check. Ah, my dear boy, you were
too promising a genius to have permitted a little infatuation for this
girl to ruin your career.”
She left him standing in the ivory and green salon, furious and
helpless. At length the door of Carlota’s dressing-room opened, and
she emerged, slim and demure in her long black velvet evening cloak.
It was made with a monk’s hood falling back from her head, and as
she hesitated, looking cautiously about for Jacobelli, he thought of
Juliet, awaiting the return of the nurse in the garden.
Before he could reach her Jacobelli appeared, and took her resolutely
under his care. Only one long look passed between them, but to Ames it
was a promissory note from hope drawn on to-morrow. As he stood alone
after they had gone, the Italian maid came from the room, and gave him
a note, her black eyes filled with mystery.
“It is from her,” she whispered. “My name is Assunta Rizzio. My home is
within sight of the tower windows of hers in Italy, and I love her. You
may call upon me if you need me. See, I live here.”
He smiled gratefully, and crumpled the card she gave him into his
pocket while he looked at Carlota’s last word:
It is all quite true, but I am alone to blame. I thought Mr. Phelps
might have told you, and you were but playing our little game with
me, of Pierrot and Columbine. Now, it is all over, is it not? You
will hate me for ruining your opera, and I do not blame you. I am
sorry, it is all I can say. I thought I was helping you. Give my
love to Dmitri. He was right, was he not?--and behold, the Princess
Fiametta should never have left the wall of Tittani.
He passed down into the court. It was nearly empty, only the few who
remained for Mrs. Nevins’s private supper and dance. Ward talked with
the ambassador, listening as D’Istria told happily of his memories at
the old Contessa’s villa. As Ames approached, he turned to him eagerly,
his fine, lean face alert with appreciation.
“It was superb, Mr. Ames, a most beautiful little conception. I trust
that you may have a public production before long.”
The praise was unexpected, coming after the scene with Jacobelli and
Mrs. Nevins. Griffeth felt almost a boyish gratitude surge through him
warmly, and he thanked D’Istria with a break in his voice.
“The score is in Casanova’s hands now,” he told him, while Ward’s gray
eyes never left his face. “I had hoped he might be here to-night.”
“He could not. To-night he gives a large reception himself after
the concert at the Ritz. It will give me great pleasure to draw his
attention to the score when I see him, if you will permit.”
With the ambassador’s hand-clasp toning his new outlook on life and
opportunity, Ames passed the long half-circle of waiting cars in the
courtyard, and made for the station on foot. Dmitri had been right in
his estimate of patronage. In the reaction he longed for a quiet talk
and smoke with him beside the copper brazier.
As Carlota came into the glow of the porte-cochère’s spreading light,
Jacobelli took her handbag from her.
“Mr. Ward is kind enough to take you to your home,” he said
authoritatively. “He will be here presently.”
He set her two suitcases in beside her, but she neither answered him
nor even met his glance. Sinking back in the corner of the heavily
cushioned car, she closed her eyes, feigning utter weariness. It was
Griffeth’s last look that haunted her thoughts. Would the girl Assunta
give him her note. She knew that she had done wrong professionally,
that she had been guilty of almost an unpardonable error, yet it was
not of Ward she thought, nor of Casanova and the chance that she might
lose the financier’s patronage. The tender irresistible harmonies of
“Cerca d’Amore” filled her brain. She could barely resist humming
them, and smiling defiantly at the two moody faces after Ward joined
them, and the car turned towards the city. Ward smoked small black
cigars until the interior of the car was hazy with smoke and the
maestro coughed irritably, but the other man paid no attention to him,
merely watched Carlota. Jacobelli rambled on during the trip, but
always striking the same motif.
“This to me, to Jacobelli! My greatest pupil jeopardizes her whole
career by appearing prematurely at a charity fête for an unknown
composer.”
“I did it for love of Italy,” Carlota told him with sudden passion. “If
you were truly a patriot, you would be glad.”
“Love of Italy!” Jacobelli groaned at her stroke of diplomacy. “Bah!
Love, yes, but not for Italy. You are infatuated with this nobody,
this lapper from the saucer of cream people like Mrs. Nevins sets for
patronage. This is not the professional strain in you of the Paoli.
This is the Peppino Trelango strain. He delighted in the silken
cushion, the easy path of the rich patron. You are an ingrate!”
He folded his arms and leaned back austerely. Carlota forced herself
to keep silent before Ward. He moved, shifting his position so that he
might see her better. She had drawn the velvet monk’s hood over her
head, but every arc light they passed threw a flashing radiance into
the car and showed him her pure, beautiful profile, delicately Roman,
and the glamour of her near presence unnerved him.
“And those jewels which you have not the sense to value!” burst forth
Jacobelli again. “I shall warn the Marchese to act at once as your
guardian and place them in the safety-deposit vault. You shall not have
them to play with.”
“I do not want them in the vault. I shall sell them and pay you and Mr.
Ward for everything and return to Italy with Maria.”
“To Italy!” repeated Jacobelli dryly. “Ben trovato! With this boy here.”
Ward looked with musing eyes at the bag beside the maestro.
“When you are ready to dispose of them,” he said deliberately, “come to
me. I did not know you were in possession of these, but I have heard of
the rubies. I collect rare jewels. The Zarathustra would be brought to
me by dealers ultimately, and I prefer to pay you the full price if you
wish to part with it.”
“I will remember,” Carlota said clearly, meeting his eyes for the first
time.
They left him at the Fifth Avenue entrance to his club. He made no
further allusion to the rubies, and Carlota forgot them in listening
to Jacobelli’s flood of argument until they reached the apartment. She
would throw up her career after all they had done for her, merely in a
fit of pique because they objected to her throwing herself away. The
Marchese and Maria had not returned.
“I shall not trust you,” declared Jacobelli. “I shall guard you until
they come back.”
Carlota faced him suddenly, in the small vestibule, her eyes brilliant
with resentment and pride.
“I prefer to be alone, signor,” she told him. “I think even your
authority must end here in my own home.”
He stared at her in amazement, and bowed as he stepped back from the
door.
“I repeat the one word which fits you, ingrate!”
The door closed, and in the sudden reaction of nervous tension
Carlota sank on the low couch, her face on her arms. It was nearly
twelve by the clock on Maria’s desk. Surely they would come now any
minute, and she would have to confess everything before Jacobelli
had an opportunity of presenting his version. Somehow she felt the
old Marchese would sympathize with her, he who was still a faithful
voyageur along the coasts of romance, but Maria would see only the
wreck of her career and her ingratitude to Ward.
The memory of him brought back his offer to purchase the rubies. She
opened the bag, and drew them out on the velvet cushions of the couch.
Maria had called them priceless, these glowing bits of imprisoned
glory. Against the gray brocade of the cushion, their vivid, blood-red
hue fascinated her, but only with the thrill at their beauty. She was
like Paoli on whom they had been lavished. There was no craving in her
nature for outer ornamentation, no lure from wealth or jewels. She
touched them now curiously, half regretfully. Ward had said he would
become their purchaser at any time when she wished to dispose of them.
She rose with quick resolution and searched for his telephone number
in the book. The bell rang with startling sharpness in the still room.
She raised the receiver, expecting to hear Ames, but the suave, cheery
tones of the Marchese sounded over the wire.
“Maria would have me call you up before we went on to Casanova’s
reception, to be sure you were quite all right. You are, yes? The
headache better? Ah, that is good. We may be late, about two, I think.
You are to rest yourself, understand.”
“Oh, tell her I understand, and she is not even to think of me,”
Carlota exclaimed eagerly. “It was dear of you to call me up.”
She hung up after the Marchese’s laughing, courtly rejoinder. Two whole
hours before they would return. It seemed as if Fate had opened wide
the way for her to go. She called Ward’s number with surety. He had not
yet returned, Ishigaki informed her, but was expected at any moment. He
would give him the message.
At the same moment Georges paused before a row of low red-brick
buildings on East Twenty-Eighth Street, towards Lexington Avenue.
They were very quiet, private-appearing residences. Narrow, one-story
porches of iron grill-work clung to each, overhung with scrawny, rugged
vines that defied the city soil to make them vacate. In the basement of
one was a barber shop, discreet seeming and customerless. The second
floor of another bore a small sign, “Bulgarian Restaurant.” Each
carried over its entrance bell a slip of white paper, pasted to the
brick, “Furnished Rooms.”
Here, then, Georges hesitated, not knowing certainly which house held
the object of his quest. It was after midnight by five minutes. The
lights in the restaurant burned low. A footfall down the street towards
the subway station made him turn. The late pedestrian was young and
in evening dress, with a raincoat flapping back in the swirling autumn
wind. The air was damp and salty with the scent of the incoming tide
up the East River. He started up the steps of the house next to the
restaurant when Georges accosted him. Did he know where a man named
Steccho lived, Ferad Steccho?
“I don’t live around here,” Ames replied. “Wait a minute. I’ll ask my
friend.”
He tapped upon one of the windows opening on the narrow iron porch,
and both heard the sound of a violin within, a queer, soft harmony of
undertones. Dmitri sat cross-legged on his couch like a merchant in a
Bagdad bazaar, his head twisted over his violin as though it had been
the head of a girl he loved held in the curve of his arm.
On a stool beside the table was Steccho, brewing coffee in a
long-handled copper urn he held over a brazier of charcoal. He started
up at the sound of a step on the porch, but Dmitri calmed him.
“It is only Griff,” he said, rising to open the door. Ames stood on the
threshold, his hand on the knob. And the boy at the brazier heard him
ask where Ferad Steccho lived. Before he could warn Dmitri, Georges had
caught the answer and was bowing before him.
“I disturb you, I fear,” he said gravely. “I merely sought an old
friend.”
Steccho’s face was rigid with alarm and fear. The skin seemed to
tighten over his high, swarthy cheekbones. His eyes were brilliant, his
lips a mere line of red in the graying tan of his face.
“I come!” he responded.