Ward pushed his chair back from the table, lighting a cigarette from
the match Ishigaki held towards him.
“Miss Trelango’s call came about half an hour ago?”
“At five minutes past twelve.” The Jap gave the time with exactness.
Ward’s face was inscrutable.
“Get the car around. I shall want only you with me, tell Daniels.”
As Ishigaki left the room he stood smoking, a half smile on his lips.
In all probability to-night he would secure the Zarathustra ruby and
its attendant collection. Jurka, the Bulgarian he had met at the club,
had been after them, too, he remembered. He had been at the Nevins
fête and had seen them. Palmieri had ascertained that the collection
had been declared by Maria Roma as the personal property of Carlota
Trelango, a minor non-resident alien. This much his own agent had found
out. What Jurka knew, he had no idea, or his object in seeking the
rubies. Was he, too, infatuated with the girl herself, and used the
jewels merely as a blind to his own pursuit of her?
He drew three opals from his pocket and tossed them like dice before
him on the polished surface of the table. They were perfectly matched
and had come from the lacquered cabinet of the old empress whose
life-span had bridged the gulf from the rice-fields along the Yang-tse
to the peacock throne at Pekin. He gazed down at their changing luster
musingly. Carlota had been in her most alluring mood when he had spoken
with her on the telephone after Ishigaki had delivered her message.
Spirited, combative, aloof, as he liked her best. The temple chimes
in a corner recess sounded the half-hour. She had said she was alone.
Always, in his experience, every woman had her price. As he swept the
opals up in his hand at the Jap’s low voice, he knew there could be no
compromise now. She had dallied along the highway of romance and had
found the love of youth awaiting her. Remembering the look of perfect
understanding and faith between her and Ames as she had passed by him
on the arm of Jacobelli, Ward felt a conscienceless determination to
compel her to take his terms that night. She could do without the Paoli
gems. Possibly, it might be a rather suitable tribute, later at her
début, for him to present her with the necklace. He glanced into the
tall Florentine mirror as he folded his scarf beneath his cloak, and
followed Ishigaki to the car at the curb. The boy had only youth and
ambition as assets after all.
In her apartment Carlota had deliberately set the stage for his
reception. Slipping off her dressing-robe, she clad herself in a
straight-cut evening gown of chiffon velvet, ranging in color from
palest mauve to deepest rose, with long swaying sleeves of silver
metal cloth. Her face was paler than usual, her eyes brilliant as she
switched off the lights in the apartment, leaving only the one in the
hall and a spray of rose globes beneath a silken shade at the head of
the couch.
Kneeling before the gas-logs, she opened the leather bag to look alone
for the last time on the rubies. Behind her a window opened widely
to the keen night air. Once she raised her head, startled at a sound
that seemed to come from the balconied fire escape. The wind blew the
curtains toward her. It was dark outside. The city was sinking into a
few hours of sleep before the rattle of daybreak noises. As she rose
to look out of the window, the outer bell rang lightly. Standing flat
against the stone wall of the building, not half a yard from the room,
Steccho checked his leap, listening. If he were discovered now, they
would snare him, no matter what he told. Who would believe, unless
perhaps the girl herself out of the grace that was in all women, that
he had not come there to-night to rob her, but to warn her, to defraud
Jurka--not of the jewels, but of the slender, young purity of this
child woman who had eyes like Katinka. If he could save her, could keep
her for the boy who loved her, Dmitri’s friend in the Square, then
perhaps in some great, merciful way the knowledge of it would come to
that unseen Power for good which Dmitri held still ruled the world of
men and women in spite of the sea of crimson. Perhaps it might be they
would save his mother and Maryna, these unseen forces, without his
bargaining away his soul and life with a man like Jurka.
“You are still alone?” Ward’s eyes followed the lines of her figure
as she moved away from him. The changing silver and rose of her gown
reminded him of the opals.
“Maria has gone with the Marchese to Casanova’s reception. They
telephoned they would be back about two. We have not very much time,
you see.” She drew the jewels from the bag and laid them before him on
the round inlaid table at the head of the couch. The rose light shone
on their beauty almost hungrily, catching the varying gleams from the
deep red hearts of the rubies. “They are all there, all that I wore
to-night, the tiara, the necklace, and the girdle. They are worth
enough quite to pay you back for all you have given me, are they not?”
He looked at them quickly, and turned back to her as she stood beside
the table.
“I will give you my check for two hundred and fifty thousand. The
Zarathustra alone is worth half of that. You would find it out if I
cheated you, and hate me afterwards. I, too, hate a cheat.”
Something in his words and tone made her motionless, chilled and tense.
She met his eyes challengingly.
“You mean that I am not keeping my bargain, Mr. Ward. But it was not a
fair one that you made. You asked the impossible.”
“That you would not get into any affairs until you had made your
success.” He cut her short sharply. “I was right. To-night proved it.
Left to yourself you have made yourself a laughing-stock. You ruined
your own début for the sake of this fellow Ames, and smashed his career
by branding him an impostor.”
“I do not believe it. Count D’Istria--you yourself heard him when he
spoke to me--he would not have recognized me and praised the opera
if--if I had ruined him--Griffeth. You cannot kill art like that, not
when it is real.”
“You have the patter of his crowd at your tongue’s end,” sneered Ward.
“You would have nothing to do with me when I offered you my love that
night at dinner. You were insulted and fiery as some menaced nun, yet
you meet this Ames in his studio secretly and carry on an affair with
him brazenly, merely because you think you love him. Do you believe
that love is its own law, then?”
And Carlota, thinking only of the old rose-tinted wall that bounded the
domain of her dreams, closed her eyes and smiled.
“It is the highest law,” she answered.
“So?” His arms closed about her like a vise as he crushed her to him.
“I take you at your word. Do you think that I, Ogden Ward, would be
such a damned fool as to let another man take you or anything else that
I wanted away from me? Did you think you could throw me a few jewels
like bones to a dog, and call our deal off? I want those rubies because
they are like you. They are all fire and blood and passion, and I’ll
have you both.”
He stifled the scream on her lips with one hand, lifting her on one
arm easily while she fought like a captured wild animal. The table
overturned behind her, and the jewels slipped to the rug as the
electrolier broke its rose globes over them. The room was in darkness
as he felt her suddenly relax limply in his embrace. Her hands and
lips were cold, yet he told himself he had not hurt her badly, merely
the pressure on her mouth to keep back the alarm. As he laid her on the
couch Steccho’s curved Turkish blade caught him under the left shoulder
blade, and he rolled backward, reaching blindly into the darkness as he
fell.
The boy waited a few moments, ready for another thrust, but there was
utter silence in the room, and he drew a deep soft breath of relief.
Kneeling, he gathered up the jewels carefully, without haste or dread,
placing them in his inner coat pockets, the necklace with its priceless
pendant next to his body where it was safest, the tiara curving under
the belt at his wait, the girdle looped like a pet serpent in his
pocket. Something else had fallen where the firelight caught its
sparkle. He picked up one of the old empress’s opals and smiled over
its perfect beauty. This might please Maryna.
Before he passed back out of the window, he bent over Carlota. She lay
as if sleeping, with spent, broken breathing. Ah, he would have taken
her as a wolf, even as Jurka himself, this man who lay at her feet, but
not now, not after the stroke he had learned in Rigl. She was safe,
quite safe to leave alone with him. He lighted a cigarette calmly,
buttoned his raincoat close around his throat, and swung out of the
window and down the fire escape.
Those who place faith in the symbols and cabals of coincidence might
have traced a triangle at that moment with Steccho at one point,
Dmitri’s room the apex, and the other the unlighted studio where
Griffeth sat by the open window, staring out at the Square. The
Bulgarian felt oddly exhilarated now that he had made his get-away
safely. He paused at Fifty-Ninth Street and Madison Avenue, like a
racer, sure of his victory, resting at the first lap.
It had been strange, fate forcing the possession of the rubies upon
him. He was fatalist enough to accept. And it would be better for the
girl Carlota. They would find her in time. Ward had terrified her, but
she was unhurt, he felt certain, except for the marks on her throat.
He looked back over the way he had come. There was no sign of alarm
yet, no shrill blowing of police whistles, nothing but the customary
flow of crosstown traffic at that hour. He bought an early paper, and
took a car bound downtown. The jewels themselves reminded him, as he
touched them in his pockets, that he had not failed when the hour of
fate had struck for him. He bore the wealth of a rajah on his body,
and the knowledge gave him a suppressed braggadocio as if he had
picked up life’s challenge and had won his first prize in the lists of
opportunity. If only the girl, as she lay there, had not looked like
Katinka, more like her than ever with the pallor and look of pain on
her face. He shook off the sentiment and focused his attention on Jurka.
He had given him until morning. Good; then he should have the jewels
three hours before dawn. Georges’s black eyes would show smouldering
fires of envy when he, Ferad Steccho, carelessly poured forth the
missing rubies from his pockets, the rubies of the queen, as if they
had been pebbles. Doubtless another night, and they would all be on
their way back. He shut his eyes, half imagining the lurch of the car
was the first roll of the ship as it touched the deep sea, and the
far-off city noises were the distant surge of ocean waves.
True, there would be an outcry when they found the body of Ward,
but there was no one to tell who had stabbed him. The girl had been
unconscious. His eyes narrowed suddenly. Would they, then, possibly
accuse her? Would Ward, if by any chance the blow had not killed him,
dare to revenge himself on her by swearing that she had stabbed him?
As the car reached Thirty-Fourth Street he shook off the depression
and made direct for the Dupont, confident of his welcome. There was
no response, he was told at the desk. He demanded that they call the
Count’s private room. It was impossible, the clerk told him. Count
Jurka’s orders were he was not to be disturbed. Would he send up a
card with a message? He shrugged his shoulders, and wrote rapidly in
Bulgarian:
They will not let me up to you. Send Georges at once. I fancy the
yellow castle, excellenza.
The triangle of coincidence had become an isosceles. He walked over to
Lexington Avenue, and walked down to Twenty-Eighth Street, taking his
time, his usual surliness settling in a fog of resentment over his mood
of happiness. So he must wait, wait while the Count had his unbroken
rest, while the workers, the doers, waited on the whims of such as
he like dogs on doormats. Well, they might come to him now, to him,
Steccho, if they wanted the jewels. He would go to Dmitri’s room and
stretch out by the fire and sleep the hours before daylight. He had
not touched food since the previous day, nothing but black coffee and
cigarettes. The plan struck him with pleasure, as a sort of revenge on
Jurka. He would not tell Dmitri what he had done; merely sit and chat
with him to prove he did not do the bidding of the Count.
When he mounted the steps of the red-brick house with the iron railing
around its balcony, there came the low sound of violin-playing from
within. Dmitri then was still awake. His grate was ablaze with a good
fire of boxwood and charcoal. His coffee waited the whim of his desire,
over the unlighted brazier. Meanwhile, he said hello, as he expressed
it, to his consort, “Madame Harmony.”
“Behold, she never deserts me,” he would say to Ames. “She is the most
patient yet alluring of mistresses, my madame. And when I caress her,
ah, what she tells to me!”
There was no pathos in his music to-night. A Czech folk-dance spun from
his fingers in curling, whirling, leaping strains of melody like some
strange, intangible confetti of vibration expressed in notes. The lure
of it held the boy and he waited in the doorway, his dark eyes filled
with a passion of home yearning. So often he had danced with her,
Katinka, to that same music. At the instant some one on another street
blew a car whistle, and he slammed shut the door, locking it with
shaking fingers.