Carlota stood on the threshold. Her face was white in the
semi-darkness. In the east a faint quiver of radiance showed in the sky
like the reflection of moonlight on dark waters. Dmitri stared at the
girl in wonderment.
“I want Griffeth,” she said eagerly. “I went to his house and he has
not been there. Oh, I must see him, Dmitri! Tell me he is here with
you!”
The underlying note of intense repression in her voice struck him, and
yet he hesitated, fearful of Steccho’s safety.
“He is not here. He left after midnight. Are you alone, my dear?”
“Surely I am alone; what do you suppose I came for? Would you rather I
went first to the police? I came to you because you are his friend and
I need him.”
She brushed past him into the narrow hallway. He almost smiled at this
twist to Griffeth’s romance. With all the ardor and recklessness of her
temperament and race, Carlota had flung discretion to the winds and had
come to seek the man she loved at all hazards. Once inside his door,
she let her cloak slip from her shoulders and stood in the center of
the room, a slender, isolated figure.
“You are all afraid for yourselves,” she said slowly, scornfully. “Even
you, Dmitri, with all the brotherliness you profess, think only of
yourself. Griffeth will not be like that. He will understand that I
never can go back there.”
“You are excited and nervous.” Dmitri took her cold hands in his with
the whimsical, cheery way that never failed to soothe. “Why should you
go to the police? Tell me what has happened. It is surely a night of
witchcraft when foul fiends prowl. So, now sit down and be very calm. I
can always make you smile, with my nonsense, you see?”
She tried to meet his eyes, but her own filled with tears and she bit
her lip to keep control of herself.
“Oh, Dmitri, I am frightened, after all. Did Griffeth tell you about
the fête at Mrs. Nevins’s and--and how I had deceived you both, when
you were so good to me? I only sang for his sake, so his opera would
surely be a success. I never dreamt that any one would be there who
would recognize me; you believe me, don’t you?”
Dmitri lit a fresh cigarette with musing eyes, tossed away the match,
and hummed Fiametta’s motif softly under his breath.
“So you yourself have scaled the castle wall to seek your love,” he
said. “Did they try to hold you from him?”
“It is worse than you can think, Dmitri. To-night when I returned there
was no one in the apartment. I called up Ogden Ward; do you know him?”
Dmitri’s level eyebrows contracted at the name. He eyed her oddly,
remembering Griffeth’s words that the banker had been her patron.
“I know him; what then?”
“He was stabbed in my apartment a little while ago,” she whispered.
“I sent for him to come so that I might pay him back the money he had
advanced for three years. I offered him some jewels that belonged to my
grandmother. He laughed at me when we were alone, and said I had ruined
my career by singing in the opera and had broken my word to him by
meeting Griffeth and caring for him. I offered him the rubies--”
Dmitri bent over her suddenly.
“Rubies?” he repeated quickly. “What were they?”
“They belonged to Margherita Paoli, my grandmother. He had seen me wear
them at the fête, and told me on the way home he wanted to buy them.
But when I offered them to him, he--he refused. We were alone and I
tried to fight him off. The lamp crashed to the floor and I felt his
arms close about me; then I fainted.”
Dmitri watched the long green curtains at the bedroom door. They were
motionless, yet he crossed over and parted them casually to glance
within.
“So,” he said in relief. “And then? Do not hurry.”
“I was unconscious for a while, and when I recovered the room was
still in darkness. I found the push-button in the wall and turned on
the lights. Mr. Ward lay on the floor by the couch. He made a sound of
moaning and it frightened me. Oh, Dmitri, it was horrible to be alone
with him there. I gave him water to drink and saw that he was wounded
in the back. He told me to go quietly down and tell Ishigaki who was
waiting for him in his car. I must be very careful and give no alarm,
he said. He had been stabbed and the jewels were gone. After I had
sent the Japanese up to help him, I was afraid to go myself. I wanted
Griffeth. I knew they would try to keep me from him.”
“Why did you not call him at the house on the Square?”
“I did,” she protested. “He had not come in yet, they told me. I left
word for him that I must see him.”
Dmitri gazed at her glowing, expressive face with half-closed,
retrospective eyes. Surely Fate had sent her to his door at the one
hour of opportunity. He would save the boy Steccho from folly and
crime, and give Griffeth back his love.
“Then he must have received your message after he left here,” he said
cheerily. “And he will surely seek you at your own home. You must go
back there.”
“I never will go back to them. I will wait for him here,” she insisted.
“They will blame me for everything, for sending to Mr. Ward, for the
loss of the jewels, everything, and I will not listen to them. I do not
care for anything in the whole world but Griffeth.”
“Then you must safeguard him,” Dmitri urged. “They may suspect him
since he knew of the jewels, and we who live and think as nomads are
ever under suspicion. Have you not heard it said that all genius is
insanity? It is enough that he lives in the temperamental zone of the
village. Now, my dear child, you are cold and nervous. You will see how
well I can take care of you. You shall sit here and drink coffee for a
few moments while I go and telephone to Griffeth. And then”--he knelt
before the brazier, stirring and blowing the embers to a blaze--“then
we will have the surprise. When you were very little, did you not
always love the surprise, eh? Sometimes Life is still indulgent to us;
even in our greatest extremity, she grants us the surprise, and it is
this that keeps up our faith, that somehow, somewhere, our own shall
come to us, see?”
“If he is there when you call up, will you tell him to come here to
me?” She looked at him with longing eyes, and Dmitri smiled back at her.
“Surely I will. Fate shuffles the cards, remember; man only deals
them. I have ever found that we move in circles of coincidence drawn
together like the particles in the spectrum by some immutable unseen
force of attraction to form a cosmic harmony. You like that, do you?
For, see, you go forth in the night to seek your well-beloved, like the
Shulamite of old. Do you know her, my dear, among the immortal lovers?”
He measured level spoonfuls of pulverized coffee into the little copper
pot carefully. “Yet you remind me of her. So. When this boils up the
third time, then you shall drink it while I go for your surprise.”
Out in the street a car drew up before the house next door. Count
Jurka alighted, scanned the small brass numbers on the door carefully,
and ascended the narrow steps. He wore a cloak over his evening suit,
the cape thrown back over one shoulder, and as he waited he hummed a
waltz air from the last opera he had heard in Bucharest. Surely the
road of fortune lay free to the intrepid traveler. They had thought,
with the sop of peace thrown to her, that Bulgaria would lie still
like a whipped cur. The royalist cause was denied recognition save as
the latest king licked the hand that fed him. Only in the old queen,
rebellious and restless in her exile, was the spirit of dominion. He
smiled as he recalled her favors.
“A straight line--a goal!”
The line from Nietzsche swam through his head. He felt supremely
satisfied with life. The message from Steccho had reached him at
the hotel and he had come himself. As he was directed by the sleepy
houseman to the room at the top of the first flight of stairs, he
balanced the boy’s destiny for him. Was it wiser to silence him now
or on the voyage back? He would leave it to Georges. Yet not even to
him would he give the pleasure of receiving the royal rubies. He lit a
cigarette at the head of the stairs and tapped on the door.
There was dead silence within. He tried the knob, and found the key
turned on the inner side.
“Open,” he said curtly. “It is I.”
Steccho obeyed slowly. He had been sitting on the narrow cot, his
head buried in his hands. His shirt was open at the throat as if it
had choked him. In the dim light from the one gas-jet his face looked
haggard and yellow under his long, straight, disheveled hair.
“You have kept me waiting.” Jurka closed the door behind him, standing
with his back to it. “Where are the jewels?”
The blood rushed to Steccho’s head. He threw back his hair with a quick
movement of his head, and smiled in the old servile way.
“I have them all, excellenza. One moment only. You can swear to me by
your own life that I shall find all well at Rigl, that they will be
there to greet me, my mother and little Maryna?”
Around the lips of the Count there curved an amused smile.
“I swear to you I will send you where they are,” he said slowly.
As the meaning of his words flashed upon the boy, he flung himself
forward, his fingers seizing his throat.
“Go thou before me!” he gasped. “Liar and murderer, see who it is that
kills you! Look deep in my eyes! I, Ferad Steccho, send you out of
life! Think on my mother!” His fingers choked the thin, white neck of
Jurka relentlessly, but the Count fought back with all the advantage
of a trained body and mind. They fell on the couch together, locked in
a death-grapple. Almost without sound, save for the stifled breathing,
they fought until Jurka wrenched himself free, and staggered back.
“Excellenza!” Steccho breathed, his face the very mask of hate, “I have
heard the truth. They are dead these five months, my mother cut down
by famine, my sister--Oh, God, hear me!--Maryna is dead, a woman thing
thrown to your soldiers to be done to death at their pleasure; you hear
me! You swore to me by the cross you would protect them, and you knew
this all the time you lied to me. You knew when you sent me last night
to rob and kill for you.”
“If I call for help, what then?” sneered Jurka. “I will swear you
robbed me.”
“Call! Call on your queen to save you.” The boy leaped upon him
like a panther and bore him to the floor, his bare hands gripping
remorselessly at the white, slim throat. He bent over the mottled,
horror-stricken face, forcing the glazing eyes to stare into his, and
laughed softly. “See, I could kill you with the knife, but I will have
you look at me, so, straight to the door of death. Excellenza, the
rubies are red. Think on the blood of the innocents you have killed,
thousands and thousands. They wait for you--”
He felt the figure beneath him twist and strain with one last
tremendous effort to force him off. The Count’s hands fumbled blindly,
searchingly, and there came a dull report. Hardly had Steccho felt
the touch of the automatic as it was pressed to his side. The pain
was deadened by the joy of watching the light die out of the staring,
maddened eyes. His fingers loosened their grasp unwittingly. The form
of Jurka crumpled to the floor, and Steccho pressed his hands against
his side, looking at them curiously. Sinking into the chair by the
low table, he pulled the jewels from his pockets. They were moist and
dulled. What was it Dmitri had warned him?
“They are accursed. Red for the blood of your people, pearls for the
tears they have shed.”
He picked up the heavy tiara and dashed it down into the dead face upon
the floor.
“Excellenza,” he whispered, “think on them, they wait for you--” His
head fell forward on his breast. The lines of the wall-paper seemed
to dance and entwine as life slipped from his reach. “The sun shines
on the yellow castle,” he murmured huskily. “Maryna’s hair, yellow in
the sun, yellow like gold, excellenza, and wet with blood.” He sighed
heavily, groping for something with the seeking touch of the blind,
something he had let fall when he had seized the white throat of Jurka.
And suddenly there was utter silence in the room, the curious silence
where there is no breath of life stirring.
Next door Dmitri paused on the steps as he closed the door behind him.
In the east a glow of deepest rose flushed the mother-of-pearl clouds
into shells of trembling, lambient radiance. He eyed it happily. It
was a symbol, that promise of the daybreak. So in the earth-lands
overseas the dawn of humanity was coming despite the upheavals of class
struggles. He would come back and pack after he had returned Carlota
safely to Griffeth, together with the jewels. Then he and Steccho
would take the homeward way together. He glanced down the shadowy
street. There was no one in sight. He entered the house by the basement
door. The houseman smiled and nodded to him as he set out empty milk
bottles. He mounted the stairs with a light, buoyant step and knocked
at Steccho’s door. There was no response, and he pushed the door open.
Something there was inside that lay close against it, impeding his
entrance, and he peered around, thinking the boy had slept there in
heavy exhaustion.
“Ferad!” he called cheerily. “It is daybreak. You sleep late.”
But the boy did not stir. He slept well in the last bivouac, and,
turning, Dmitri beheld the other stark form beside him, he who had
been the court chamberlain, the debonair Jurka, the queen’s messenger.
Crushed in the hand of Steccho was the letter from Sofia. He unclenched
the stiffened fingers gently and read it with half-closed eyes and
contracted muscles. Placing it in his own inner pocket, he searched
both bodies. On Jurka he found a leather wallet filled with bank-notes
and documents. There was no time to examine them. He noticed only the
Count’s personal card and the address, the Hotel Dupont. In another
pocket was a bunch of keys which he took. Not a sign was there in the
room of the jewels. Only in Steccho’s raincoat pocket he discovered a
large unset opal, one of those toys Ward had played with, kept by the
boy to please Maryna. He went out as he had come, nodding again to the
houseman.
There was no time to waste. There would be the hue and cry of the
police and newspapers. He would be brought into it inevitably. Outside
the house he paused and lighted a cigarette deliberately, then
sauntered to the corner where a light burned all night in the little
Bulgarian café of Barouki. It was part of the creed of life to Barouki
not to ask questions of any one, which attribute rendered his place
popular among those who came from Sofia. Dmitri greeted the sleepy-eyed
old man, and entered the dusty booth at the end of the café. His voice
was pleasant and comradely as he called the apartment of Ogden Ward.
“But you will be kind enough to disturb him, nevertheless,” he urged
upon Ishigaki. “Tell him I have an opal to return to him.”
Dmitri came from the café with a little smile on his lips. He hailed a
becalmed taxi in front of a chop-house near the elevated station, and
drove back for Carlota.
“I should never have come to you, should I?” she asked, tiredly, as she
leaned her head back on the cushions. “What was the surprise?”
“My very dear child,” he said tenderly, “you must trust me. I believe
in fate and opportunity, in what we call in my land the hour appointed,
and never in my life have I been permitted to watch the gods at work
so much as now. Sleep awhile as we drive uptown. I will waken you at
Fifty-Ninth Street, where I leave you. And you must not be afraid. Love
is eternal. Nothing can kill it. Remember that. Only keep faith with
yourself.”
He watched her lips relax and her lashes droop. As the car hurried
uptown through silent streets the hum of the city gradually began, the
far-off call of the ferry-boats sounded in the gray sea mist, a fire
engine clanged down Fourth Avenue. Dmitri folded his arms, looking
straight ahead of him, and seeing two set faces under the flickering
gaslight. They had passed out of the play, Jurka and the boy Ferad. Who
had profited by their death? The queen’s rubies still lured with their
unholy splendor another’s feet along the trail of death.