The maid had placed the tray with the three silver dishes of dessert
before Suzanne, that she might put on them the final sprinkling of
delicate silver candies. Daintily, Suzanne sifted the shining bubbles
over the fluff of cream. Eric, watching her, felt very little surprize
when he saw Suzanne, with almost legerdemain deftness, sift upon one
dish a film of pinkish powder which could not be detected after it lay
on the pink cream.
Waiting, he knew not for what moment, he watched Suzanne pass the
silver dishes herself, saw her offer the one with the powdered top to
John. And it was then that their attention was attracted by the
entrance of the maltese kitten. So tiny it was, so brave in its
careening totter across the shiny floor, small tail hoisted like a
sail, that John and Eric laughed aloud.
Suzanne merely glanced down at the little creature and turned away.
The kitten, however, came to her chair, put up a tiny paw and caught
its curved claws in the fragile stuff of Suzanne's gown. Instantly,
her face became distorted with rage and she kicked out at the kitten,
savagely, and with set lips. It seemed to Eric that the amethysts on
the Medici boots winked wickedly in the light of the big chandelier.
The kitten was flung some ten feet away, and lay in a small, panting
heap.
John sprang up. "Suzanne! How could you?" He took the kitten in his
arms and soothed it.
"Why its heart's beating like a trip-hammer," he said. "I don't
understand, Suzanne----"
As the kitten grew quiet, he took a large rose-leaf from the
table-flowers and spread it with a heaping spoonful of the pink cream
from his dessert. Then he put the kitten on the floor beside it.
"Here, little one. Lick this up. It's fancy eating. Suzanne's sorry. I
know she is."
The kitten, with the greed of its kind, devoured the cream, covering
its small nose and whiskers with a pinkish film. Suzanne sat back in
her chair, fingering her bracelets, her eyes on Eric's face. John
watched the kitten, and Eric watched, too--watched tensely, for he
sensed what would happen to it.
The kitten finished the cream, licked its paws and whiskers and turned
to walk away. Then it spun around in a frantic convulsion, and in a
moment lay dead on its back, its tiny fed tongue protruding, its paws
rigid.
Outside, the storm glowered, and in the chartreuse light of the forked
lightning, the great chandelier was turned to a sickly radiance.
Thunder rolled like muffled drums.
Suddenly Suzanne began to laugh, peal after peal of terrible laughter,
and then, after a glare of lightning, the big chandelier winked out.
The room was plunged into stormy darkness, and they could hear the
rain lashing through the garden to hurl itself against the windows.
"Don't be frightened, Suzanne." It was John's solicitous voice, and it
was followed by a quick movement from Suzanne's side of the table.
A sheet of blue-green light illumined the room for an instant, and
Eric saw Suzanne struggling in her husband's arms, one jeweled arm
uplifted and in her hand a shining dagger.
* * * * *
With a bound that was almost involuntary, Eric reached them and struck
at the knife in Suzanne's hand. It clattered to the floor. And as
though the fury of the storm and Suzanne's madness both were spent,
the slashing rain and the lightning stopped abruptly, and Suzanne
ceased to struggle.
"Light the candles, Eric--quickly--on the mantel to your right!
Suzanne is hurt!"
In the candle-light, palely golden and swaying, Eric saw Suzanne
slumped limply in John's arms. The hem of her golden dress was redly
wet and one cream-colored little shoe was fast becoming soaked with
blood from a slash across the instep.
"Let's get her over to the window-seat, Eric. Do something for
her!--Oh, sweet-heart, don't moan like that!" There was no question or
reproach in John's voice, only compassion.
Eric took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves. His mouth was grimly
set, his hands steady, his voice crisply professional. "Take off those
shoes, John. She'll--be herself, then. I mean that she'll be
Suzanne--not a murderess of the Medicis. Take them off, John! They're
at the bottom of this."
"You mean----" John's voice was breathless, his lips trembling.
"I mean those hellish boots have changed Suzanne from a sweet and
lovely girl to--well, do as I tell you. I'll be back with gauze and
some things I need."
When Eric hurried back, there were three servants grouped at the
dining-room door. He spoke to them bruskly and they left, wide-eyed
and whispering. Eric closed the door.
While the wet leaves tapped against the windows and stars struggled
through the clouds, Eric worked, silently, expertly, grimly, by the
light of a flashlight held in John's unsteady hands and the light of
the flickering candles. The house lights were all snuffed out by the
storm.
"There," Eric gave a satisfied grunt. The brothers stood looking at
Suzanne, who seemed asleep. Her golden dress glimmered in the
candle-light and the pearls were slipping from her dark hair. The
Medici boots lay in a limp and bloody heap in a corner, where Eric had
flung them.
"When she awakes, I shouldn't tell her about any of this, if I were
you, John."
"There are things you haven't told me, Eric, aren't there? Things
about--the Medici boots?"
Eric looked steadily at his brother. "Yes, old fellow; and after I've told
you, those boots must be destroyed. We'll burn them before this night is
over. We mustn't move her now. We'll go out on the terrace--it's wet
there, but the air is fresh. Did you smell--something peculiar?"
For, as they passed the corner where the Medici boots lay slashed and
bloody, Eric could have sworn that there came to him a horrid odor,
fetid, hotly offensive--the odor of iniquity and ancient bloody death.
* * * * *