CHAPTER XX
Saunteringfrom the elevated station at Eighth Street over to the Square, Jacobelli mused upon the vagaries of a golden voice. His point of view was changing with the speed of an Alpine tourist. Maria had acquainted him with the decision of Carlota.
“Ah, signor, believe me, she does not feign illness. Her heart is not breaking. It is freezing, which is worse. Never will she sing again, she declares, if you deny her the one whom she loves. She spoke his name in her sleep. It is the romance beautiful, the divine fire from heaven alighted upon the altar of a woman’s heart, it is—”
“Enough!” exclaimed Jacobelli. “I capitulate. Doubtless she is right. Two—three years nearly I have taught her all I know, and yet what is it? She cannot sing the wonderful heart-throb music as the great woman artiste must. Not all the technique in the world can put it into her voice; yet one day she meets the man she loves, and lo! it is there, she excels. I knew it when she came to me that day at the studio after she had quarreled with him. I heard it then in her voice, the glory—theabandon—the power of the woman who claims the universe for her love. And I am a fool, Maria, I lose my head entirely. I am jealous of this unknown teacher who has opened the heart of my star. I hate him. At the Nevins fête I make the grand fool of myself, signora. But now, I see, I bow. Let her have her love if she will. I have lunched with the Marchese, and am at peace with the world. After the honeymoon tell her we will resume her lessons.”
He felt marvelously benevolent as he made his way towards Ames’s studio. Possibly his luncheon chat with the Marchese had much to do with it, also the fact that later he had seen Casanova. Count D’Istria had kept his word to Griffeth, and Casanova, ever ready to observe the way of the wind with managerial straws, had promised to bring the operetta to the immediate attention of the Metropolitan directors with his sanction on its production the coming season.
Finding his way up the three flights of stairs, Jacobelli knocked upon the door with his cane. Griffeth lay full length upon the cushions of the dormer window-seat, depressed and miserable. He had been awake all night, striving to get into communication with Carlota or Dmitri, and had missed them at everypoint. Still his flowers had not been returned. He had ascertained that much from the lad at the flower-stand in the old market. He had sent twice to Dmitri’s house and he had not returned since daybreak, they said.
The rap on the outer door made him spring to unlock it, expecting either Dmitri or a message from Carlota. Instead there stood upon his threshold Guido Jacobelli, from whom he had been parted by interested friends only a night before, the one man in New York whom he regarded as his enemy. He gave him no invitation to enter, but stood like a glowering, expectant young stag, ready for the onslaught of his adversary.
Jacobelli waved him aside airily, and entered the room, making himself at home in the large oak armchair, and stroking Ptolemy who strolled over to inspect him.
“We make friends, what you say, my boy?” he asked genially. “I forgive you from my heart all you do to me in the past, see? Why? Because I, Jacobelli, make the great discovery. You speak the truth. She is your pupil.”
“What do you mean?” asked Griffeth suspiciously. “I heard all that you said of her last evening. I understand perfectly that she is Paoli’s granddaughter and backed by the patronage of Ogden Ward. I do not know whyit was her whim to come down here and play at being my pupil. It has ruined my work and broken my heart, but I wish her all the success and happiness in the world.”
Jacobelli beamed at him archly, his black eyebrows rising in crescents, his lips a smiling, close curve above his two double chins.
“She came here because she loves you, my boy, because she longed to give you her wonderful voice in your operetta. She is Love’s pupil. One day she opens her mouth to sing for me, and, my God! it is there, the temperament I have prayed for, it is there, and you have given it to her. I salute you.”
“Has she sent you to me?” asked Griffeth eagerly. “May I see her at once?”
Jacobelli chuckled, stroking the yellow fur of Ptolemy until it crackled.
“I know nothing of her. I have not seen her since last night, but the Signora Roma tells me she has tormented them all because they would not permit her to see you. In fact, she tried to reach you last night; you knew this?”
“I found her message when I returned. I tried to see her and walked back home through the Park.”
“Which is just as well.” The old maestro smiled significantly. “Youth is utterly mad. You rave now, and say your career is ended.My poor boy, you have not heard from Casanova, no? This very hour he tells me they will surely produce your operetta next season. Is not that enough?”
“The operetta?” repeated Griffeth grimly. “I had forgotten all about it. When I lost her everything went out of my life. I felt like using the world for a football and kicking the stars up a little higher out of reach. You don’t know how blank life seemed to me until she came down here. I had been across during the war with Carrollton Phelps in the Aerial Service. We fell about the same time, and after months of being patched up, I was sent home, excess baggage on the war wagon. I was twenty then, and when I had my grip back, my father let me do as I pleased, and I came here to work out some of the things I had always hoped to do. I’ve felt like an idler beating out harmonies in this bird’s-eye castle until she came.”
“Then I will tell you something to comfort you and light the path again. Always remember the path is there even though you are in darkness.” Jacobelli pressed his finger-tips together, his eyes brilliant with the fire of enthusiasm. “One of your own great men has said he would rather write the songs of a nation than its laws. We are but teachers, my boy. You who compose music are the living currentbetween humanity and those mighty, immutable laws of harmony and vibration which move the universe, is it not so?—and love is the greatest of all divine laws.”
From a street piano at the curb below the studio windows the melody of the “Barcarole” came to them in ascending volume. A taxicab drew up beside it. Carlota could almost have blown kisses to each dear, remembered spot along the Square as she alighted with Maria. Only forty-eight hours since she had been to the studio, yet the tidal wave of circumstance had nearly swept the happiness of her life out to sea. She smiled at the Greek boy beside the pushcart, smiled at the children playing in the patches of ground before the old brownstone row of houses, smiled almost in the face of Sergeant Lorrie, of the Central Detective Bureau, as she passed him on the steps.
Maria followed her, resigned and tragic. She had called up the Marchese at the final moment, even after he had left them and returned to the Lafayette, to tell him Carlota’s ultimate choice, and to her amazement the old Italian courtier had congratulated her on her own defeat.
“Remember, signora,” he had urged buoyantly, a “certain ancient gentleman of varied experience in matrimony, one King Solomon,has stated as his opinion that love is stronger than death and many waters cannot quench it. I agree with him perfectly. Request our beloved Carlota that she will permit my presence at her nuptials with Pierrot. I have a penchant for romantic weddings. They recall to me the fragrance of roses abloom at Vallombrosa. Once, as we two walked under the olive grove years ago, you refused me, Maria mia. When you are tempted to be unyielding and forbidding to these children, these two lovers, remember Vallombrosa, I implore you. Had you said yes, I should not have carried the fragrance of roses as a bitter-sweet memory all my life long.”
So it happened that, despite her sense of duty to the last wishes of the old Contessa, Maria felt a thrill of sympathy in the great adventure as she followed Carlota into the studio on the top floor.
“We have come for Carlota’s sake,” she said majestically. “It is against my wishes and judgment, but we are here, signor. You have won.”
“What is it, dear?” exclaimed Griffeth, as he held Carlota’s hands in his. “You are cold as ice, and trembling.” He drew her favorite Roman chair forward to the open grate fire, but Carlota drew back.
There were shadows beneath her eyes and entreaty in the glance she gave him.
“Have you heard from Dmitri?”
“Not a word since midnight. I left him then; why?”
She sank into the chair as he stooped eagerly to rouse the fire to a blaze. “Why, it is almost laughable to find you here just as always, perfectly safe, and you even seem happy.”
“I am happy. Jacobelli has just left me and we are great friends. He came to tell me the operetta is accepted by Casanova. Isn’t that great news, dear?”
“And you have heard nothing at all of what—what happened last night? No one has been here?”
“No one. What do you mean?” He rose as Maria crossed to the window and watched the Square below.
“The Marchese came and told us. Oh, Griffeth, it is all so horrible, and I know, I know that you had nothing to do with it. You do not need to tell me so.”
He held her close in his arms as she reached out to him, and Maria told the news quickly, of the robbery and attack on Ward.
“They have implicated you because of your association with one of the men who is dead and the man who is missing, Dmitri.”
“Dmitri!” repeated Griffeth. “What do you mean? Dmitri is my friend. Who is dead?”
“Griffeth, do you remember”—Carlota lifted her head from his shoulder—“the young Bulgarian I told you always followed me? The one Dmitri recognized from the window here and told me I was never to fear him? This morning we heard from the old Marchese that a double murder had been committed next door to where Dmitri lived. No, please do not speak yet,” as he gave a startled exclamation. “One of the men was the Bulgarian boy, and they suspect Dmitri.”
“And you yourself, because you are his friend,” Maria added solemnly. “The Marchese assured us you would be arrested for complicity.”
“But why did you come here last night?”
Carlota hesitated, but Maria’s eyes were tender.
“Because I wanted you to help me,” she said slowly. “There was no one else to go to, and I was in trouble. Mr. Ward came to the apartment to buy my rubies and while he was there he was assaulted and robbed.”
“Were you hurt?”
“I fainted.” Carlota’s lashes drooped before his steady gaze. “And afterwards I was afraid to go back.”
“Why?” he demanded.
Maria’s hands fluttered out eagerly.
“You must not ask her disturbing questions when she is so nervous. It is all very terrible, and mostly so for me. I was to have protected and guarded her, and now, behold, it is as if she was utterly alone and friendless.”
“Oh, do not even think about me!” Carlota cried passionately. “Where is Dmitri, Griffeth? You believe in him, do you not? Maria, leave me here alone. I must speak to him in confidence. Forgive me, tanta mia, I love and trust you, but this concerns his friend. You will go, just for a little while, won’t you?”
The roses of Vallombrosa. Signora Roma met the pleading look in her eyes and the words of the old Marchese rang in her mind like a sacred charge. Romance and youth and Vallombrosa. If she had not been ambitious too, and had set her art ahead of love, what a long fair road of companionship and happiness life might have been with Bernardo Dinari, Marchese di Veracci. The tears rushed to her eyelids, and she sighed heavily in surrender as she folded Carlota to her breast.
“Take her from us,” she said to Griffeth. “Ah, I am no longer blind and hard of heart. You have taught her well, signor, and after all, it is life’s sweetest and richest song. I will goand walk in the Square and think I am back in Italy.”
Ames closed the door behind her, leaning against it, looking longingly at the girl standing in the light from the dormer windows. Ptolemy leaped up to her, rubbing his tawny length affectionately against her, his eyes gleaming like topaz.
“Dear, look at me,” he said eagerly. “You came to me again, just as you did that first day, my wonder girl. Even after everything, you had faith in me—”
She held her hands out to him, giving them to his clasp, yet holding him back.
“Have we any right to take our own happiness when it makes so many wretched? Maria, who brought me up and gave me all her love and care, and dear old Jacobelli—”
“But they are all willing now. It isn’t selfish, dear. It is our right. Remember how Dmitri always said we were the inheritors of all the love dreams of the past, and must hold the torch high for those who come after us. You know all you have been to me for months, what it meant to both of us that first night at Phelps’s when you met my eyes, and it seemed as if everything in my whole being called out to you in gladness. Carlota, don’t keep me from you! Why did you come here last nightto find me, why are you here to-day, why did Jacobelli come and tell me frankly it was our love that had given your voice its power and new beauty? Yet I’ve never even kissed you once, never held you in my arms—”
Her eyes closed as his arms clasped about her and he turned her towards him in a silent, tense embrace. When she lifted her head, she was smiling, her lashes wet with tears.
“This is not the right ending for the opera. I have passed the wall of Tittani and found you and there is no peril or suspense at all, just the two of us here in the dear old studio, and Ptolemy to turn his back and not look at us. He is a gentleman, isn’t he, Griffeth?”
Across the Square along the diagonal path to the old studio building Dmitri walked with an easy, long-stepped gait. The troops that had surged over the Belachrista Pass had the same stride. The collar of his coat was turned up, his brown felt hat pulled low over his eyes, his cigarette pointing upward. He had passed a pleasant and profitable night. So engrossed he was in smiling at the future that he failed to observe Signora Roma waiting in the circle by the fountain, failed to notice three loiterers about the old studio row. One watched the dormer windows of the garret. One stood at the corner of MacDougal Street to take noteof possible exits over adjacent roofs in case of need. One leaned against the iron railing in the front yard and chatted with the unwitting caretaker, and Dmitri passed them all by jauntily. Would it be wiser, he mused, to tell Griffeth Ames everything? He had trained him for months in the new law of humanity’s rights, yet was he not too young to recognize the imperative need for silence. The breaking dawn called to Dmitri’s imagination. The chant of the oppressed sounded in his ears, not the old galley chorus that had kept time to the rhythm of an Attic boatswain’s flute, nor the call from the steppe prisons that had been the newborn wail of Russia’s freedom. The old order had already changed. The heavens were rolling away as a parchment before the new dayspring. A little struggling here and there, he told himself, over the earth’s surface, a little blindness in the new light from eyes long used to darkness, but steadily, inevitably the daybreak would sweep on and in the full sunlight men should find themselves gazing into one another’s eyes without fear and hatred and greed.
He mounted the three flights rapidly, two steps at a time, tapped on the door, and opened before Griffeth could reach it.
“Aha!” cried Dmitri. “And so we may besure that spring will come again! Are you Harlequin or Pierrot this afternoon, or all the immortal lovers of romance at once? And have you coffee for a wayfarer? I have walked all over the city since daybreak. I see that in spite of my precautions, Columbine has found her way right straight back to the chimney-pot and the cat and the melody of one Pierrot.”
He sank down in the old dusty velvet chair by the fireplace, his hair tousled into curls. Carlota gazed at him with wondering, questioning eyes. Dmitri, no subtle, terrified criminal hiding from the law, but as she had ever known him, the happy, confident, scholarly friend. She forgot everything but his danger.
“Why”—she turned appealingly to Griffeth—“it’s almost laughable—it’s like some horrible dream—that I am here with you both just as always, and you are safe, Dmitri—”
“Why should I not be safe?” He smiled at her with keen, brilliant eyes. “It is a most charming surprise to find you here, I admit. I was only going to drop in and see my favorite friend before I leave. I was going to entrust to him a commission, but since you are here—”
The door of the studio opened noiselessly. Dmitri’s lips were silenced by the sight behindGriffeth and the girl. Lorrie, of the Central Bureau, was not a person of dramatic instincts or emotional possibilities. He stood in the patch of sunlight from the hall skylight, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back on his head. The hands grasped two automatics, but Lorrie never obtruded them on the sensibilities of those he was sent to find until he found it necessary. He stepped into the room, a slight smile on his lips as he took in the group. Behind him stood two of his men.
“Kavec,” he said curtly, “you’re under arrest for the double murder of Jurka and Steccho.”
Dmitri never stirred.
“But he is my friend, Carrollton Phelps’s friend!” exclaimed Griffeth hotly. “I was with him up to midnight myself.”
“Don’t worry, you’re in too,” returned Lorrie laconically. “Complicity in the robbery, accessory to the crime, and then some. Search them.”
“But I was with Mr. Kavec myself until early this morning,” Carlota declared suddenly, her face lifted high, her eyes avoiding Griffeth’s. “He had nothing to do with the robbery. He did not even know about it until I told him myself. It is impossible that he could have done this thing—”
She stopped dead short, the color leaving her lips. From Dmitri’s pockets the detectives drew the rubies of the exiled queen. One by one the separate pieces were laid upon the table, the necklace, the loosely linked pendants, the girdle ornament.
Dmitri lit a cigarette with steady fingers.
“The tiara is inside my other coat,” he said. “It would be a shame to break the set.”
“Dmitri, my God, what have you done!” gasped Griffeth. “Carlota, go to Maria, out of this. I swear I knew absolutely nothing. Dmitri, tell her Steccho gave them to you, didn’t he? Say something, man, can’t you?”
“He’s got nothing to say,” Lorrie answered. “Look here.” He threw out papers on the table from Dmitri’s coat pockets. “Passage engaged for Naples, sailing to-morrow. A quick get-away, eh, Kavec.”
“I do not believe one word of it!” flashed Carlota. “Who ordered this arrest? The jewels were mine. I have made no complaint of being robbed. Oh, I do not want any of them back. I hate the sight of them.”
She sank down in a chair, her face covered by her hands, her shoulders shaken with sobs, deep, tearless, broken sobs of hopelessness. As Ogden Ward entered the room hers was the first form his eyes rested on. Leaning heavilyupon a cane and Ishigaki’s arm, he walked slowly, and with evident pain. Behind him was the tall, dignified figure of the Marchese, his kindly face troubled and keen when he beheld the group within the studio.
“My dear child”—he was beside Carlota instantly. “I am so very sorry for you. I never dreamt of all this. I deemed it my duty to acquaint Mr. Ward with your intention to come here as proof of your finality, and he would come also, therefore I am with him.”
Dmitri’s gaze never left the face of Ward. Steadily he looked at him, not sardonically nor with any animosity, but rather whimsically and pityingly.
“You brought this on yourself, Ames,” Ward said slowly. “I did it to protect the interests of Miss Trelango. Through the criminal associates she met in your place here, she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in jewels. I resolved, after hearing her decision from the Marchese, to tell her myself of your deliberate sacrifice of her to get possession of these gems. From the first moment that I learned of the double murder, I myself took up the pursuit of the guilty parties with the commissioner himself, and this is the result.”
“Pardon.” Ward started at the first sound of Dmitri’s voice, suave and evenly pitched, asif he had heard it before. “When was that first moment, if one may ask, Mr. Ward?”
Ward’s face set in deeper lines. Only Dmitri and he himself of all those in the room knew the menace behind the words. Until that instant he had not known of the presence there of one who had spoken to him over the wire at daybreak that morning. Lorrie looked at the banker sharply, waiting for his reply.
“You don’t have to be annoyed by him, you know, Mr. Ward. My orders are to bring them both down to headquarters.”
Ward lifted his hand.
“I will be responsible, sergeant,” he said coldly. “Wait below.”
With the Marchese’s arm around her, Carlota watched in amazement the man she loved, the man who hated him, and Dmitri last of all. He was smiling, courteous as ever, thoroughly at ease and even enjoying the situation.
“May I draw your attention, Mr. Ward,” he remarked, motioning to the table where the jewels lay. “See, they are there. I was bringing them here to give them to their rightful owner, Miss Trelango. It was best that she should not see me, so I was about to transfer them to the care of my friend, Mr. Ames. They are all there, not one missing. Stay. There is one thegenial sergeant overlooked, but it is not of that set.” He reached in his pocket and drew out his tobacco pouch. “For safe-keeping,” he smiled, and produced the opal which Steccho had saved for the golden-haired Maryna to play with.
Ward’s eyes stared at it fixedly, seeing instead the room at Carlota’s apartment, the shattered lamp, the scattered gems, and one lithe, leaping figure in the dim oblong of light from the open window.
“I have seen that before,” murmured the Marchese thoughtfully, “a beautiful gem.”
“When I spoke to you on the telephone this morning I asked you if you had lost a jewel?” Dmitri’s tone took on a keener edge as he leaned his hands upon the bare ebony table between them, and addressed Ward. “I also told you that I had just discovered a most unfortunate accident which had cost Count Jurka his life. I suggested, in view of certain papers which I had found in the Count’s notebook regarding—”
“You are a criminal now in the eyes of the law,” Ward cut in. “You know the value of a criminal’s testimony.”
“I am not speaking in court. I speak to my friends,” said Dmitri gently. “And I am no criminal, save at your own good pleasure, Mr.Ward. Would you prefer that I state the facts here, or wait until we arrive at police headquarters or possibly the grand jury?”
Ward’s face seemed to turn gray as they looked upon him.
“You can’t prove a damned word.” His eyes, bright and round, met Dmitri’s in sudden challenge.
“Can I not?” laughed the latter cheerily. “Ah, my dear Mr. Ward, life is so very strange and so amusing, and so unexpected, and yet it is all one grand harmony. I show to you the jewels, the rubies and pearls of the royal collection. You know where I got them from, and yet you can sit there and threaten me. You are a fool, because I have the proof against you!”
Ward rose heavily.
“Call Lorrie,” he gasped. “Marchese, I demand it.”
“You will not call any one until you have heard me out,” Dmitri said deliberately. “I have the signed confession and all the correspondence that passed between you and Georges Yaranek.”
The Marchese moved away from Carlota to the table. She turned to Griffeth in relief, both of them listening in silent amazement to Dmitri’s story.
“This man, Ogden Ward, is not the personhe seems to be,” he said almost gayly, yet with accusation. “He is not your silent, stern capitalist and banker, your international pawn-broker who can kill or save a nation by his munificent charity. He is also of a most exquisite artistic temperament, a nature which responds to the richest and priceless in art and beauty. He will have only the best, your Mr. Ward. And this is known all over the world by those who live upon loot for gold. It was not enough that Count Jurka should recover the missing crown jewels. He must convert them into cash for use in the royalist cause. And through his own researches he discovered another on the same trail, the trail of the Zarathustra ruby. This was Ogden Ward, who wished to add it to his collection, together with the Orient pearls and other rubies of the set. Jurka had not been dispatched upon this secret mission alone. Always, in such cases, there are two set forth together, that one may succeed if one should fail. Steccho had told me this, and of the court chamberlain’s trusted attendant and courier, Georges Yaranek. He is very clever, but he is nervous. When he discovered the two dead bodies he lost his nerve. And he left behind two most important things, the wallet of Jurka, and this letter in the dead hand of my friend.”
From the inner hatband of his soft felt hat he removed the crumpled paper Steccho’s hand had groped for in death, and smoothing it out, he read it gently, from a student comrade. He had written briefly, fatalistically. There could be nothing worse than all that had gone before.
Your mother is dead these five months, one of many aged who died from starvation. Maryna is lost. I have made careful inquiries, but can only ascertain that she appealed to Jurka’s agent in this district at the time of the demonstration made by the royalist faction, and was taken with other girls from Rigl and adjacent villages to the mountain camps by the soldiers. None returned alive.
Your mother is dead these five months, one of many aged who died from starvation. Maryna is lost. I have made careful inquiries, but can only ascertain that she appealed to Jurka’s agent in this district at the time of the demonstration made by the royalist faction, and was taken with other girls from Rigl and adjacent villages to the mountain camps by the soldiers. None returned alive.
“Jurka tricked the boy,” Dmitri said quietly. “He needed him in the work here and promised in return full protection to his mother and sister by the queen’s own secret agents. This letter came to Steccho through my hands the night he took the jewels. He came to me and told what he had seen in the Trelango apartment. Shall I speak in detail?” He smiled most courteously at Ward.
“What you say is immaterial. I was called by Miss Trelango herself that night to complete a business transaction. I had advanced certain sums for her musical education andtraining under certain conditions to which she had agreed. She broke these conditions. It was her own suggestion that she pay back in full her obligations to me with the jewels.”
“Which were worth, let us say, about fifty times the amount you had advanced, eh?” Dmitri supplemented. “Ah, you are a financier and a very fine appraiser of values, Mr. Ward, in jewels and—otherwise. With Miss Trelango’s own testimony and my own as to what my friend told me he saw and heard, there might be a difference of opinion on the price of rubies, yes?”
“Dmitri, let me end this,” demanded Griffeth hoarsely. “I can’t be quiet any longer.”
“My boy, you are under arrest, and one call from Mr. Ward will bring his friends below. Not that I think he would call, but he might. Let me finish my story first that all may be clear to Mr. Ward, so he will not think we are deceiving him in any way. I myself told Steccho to give the jewels back to whomever he had stolen them from and to leave the service of Count Jurka. He said he could not afford to jeopardize the safety and lives of his mother and sister. This letter cleared up that point in his mind. I know he had called at the Hotel Dupont before coming to me and had left word for Jurka that he had fulfilled his mission.As you know, their two bodies were found dead in the boy Steccho’s room. I myself notified Mr. Ward of this as soon as I found it out, did I not?”
Ward’s face was a perfect blank. He stared at Dmitri in silence.
“I told Mr. Ward so that he would understand what had happened, and requested him to keep the entire matter silent with the police until he heard from me.”
“Why did you call Mr. Ward instead of the police?” asked the Marchese sternly.
“It was not a matter for the hands of the city police. It was international in its import and should have been kept absolutely secret, but Mr. Ward thought otherwise. Doubtless he did not believe me, that I held the proofs.”
“What proofs?” Carlota’s hand closed over that of the old Marchese, feeling his sympathy for her.
“The proofs of Mr. Ward’s private business with the queen’s chamberlain. Doubtless they were not criminal; mind, I do not say they were, but I do not think that they were diplomatically ethical, shall we say, Mr. Ward?”
Ward waited, still silent and immobile, never relaxing his gaze on the face of Dmitri.
“So, and now we come to the unexpected part, when, as I tell you often, Griffeth, thegods lean down and deal the cards themselves. When I come out of my door to cross to where Steccho lived, in the gray dawn I see a closed limousine turn the corner of Third Avenue. That is most unusual for the quarter where I live, and I notice it particularly. Then I find in my friend’s room the two dead bodies, both warm. Jurka was strangled by the boy and shot him in the side as they struggled. No mystery there. But the jewels for which they fought were gone, only one opal belonging to Mr. Ward in Steccho’s coat pocket. I always search pockets. They are so handy for hiding things. And I find out first that whoever took those jewels did not have time or sense to look through the pockets of the dead men. Possibly he was nervous. I did look and I found several interesting things in Count Jurka’s possession, his personal wallet and notebook, his keys and a letter which he had doubtless written himself to Mr. Ward before he left the hotel to find Steccho. I have that letter; it escaped the attention of the gentlemen of the police when they searched me. Carlota, my old leather music folder is there on the piano behind you, if you please, my dear.” Wonderingly Carlota gave the old brown flat bag to him. He produced from it the gold-capped wallet of Jurka and several letters and documents.
“I was most fortunate in arriving at the Dupont at an hour when vigilance is relaxed. The number of the Count’s suite was on his hotel key. I made my way up to that floor by the back stairs, as you say, the servants’ way, and I found myself alone in his rooms. I hurried in my search of his locked trunk and desk, and I found all I wanted. And suddenly there was another key inserted in the door and Georges Yaranek came in. I stepped back behind a door and when he passed me I seized him. He is very much the stronger and I am no fighter at all, but I have to get the better of him just the same, so I use tricks. It is always permissible, is it not, Mr. Ward, when your cause is just? I take and tie him up with the heavy silk portière cords so he can do no damage, and then I find all the jewels on him, all of them. You see what a very clever precaution that is to send two out on a secret mission, and if one fails, the other he will carry it out. Georges Yaranek is no servant. He is of the Bulgarian secret service, a spy of the queen, and when Jurka came to get the jewels from Steccho, Yaranek came likewise lest the Count come not back from that house next to mine. I have his written and sworn confession of all he did, so that Mr. Ward would not feel the slightest doubt or suspicion of my word.”
“Where is Yaranek?” demanded Ward. “Why was his written confession necessary? Why did you not turn him over to the police?”
“I have already told you this was an international affair, not for the city police which is very friendly to Mr. Ward, I believe. And mind, I would say this, there is something we all lose sight of in this day of upheavals. To every man his country and its cause. What is criminal to one is patriotism to another. Both Jurka and Yaranek acted most honorably according to their code. They are of the old régime, the royalists; they kill, they make war, they rob the poor, they do forever as they like, you see, and it is not wrong to them. Jurka was loyal to the old queen’s interests. She ordered him to come here and find the missing jewels. For what? Not for her to wear—one wears no crowns in exile—but to convert into ready money, into gold, for immediate use. This is the hour of opportunity, mind, in Europe. Your watcher of signs sees all sorts of maneuvers not on battle-fields. The people are so hungry and harassed and deceived that they waver and do not know which side God is on. A suave and promising tongue can sway them in any direction that promises rest and safety. So with gold at her command instead of paper money, the exiled queen might seizeBulgaria. And there was only one man who would pay in cash the price of the royal rubies, so Jurka dickered with him, once he struck the right trail. That man was Ogden Ward. Oh, I have the correspondence between you, Mr. Ward,” as Ward rose threateningly. “It is quite authentic, and nothing missing. Jurka had to protect himself in case of discovery, and doubtless saved the evidence in order to command your full protection. Mr. Ward agreed in writing to pay $750,000, in full for the five pieces of the collection, including the Zarathustra ruby, which is the finest pigeon-blood ruby in the world, they claim. Of course, when he found he could get them so very much cheaper, he tried himself and failed.”
“But on the face of it, it is absurd,” sneered Ward. “Marchese, how could these men have conveyed that amount in gold at this time to Europe without discovery?”
“Ah, that was most cleverly provided for also, by Mr. Ward,” exclaimed Dmitri jocularly. “It was to have been shipped by Mr. Ward’s own bankers as part of a consignment for the relief of stricken, starving Bulgaria. Count Jurka himself suggested this plan, since he was here as one of the relief committee. It was all really very touching.”
“What if I say that I was aware of thewhole secret plot, and merely acted as I did to betray these men, and save the rubies for Carlota Trelango?”
“It is very apt, but I am afraid it will not pass,” sighed Dmitri. “The dates on these letters show your dealings with Jurka and Yaranek before you even knew that she owned the rubies.”
“And where is Yaranek?” asked Ward. “Why was he not handed over to the police by you? Why was it necessary for you to have his sworn statement when he might give his own testimony? Since you were accumulating evidence against me, why not go the limit?”
“Well, I will tell you, Mr. Ward, although I do not think you will ever comprehend my motives.” Dmitri sat lightly on the edge of the table and smoked slowly, happily. “I am a propagandist, but I only propagate my own propaganda, see? I have my own creed of right living and it is based upon our mutual responsibility for other people’s welfare and happiness. I believe in the right to live, but I do not believe that any human group of people has any right to govern others against their will. So I fight in my own way for the small, helpless races that get crushed in the great stampede. And when I can I like to talk this way. So when I get Georges Yaranek tiedand bound and I do not know what to do with him, I talk to him. First, I trust him. I loosen his hand and give him cigarettes so that we may both talk while we smoke. And I prove to him by all of Jurka’s letters how he has lied to the boy Steccho and deceived him, how he has played his own game and cheated everybody else, even him, Yaranek. For look, Jurka is ambitious. The queen is old and fond of him. He wants to share the glory with no one, and so he had planned to get rid of Yaranek himself. Even while he was working with him to recover the jewels for the royalist cause, as emissary to the country from the queen to study the relief methods for starving Bulgaria, he was ready to report Yaranek to Washington for the very crime he was committing himself, collecting secret funds to promote a royal reactionary uprising. Thus he could go back alone and regret most profoundly that Yaranek, through some indiscretion, had been apprehended.”
“Where is Yaranek?” asked Ward again.
“He awaits me at a certain place.” Dmitri smiled at him. “We were to have sailed together. I am so very glad to announce his entire conversion to my propaganda, Mr. Ward. Of course, if you would rather we remained and conveyed our testimony to theproper government authorities, we will do so. We will not permit our plans to interfere with your wishes.”
Ward strode to the window and stared out at the Square below, a conflict in his mind. He had played and lost. Not alone the jewels, but the girl he had wanted. All his life he had purchased anything that was necessary to success. He had weighed the issues of life itself in terms of gold. When he turned from the window, he asked, tersely: “What do you want?”
“I want to go back free and unhampered to my country,” returned Dmitri, “with Yaranek. I want the rubies to be left unqualifiedly with Miss Trelango—”
“Dmitri, I do not want them!” Carlota cried entreatingly. “They only bring misery. You give them back for me to the people you love. They are not mine or the queen’s. They belong to the children who are starving.”
“The heirs of to-morrow?” smiled Dmitri whimsically. “I will gladly do so if it is your wish. Mr. Ward, you are fond of rubies. You are not interested as we are in international aspirations, shall we say, or perhaps ideals. It matters not one iota to you whether the money for these jewels goes to the royalist cause or to the feeding of those starving ones, those little victims of diplomacy, shall we call it?Will you buy these gems from Miss Trelango, and I will most gladly convey the consignment of gold to the little ones that are left alive.”
“Is this your wish?” asked Ward, looking at Carlota.
Her eyes overflowed with tears. She could hardly answer as she stood between the Marchese and Griffeth.
“I should love it more than anything,” she told him. “The Marchese will attend to everything for me if you are willing.”
Suddenly in the doorway stood Maria, alarmed and prepared to defend her charge at any price. But Dmitri met her with one of his low, courtly bows that soothed her pride.
“Signora, you are just in time. Mr. Ward is being the bountiful fairy godfather to us all. He grants us each one what we like the best. I have a rendezvous with a friend. Mr. Ward, after you. Carlota, Griffeth, I salute love immortal!”
Jauntily he gathered up the papers and wallet into the old brown leather bag again, and handed it to the Marchese.
“Will you not personally hold these until I have sailed, and then destroy them? I make you our neutral receiver, yes? And will you not also kindly place the jewels in safe-keeping until Mr. Ward has paid for them?”
Ward passed without a word down the winding staircase ahead of him, without a backward glance at the four left in the old studio. Carlota turned to Griffeth’s close embrace, weeping in deep soft sobs of relief, and the Marchese smiled at Maria.
“The leaves lie thick in the Square. They are sweeping them up to burn. Will you walk with me, Maria, and remember Vallombrosa while these children follow their own path of gold? Then we will take up the business of life once more, and put the rubies and papers in safety deposit, but for now—”
He held the door open for her, and they passed down the way that Ward had gone. Carlota lifted her head from Griffeth’s shoulder.
“Heirs of to-morrow, he said,” she whispered.
He kissed her lips. There seemed in their love almost a symbol of the fulfillment of years of war, of tears and bloodshed and oppression and intolerance, in what would be the dawn of a new world to those who were indeed the heirs of to-morrow.
THE END
The Riverside PressCAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTSU . S . A