“Something like that——”
“The property of a noble family! Edith, it was unquestionably the property of the ruling house itself. Wait just a minute.”
He took the shapeless thing of metal, rubbed it until a little of the tarnish was gone, revealing yellow gold beneath, and slowly bent it in his hands. It took a circular shape. Then he showed us little sockets, set at various points, that had been the settings for the jewels. We saw the truth at once.
“A crown!” Edith said.
“Unquestionably the famous crown that the Portuguese king wore at his Brazilian court—one of the richest courts in history. The jewels came from Brazil, from Peruvian temples—Heaven knows where. And for Heaven’s sake, Edith, send it away and get it changed into securities. It’s death—that’s all it is. It’s the kind of thing that drives men insane.”
We took the yellow thing, and in a wonderful, elated mood, we set it on her own golden curls. But she removed it quickly. We were all instantly sobered as she put it into my hands.
“It’s bad luck to wear it,” she said. “It makes me creep to think what wickedness it has caused—clear through the centuries. I’m an American—and being a queen has never appealed to me.”
Nopp smiled quietly, into the depths of the lagoon. “But you intend to be somebody’s queen, don’t you, Edith?” he asked.
And thus the matter of Kastle Krags came to a new beginning. Edith changed the jewels into securities, just as Nopp advised, and a tenth of them paid the obligations that were left after Nealman’s estate was settled up. The rest provided an annual income that, while it would have been considered moderate by such great financiers as Marten and his fellows, seemed of kingly proportions to me. At least it provided for the maintenance of the old southern manor-house according to its best traditions.