The two were Baraka and her interpreter and servant, whom Logotheti had called a Turk, and who was really a Turkish subject and a Mohammedan, though as to race, he was a half-bred Greek and Dalmatian. Now Dalmatians are generally honest, truthful, and trustworthy, [{192}] and the low-class Greek of Constantinople is usually extremely sharp, if he is nothing more definitely reprehensible; and Baraka's man was a cross between the two, as I have said, and had been brought up as a Musulman in a rich Turkish family, and recommended to Baraka by the Persian merchant in whose house she had lived. He had been originally baptized a Christian under the name of Spiro, and had been subsequently renamed Selim when he was made a real Moslem at twelve years old; so he used whichever name suited the circumstances in which he was placed. At present he was Spiro. He was neatly dressed in grey clothes made by a French tailor, and he wore a French hat, which always made a bad impression on Mr. Pinney. He had brown hair, brown eyes, a brown moustache, and a brown face; he looked as active as a cat, and Mr. Pinney at once put him down in his mind as a 'Froggy.' But the jeweller was less sure about Baraka, who was dressed like any young Englishman, but looked like no European he had ever seen. On the whole, he took the newcomer for the son of an Indian rajah sent to England to be educated.
The interpreter spoke broken but intelligible English. He called Baraka his master, and explained that the latter wished to see some rubies, if Mr. Pinney had any, cut or uncut. The young gentleman, he said, did not speak English, but was a good judge of stones.
For one moment the jeweller forgot the little paper twist as he turned towards his safe, pulling out his keys at the same time. To reach the safe he had to [{193}] walk the whole length of the shop, behind the counter, and before he had gone half way he remembered the stone, turned, came back, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. Then he went and got the little japanned strong-box with a patent lock, in which he kept loose stones, some wrapped up in little pieces of paper, and some in pill-boxes. He brought it to his customers, and opened it before them.
They stayed a long time, and Spiro asked many questions for Baraka, chiefly relating to the sliding-scale of prices which is regulated by the weight of the stones where their quality is equally good, and Baraka made notes of some sort in a little English memorandum-book, as if she had done it all her life; but Mr. Pinney could not see what she wrote. He was very careful, and watched the stones, when she took them in her fingers and held them up against the light, or laid them on a sheet of white paper to look at them critically.
She bought nothing; and when she had seen all he had to show her, she thanked him very much through Spiro, said she would come back another day, and went out with a leisurely, Oriental gait, as if nothing in the world could hurry her. Mr. Pinney counted the stones again, and was going to lock the box, when his second man came in, having finished stringing the Duchess's pearls. At the same moment, it occurred to Mr. Pinney that he might as well go to luncheon, and that he had better put Logotheti's ruby into the little strong-box and lock it up in the safe until he at last [{194}] had a chance to weigh it. He accordingly took the screw of paper from his waistcoat pocket, and as a matter of formality he undid it once more.
'Merciful Providence!' cried Mr. Pinney, for he was a religious man.
The screw of paper contained a bit of broken green glass. He threw his keys to his shopman without another word, and rushed out into the street without his hat, his keen old face deadly pale, and his beautiful frock-coat flying in his wake.
He almost hurled himself upon a quiet policeman.
'Thief!' he cried. 'Two foreigners in grey clothes—ruby worth ten thousand pounds just gone—I'm Pinney the jeweller!'
You cannot astonish a London policeman. The one Pinney had caught looked quietly up and down the street, and then glanced at his interlocutor to be sure that it was he, for he knew him by sight.