“None that I remember,” answered Esmeralda, “except in the peacock’s crest. He was a wonderful peacock, but somehow he didn’t look to me quite in keeping with the rest of the throne. And sure enough, the Adorner of the Monarchy said I was right. So many things have happened to that throne in all the centuries it has gone knocking around Asia; and the peacock is a modern restoration. But there isn’t a particle of doubt about the rest of it. Whatever happens, I can say I have sat on the throne of Tamerlane! He began it, you know. And Jehan Shah, that Indian Mogul who built the Taj Mahal, finished it. And afterward it was looted from Agra by—Who was it?” she asked, turning to me.
“Nadir Shah, from Delhi, in 1739,” I replied with more particularity than perhaps was necessary. What could I do? I couldn’t, before all those people, point out that her history and her throne didn’t go together. Yet each was well enough in its way—except for the peacock. That I had never seen or heard of. But she had not been taken in by it. After all, I breathed more freely. Besides, the liqueurs were being passed.
“Oh, yes; Nadir Shah.” Mrs. Maturin took green chartreuse. “And after his death the Kurds got hold of it. But I never dreamed of anything so magnificent. The gold and enamel of the throne were crusted with precious stones, as if a swarm of gorgeous tropical beetles had descended on it. Never in my life have I seen so many emeralds. There was one splendid one on the right arm, uncut and very deep in colour, where the hands of the Shahs and the Moguls and Tamerlane and who knows how many other kings before him must have rested, when they were granting life and death to the slaves at their feet.”
“How interesting!” burst out the lady from Pittsburgh. “But what a pity you didn’t see it in the palace, in its own setting, the way we saw the throne of the Sultans in Constantinople! The ambassador happened to be a friend of my husband’s, and as a very special favour he got us permission to see the old Seraglio.”
The infamous woman had the floor, and she didn’t propose to relinquish it until she had told every last detail of that routine experience which was shared by hundreds of tourists every year before the war. I could have cut her throat much more easily than Mrs. Maturin could have cut Pierre Loti’s. She had spoiled Mrs. Maturin’s story—how utterly nobody knew better than I. And Peter’s impassive countenance told me nothing. I shamelessly edged over to Mrs. Peter.
“Which one was it?” I whispered. “The one in the peacock’s breast?”
She shook her head. “Too incredible!” She looked around the table, where everyone but the lady from Pittsburgh, was aware that it was time to go to the theatre. The General, drumming a little on the cloth, favoured me with a wink. Mrs. Maturin decided to whisper back. “The one on the arm. We had a terrific time about it. They nearly ruined me for life. Your commission must have been pretty plump! And they made us swear the most awful oaths that we would never breathe a word as long we lived. Then they sent us packing that night, out of a little side door, where our carriage was waiting, straight to Isfahan. I carried it in my hand all the way.”
“But where is it?” I demanded. “Why on earth didn’t you wear it to-night for me to see? Is it too precious?”
She hesitated so queerly that my dormant uneasiness stirred anew.
“Of course, if we had only been buying an emerald, we could have found one quite as good, and for far less in New York; though Peter insists we could not. But then, this was not an ordinary stone. After all, what jewel is, if you know its history? Peter had it beautifully mounted for me—in Agra, in sight of the Taj Mahal. As a matter of fact, though, it doesn’t look worth the fortune we paid for it.”