“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 heavily upon 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.