“Ingrate!”
CHAPTER XIV
It was quarter of eleven when Jurka’s car left Belvoir. Along the shore road it sped, a low, fleeting shadow lured by its own projecting rays, as if some sinister genie of the night were drawing it irresistibly on towards the city glow in the west.
The Count smoked thoughtfully, leisurely, selecting cigarettes from a black and gold enameled case as one selects favorites from a seraglio. Fate had tendered him the information he had come to America after, and he already contemplated a pleasurable return to Switzerland first, and then to Sofia with the profits from what he cleverly dubbed Love’s plunder.
He had recognized them the instant Carlota had stepped into the full light. First the tiara with its splendid center ruby, the Zarathustra, and the curious Byzantine setting. The ruby was one of the three greatest in the world. It had been taken, centuries before, from a shrine of the Zoroastrians beyond the Caspian country. Slipping from hand to hand it had brought untold carnage and horror to the land whose queen wore it on her brow. Only half a century before it had been coveted by a woman of the Balkans whose ambition led her throneward. She had been maid of honor to an emotional, harassed queen, and had stepped over her dead body to wed her son. The price of the ruby had been one keen, swift knife-thrust through her heart and another for the blundering, love-blind prince. Ten years after, the ruby had been found in a Cairo curio-shop by one who knew its value, and had been sent out to seek the jewel marts of Amsterdam. It had been returned to the Bulgarian state coffers until Paoli, in the zenith of her beauty and fame, had received it from the hands of the crown prince, mounted in the tiara with other gems fit to bear it company.
The girl Carlota could not be aware of the value or tremendous significance of the rubies, Jurka reflected, else why should she subject herself to the danger of wearing them in public? Taken with the necklace and stomacher, they represented an immense sum, entirely apart from their peculiar antiquarian value. Yet she had donned them for this charity fête as if they had been paste.
Touching the mother-of-pearl button concealed in the buff suède cushions, he drew a small, black-belted card-case from his breast pocket, and opened a folded oblong of thin tracing-paper. Drawn upon it delicately was a perfect sketch of the settings holding the crown rubies. Jurka held it close to the shaded bulb, studying the detail carefully until the car approached the city.
“Choose quiet streets,” he ordered through the speaking-tube. “Make haste!”
His early arrival was unexpected by Georges, and the valet stood on guard as the key sounded in the outer lock.
“Pardon, excellenza,” he begged. “I did not know whom to expect.”