“I prefer to be alone, signor,” she told him. “I think even your authority must end here in my own home.”
He stared at her in amazement, and bowed as he stepped back from the door.
“I repeat the one word which fits you, ingrate!”
The door closed, and in the sudden reaction of nervous tension Carlota sank on the low couch, her face on her arms. It was nearly twelve by the clock on Maria’s desk. Surely they would come now any minute, and she would have to confess everything before Jacobelli had an opportunity of presenting his version. Somehow she felt the old Marchese would sympathize with her, he who was still a faithful voyageur along the coasts of romance, but Maria would see only the wreck of her career and her ingratitude to Ward.
The memory of him brought back his offer to purchase the rubies. She opened the bag, and drew them out on the velvet cushions of the couch. Maria had called them priceless, these glowing bits of imprisoned glory. Against the gray brocade of the cushion, their vivid, blood-red hue fascinated her, but only with the thrill at their beauty. She was like Paoli on whom they had been lavished. There was no craving in her nature for outer ornamentation, no lure from wealth or jewels. She touched them now curiously, half regretfully. Ward had said he would become their purchaser at any time when she wished to dispose of them. She rose with quick resolution and searched for his telephone number in the book. The bell rang with startling sharpness in the still room. She raised the receiver, expecting to hear Ames, but the suave, cheery tones of the Marchese sounded over the wire.
“Maria would have me call you up before we went on to Casanova’s reception, to be sure you were quite all right. You are, yes? The headache better? Ah, that is good. We may be late, about two, I think. You are to rest yourself, understand.”
“Oh, tell her I understand, and she is not even to think of me,” Carlota exclaimed eagerly. “It was dear of you to call me up.”
She hung up after the Marchese’s laughing, courtly rejoinder. Two whole hours before they would return. It seemed as if Fate had opened wide the way for her to go. She called Ward’s number with surety. He had not yet returned, Ishigaki informed her, but was expected at any moment. He would give him the message.
At the same moment Georges paused before a row of low red-brick buildings on East Twenty-Eighth Street, towards Lexington Avenue. They were very quiet, private-appearing residences. Narrow, one-story porches of iron grill-work clung to each, overhung with scrawny, rugged vines that defied the city soil to make them vacate. In the basement of one was a barber shop, discreet seeming and customerless. The second floor of another bore a small sign, “Bulgarian Restaurant.” Each carried over its entrance bell a slip of white paper, pasted to the brick, “Furnished Rooms.”
Here, then, Georges hesitated, not knowing certainly which house held the object of his quest. It was after midnight by five minutes. The lights in the restaurant burned low. A footfall down the street towards the subway station made him turn. The late pedestrian was young and in evening dress, with a raincoat flapping back in the swirling autumn wind. The air was damp and salty with the scent of the incoming tide up the East River. He started up the steps of the house next to the restaurant when Georges accosted him. Did he know where a man named Steccho lived, Ferad Steccho?