“None better than here. Lay off your coat and lie down. I will have you such a meal in twenty minutes as you have not tasted in months, not since you left home. I have broth, wine, and lamb to broil; grapes and bread and coffee.” He set a pot of broth over the blaze, brought out lamb from the cupboard with a small, smooth board to cut it on, and sat cross-legged on the floor before the brazier while he cut the meat into slices and skewered it with slices of raw onion between. “I am no wanderer at heart, you see. I like my own hearth-fire even if it is merely a charcoal blaze like this. I prefer to cook my own meals and know what I feed upon. Drink that broth.”
Steccho obeyed in moody silence. The reaction had set in after his rebuff at the Dupont. He drank the broth in deep swallows. The peace and genial atmosphere of the room had begun to seep through his consciousness as it always did. He felt that here he might lie and sleep for hours, until the fear that dogged his heels should have lost the scent. He wondered if the blade had reached the heart. He had dropped without a cry, the man who desired both rubies and her who was more precious than rubies. If it had not killed him, then he would waken and accuse—whom would he accuse? He had seen no assailant in the darkness. Would he, perhaps, say that Carlota had stabbed him, would he dare when he knew she had been unconscious in his arms? Besides, they would discover the rubies were gone; that would prove she was innocent, that another had dealt the blow and had taken them. He yawned exhaustedly.
“You could hide me here, if it had to be, yes?”
“Doubtless.” Dmitri set a savory mess of browned lamb on the black oak table and poured boiled rice into the broth to simmer. “I could hide you, but you would have to tell me why you were hiding. In these days we must guard our friends against their own impulses. Whom have you killed, Ferad?”
The Bulgarian stretched out his palms excitedly.
“And what is that, the death-stroke, nowadays? Life is the cheapest thing in the world.”
Dmitri poured wine into two tall metal drinking-cups. From the Metropolitan Tower came the strokes of two. He served the rice in silence, reserving comment, waiting for the confidence of the other. And suddenly Steccho rose from the table. He had eaten with a ravening hunger; now his old air of sullen bravado returned. He turned pocket after pocket inside out, emptying the jewels on the table before Dmitri as if he had been a gamin rolling marbles. Dmitri lifted his brows in relief and amusement as he looked at them, rubies and diamonds, rubies and pearls, set in old silver and gold.
“So, you play with these, my friend,” he smiled. “I had thought you were grown to a man’s desire. These are the devil’s toys to catch the tinkling fancy of women and girls. Did you need money? I would have given you all I had.”
Steccho laughed, his heavy black hair rumpled over his forehead. He shook his head impatiently. After his long fast, the wine was stirring his brain to resentment against Jurka.
“I bring them to you that you may choose for me,” he said. “This is why I am here. They are the missing crown jewels, the rubies of the queen.”