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‘It is the rubies, I suppose?’ asked Zia.
Her father nodded.
‘What do you think, my little one?’ he inquired, with a hint of amusement in his beady black eyes.
‘Of M. le Marquis?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think,’ said Zia slowly, ‘that it is a very rare thing to find a well-bred Englishman who speaks French as well as that.’
‘Ah!’ said M. Papopolous, ‘so that is what you think.’
As usual, he did not commit himself, but he regarded Zia with benign approval.
‘I thought, too,’ said Zia, ‘that his head was an odd shape.’
‘Massive,’ said her father—‘a trifle massive. But then that effect is always created by a wig.’
They both looked at each other and smiled.
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_2ea0a96b-625b-5836-bcda-e46f0eccdb80)
Heart of Fire (#ulink_2ea0a96b-625b-5836-bcda-e46f0eccdb80)
Rufus Van Aldin passed through the revolving doors of the Savoy, and walked to the reception desk. The desk clerk smiled a respectful greeting.
‘Pleased to see you back again, Mr Van Aldin,’ he said.
The American millionaire nodded his head in a casual greeting.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. Major Knighton is upstairs in the suite now.’
Van Aldin nodded again.
‘Any mail?’ he vouchsafed.
‘They have all been sent up, Mr Van Aldin. Oh! wait a minute.’
He dived into a pigeon-hole, and produced a letter.
‘Just come this minute,’ he explained.
Rufus Van Aldin took the letter from him, and as he saw the handwriting, a woman’s flowing hand, his face was suddenly transformed. The harsh contours of it softened, and the hard line of his mouth relaxed. He looked a different man. He walked across to the lift with the letter in his hand and the smile still on his lips.
In the drawing-room of his suite, a young man was sitting at a desk nimbly sorting correspondence with the ease born of long practice. He sprang up as Van Aldin entered.
‘Hallo, Knighton!’
‘Glad to see you back, sir. Had a good time?’
‘So so!’ said the millionaire unemotionally. ‘Paris is rather a one-horse city nowadays. Still—I got what I went over for.’
He smiled to himself rather grimly.
‘You usually do, I believe,’ said the secretary, laughing.
‘That’s so,’ agreed the other.
He spoke in a matter-of-fact manner, as one stating a well-known fact. Throwing off his heavy overcoat, he advanced to the desk.
‘Anything urgent?’
‘I don’t think so, sir. Mostly the usual stuff. I have not quite finished sorting it out.’
Van Aldin nodded briefly. He was a man who seldom expressed either blame or praise. His methods with those he employed were simple; he gave them a fair trial and dismissed promptly those who were inefficient. His selections of people were unconventional. Knighton, for instance, he had met casually at a Swiss resort two months previously. He had approved of the fellow, looked up his war record, and found in it the explanation of the limp with which he walked. Knighton had made no secret of the fact that he was looking for a job, and indeed diffidently asked the millionaire if he knew of any available post. Van Aldin remembered, with a grim smile of amusement, the young man’s complete astonishment when he had been offered the post of secretary to the great man himself.
‘But—but I have no experience of business,’ he had stammered.
‘That doesn’t matter a cuss,’ Van Aldin had replied. ‘I have got three secretaries already to attend to that kind of thing. But I am likely to be in England for the next six months, and I want an Englishman who—well, knows the ropes—and can attend to the social side of things for me.’
So far, Van Aldin had found his judgement confirmed. Knighton had proved quick, intelligent, and resourceful, and he had a distinct charm of manner.
The secretary indicated three or four letters placed by themselves on the top of the desk.
‘It might perhaps be as well, sir, if you glanced at these,’ he suggested. ‘The top one is about the Colton agreement—’
But Rufus Van Aldin held up a protesting hand.
‘I am not going to look at a durned thing tonight,’ he declared. ‘They can all wait till the morning. Except this one,’ he added, looking down at the letter he held in his hand. And again that strange transforming smile stole over his face.
Richard Knighton smiled sympathetically.
‘Mrs Kettering?’ he murmured. ‘She rang up yesterday and today. She seems very anxious to see you at once, sir.’
‘Does she, now!’
The smile faded from the millionaire’s face. He ripped open the envelope which he held in his hand and took out the enclosed sheet. As he read it his face darkened, his mouth set grimly in the line which Wall Street knew so well, and his brows knit themselves ominously. Knighton turned tactfully away, and went on opening letters and sorting them. A muttered oath escaped the millionaire, and his clenched fist hit the table sharply.
‘I’ll not stand for this,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Poor little girl, it’s a good thing she has her old father behind her.’
He walked up and down the room for some minutes, his brows drawn together in a scowl. Knighton still bent assiduously over the desk. Suddenly Van Aldin came to an abrupt halt. He took up his overcoat from the chair where he had thrown it.
‘Are you going out again, sir?’
‘Yes, I’m going round to see my daughter.’
‘If Colton’s people ring up—?’
‘Tell them to go to the devil,’ said Van Aldin.
‘Very well,’ said the secretary unemotionally.
Van Aldin had his overcoat on by now. Cramming his hat upon his head, he went towards the door. He paused with his hand upon the handle.
‘You are a good fellow, Knighton,’ he said. ‘You don’t worry me when I am rattled.’
Knighton smiled a little, but made no reply.
‘Ruth is my only child,’ said Van Aldin, ‘and there is no one on this earth who knows quite what she means to me.’
A faint smile irradiated his face. He slipped his hand into his pocket.
‘Care to see something, Knighton?’
He came back towards the secretary.
From his pocket he drew out a parcel carelessly wrapped in brown paper. He tossed off the wrapping and disclosed a big, shabby, red velvet case. In the centre of it were some twisted initials surmounted by a crown. He snapped the case open, and the secretary drew in his breath sharply. Against the slightly dingy white of the interior, the stones glowed like blood.
‘My God! sir,’ said Knighton. ‘Are they—are they real?’
Van Aldin laughed a quiet little cackle of amusement.
‘I don’t wonder at your asking that. Amongst these rubies are the three largest in the world. Catherine of Russia wore them, Knighton. That centre one there is known as “Heart of Fire”. It’s perfect—not a flaw in it.’
‘But,’ the secretary murmured, ‘they must be worth a fortune.’
‘Four or five hundred thousand dollars,’ said Van Aldin nonchalantly, ‘and that is apart from the historical interest.’
‘And you carry them about—like that, loose in your pocket?’
Van Aldin laughed amusedly.
‘I guess so. You see, they are my little present for Ruthie.’
The secretary smiled discreetly.
‘I can understand now Mrs Kettering’s anxiety over the telephone,’ he murmured.
But Van Aldin shook his head. The hard look returned to his face.
‘You are wrong there,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t know about these; they are my little surprise for her.’
He shut the case, and began slowly to wrap it up again.
‘It’s a hard thing, Knighton,’ he said, ‘how little one can do for those one loves. I can buy a good portion of the earth for Ruth, if it would be any use to her, but it isn’t. I can hang these things round her neck and give her a moment or two’s pleasure, maybe, but—’
He shook his head.
‘When a woman is not happy in her home—’
He left the sentence unfinished. The secretary nodded discreetly. He knew, none better, the reputation of the Hon. Derek Kettering. Van Aldin sighed. Slipping the parcel back in his coat pocket, he nodded to Knighton and left the room.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_952b1d4c-afa8-591e-b2d0-a2719d177625)
In Curzon Street (#ulink_952b1d4c-afa8-591e-b2d0-a2719d177625)
The Hon. Mrs Derek Kettering lived in Curzon Street. The butler who opened the door recognized Rufus Van Aldin at once and permitted himself a discreet smile of greeting. He led the way upstairs to the big double drawing-room on the first floor.
A woman who was sitting by the window started up with a cry.
‘Why, Dad, if that isn’t too good for anything! I’ve been telephoning Major Knighton all day to try and get hold of you, but he couldn’t say for sure when you were expected back.’
Ruth Kettering was twenty-eight years of age. Without being beautiful, or in the real sense of the word even pretty, she was striking-looking because of her colouring. Van Aldin had been called Carrots and Ginger in his time, and Ruth’s hair was almost pure auburn. With it went dark eyes and very black lashes—the effect somewhat enhanced by art. She was tall and slender, and moved well. At a careless glance it was the face of a Raphael Madonna. Only if one looked closely did one perceive the same line of jaw and chin as in Van Aldin’s face, bespeaking the same hardness and determination. It suited the man, but suited the woman less well. From her childhood upward Ruth Van Aldin had been accustomed to having her own way, and anyone who had ever stood up against her soon realized that Rufus Van Aldin’s daughter never gave in.
‘Knighton told me you’d phoned him,’ said Van Aldin. ‘I only got back from Paris half an hour ago. What’s all this about Derek?’
Ruth Kettering flushed angrily.
‘It’s unspeakable. It’s beyond all limits,’ she cried. ‘He—he doesn’t seem to listen to anything I say.’
There was bewilderment as well as anger in her voice.
‘He’ll listen to me,’ said the millionaire grimly.
Ruth went on.
‘I’ve hardly seen him for the last month. He goes about everywhere with that woman.’
‘With what woman?’
‘Mirelle. She dances at the Parthenon, you know.’
Van Aldin nodded.
‘I was down at Leconbury last week. I—I spoke to Lord Leconbury. He was awfully sweet to me, sympathized entirely. He said he’d give Derek a good talking to.’
‘Ah!’ said Van Aldin.
‘What do you mean by “Ah!” Dad?’
‘Just what you think I mean, Ruthie. Poor old Leconbury is a washout. Of course he sympathized with you, of course he tried to soothe you down. Having got his son and heir married to the daughter of one of the richest men in the States, he naturally doesn’t want to mess the thing up. But he’s got one foot in the grave already, everyone knows that, and anything he may say will cut darned little ice with Derek.’
‘Can’t you do anything, Dad?’ urged Ruth, after a minute or two.
‘I might,’ said the millionaire. He waited a second reflectively, and then went on. ‘There are several things I might do, but there’s only one that will be any real good. How much pluck have you got, Ruthie?’
