Chapter I

Outside was the hurry and bustle of the busy avenue; inside was the quietness and calm that characterised the house of Osmuhn & Son, jewellers and dealers in articles of vertu. The Heppelwhite chairs were carefully placed before each velvet square on the crystal cases that extended the length of the shop on both sides. In rows of expert array on the shelves and in the cabinets on the velvet-carpeted floor were rich European and Oriental porcelains: Faïence and cloisonné; rare pieces of Limoges, Satsuma, Arita, and Ninsei; lacquer ware of Kajikawa, Ritsuo, and Korin. The salesmen, soft-footed, soft-voiced, appeared merely indolent to the casual observer, but to one who could look beneath the surface of things, they gave the impression of being alertly on guard against a hidden something.

A limousine stopped before the door. The woman who alighted was beautiful; the girl who followed her was wonderful--the type that makes men putty and women envious. The uniformed attendant opened the door, they stepped inside. If those two women had crossed the threshold of any other shop on the avenue, there would have been a noticeable flurry of excitement instantly. But not a clerk in the shop showed more than courteous readiness. Osmuhn’s customers were all of the same type: the richest, the most cultured, the most exclusive persons in New York. A diamond ceased to be merely a diamond when it had been sold by Osmuhn. It became a gem with the reputation of the seller behind it; a flawless, matchless carbon. So it was with anything else one bought from Osmuhn & Son.

But if the clerks showed no particular interest, the same could not be said of the light-haired, blue-eyed young man who had been talking with two others at the end of a long glass case. A smile of welcome came to his lips as he hurried forward, hand outstretched.

“Mrs. Marle!” he exclaimed. “And Helen!”

His two hands met theirs in more than friendly clasp; the left to the woman, the right to the girl. Only one man in the shop could not see the light in the man’s eyes as he looked at the girl; but that one had recognised love in the man’s voice.

“You knew I’d be here, didn’t you, Mr. Osmuhn?” laughed the woman rippingly.

“The ruby.” It was not a question, just a smiling statement.

“Could mother ever resist a wonderful jewel?” put in the girl.

“It hasn’t been taken out of the private safe since you saw it before, three months ago,” said the younger Osmuhn. “Five-hundred-thousand-dollar rubies aren’t the playthings of the average gem-buyer.”

“Respect my weakness, please,” pouted the woman in mock pleading; then her eyes saw for the first time one of the men young Osmuhn had just left, and they lighted with pleasure.

“I must speak to Mr. Colton,” she said, and she hurried to where he was standing. The girl and the man followed slowly, talking in earnest undertones.

Thornley Colton’s pale face lighted with pleasure as he took her hand, and his thin, expressive lips smiled their glad welcome. Only the eyes behind the great, round lenses of the smoked, tortoise-rimmed library glasses did not change. His slim stick, apparently of ebony, hung lightly from the tapering fingers of his left hand, as did the hat which a moment before had covered the snow-white hair that curled from the pink scalp.

“Now tell me where you’ve been keeping yourself!” the woman demanded severely. “No evasion! We haven’t seen you since that wonderful thing you did for the Jimmy Raeltons. It _was_ wonderful!” she added earnestly.

“Thank you,” Colton said simply. There was no mock modesty; only quiet sincerity in his rich deep voice.

“But you didn’t answer my questions,” she smiled. She turned to the apple-cheeked, black-haired man who had stood silent. “Can you answer them for him, Mr. Thames?”

The black-haired man started nervously as she spoke, for he had been paying attention only to the beautiful girl with Osmuhn. Mrs. Marle repeated the question before he had time to stammer the apology she saw trembling on his lips.

“I am merely Mr. Colton’s secretary.” He said it a trifle stiffly, and she understood that his hypersensitive nature resented her intuitive understanding.

“I don’t like gaiety,” put in Colton quickly. “A quiet chat is my greatest pleasure. Crowds confuse me, and make my eyes nervous.” He laid his hand fondly on the other man’s shoulder, and to her eyes came womanly sympathy. She knew what Thornley Colton meant. He was blind, and the red-cheeked man beside him furnished the only eyes he knew.

“But you’ll come to my reception to-morrow night?” she asked earnestly. “Only for a few minutes, but _do_ come.”

“I had intended to,” he smiled.

“That’s settled,” she nodded. “Now,” she added, with mock pleading in her voice, “who is to be the happy recipient of your favour this time?” One gloved hand made a small gesture toward the trays of jewels under the glass. The blind man, whose years of practice had made him reader of every inflection, understood instantly, but young Osmuhn came up in time to answer.

“Mr. Colton has kindly consented to investigate a small matter for us,” he said nervously.

“The necklace robbery you were telling me about?” asked the girl, eyes shining.

“Here comes father.” Young Osmuhn’s face was red, his tone guilty.

Mrs. Marle repressed a smile with difficulty. She had never heard a whisper of a necklace robbery in the house of Osmuhn & Son. She understood how carefully the secret must have been guarded, and she understood also the lack of caution that was part of youth and love. But she was a wonderfully bright woman, and apparently she had not even heard her daughter’s remark. All her attention was on the stout little man with the shiny bald head and the bright eyes that gleamed from under bushy brows.

“A great pleasure, Mrs. Marle,” said the elder Osmuhn, as he bowed gravely. “You have come to see the Thousand Facets of Fire.”

“To buy it, I think,” she smiled, extending her hand.

“Ah,” murmured the gem-dealer, in a tone of quiet satisfaction. “I will show it to you at once. It is in the vault.” Then a troubled light came to his eyes, as they rested on Thornley Colton and Sydney Thames. Some subtle fifth sense seemed to tell the blind man the cause instantly.

“Sydney and I will wait in your office, if you don’t mind,” he put in quickly.

Osmuhn’s voice showed his relief. Experience had taught him that there was much more appreciation when the customer was alone. “My son will tell you everything,” he said. He looked around to where the other member of the firm had been standing a moment before; then shrugged his shoulders in parental helplessness. Osmuhn, junior, was leading Miss Helen Marle toward the rear of the shop.

Mrs. Marle laughed. “You would have done the same thing at his age,” she accused.

The jeweller shook his head. “I suppose so.” Then, to the blind man: “A minute only, Mr. Colton,” he apologised.

“Make it ten,” smiled Colton. “Your son told me practically everything, and I’d like to have ten minutes or so to think over the facts.”

Osmuhn turned toward the small, glass-enclosed office at the rear of the shop, from which he could see everything that went on. The blind man followed unhesitatingly, superkeen ears noting each footfall of the man who preceded him.

“Only a minute,” repeated the seller of jewels again, when the two men had been made comfortable in the two big chairs by the desk. “Come, Mrs. Marle.” He seemed to take an unnecessary step or two as he said it, and only the blind man heard the click of some secret electric connection releasing the steel door that Osmuhn opened a minute later by a curious pressure of his fingers on the knob, and a peculiar-looking key.

Mrs. Cornelius Marle, probably the richest woman in New York, lover of jewels because they were jewels, and not merely as ornaments, owner of what was reputed to be the finest collection of rare gems, entered the innermost citadel of the house of Osmuhn. The steel door shut softly behind her, and she knew that she was as far removed from the world outside as though she were a thousand feet underground. She knew that the tapestry-covered walls of the twelve-foot room were of eighteen-inch concrete, interlaced with steel rails; that the Winton-carpeted floor and the panelled ceiling were the same. The steel door behind her was the only opening in the walls of man-made stone.

She needed no direction to take a seat at the small Sheraton table against the wall at the far side of the vault. She had been there before; each time when Osmuhn had picked up some rare and costly jewel. The jeweller, with a soft-voiced apology, leaned over her shoulder to press the pearl-centred black button in the brass wall-plate a foot from the woman’s elbow. The table light shed its brilliance on the white velvet table-pad.

“The Thousand Facets of Fire is the most wonderful ruby I have ever seen or handled,” declared Osmuhn enthusiastically, as he stepped behind her to twirl the two combination knobs on the door of the steel safe that was imbedded in the concrete wall. “Mr. Norvel heard of it when he was in Europe last year. He negotiated for months, and sent it to me just ten days before his horrible accident in France.”

“The accident left him a hopeless cripple, did it not?” she asked politely, turning in her chair so that she could see the deft fingers at work with the combination.

“Yes.” Osmuhn’s voice was sad. “He must walk with canes always.” Then a note of pride came to his voice. “But he refuses to give up. He is here every day, and I need him. In the twenty-eight years he has been with me he has learned everything I know about stones, and to-day he is probably the greatest living expert on diamonds.”

The round safe-door swung open, and, with a wholly unconscious flourish, he placed the big jewel-case before her and snapped back the lid.

A thousand blood-red flashes of living fire seemed to leap upward, battling with their myriad sword points against the soft glow of the electric--then the whole room seemed lighted only by the wonderful ruby in its velvet case.

As great music hypnotises, intoxicates to sense-numbing silence, so the refraction of the ruby’s million rays held the woman spellbound. She could not speak, nor move; her eyes were held by the lights that danced and flashed from the thousand facets--now invitingly, now mockingly, but always sure of their victory.

Osmuhn’s eyes, under their bushy brows, gleamed brighter--they understood. At his first sight of the jewel he, too, had known why men had risked their lives and why women had bartered their souls and bodies for the Thousand Facets of Fire.

“Is it not well named?” he asked.

His words seemed to break the spell that bound her. She nodded as one in a dream, and put forth her fingers almost timidly to touch the flashing stone.

“Take it in your hand, feel the weight of it.” He turned away, walked the length of the room. When he came back she was holding the ruby on her palm. The velvet box had been thrust aside, and in her eyes was almost childish wonder that a thing so full of fire could be so cold.

With a quiet nod of satisfaction Osmuhn turned away again--it was no time for words. Mrs. Marle would want to speak in a moment; until then----. He went behind her, and bent down to the safe, his hands idly rearranging the small boxes that held the most valuable jewels in his possession; jewels that were never allowed to go from the specially-constructed safe in the specially-constructed room, unless his hands removed them.

The woman still gazed at the jewel. A wavering streamer of mist seemed to hover over it for an instant--or was it a picture the jewel had conjured in her brain? As she watched, immovable, it spread over her hand, then over the whole table--an impenetrable veil of filmy nothing. She lifted her unoccupied hand to brush her eyes.

A gasping noise came from her throat. The man behind her seemed to sense something wrong in the very sound. He wheeled, the hand that had been on the safe-door clanged it shut.

“It’s gone!” she choked. “_Gone!_”

The mist had vanished as it had come. The hand that never moved; the hand that had held the ruby was empty!