Читать книгу The Ostrekoff Jewels онлайн

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"Elisaveta's address is in the letter with the jewels," the Prince reminded him. "She is a very bad correspondent, I'm sorry to say, but the last time we heard from her she was in a studio in Florence. You will also find the address of her London bankers."

"There's only one thing that bothers me at all," Wilfred Haven remarked, after a moment's anxious pause. "Won't it make it all the worse for you and the Princess when they find that the jewels are gone?"

The Prince unbarred the door. The grip of his fingers brought tears to the eyes of his departing visitor.

"Nothing can make the position worse for either of us," was the grave reply. "I know that our death warrants were signed this afternoon. They will come for us when they have time. What they will find, however, will be our bodies. That is arranged."

Fifty yards down a side street, dominated by the gigantic, encircling wall of the Ostrekoff Palace, followed by one dash across the broader thoroughfare, and Wilfred Haven would have reached the comparative sanctity of the Embassy and his own quarters. He strode along at a rapid pace, his hands in his overcoat pockets, his hat pushed back on his head as though to disclose his Saxon nationality, his eyes everywhere on the lookout for danger. Ahead of him, the sky was red with the reflection of a hundred fires, the air he breathed was rank with the smell of burning wood and masonry. In the not very far distance, unseen men and women were screaming and shouting—a constant wave of discordant sound like the baying of an innumerable pack of hellhounds. He shivered as he pushed onwards, desperately anxious to escape from the hideous clamour. The rioting had been in progress for almost a week, but the horrors seemed to grow rather than lessen. Then, in the middle of the boulevard, within sight of his destination, he was brought to a sudden standstill. The blood seemed to rush to his head. Opposite to him was the tall, narrow house with the flaming windows, and from behind the lower one, where the lights had been extinguished, came floating out once more half-stifled moans of agony and appeal, the cry of that still tortured woman....