The Laughing Cavalier by Baroness Orczy (best 7 inch ereader .TXT) 📕

Isaje?” queried the timorous voice, “he hath gone home for the night. His house is situate⁠ ⁠…”

“His house shall be verdommt if you parley any longer behind that grating, man; aye and this shop too, for if you do not open that door immediately I will break the windows, for my business brooks no delay, and I must needs get into this house as best I can.”

But despite his threat, no attempt was made to draw the bolts from within, whereupon Diogenes, whose stock of patience was never inexhaustible, and who moreover wished to give value to his threats, took a step backwards and then with a sudden spring threw his whole weight against the oak door; a proceeding which caused the tumble-down house to shake upon its foundations.

The next moment the timorous voice was once more raised behind the judas:

“Kindly have patience, gentle sir. I was even now about to open.”

Diogenes heard the drawing of more than one heavy bolt, then the grinding of a key in the lock; after which the door was partially opened, and a thin face with hooked nose and sunken cheeks appeared in the aperture.

To imagine that any man could hold a door against Diogenes when he desired to pass through it was to be totally unacquainted with that philosopher. He certainly would have smashed in the door of Ben Isaje’s abode with his powerful shoulders had it been kept persistently closed against him; but as it was, he only gave it a push with his knee, flinging it wide open thereby, and then stepped coolly into the narrow ill-lighted passage.

There was a blank wall each side of him, and a door lower down on the left; straight ahead a narrow ladder-like staircase was half lost in the gloom.

The anxious janitor had hastily retreated down the dark passage at sight of the towering figure which now confronted him, and in his fright he must have dropped the lantern which apparently he had been carrying. There it lay on the floor, fortunately still alight, so Diogenes picked it up and holding it high above his head he took a closer survey of the man.

“You are Ben Isaje,” he said calmly, as he held the light close to the man’s face and then let it travel over his spare and shrinking form; “your dress and nose do proclaim your race. Then pray tell me what was the use of making such a to-do, seeing that I had business with you and therefore meant to come in.⁠ ⁠… Now take this lantern and lock your front door again, after which you had best conduct me to a room where I can talk privately with you.”

No doubt there was something in the stranger’s face and attitude which reassured the Jew, for after a few more seconds of anxious hesitancy, he did take the lantern from Diogenes’ hand and then shuffled back to the street door which he once more carefully barred and bolted.

After which with the aid of one of the many large keys which hung by a steel chain in a bunch from his waist, he unlocked the door in the passage and standing a little to one side he bade his belated guest walk in.

XXVIII Check

The room into which Diogenes now stepped looked at first sight to be almost devoid of furniture: it was only when the Jew had entered and placed the lantern down upon a wooden table at one end of the room that the philosopher realized where he was.

The dark low walls showed themselves lined with solid oak chests and presses, each with massive hinges and locks, rusty and covered with dust, but firm enough to withstand for many an hour the depredations of thieves. Ben Isaje was obviously a jeweller by trade and this was the shop where he kept his precious goods: no wonder then that he looked with obvious fear on his belated visitor with the powerful shoulders and vigorous limbs, seeing that to all appearances he was at the moment alone in the house.

Like all jewellers settled in the Dutch cities at this time Ben Isaje carried on a number of other trades⁠—some of which were perhaps not altogether avowable. He acted as banker and moneylender, and general go-between in financial transactions, some of which had political aims. Discretion was of necessity his chief stock-in-trade, and his small cargo of scruples he had thrown overboard long ago.

He was as ready now to finance a conspiracy against the Stadtholder as against the Archduchess or Don John, provided he saw huge monetary profits in the deal, and received bribes with a calm conscience both from Maurice of Nassau and the Lord of Stoutenburg. But once he was liberally paid he would hold to his bond: it was only by keeping the good graces of all political parties that he remained free from molestation.

Diogenes had known exactly what to expect when Nicolaes Beresteyn gave him the letter and bond to present to Ben Isaje; he was, therefore, not surprised in the least when he saw before him the true type of financial agent whom already he had met more than once in his life before.

Ben Isaje, who was the depositary of vast sums of money placed in his house by clients of substance and of note, wore a long, greasy kaftan of black cloth, which was worn threadbare at the elbows and the knees, and the shop wherein he transacted business both for governments and private individuals which oft times involved several million guilders, had only a few very rickety chairs, one or two tables blackened with dirt and age, and a piece of tattered carpet in one corner as sole expressions of comfort.

But all these facts were of course none of Diogenes’ business. At his host’s invitation he had sat down on one of the rickety chairs and then proceeded to extract some papers from out the inner lining of his doublet.

“It would save time,”