"Of course you mean that if I don't pay you, you will go to them?"
"Not at all, sir," he cried, with a fine show of indignation. "I know these people to be scoundrels; they have treated me villainously; I have merely come to warn you. You can act upon it or not, of course. That is entirely a matter for you;" and to my surprise he got up without asking a mark for his news. "I have done all that I can do by coming."
"I don't know anything about the affair, as I told you, but I'm very much obliged to you;" and I took out my pocket-book as a hint.
"Pardon me, sir," he exclaimed, flourishing his hands as if the sight of banknotes was an abomination, and shaking his head vigorously. "I could not think of accepting any money after what you have said. Good afternoon;" and he was still gesturing at the shock of the idea when he left the flat.
This was so extremely unnatural for a German Jew that it prompted suspicion. He had probably meant this pecuniary shyness as a startling proof of his honesty of purpose and general integrity.
That wasn't the effect it produced, however. It rather served to confirm the previous thought that von Erstein had sent him to scare me. That the brute would do almost anything to see my back was a certainty, of course; and then an odd notion flitted across my thoughts.
Whether it would be worth while to appear to tumble into the trap; go to him in the very dickens of a funk; make him believe my one object was to fly the country, in disguise, to Holland preferably; and get him to procure the necessary permit, etc. The possibility of hoisting him with his own petard looked good; and the thought of his chagrin when he discovered that he had helped me to take Nessa out of his clutches made the scheme positively alluring.
That it could be done, there was little doubt, and equally none that he could get the necessary papers; but the price to pay for them was too stiff. To have anything to do with such a mongrel was unthinkable so long as any other course was open; so I abandoned it until every other means had been tried.
The pressing question now was the result of Nessa's interview with von Gratzen, and I set off for the Karlstrasse to hear about it. This time the door was opened by the girl Marie; so I concluded that Gretchen had either bolted or been sent about her business as the result of the previous day's affair. Marie told me no one was at home and that Rosa had gone with Nessa and Lottchen to the Thiergarten.
I soon found them; and Rosa played the part of the good fairy and kept the child with her while Nessa told me the news.