Patroon van Volkenberg

by Henry Thew Stephenson

I had hardly suggested the plan before an objection occurred to me. Could he ever be made to believe all this? Louis, however, combated my fears. He had a bit of information that he had not yet communicated to me. He had chosen the men who were to take part in the attack. They had all come to the meeting place masked, and the patroon had not stopped to ask who his henchman had selected for the task. So, except in the case of Barker, whom he had brought himself, the patroon was ignorant of the men who had helped him. It was impossible, therefore, for him to make inquiries among his men in case he suspected the truth of Louis’s tale.

There was still another point in our favor. Miriam had not forgot her promise to me, but her father asked her such shrewd questions as to what had happened that she fully believed I had already told him my adventure. Upon that, with no intention but to emphasize what she supposed I had already said, she talked over all she knew about me. Louis’s account, coming after this, seemed mere corroboration. The dwarf had a cunning tongue, and at last succeeded in allaying all his master’s suspicions. Then I was sent for.

“Ah, Vincent,” said the patroon when I entered, “I have been ill since yesterday, and Louis tells me that you have been hard used yourself. Tell me all about it.”

He made me go through with every detail from the beginning to the end. I could see the nervous anxiety in his face, and I could guess the drift of his thoughts when he questioned me concerning the appearance of my assailants.

He was utterly confused by the discrepancy between what he remembered and what he had been told. Yet he often recovered from these attacks with wild memories in his mind, and he could not tell whether this was one of them or not. To tell his suspicions truly, would be to say that he had meditated my murder. Patroon Van Volkenberg was too wary a man to disclose his inmost thoughts.

I knew all this was passing in his mind, and that in my replies about the appearance of my assailants, he hoped to recognize himself or Louis. But I took care of that and managed to allay his suspicions for the moment, though what his future plans were I never knew.

“We must complain of this treatment to the Earl,” he said. “Now, tell me what happened before, when you rode to the city with my daughter. How did you fare? What did you hear? Did she learn anything of what is said of me in Yorke?”

I told him many of the details of our ride, especially about the meeting with the Earl, but he was not satisfied.

“Did you hear nothing as you rode along? Nothing of what is said of me?”

“Yes, something,” I answered slowly. “But it was not about you. I heard rumors, but they seemed to have slight significance. While we were standing on the Slip, two of the gray coated soldiers—”