Again the shrug, accompanied by a deprecatory grimace: "That is difficult to say. No explanation was made me. My instructions were simply to keep this appointment as usual, but to advise you it will be impossible for my principals to continue their relations with you as long as your affairs remain in their present status."
"Their present status?" Lanyard repeated. "What does that mean, if you please?"
"I cannot say monsieur. I can only repeat that which was said to me."
After a moment Lanyard rose, took the box, and replaced it in his pocket. "Very well," he said quietly. "Your principals, of course, understand that this action on their part definitely ends our relations, rather than merely interrupts them at their whim?"
"I am desolated, monsieur, but … one must assume that they have considered everything. You understand, it is a matter in which I am wholly without discretion, I trust?"
"O quite!" Lanyard assented carelessly. He held out his hand.
"Good-bye, my friend."
The Jew shook hands warmly.
"Good night, monsieur—and the best of luck!"
There was significance in his last words that Lanyard did not trouble to analyze. Beyond doubt, the man knew more than he dared admit. And the adventurer told himself he could shrewdly surmise most of that which the other had felt constrained to leave unspoken.
Pressure from some quarter had been brought to bear upon that eminently respectable firm of jewel dealers in Amsterdam to induce them to discontinue their clandestine relations with the Lone Wolf, profitable though these must have been.