"Gott soll hüten!" Wolfson exclaimed.
"No, indeed, there will be no recourse to the vendor," Feldman replied. "The doctrine of caveat emptor would apply in that case, too."
Wolfson was effusive in his thanks and hastened to return to his recently acquired jewellery business.
When he left the elevated station on the way to the store Wolfson glanced around him for the haggard features and the attenuated form of Rubin, but without avail. He unlocked the store door and immediately made a thorough examination of the stock and fixtures. Nothing was missing, and, after consulting the figures furnished him by Borrochson, he succeeded in opening the combination lock of the Rubin safe. He took out the top drawer on the left-hand side and scrutinized it carefully. No one could have detected the secret slide, which was now replaced. Nevertheless, he found that, unless the drawer was handled with the utmost delicacy, the secret slide invariably jerked out, for the slightest jar released the controlling spring.
"The wonder is to me," he muttered, "not that Daiches and me discovered it, but that Borrochson shouldn't have found it out."
He pondered over the situation for several minutes. If Rubin came in to buy the safe, he argued, the first thing he would do would be to look at the drawer, and in his feverish haste the slide would be bound to open. Once Rubin saw that the diamonds were missing the jig would be up and he, Wolfson, would be stuck with the safe. At length he slapped his thigh.
"I got it," he said to himself. "I'll shut the safe and lock it and claim I ain't got the combination. Borrochson must have changed it when he bought it at Rubin's bankruptcy sale, and so Rubin couldn't open it without an expert, anyhow. And I wouldn't bargain with Rubin, neither. He wants the safe for five hundred dollars; he shall have it."
After emptying it of all its contents he closed and locked the safe and sat down to await developments. Four o'clock struck from the clock tower on Madison Square and Rubin had not arrived yet, so Wolfson lit a fresh cigar and beguiled his vigil with a paper he had found under the safe.
"I guess I'll lock up and go to my dinner," he said at eight o'clock. "To-morrow is another day, and if he don't come to-day he'll come to-morrow yet."
Half an hour later he sat at a table in Glauber's restaurant on Grand Street, consuming a dish of paprika schnitzel. At the side of his plate a cup of fragrant coffee steamed into his nostrils and he felt at peace with all the world. After the first cup he grew quite mollified toward Borrochson, and it was even in his heart to pity Rubin both for the loss he had sustained and the disappointment he was still to suffer. As for Daiches, he had completely passed out of Wolfson's mind, but just as pride goeth before a fall, ease is often the immediate predecessor of discomfort.