Phineas Duge carefully drew off his gloves and laid them inside his hat. He declined a chair, however, and stood facing the man whom he had come to visit.
"I scarcely understand, Mr. Duge," Vine said, "what you can possibly want with me. Our former relations have scarcely been of so pleasant a nature as to render a visit from you easily to be understood."
"I will admit," Phineas Duge said coldly, "that personally I have no interest or any concern in you. But nevertheless there are two matters which must bring us together so far as the holding of a few minutes' conversation can count. In the first place, I want to know whether you are going to make use of the paper which my daughter stole, and which you feloniously received? In the second place, I want to know how much or what you will accept for the return of that paper? And thirdly, I want to know what the devil you have done with my niece, Virginia Longworth?"
"Your niece, Virginia Longworth," Norris Vine repeated thoughtfully.
"Are you in earnest, sir?"
"I am in earnest," Duge answered.
"Then I have done nothing with her," Vine declared. "I do not know where she is. I do not know why you should ask me?"
"You lie!" Phineas Duge said quietly. "But let that go. It is your trade, of course. I came here to give you the opportunity of answering questions. I scarcely expected that such direct methods would appeal to you."
"Your methods, at any rate," Vine said, moving toward the bell, "are not such as I am disposed to permit in my own apartment."
Phineas Duge stretched out his hand.
"One moment, Mr. Vine," he said.