“I see nothing to discuss.”
“But I demand an explanation. Some of this property is mine,” he blustered. “It was in your charge. If it has been stolen——”
“Come, then,” I said. “I will talk it over.” I saw that if I refused to go with him there certainly would be a scene, with, possibly, disastrous consequences.
He led me into the office where I had heard him talking with Jakoub. There was a sort of sloping counter along the wall under the window with papers and big account books on it, and we both stood by this facing each other. Van Ermengen’s thin, knife-like face was eager and malevolent. It would have frightened me once, I reflected, but I had faced him before and had the better of him. Now I felt a kind of queer pleasure in the idea of conflict with him.
“I will have this cleared up at once,” he began.
“Certainly, that will be best,” I assented.
“I will not be played fast and loose with.”
“Not by me, Mr. Van Ermengen, certainly.”
“It is by you!” he insisted. “You speak of your partners. They are my partners. But I do not know you. I have no arrangement with you.”
“None at all, except that I am responsible for settling my bill. I think under the circumstances I had better settle it now and change my quarters.”