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But Phineas Duge already knew all about it. He smiled when Virginia brought him her news. "They must be desperate indeed," he said, "to run such risks. However, I suppose they have bought these fellows' silence safe enough." The midday papers were full of the attempted burglary. Before the magistrates, the man who had been apprehended said not a word.
She had the feeling somehow that things had been happening in that little room, of which she and Phineas Duge were now the only occupants. "Virginia!" She turned her head suddenly. Her uncle was looking at her. His eyes had lost their far-away gleam, and were fixed upon hers, cold and expressionless. "Yes, uncle!" she said. "I want to talk to you for a few moments," he said.
"I tell you we have come pretty near being scared the last week or so. I feel a lot more comfortable fighting with you in the ranks." Phineas Duge forbore from all recrimination. He filled Higgins' glass and his own. He could afford to be magnanimous. He had fought them one against four, and they had come to him for mercy! "We will drink," he said, "to the new President.
He is going to ask Deane's advice. At any moment the thing may come flashing back. We may wake up to find a copy of that document in black and white in every paper in New York State." "You have offered him a reasonable sum for it," Phineas Duge said, "and he declines to sell. Very well, what do you propose to do?" "It was stolen from you," Weiss said.
"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 will meet you with my broker and lawyer at ten o'clock at your office, Weiss, and if I make up my mind to go to Europe, my luggage will be on the steamer by that time. On the whole I might tell you that I am inclined to go." Weiss drew a great breath of relief. He poured himself out a glass of wine and drank it off. "It's good to hear you say that, Duge," he said.
"My dear lady," Phineas Duge said, "the conventions in your wonderful country are not things to be trifled with. Somehow or other they will assert themselves.
"'Duge the Infallible' I heard a stockbroker once call you." Duge smiled. "Well," he said, "if I remember your politics, and I think I do, you are going to try and take away that title from me. You are amongst those, are you not, who have set themselves to dam the torrents?" Deane shook his head a little stiffly. "In the diplomatic service," he said, "we have no politics."
It was a fair weapon, and you had a right to it, but now we are united again you can see, of course, that although your name isn't on it, it would practically mean ruin to our interests if the other side once got hold of it." "If I had that paper," Duge said quietly, "I would tear it up at this moment, but I regret to say that I have not. It was stolen during my illness."
My own name does not appear upon it. However, my anxiety to discover its whereabouts is none the less real." "You have seen Mr. Vine?" Mr. Dean asked. "I have," Duge answered, "and I have come to the conclusion, for which I have some grounds, that the document is not for the moment in his possession. I have therefore asked myself the question to whom on this side would he be likely to entrust it?
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