“Heard the news?” he demanded quickly.

“No!  What is it?” Weiss asked.

“Phineas Duge is in the city.  He was going into Harrigold’s as I came out.  I tried to speak to him, but he cut me dead.  They say that he has sent for all his brokers, and is coming on this market heavily!”

“Then his illness was a fake after all,” Weiss declared.  “We can’t stand this, though.  I’ll get on to his office.  We must speak to him.”

He gave some rapid instructions to a clerk whom he had summoned, then took a printed sheet of prices from a machine which ticked at his elbow.

“If it’s war,” he muttered, “we shall have to fight hard, but what I don’t understand is why he wants to break with us.”

The clerk re-entered the room.

“There is a young lady here,” he said, “who wishes to speak to you, sir.”

“Name?” Weiss demanded curtly.

“Miss Virginia Longworth,” he answered.

Weiss and Littleson exchanged quick glances.

“Show her in at once,” Weiss ordered.  “What do you suppose this means?” he asked, turning to Littleson.

The young man had no time to reply.  Almost immediately Virginia was ushered into the office.  She was very pale, and there were dark lines under her eyes.  Stephen Weiss rose at once, and Littleson hastened to offer her a chair, but she took no notice.  They could see that she was agitated, and she seemed to find some difficulty in commencing what she had to say.

“What can I have the pleasure of doing for you, Miss Longworth?” Weiss asked.  “I hope that you have come to tell me—­”

“I have come to tell you that you are both thieves!” she interrupted.  “If you do not give me back that paper, I don’t care what my uncle says, I shall go to the police station.”

The men exchanged swift glances.  Littleson suddenly started.  He drew Weiss on one side.

“Stella has got it,” he whispered, in a tone of triumph.  “Get rid of this girl easily.  That is what she must mean.”

Weiss turned round and faced her.

“My dear Miss Longworth,” he said, “a thief I would have been if I could have found the chance, and a thief I would have made of you if you would have stolen that paper for me, because I considered that it belonged to us, and we had a moral right to take it.  But the fact remains that we have not got it.  When I heard your name announced I hoped that you had brought it to us.”

“You have not got it!” she repeated contemptuously.

“Upon my honour we have not!” Littleson declared.

“Perhaps,” she said, turning to him, “you will deny that it was you who incited my cousin Stella to come and rob her own father?”

The two men exchanged swift glances.  Littleson’s surmise had been correct then.  It was Stella who had succeeded where the others had failed!

“We know nothing of Miss Duge,” Littleson said, “nor have we received the paper nor any news of it.  If Miss Stella has stolen it, she has not brought it to us.  That is all I can tell you.”