"You and I have never come up against one another before.

I didn't like the life you led in New York ten years ago, or your friends, but you've suffered nothing through me." "If I let you go," once more came the man's voice, "I know very well in what chair I shall be sitting before a month has passed.

I am James Macdougal, Mr.Sanford Quest, and I have got the Ashleigh diamonds, and I have settled an old grudge, if not of my own, of one greater than you.
That's all.

A pleasant night to you!" The door went down with a bang.

Faintly, as though, indeed, the footsteps belonged to some other world, Sanford Quest heard the two leave the house.
Then silence.
"A perfect oubliette," he remarked to himself, as he held a match over his head a moment or two later, "built for the purpose.