Aaron Rodd, DivinerOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
Aaron Rodd, Diviner
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories, English; English fiction -- 20th century
They made a very deliberate progress along the crowded street until
they reached the cinema palace. Harvey Grimm paid for sixpenny seats,
and sat arm in arm with Rosa in an atmosphere which seemed to reek of
fried fish, rank tobacco smoke and cheap scent. His left hand held her
purposely ungloved fingers inside her muff. His right hand toyed with
forty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds thrust into common settings
which sometimes pricked his fingers. When the performance was over
they left, still arm in arm.
"Rosa," he announced, "to-night I give you a treat. I tell you a
secret as well. I am leaving your grandfather's. I have a much better
place. I have saved money, too."
She clung to him in unrestrained affection.
"How much?" she whispered.
"Never mind," he replied. "Maybe three hundred pounds, maybe more.
To-night I have the spending fit upon me. We take a taxicab and we
drive together up west. I give you some supper at the Monico."
She drew a little breath of delight. Suddenly she was serious.
"Let us go by the Tube," she suggested. "We shall save three shillings
towards the supper. You can buy me a bottle of scent with that."
He laughed and handed her into the taxicab which he had already hailed,
directed the man to drive to the Monico and stepped in by her side.
"I can buy you a bottle of scent all right," he assured her, "and in
here, don't you see, we are quite alone, Rosa. In the restaurant there
will be people."
"We might have had the taxicab home," she sighed, her head upon his
shoulder.
"Listen," he explained, "after supper I pay for your taxicab, if you
will, but I must leave you. I have to see a man on business at
half-past eleven. It is my new employer."
For a moment she drew away and looked at him doubtfully.
"On business at half-past eleven?" she repeated. "What is your
business? Are you an honest man, Ed. Levy, eh?"
"I am as honest as your grandfather," he answered, "and listen, I am
clever. I can make money--make it quickly."
She sat a little closer to him and with her own fingers drew his arm
around her waist.
"Shall we be married soon?" she whispered. "Grandfather must die some
day soon, and there's no one knows how much money he's got. David and
I will have it all."
"We'll talk about that," Harvey Grimm promised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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