The AvengerOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Avenger
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Mystery fiction
"You have your certificate?" he asked sharply. "You were married properly
in a church?"
She nodded. "We were married at Dulwich Parish Church," she answered. "It
was nearly a year ago."
"Very well," Sydney Barnes said. "It is lucky that I am here to look
after your interests. We divide everything, you know."
She seemed about to cry.
"I want Augustus," she murmured. "He was very good to me."
"Look here," he said, "Augustus always seemed to have plenty of oof,
didn't he?"
She nodded.
"He was very generous with it, too," she declared. "He gave me lots and
lots of beautiful things."
His eyes travelled over her hands and neck, destitute of ornaments.
"Where are they?" he asked sharply.
"I've had to sell them," she answered, "to get along at all, I hated to,
but I couldn't starve."
The young man's face darkened.
"Come," he said. "We'd better have no secrets from one another. You know
how to get at his money, I suppose?"
She shook her head.
"Indeed I don't know anything about it," she declared.
"You must know where it came from," he persisted.
"I don't," she repeated. "Indeed I don't. He never told me and I never
asked him. I understood that he had made it in South Africa."
Sydney Barnes wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Look here," he said in a voice which, notwithstanding his efforts to
control it, trembled a little, "this is a very serious matter for us. You
don't want to go back to the refreshment bar again, do you?"
"I don't care what I do," she answered dully. "I hated that, but I shall
hate everything now that he is gone."
"It's only for a day or two you'll feel like that," he declared. "We've
got a right, you and I, to whatever Morry left behind, and whatever
happens I mean to have my share. Look around you!"
It was not an inspiring spectacle. The room was dirty, and almost devoid
of furniture.
"All that I've had out of it so far," he declared, "is free quarters
here. The rent's paid up to the end of the year. I've had to sell the
furniture bit by bit to keep alive. It was a cheap lot, cheap and showy,
and it fetched jolly little. Morry always did like to have things that
looked worth more than he gave for them. Even his jewellery was
sham--every bally bit of it. There wasn't a real pearl or a real diamond
amongst the lot. But there's no doubt about the money. I've had the
bank-book. He was worth a cool two thousand a year was Morry--that's
five hundred each quarter day, you understand, and somewhere or other
there must be the bonds or securities from which this money came. He
never kept them here. I'll swear to that. Therefore they must be
somewhere that you ought to know about."
She nodded wearily.
"Very likely," she said. "I have a parcel he gave me to take care of."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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