Booksellers and bookselling -- Fiction; Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
Aubrey's humour was far removed from that of the happy bookseller. In
the first place, Roger was sitting in the smoker, and as Aubrey feared
to enter the same car for fear of being observed, he had to do without
his pipe. He took the foremost seat in the second coach, and peering
occasionally through the glass doors he could see the bald poll of his
quarry wreathed with exhalements of cheap havana. Secondly, he had
hoped to see Weintraub on the same train, but though he had tarried at
the train-gate until the last moment, the German had not appeared. He
had concluded from Weintraub's words the night before that druggist and
bookseller were bound on a joint errand. Apparently he was mistaken.
He bit his nails, glowered at the flying landscape, and revolved many
grievous fancies in his prickling bosom. Among other discontents was
the knowledge that he did not have enough money with him to pay his
fare back to New York, and he would either have to borrow from someone
in Philadelphia or wire to his office for funds. He had not
anticipated, when setting out upon this series of adventures, that it
would prove so costly.
The train drew into Broad Street station at ten o'clock, and Aubrey
followed the bookseller through the bustling terminus and round the
City Hall plaza. Mifflin seemed to know his way, but Philadelphia was
comparatively strange to the Grey-Matter solicitor. He was quite
surprised at the impressive vista of South Broad Street, and chagrined
to find people jostling him on the crowded pavement as though they did
not know he had just come from New York.
Roger turned in at a huge office building on Broad Street and took an
express elevator. Aubrey did not dare follow him into the car, so he
waited in the lobby. He learned from the starter that there was a
second tier of elevators on the other side of the building, so he
tipped a boy a quarter to watch them for him, describing Mifflin so
accurately that he could not be missed. By this time Aubrey was in a
thoroughly ill temper, and enjoyed quarrelling with the starter on the
subject of indicators for showing the position of the elevators.
Observing that in this building the indicators were glass tubes in
which the movement of the car was traced by a rising or falling column
of coloured fluid, Aubrey remarked testily that that old-fashioned
stunt had long been abandoned in New York. The starter retorted that
New York was only two hours away if he liked it better. This argument
helped to fleet the time rapidly.
Meanwhile Roger, with the pleasurable sensation of one who expects to
be received as a distinguished visitor from out of town, had entered
the luxurious suite of Mr. Oldham. A young lady, rather too
transparently shirtwaisted but fair to look upon, asked what she could
do for him.
"I want to see Mr. Oldham."
"What name shall I say?"
"Mr. Mifflin--Mr. Mifflin of Brooklyn."
"Have you an appointment?"
"Yes."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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