The New TenantOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The New Tenant
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories
Once more Mr. Benjamin Levy trod the pavement of Piccadilly and the
Strand, and was welcomed back again amongst his set with acclamations
and many noisy greetings. One more unit was added to the vast army of
London youth who pass their time in the fascinating but ignominious
occupation of aping the "man about town" in a very small way. And
Benjamin Levy, strange to say, was happy, for the life suited him
exactly. He had brains and money enough to be regarded, in a certain
measure, as one of their leaders, and to be looked up to as a power
amongst them, and it was a weakness of his disposition that he preferred
this to being a nonentity of a higher type.
Certain of his particular cronies had organized a small supper at a
middle-class restaurant on the previous night in honor of his return,
and as a natural consequence Mr. Benjamin Levy walked down the Strand at
about half-past ten on the following morning, on his way to the office,
a little paler than usual, and with a suspicion of a "head." It would
have suited him very much better to have remained in bed for an hour or
two, and risen towards afternoon; but business was business, and it must
be attended to. So he tried to banish the effects of the bad champagne
imbibed on the previous night with a stiff glass of brandy and soda, and
lighting a fresh cigarette, turned off the Strand and made his way to
the office.
"Guv'nor in?" he inquired of the solitary clerk, a sharp-featured,
Jewish-looking young man, who was sitting on a high stool with his hands
in his pockets, apparently unburdened with stress of work.
The youth nodded, and jerked his head backwards.
"Something's up!" he remarked laconically; "he's on the rampage."
Mr. Benjamin passed on without remark, and entered the inner office. It
was easy indeed to see that something had gone wrong. Mr. Levy was
walking restlessly up and down, with a newspaper in his hand, and
muttering to himself in a disturbed manner. At his son's entrance he
stopped short, and looked at him angrily.
"Benjamin, my boy," he said, rustling the paper before his face, "you've
been made a fool of. Scotland Yard have licked us!"
Mr. Benjamin yawned, and tilted his hat on the back of his head.
"What's up now, guv'nor?" he inquired.
His father laid the paper flat on the desk before him, and pointed to
one of the paragraphs with trembling fingers.
"Read that! Read that!" he exclaimed.
His obedient son glanced at it, and pushed the paper away in contempt.
"Stale news," he remarked shortly.
Mr. Levy looked at him amazed.
"Maybe you knew all about it," he remarked a little sarcastically.
"May be I did," was the cool reply.
"And yet you have let them be beforehand with us!" Mr. Levy exclaimed
angrily. "If this was to be done, why did we not do it?"
"Because we've got a better game to play," answered the junior partner
of the firm, with a hardly restrained air of triumph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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