Page:Oppenheim--The cinema murder.djvu/121

Rh "Five hundred dollars!" Martha sighed. "Don't seem to me just now that there's much in the world you couldn't buy with five hundred dollars."

"Well, what did you tell Mr. Felix Martin?"

"Oh, I lied, sure! He'd found out the date you came into your rooms here—the day this man Romilly disappeared—but I told him that I'd known you and done work for you before then—long enough before the Elletania ever reached New York. That kind of stumped him."

"Why did you do that?" Philip demanded.

"Dunno," the girl replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. "Just a fancy. I guessed you wouldn't want him poking around."

"But supposing I had been Douglas Romilly, you might at least have divided the reward," he reminded her.

"There's money and money," Martha declared. "We spoke of that the other day. Stella's got money—now. Well, she's welcome. My time will come, I suppose, but if I can't have clean money, I haven't made up my mind yet whether I wouldn't rather try the Hudson on a foggy morning."

"Well, I am not Douglas Romilly, anyway," Philip announced.

She looked up at him almost for the first time since her entrance.

"I kind of thought you were," she admitted. "I might have saved my lies, then."

He shook his head.

"You have probably saved me from more than you know of," he replied. "I am not Douglas Romilly, but—"