Page:Oppenheim--The cinema murder.djvu/231

Rh Philip's confused impressions of the rest of the place, was almost plainly furnished. There was a small oak sideboard, upon which was set out whisky and soda and cigars; a great desk, covered with papers, before which a young man was seated; two telephone instruments and a phonograph. The walls were lined with books. The room itself was long and narrow. Power turned to the young man.

"You can go to bed, George," he ordered. "Disconnect the telephones."

The young man gathered up some papers, locked the desk in silence, bowed to his employer, and left the room without a word. Power waited until the door was closed. Then he stood up with his back to the fireplace and pointed to a chair.

"You can sit, if you like," he invited. "Drink or smoke if you want to. You're welcome."

"Thank you," Philip replied. "I'd rather stand."

"You don't want even to take a chair in my house, I suppose," Mr. Sylvanus Power went on mockingly, "or drink my whisky or smoke my cigars, eh?"

"From the little I have seen of you," Philip confessed, "my inclinations are certainly against accepting any hospitality at your hands."

"That's a play-writing trick, I suppose," Sylvanus Power sneered, "stringing out your sentences as pat as butter. It's not my way. There's the truth always at the back of my head, and the words ready to fit it, but they come as they please."

"I seem to have noticed that," Philip observed.

"What sort of a man are you, anyway?" the other demanded, his heavy eyebrows suddenly lower-