Edgar Wallace

“ They charge twenty guineas a week for a room, and you're lucky if you get in."
Ravini thought on this, fondling his chin.
"This is a free country," he said. "What's to stop me staying at—what's the name of the place? Larmes Keep? I've never taken 'No' from a woman in my life. Half the time they don't mean it. Anyway, she's got to give me a room if I've the money to pay for it."
"Suppose she writes to Reeder?" suggested Lew.
"Let her write!" Ravini's tone was defiant, whatever might be the state of his mind. "What'll he have on me? It's no crime to pay your rent at a boarding house, is it?" ”

“ Reeder sat at his ease, wearing a pair of grotesquely painted velvet slippers, a cigarette hanging from his lips, and explained to the detective-inspector who had called in the early hours of the morning his reason for adopting a certain conclusion.
"I do not imagine for one moment that it was my friend Ravini. He is less subtle, in addition to which he has little or no intelligence. You will find that this coup has been planned for months, though it has only been put into execution to-day. No. 307 Bennett Street is the property of an old gentleman who spends most of his time in Italy. ”

“ If I want anything I go after it, and I keep going after it till I get it! I've never seen anybody like her. Quite the lady and everything, and what she can see in an old such-and-such like Reeder licks me!"
"Women are funny," mused Lew. ”