Greed
Summary
Eve Leslie, a restless flapper with eyes like a gambler’s watch-face, discovers the ticker-tape carnival of 1920s Wall Street and mistakes its epileptic spasms for destiny; she plunges her modest dowry into phantom copper, rides the crest of paper millions, then tumbles into a trough of margin-call nightmares. Adam Moore, her wary fiancé, trails behind like a conscience in spats, powerless to flag the runaway locomotive of her appetite. Enter Alma, once the clandestine queen of bucket-shop intrigues, now masquerading as a penitent socialite under the glare of Park Avenue chandeliers. Denton, a velvet-gloved predator with indictments snapping at his heels, slithers back into Alma’s life brandishing old indictments like love letters; when she spurns his matrimonial blackmail, he pivots to Eve, whose greed has already chewed holes in her scruples. At a bacchanal where champagne spurts from marble cherubs, the revelers surrender wallets and wedding rings, pairing off with a lone dime and a dare to mine Manhattan for midnight adventure—an absurdist ritual that feels lifted from a Buñuel reel. Denton drags Eve through Bowery opium dives and Harlem basement casinos, crystallizing her ruin in neon; Alma and Adam burst in too late, gunshots fracture the orchestra, Denton sprawls across the parquet, Alma’s mind splinters, Adam is clapped into the death house, and Eve is left clutching the hollow coin of her remorse. Only when Alma, catatonic in a rose-covered sanitarium, flickers back to sanity for a heartbeat, does the scaffold halt; Adam walks free, gaunt and parchment-pale, into Eve’s arms—her pupils no longer reflecting ticker symbols but the quiet dusk of avarice exorcised.
Synopsis
Eve Leslie and Adam Moore become interested in the stock market. Eve decides to try to add to her fortunes by plunging. Tempted by the sin of greed, Eve becomes reckless. At first she wins, then she begins to lose, and desperately tries to recover her losses. She meets Alma, who formerly was a party to illegal stock transactions, but who is now living an honorable life. Alma is discovered by Denton, who formerly was connected and who knows her history. Denton is wanted by the police. He blackmails Alma. Eve and Adam become involved with their friend, Alma, who hates Denton. Denton wants her to marry him and after she refuses, finally turns to Eve. Denton gives a sensational party, during which the men, as a stunt, put aside all their money and choose partners. Each couple is given a dime and told to go out into the city, spend it as adventurously as possible and return to tell their experiences. Eve is paired with Denton and Alma with Adam. The novel plan develops exciting incidents. Denton traps Eve. Alma and Adam return to rescue her. In the excitement, Denton is killed and Alma is wounded so that she loses her mind. Adam is arrested. Alma is the only person who saw the crime committed, but she is unable to testify. Adam is sentenced to death. In the denouement, after Adam seems to have been proved guilty, his life is saved and he returns to Eve, who forever is cured of the sin of greed.
