Rowton nodded to one or two, and then going straight to the other end of the room, where a man was seated by a desk, bent down over him. “Here I am,” he said; “you have sent for me. I am in a great hurry, as I want to take an early train back to Pitstow. What’s up, Piper? Why did you require me to come in such a hurry?” The man addressed as Piper raised himself slowly and fixed two steady, luminous grey eyes on the speaker. He had an extraordinary face, with a certain marked power about it. The lips were very hard, but the eyes were tender as those of a woman. The face itself was long and extremely narrow—the brow high, with scanty hair which receded far from the temples; it was perfectly clean shaven, and was emaciated as well as long and thin. Even as the man looked full at Rowton, a hectic colour came and went on his cheeks. He was small and slenderly built, and why he went by the name of Long John would have puzzled a stranger to account for. At a first glance one would have taken him for an insignificant and somewhat effeminate person; but a second, revealing the pathos and beauty of the eyes, would not have failed to arrest attention, and a third glance from an observer of human nature, would have revealed the fact that the man possessed a strange and powerful personality. “Now that you have come, you must listen to our business,” said Long John. “We have waited for five weeks to consult your pleasure—there is a good deal now to attend to. Are you there, Scrivener?” “Yes,” said Scrivener, answering to his name. Piper rose from his seat by the desk where he was carefully making notes, lifted a flap, slipped the notes under it, locked the desk and came forward into the centre of the room. “Now, gentlemen,” he said, “now that Silver has come back, there is nothing to prevent our beginning the business of the evening.” “No, nothing,” said several voices. “Right glad to see you again, Silver.” Several signs then passed between the parties; certain instructions were read aloud by Long John, and commented upon in a terse, quick, eager voice by Scrivener. Two or three of the men fell to whispering, and one, who had seated himself close to Rowton, bent forward and said in a tone of almost affection: “I feel comfortable and safe, now that you are going to be at the helm again.” All this time Rowton was silent. Not that he lost a single word of what was going on—he was acquainted with all the ciphers—he knew the mysterious allusions. A sort of jargon was spoken which was not Greek to him. Still, he never opened his lips, although, after a time, he noticed that Long John constantly raised his lustrous eyes and fixed them on his face. Suddenly that individual turned round and addressed him.