“Will you have the goodness to come forward, madam?” said another man. “I should like to show you the secret receptacle where the jewel case will be placed.” “I think I would rather not,” she said, turning white and frightened. “As you please, madam,” said the man in some surprise; “but I surely understood from Mr. Rowton that you were to be acquainted with the workings of the safe.” “Oh! if my husband wished it shown to me, that alters the matter,” said Nance, the colour returning to her face. She spent nearly an hour with the men, who explained the different keys for opening the safe. CHAPTER XIX. THE SILVER SCHOOL. About a month after the events recorded in the last chapter, some men who went by the name of the Silver School, or Mob, assembled for an important meeting. The Silver School had existed now for several years, doing its mysterious work effectually and quietly, and never exciting suspicion, except in the minds of certain individuals in New Scotland Yard. They had meeting places all over England, and not only in England, but also in many parts of the world. They knew each other by a certain code or cipher; they had their own peculiar way of shaking hands; their own peculiar nod or smile; they were in short, a dangerous secret society, their object being to upset morality and turn the system which makes a man’s property his own topsy-turvy. Often they met at a lonely public-house; often in the heart of the busy town; but their favourite place of meeting was in the house of a private individual near the Chelsea Embankment—the very place where Rowton had gone to see Long John just before his mission to Spain. To-night the members assembled themselves by a roaring fire, and taking out their pipes awaited the appearance of their leader. Adrian Rowton, who went by the name of Silver, was in many respects the leader of the School. He was secretly admired by every other member; but their real chief, the man whom they feared, respected, hated, thrilled under, was Piper, or Long John, as they called him. Piper had none of Rowton’s dare-devil and careless magnificence of manner. He often appeared rather to slink than to walk into a room; but there was not a member of the Silver Mob who did not tremble when he spoke to him, and did not feel elated for a whole week if the chief gave him even a scant word of praise. To-night, as the men sat together, they looked anxiously at one another. “Well, Scrivener, and how do you find the country?” said the landlord, Simpkins, who was invariably present at these meetings. “What sort of a place is Pitstow? You don’t look, to judge from your face, as if you found the air so wonderfully bracing, after all.” “The air is well enough, but there are other drawbacks—don’t you meddle, Simpkins,” replied Scrivener.