Tom Swift saw before him a brilliantly lighted room. Gathered around a table in the middle were half a dozen men. Each one wore a black mask and through the eye-holes in them Tom felt himself being sharply scrutinized. “You may go, Richard,” said one of the men in cultured tones to the Negro who had opened the door. Then the masked faces silently regarded the young inventor. CHAPTER XXI A TEMPTING OFFER “SIT down, please!” The masked man at the head of the table—who seemed to be the leader—thus spoke to Tom and motioned to a chair, the only one in the room that was not occupied. Tom looked at it a bit suspiciously at first. He knew something of trick chairs—seats that, once occupied, gripped the sitter in arms of steel. Also this chair might be over some trapdoor which opened into a pit or into a tunnel that led to the lake. But Tom reflected that if the men had contemplated treachery they could have exercised their will upon him when he first landed on the island. They need not have waited until now. The chair seemed an ordinary one, and as the leader motioned toward it another of the masked men pulled it slightly forward. Clearly it had no mechanism connected with it. “Well, I’m here,” said Tom, as he settled back in the chair, noting that it felt all right. “So we see, and we are glad of this chance to do business with you,” remarked one, who, for want of a better designation at present, shall be denominated Mr. X. “It did not occur to us,” he went on in cultured tones, “that you would care for this method of arriving at a settlement. But, since you have, it appears to be a very good one. We are ready to do business with you.” Tom was at once impressed by something that was very evident. These were substantial business men—men of some culture and presumably position in the world—though they did stoop to desperate means to gain their ends. They were of an entirely different class from Snogg and Janner who had kidnapped Tom and Ned. Nor were they like Greenbaum, though from two or three little signs Tom had an idea that some of these men were very wealthy. “Yes, I am here,” went on Tom, holding himself well in hand and gazing from one masked face to the other. “And I am glad to hear that you are ready to talk business. But there is one objection.” “What is it, Mr. Swift?” asked Mr. X courteously. “If you object to the method of meeting us, remember it was your own suggestion.” “I am not complaining of the place of meeting nor the manner in which I was received,” stated Tom. “But I’m not used to doing business in the dark.” “In the dark?” wonderingly exclaimed a heavy-set man on the left of Mr. X. “Why, it’s light here. Should we spend a lot more money in having more electricity? No!”