A few minutes later, Shires appeared. The man shouted at a passing cab. It pulled up to the curb, only a few feet away from where Cliff was standing. Shires spoke to the driver.
“You know where the Club Drury is?” he asked. “Up on Seventh Avenue in the Fifties? All right. Take me there!”
The cab whirled away with its passenger. Cliff stepped to the curb and watched for an empty taxi. One came along. Cliff entered it.
“Club Drury,” he said. “On Seventh Avenue.”
CHAPTER VII
MAGNATES CONFER
A LIMOUSINE stopped in front of a Park Avenue apartment. The chauffeur opened the door, and an elderly man stepped to the sidewalk beneath the awning that formed a protection against the drizzling rain.
He was obviously a man of importance, for he bore himself with an air of dignity. He wore a high silk hat and carried a heavy gold-headed cane. These marks of a bygone era did not seem at all incongruous. They suited the man exactly.
He was evidently an expected visitor, for the doorman ushered him to the elevator with great ceremony. The elderly man was taken to the fifth floor. There he was received by a footman, who was stationed in the anteroom of the large apartment that occupied the entire floor.
The flunky ushered the visitor into a room where several men were seated about a long mahogany table. All rose as the newcomer was announced.