Paget picked it up and put it in his pocket. He did not linger long at the Merrimac Club. He strolled about and smoked a cigarette. Then, leisurely as ever, he left the club, summoned a cab, and rode home.
But in the privacy of his own apartment, behind the drawn shades of the living room, Rodney Paget became suddenly eager.
He pulled the envelope from his pocket and tore off the end. His fingers trembled as he spread open the envelope and reached in to grasp the contents. A gasp of satisfaction followed.
Crinkling in his hands was a wad of crisp new, five-hundred-dollar bills.
Paget smiled as he counted them. Twenty in all. It was the ten thousand dollars he had requested from the Silent Seven!
Paget marveled at the power of the mighty organization. He realized that he had associated himself with masters of crime. With inexhaustible funds, with fifty determined workers at their call, the Silent Seven was an unknown band of terror.
CHAPTER XI. PAGET SEES A SHADOW
THERE was no appreciable change in Rodney Paget when he appeared at the Merrimac Club the day after the meeting of the Silent Seven. All traces of anxiety had left his features. His habitual composure was completely restored.
With Paget, languor was natural, not affected. The drooping fingers with their ivory cigarette holder hanging from them, indicated a man of some ability. For Paget was a deep schemer, whose greatest ability was his lack of unrestrained emotion.
He arrived at the club shortly after noon, and one of the first persons he encountered was Steuben. He drew his friend into a corner and pressed something into his hand. Steuben, upon looking at the article, was surprised to find a five-hundred-dollar bill.