“What child?” asked Simpkins in an eager voice.
Simpkins, as the proprietor of the club, was always treated with a certain amount of respect, but on this occasion Long John favoured him with a scowling glance.
“You’ll know all if you’ll keep quiet,” he said. “A child has been kidnapped by my orders—that child from this moment belongs to our School; we bring him up in our ways, to do our business, perhaps to lead us in his turn. He is the nephew of your gentleman leader, my men. He is Adrian Rowton’s nephew.”
“Silver’s nephew! Good Heaven!” cried Simpkins. He bit his lips and looked across to one of his neighbours with a glance which was half scared, half appalled. “I thought,” he said after a pause, “that matter was settled. It was proposed in this room that the child should be brought to us, but Rowton objected. It was arranged, was it not, that if Rowton did what we wanted, the child was to be let alone?”
“I was in my right when I kidnapped the boy,” said Piper in that snappy voice which always characterised him when his temper was getting the upper hand. “Now, Scrivener, to business; you took the child. Where is he?”
“I have him, sir.”
“Where?”
“In a room just above the shop in Cheapside.”
“Ah! that was a good thought. Is the lad safe? Any chance of his escaping?”
“None whatever,” answered Scrivener. “I need not go into particulars,” he added, “but the boy is safe enough; he won’t escape.”