“Are they in the old rooms?” asked Rowton.
“Yes, sir, ten of ’em strong.”
“Then you need not come. I can find my own way.”
He bounded past her three steps at a time, opened a door without knocking and found himself in a long low room, which was now reeking with tobacco smoke and the fumes of whisky. Several men were stationed about the room, some sitting, some standing, some were smoking short pipes, some indulging in cigars, some were doing neither. There was a certain expectancy about all their faces, and when they saw Rowton it was more than evident that this expectancy was realised. They welcomed him with cheers; said, “Hullo, Silver, glad to see you back,” and motioned him forward into their midst.
CHAPTER XIII.
LONG JOHN.
Rowton nodded to one or two, and then going straight to the other end of the room, where a man was seated by a desk, bent down over him.
“Here I am,” he said; “you have sent for me. I am in a great hurry, as I want to take an early train back to Pitstow. What’s up, Piper? Why did you require me to come in such a hurry?”
The man addressed as Piper raised himself slowly and fixed two steady, luminous grey eyes on the speaker. He had an extraordinary face, with a certain marked power about it. The lips were very hard, but the eyes were tender as those of a woman. The face itself was long and extremely narrow—the brow high, with scanty hair which receded far from the temples; it was perfectly clean shaven, and was emaciated as well as long and thin. Even as the man looked full at Rowton, a hectic colour came and went on his cheeks. He was small and slenderly built, and why he went by the name of Long John would have puzzled a stranger to account for. At a first glance one would have taken him for an insignificant and somewhat effeminate person; but a second, revealing the pathos and beauty of the eyes, would not have failed to arrest attention, and a third glance from an observer of human nature, would have revealed the fact that the man possessed a strange and powerful personality.
“Now that you have come, you must listen to our business,” said Long John. “We have waited for five weeks to consult your pleasure—there is a good deal now to attend to. Are you there, Scrivener?”