“Yes,” said Scrivener, answering to his name.
Piper rose from his seat by the desk where he was carefully making notes, lifted a flap, slipped the notes under it, locked the desk and came forward into the centre of the room.
“Now, gentlemen,” he said, “now that Silver has come back, there is nothing to prevent our beginning the business of the evening.”
“No, nothing,” said several voices. “Right glad to see you again, Silver.”
Several signs then passed between the parties; certain instructions were read aloud by Long John, and commented upon in a terse, quick, eager voice by Scrivener. Two or three of the men fell to whispering, and one, who had seated himself close to Rowton, bent forward and said in a tone of almost affection:
“I feel comfortable and safe, now that you are going to be at the helm again.”
All this time Rowton was silent. Not that he lost a single word of what was going on—he was acquainted with all the ciphers—he knew the mysterious allusions. A sort of jargon was spoken which was not Greek to him. Still, he never opened his lips, although, after a time, he noticed that Long John constantly raised his lustrous eyes and fixed them on his face.
Suddenly that individual turned round and addressed him.
“Marrying at the time you did,” he said, “you put us all to the height of inconvenience. We lost that business in Spain by which we hoped to have secured enormous profits. You are a strong man, you give weight and solidity to all we do, and we cannot dispense with you. You were aware of the fact when you made that audacious demand for five weeks off duty. You have now returned to duty, and I presume will work extra hard for the privilege we have accorded you.”