Chapter 22: XXII

XXII Fifteen men sat around a table in an office on Lee Street. There was above them a single electric-light bulb, fly-specked, without a shade over it. At eleven o’clock they had silently crept up the stairs after looking cautiously up and down the deserted expanse of Lee Street to see if they were observed. Like some silent, creeping, wolf-like denizen of the forest, each had stolen as noiselessly as possible up the stairs. The window carefully covered, no ray of light could be seen from th…