Gentlemen of Crime

“Gentlemen,” barked out the small wizened man, “money talks.”
Nine men were seated at a long table in a very large room, where, except for a small and carefully shaded light directly above the head of the man who had spoken, everything was in complete darkness.
But although the hour was midnight, and the door was locked and the windows were closely shuttered and draped over with thick curtains, there was nothing in a way suspicious or sinister about the room itself.
It was no bare unfurnished cellar, suggestive of secrecy and the plotting of evil deeds, no hole-and-corner meeting place, where criminals might be foregathering, and no lair certainly for the hiding away of human beasts of prey.
Instead, the appointments of the chamber were in every way rich and sumptuous, speaking eloquently of refinement and of money judiciously, if lavishly, expended.