"I only wished to say—"
"Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! Answer me, yes, or no. If you haven't got the emerald, why are you here?" Sturton shot out his neck.
"It was about that little matter we were discussing— ha-ha!" returned Whistler, with a broad gesture of paternal friendliness. "You know I said, your Lordship, that I could bring witnesses to show I had behaved within my duties. You said I was responsible—"
"So you are, so you are. I have your signed receipt. Here."
"The great line of which I have the honour to be one of the senior commanders has always wished, your Lordship, to avoid unpleasantness," began the captain, in a rolling voice. "However, having its best interests at heart…"
"Pfaa!" snapped the other, suddenly sitting down against the back of the chaise-longue and hunching his shawl round his shoulders. "Why don't you say what you mean? You mean that you've been caught fair and square; but what you want is a sporting run. Eh? Eh?"
"That, your Lordship, is putting it harshly… "
Sturton thrust his finger out of the shawl and pointed. "I'll give it you. Damn no man without proof. Bible says so. Prove it to me; no damage suit. There."
Morgan got the impression that he immensely enjoyed being arbiter of somebody's official head; that it tickled a nerve of perverted humour under his dry ribs. He could humour a whim — but the whim had to have its compensations. Morgan realised that, with this sharp-eyed old lad questioning, a lie had to be good. Well, he should be beaten. In a way, Morgan thought, that was incentive enough to save Whistler's bacon! Sturton was leaning back, hugging the shawl round his head. On the table at his elbow was a curious trinket of his own: a Mandarin-head that would wag on its pedestal, and had two rubies for eyes. At intervals he would reach out and set it wagging.
"Well?" he said, abruptly. "Anything to say?"