But Morgan was looking at the latter, who said, almost affably:
"How do you do, Doctor? I — er — I see you're looking at my appearance. No, there's no deception and damned little disguise. Too tricky and difficult… Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan. I see you're surprised at the change in my voice. It's a relief to let down from the jerky manner; but I'd got so used to it it almost came natural. Rubbish rubbish rubbish!" squeaked the bogus Lord Sturton, with a sudden shift back to the manner he had previously used, and crowed with mirth.
Morgan jumped a little when he heard that echo of the old manner. The bogus Lord Sturton was in sunlight now, where Morgan remembered him only in the gloom of a darkened cabin like a picture-book wizard: his head hunched into a shawl, his face shaded by a flopping hat. Now he was revealed as a pale, long-faced, sharp-featured man with a rather unpleasant grin. A checked comforter was wound round his scrawny throat, and his clothes were weird. But he wore a bowler hat pushed back on his head, and he was smoking a cigar. Yet, although the grotesquerie had been removed, Morgan liked his look even less. He had an eye literally like a rattlesnake's. It measured Dr. Fell, swivelled round to the window, calculated, and became affable again.
"Come in!" said Dr. Fell. "Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. I've been wanting very much to make your acquaintance, if you're willing to talk… "
"Prisoner's pretty talkative, sir," said Inspector Jennings, with a slow grin. "He's been entertaining Sergeant Hamper and me all the way up on the train. I've got a note-book full and he admits—"
"Why not?" inquired their captive, lifting his left hand to take the cigar out of his mouth. "Rubbish rubbish rubbish! Ha-ha!"
"… But all the same, sir," said Jennings, "I don't think I'll unlock the handcuff just yet. He says his name's Nemo. Sit down, Nemo, if the doctor says so. I'll be beside you."
Dr. Fell lumbered to the sideboard and got Nemo a drink of brandy. Nemo sat down.
"Point's this," Nemo explained, in a natural voice which was not quite so shrill or jerky as the Lord Sturton impersonation, but nevertheless had enough echo of it to make Morgan remember the whole scene in the darkened ill-smelling cabin. "Point's this. You think you're going to hang me? You're not. Rubbish!" His snaky neck swivelled round, and his eye smiled on Morgan. "Haha, no, no! I've got to be extradited first. They'll want me in the
States. And between that time and this — I've got out of worse fixes."