"Then," said Crouch, "there must certainly be some mistake. My name is Shakespeare--Melchisedek Shakespeare--and this flat happens to belong to me."
Mr. Russell adjusted his spectacles upon his nose, and looked around the room.
"There should be a woman here," said he; "a Mrs. Wycherley."
"She's gone out," said Crouch.
The old man smiled and pointed with his stick.
"Why, there she is!" he exclaimed. "How strange that I never noticed her before."
He had pointed to the armchair, at the other end of the room, in which Crouch had formerly been seated. The whole thing was so cleverly planned, the old man's voice was so dulcet and confiding, and his expression of surprise so admirably feigned, that Crouch could not resist the wholly natural impulse of turning round, to see for himself whether or not Mrs. Wycherley were there.
His eyes had not left the old man's face for longer than the fraction of a second before there took place a kind of transfiguration which was even more terrible to see than it was surprising.
There had been something about the patriarchal figure of the old, white-bearded man that was gentle, beneficent and charitable. His expression had been that of one who looks upon the world, and all its fooleries and foibles, with the comfortable tolerance of age. On a sudden, this expression changed. His eyes flashed; his brows became knit in a savage frown. At the same time, this transformation extended to his body, which straightened, quivered, and even seemed to grow larger. Before it was possible to guess what he was about to do, or make the slightest movement by way of self-defence, he had raised his heavy ash-plant high above his shoulder, and brought it down with a crashing blow upon the head of Captain Crouch.
The little sea-captain had been taken unawares. Once again had he been fooled. He let out a groan, spun round like a top, and then came down heavily upon the floor.