“Steward,” Gregory asked him, standing up in the centre of his stateroom, his hands behind his back, “do I look drunk?”
The steward was used to eccentric passengers and answered as though the question were an entirely reasonable one.
“For a young gentleman as hasn’t moved out of his stateroom for two days, and ’as had a good deal more to drink than to eat,” he pronounced, “you look wonderful, sir.”
“Fetch me a whisky and soda, then.”
“Certainly, sir.”
The man withdrew, closing the door behind him. Gregory drew back the curtain of his upper bunk and again, with tireless eyes, he stared at the treasure which had cost him his friend’s life, and, as it seemed to him sometimes now, especially in those horrible watches of the night, his own honour. Always there was the same fascination. Every time he looked, he fancied that he discovered some fresh horror in that grim yet superbly bestial face.
“You are ugly,” he said softly, as he dropped the curtain. “You are damnably ugly! I wish you were at the bottom of the sea, and yet I can’t part with you.”
The steward brought him the whisky and soda. He paused for a moment before drinking it.
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
“Perkins, sir.”