“I—I heard from him—why, quite recently, less than a month ago, in fact,” he explained not very readily. “But you—you have later news of him, I can see that.” The Uriah Heep in the man came to the surface and old Mr. Hand exhibited his favourite brand of cordiality—the oily voice and the skimped smile. “Yes-yes. I hope he is well!”
“He is,” affirmed Captain Vanton and added non-committally: “He is dead.”
An expression of shocked surprise appeared on the face of the village miser. He made curious, clucking noises.
“Dear me. Dear me,” he managed to say, finally, as an inadequate expression of his regret that Captain King was well—and dead.
Captain Vanton glared at the opposite wall, resolutely taking no notice of this contemptible land creature.
“How did he die?” pursued the much-affected Hand.
“Violently,” barked Captain Vanton. The mortgage miser recoiled. When he spoke again his voice was feeble:
“I suppose you knew him very well?”
The Captain paid no attention to this. Suddenly he turned and looked through Mr. Hand about two inches to the left of the breastbone and in the latitude of the third rib, where Mr. Hand’s heart should have been sighted by the experienced mariner, if the miser had had any. Mr. Hand could not have been more disconcerted if Captain Vanton had pulled a sextant from his pocket and taken an observation with that.
“Why do you lie to me?” asked Captain Vanton at length, and the tone which had made men perspire off Cape Horn induced a cold kind of sweat on the body of Hand, the miser. It really was the tone more than the words, and surely the words were unpleasant enough.