A voice from within barked: “Oh, come in!” Iff and Manvers obeyed. Staff paused on the threshold, bending his head to escape the lintel.
Standing thus, he appreciated the tableau: the neat, tidy little room—commodious for a steamship—glistening with white-enamelled woodwork in the radiance of half a dozen electric bulbs; Alison in a steamer-coat seated on the far side of a chart-table, her colouring unusually pallid, her brows knitted and eyes anxious; the maid, Jane, standing respectfully behind her mistress; Manvers to one side and out of the way, but plainly eager and distraught; Iff in the centre of the stage, his slight, round-shouldered figure lending him a deceptive effect of embarrassment which was only enhanced by his semi-placating, semi-wistful smile and his small, blinking eyes; the captain looming over him, authority and menace incarnate in his heavy, square-set, sturdy body and heavy-browed, square-jawed, beardless and weathered face....
Manvers said: “This is Mr. Iff, Captain Cobb.”
The captain nodded brusquely. His hands were in his coat-pockets; he didn’t offer to remove them. Iff blinked up at him and cocked his small head critically to one side, persistently smiling.
“I’ve heard so much of you, sir,” he said in a husky, weary voice, very subdued. “It’s a real pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Captain Cobb noticed this bit of effrontery by nothing more than a growl deep in this throat. His eyes travelled on, above Iff’s head, and Staff was conscious of their penetrating and unfriendly question. He bowed uncertainly.
“Oh—and Mr. Staff,” said Manvers hastily.
“Well?” said the captain without moving.
“A friend of Miss Landis and also—curiously—in the same room with Mr. Iff.”
“Ah,” remarked the captain. “How-d’-you-do?” He removed his right hand from its pocket and held it out with the air of a man who wishes it understood that by such action he commits himself to nothing.