"Not a word to anybody, Charlie! For the girl's sake!"
"Yes! And because we're friends—"
Alan pushed him away; and said, conversationally: "So you had a good game, Charlie? That's fine—but you'd better go wash up for supper."
"All right, I will. Mother said never be late for supper."
We all turned as Dr. Turber entered the room.
I saw Dr. Wolf Turber as a man of about forty, obviously of extraordinary personality. There are many men in this world who have a power, for good or evil, which marks them apart from their fellows. A radiation—an aura—a something in their unconscious bearing; a confidence, a flash of the eye, all unmistakable. Dr. Turber was such a one. Marked for big things—good or evil.
He was, to me at least, at once physically repellent of aspect. A very heavy, powerful frame, with wide shoulders, thick and solid; a deep chest; long powerful arms. Had he stood erect, he might have been fully six feet tall. But he was hunched. Not exactly a hunchback; rather, a permanent stoop which had rounded his shoulders almost to a deformity.
His head was massive, set low on a wide, short neck. Close-cropped black hair, turning gray at the temples. A solid, wide-jawed face, smooth-shaved, with dark eyes gazing through a pair of incongruously dapper rimless glasses, from which a wide black ribbon depended.
He stood before us; stooped, but with the strength of a gorilla seeming to lie hidden in his squat frame, masked by the dapperness of his clothes. Pointed patent leather shoes; gray trousers; a dark gray jacket with a white waist-coat, to which the black eyeglass ribbon was fastened. He stood with a hand toying with the ribbon.