Between the two men was the same table, with the same empty decanter upon it; and the logs upon the hearth seemed to glow with the same light. But Jason, instead of being seated, was standing erect, his fingers tapping the table’s edge and his eyes burning with a black intensity.

“The Malmsey,” thought Wolf, “has loosened his tongue. He looks like an avenging demon.”

What gave Wolf an especial shock was the way Mr. Urquhart himself was sitting. He sat, indeed, bolt-upright, but he had twisted himself in some odd fashion to the side of his chair, against the arm of which his back was pressed hard. His thin legs were at an acute angle to his Napoleonic paunch, a distortion that endowed both stomach and legs with a disturbing separate identity.