His eyes went beyond her to the open door.
A man was standing there--a bulky, broad-featured, coarse-lipped man with keen black eyes that twinkled maliciously between thick lids, and a black beard that only served to emphasize an immensely heavy under-jaw.
Merryon summed him up swiftly as a Portuguese American with more than a dash of darker blood in his composition.
He entered the room in a fashion that was almost insulting.

It was evident that he was summing up Merryon also.
The latter waited for him, stiff with hostility, his arms still tightly clasping Puck's slight, cowering form.

He spoke as the stranger advanced, in his voice a deep menace like the growl of an angry beast protecting its own.
"Who are you?
And what do you want ?" The stranger's lips parted, showing a gleam of strong white teeth.

"My name," he said, speaking in a peculiarly soft voice that somehow reminded Merryon of the hiss of a reptile, "is Leo Vulcan.

You have heard of me?
Perhaps not.