The lawyer was a short man, who bore a remarkable physical resemblance to an egg.

Head, rotund body, and immensely fat legs tapering to very small feet, formed a complete oval, while his ivory-tinted skin, and a curious crease running round forehead and ears beneath a scalp wholly devoid of hair, suggested that the egg had been boiled, and the top cut off and replaced.
But he showed presently that the ovum was sound in quality.

He listened in absolute silence until his lordship had told his story.
All things considered, the recital was essentially true.
There were suppressions of fact, such as the lack of any mention of collusion between the distraught father and Count Ladislas Vassilan on the one hand and Jean de Courtois on the other, and there were wholly unwarrantable imputations against Curtis's character and attributes, but, on the whole, Mr.Schmidt was able, in his own phrase, "to size up the position" with fair accuracy.
Like every other man of common sense who became acquainted with the night's doings in a connected narrative, he began by expressing his astonishment.
"I have had some singular cases to handle during a long and varied professional career," he said, and eyelids almost devoid of lashes dropped for an instant over a pair of dark and curiously piercing eyes, "but I have never heard of anything quite like this.

You say the name of the detective who gave you the account of the murder, and of the connection of this John Delancy Curtis with it, is Steingall ?" "Yes." Again the eyelids fell, and, as Mr.Schmidt's face was also devoid of eyebrows, and was colorless in its pallor, and as his lips met in a thin seam above a chin which merged in folds of soft flesh where his neck ought to be, his features at such a moment assumed the disagreeable aspect of a death mask, though this impression vanished when those brilliant eyes peered forth from their bulbous sockets.
"But I know Steingall," he said.

"He is at the head of the New York Detective Bureau, a man of the highest reputation, and one who commands confidence in the courts, not to speak of his department." "He struck me as an able man, but I am quite sure he has failed to appreciate the share this fellow, Curtis, has borne in the affair," said the Earl testily.
"It seems to me that your daughter, Lady Hermione, could not possibly have been what is commonly described as 'in love' with de Courtois?
Stupid as the comment may appear, I must search for a motive." "My good sir, the notion is preposterous.