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I think one of the rummiest affairs I was ever mixed up with, in the course of a lifetime devoted to butting into other people’s business, was that affair of George Lattaker at Monte Carlo. I wouldn’t bore you, don’t you know, for the world, but I think you ought to hear about it.

We had come to Monte Carlo on the yacht Circe, belonging to an old sportsman of the name of Marshall. Among those present were myself, my man Voules, a Mrs. Vanderley, her daughter Stella, Mrs. Vanderley’s maid Pilbeam and George.

George was a dear old pal of mine. In fact, it was I who had worked him into the party. You see, George was due to meet his Uncle Augustus, who was scheduled, George having just reached his twenty-fifth birthday, to hand over to him a legacy left by one of George’s aunts, for which he had been trustee. The aunt had died when George was quite a kid. It was a date that George had been looking forward to; for, though he had a sort of income–an income, after-all, is only an income, whereas a chunk of o’ goblins is a pile. George’s uncle was in Monte Carlo, and had written George that he would come to London and unbelt; but it struck me that a far better plan was for George to go to his uncle at Monte Carlo instead. Kill two birds with one stone, don’t you know. Fix up his affairs and have a pleasant holiday simultaneously. So George had tagged along, and at the time when the trouble started we were anchored in Monaco Harbour, and Uncle Augustus was due next day.

* * * * *

Looking back, I may say that, so far as I was mixed up in it, the thing began at seven o’clock in the morning, when I was aroused from a dreamless sleep by the dickens of a scrap in progress outside my state-room door. The chief ingredients were a female voice that sobbed and said: “Oh, Harold!” and a male voice “raised in anger,” as they say, which after considerable difficulty, I identified as Voules’s. I hardly recognized it. In his official capacity Voules talks exactly like you’d expect a statue to talk, if it could. In private, however, he evidently relaxed to some extent, and to have that sort of thing going on in my midst at that hour was too much for me.

“Voules!” I yelled.

Spion Kop ceased with a jerk. There was silence, then sobs diminishing in the distance, and finally a tap at the door. Voules entered with that impressive, my-lord-the-carriage-waits look which is what I pay him for. You wouldn’t have believed he had a drop of any sort of emotion in him.

“Voules,” I said, “are you under the delusion that I’m going to be Queen of the May? You’ve called me early all right. It’s only just seven.”

“I understood you to summon me, sir.”

“I summoned you to find out why you were making that infernal noise outside.”

“I owe you an apology, sir. I am afraid that in the heat of the moment I raised my voice.”

“It’s a wonder you didn’t raise the roof. Who was that with you?”

“Miss Pilbeam, sir; Mrs. Vanderley’s maid.”

“What was all the trouble about?”

“I was breaking our engagement, sir.”

I couldn’t help gaping. Somehow one didn’t associate Voules with engagements. Then it struck me that I’d no right to butt in on his secret sorrows, so I switched the conversation.

“I think I’ll get up,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t wait to breakfast with the rest. Can you get me some right away?”

“Yes, sir.”

So I had a solitary breakfast and went up on deck to smoke. It was a lovely morning. Blue sea, gleaming Casino, cloudless sky, and all the rest of the hippodrome. Presently the others began to trickle up. Stella Vanderley was one of the first. I thought she looked a bit pale and tired. She said she hadn’t slept well. That accounted for it. Unless you get your eight hours, where are you?