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“You must have shown a flash of speed if you got her to confide in you after knowing you for about two hours.”

“Perhaps I did,” said George modestly, “I had no notion, till I became him, what a persuasive sort of chap my brother Alfred was. Anyway, she told me all about it, and I started in to show her that George was a pretty good sort of fellow on the whole, who oughtn’t to be turned down for what was evidently merely temporary insanity. She saw my point.”

“And it’s all right?”

“Absolutely, if only we can produce George. How much longer does that infernal sleuth intend to stay here? He seems to have taken root.”

“I fancy he thinks that you’re bound to come back sooner or later, and is waiting for you.”

“He’s an absolute nuisance,” said George.

We were moving towards the companion way, to go below for lunch, when a boat hailed us. We went to the side and looked over.

“It’s my uncle,” said George.

A stout man came up the gangway.

“Halloa, George!” he said. “Get my letter?”

“I think you are mistaking me for my brother,” said George. “My name is Alfred Lattaker.”

“What’s that?”

“I am George’s brother Alfred. Are you my Uncle Augustus?”

The stout man stared at him.

“You’re very like George,” he said.

“So everyone tells me.”

“And you’re really Alfred?”

“I am.”

“I’d like to talk business with you for a moment.”

He cocked his eye at me. I sidled off and went below.

At the foot of the companion-steps I met Voules,

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Voules. “If it would be convenient I should be glad to have the afternoon off.”

I’m bound to say I rather liked his manner. Absolutely normal. Not a trace of the fellow-conspirator about it. I gave him the afternoon off.

I had lunch–George didn’t show up–and as I was going out I was waylaid by the girl Pilbeam. She had been crying.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but did Mr. Voules ask you for the afternoon?”

I didn’t see what business if was of hers, but she seemed all worked up about it, so I told her.

“Yes, I have given him the afternoon off.”

She broke down–absolutely collapsed. Devilish unpleasant it was. I’m hopeless in a situation like this. After I’d said, “There, there!” which didn’t seem to help much, I hadn’t any remarks to make.

“He s-said he was going to the tables to gamble away all his savings and then shoot himself, because he had nothing left to live for.”

I suddenly remembered the scrap in the small hours outside my state-room door. I hate mysteries. I meant to get to the bottom of this. I couldn’t have a really first-class valet like Voules going about the place shooting himself up. Evidently the girl Pilbeam was at the bottom of the thing. I questioned her. She sobbed.

I questioned her more. I was firm. And eventually she yielded up the facts. Voules had seen George kiss her the night before; that was the trouble.

Things began to piece themselves together. I went up to interview George. There was going to be another job for persuasive Alfred. Voules’s mind had got to be eased as Stella’s had been. I couldn’t afford to lose a fellow with his genius for preserving a trouser-crease.

I found George on the foredeck. What is it Shakespeare or somebody says about some fellow’s face being sicklied o’er with the pale cast of care? George’s was like that. He looked green.

“Finished with your uncle?” I said.

He grinned a ghostly grin.

“There isn’t any uncle,” he said. “There isn’t any Alfred. And there isn’t any money.”

“Explain yourself, old top,” I said.

“It won’t take long. The old crook has spent every penny of the trust money. He’s been at it for years, ever since I was a kid. When the time came to cough up, and I was due to see that he did it, he went to the tables in the hope of a run of luck, and lost the last remnant of the stuff. He had to find a way of holding me for a while and postponing the squaring of accounts while he got away, and he invented this twin-brother business. He knew I should find out sooner or later, but meanwhile he would be able to get off to South America, which he has done. He’s on his way now.”