“I know. But what’s he doing here?”
“I am waiting for Mr. George Lattaker, Mr. Marshall.”
“Eh?”
“You have not found him?” asked the Count anxiously.
“Not yet, Count; but I hope to do so shortly. I know what he looks like now. This gentleman is his twin-brother. They are doubles.”
“You are sure this gentleman is not Mr. George Lattaker?”
George put his foot down firmly on the suggestion.
“Don’t go mixing me up with my brother,” he said. “I am Alfred. You can tell me by my mole.”
He exhibited the mole. He was taking no risks.
The Count clicked his tongue regretfully.
“I am sorry,” he said.
George didn’t offer to console him,
“Don’t worry,” said Sturgis. “He won’t escape me. I shall find him.”
“Do, Mr. Sturgis, do. And quickly. Find swiftly that noble young man.”
“What?” shouted George.
“That noble young man, George Lattaker, who, at the risk of his life, saved my high-born master from the assassin.”
George sat down suddenly.
“I don’t understand,” he said feebly.
“We were wrong, Mr. Sturgis,” went on the Count. “We leaped to the conclusion—was it not so?—that the owner of the hat you found was also the assailant of my high-born master. We were wrong. I have heard the story from His Serene Highness’s own lips. He was passing down a dark street when a ruffian in a mask sprang out upon him. Doubtless he had been followed from the Casino, where he had been winning heavily. My high-born master was taken by surprise. He was felled. But before he lost consciousness he perceived a young man in evening dress, wearing the hat you found, running swiftly towards him. The hero engaged the assassin in combat, and my high-born master remembers no more. His Serene Highness asks repeatedly, ‘Where is my brave preserver?’ His gratitude is princely. He seeks for this young man to reward him. Ah, you should be proud of your brother, sir!”
“Thanks,” said George limply.
“And you, Mr. Sturgis, you must redouble your efforts. You must search the land; you must scour the sea to find George Lattaker.”
“He needn’t take all that trouble,” said a voice from the gangway.
It was Voules. His face was flushed, his hat was on the back of his head, and he was smoking a fat cigar.
“I’ll tell you where to find George Lattaker!” he shouted.
He glared at George, who was staring at him.
“Yes, look at me,” he yelled. “Look at me. You won’t be the first this afternoon who’s stared at the mysterious stranger who won for two hours without a break. I’ll be even with you now, Mr. Blooming Lattaker. I’ll learn you to break a poor man’s heart. Mr. Marshall and gents, this morning I was on deck, and I over’eard ‘im plotting to put up a game on you. They’d spotted that gent there as a detective, and they arranged that blooming Lattaker was to pass himself off as his own twin-brother. And if you wanted proof, blooming Pepper tells him to show them his mole and he’d swear George hadn’t one. Those were his very words. That man there is George Lattaker, Hesquire, and let him deny it if he can.”
George got up.
“I haven’t the least desire to deny it, Voules.”
“Mr. Voules, if you please.”
“It’s true,” said George, turning to the Count. “The fact is, I had rather a foggy recollection of what happened last night. I only remembered knocking some one down, and, like you, I jumped to the conclusion that I must have assaulted His Serene Highness.”
“Then you are really George Lattaker?” asked the Count.
“I am.”
“’Ere, what does all this mean?” demanded Voules.
“Merely that I saved the life of His Serene Highness the Prince of Saxburg-Leignitz, Mr. Voules.”
“It’s a swindle!” began Voules, when there was a sudden rush and the girl Pilbeam cannoned into the crowd, sending me into old Marshall’s chair, and flung herself into the arms of Voules.
“Oh, Harold!” she cried. “I thought you were dead. I thought you’d shot yourself.”
He sort of braced himself together to fling her off, and then he seemed to think better of it and fell into the clinch,