ny advice, so this is what comes of it. I feel in my bones that
_his_ are in the suicide's cemetery this minute. Has nobody told you
that there are no inquests of coroners here in this principality? And a
jolly good thing, too! Why make the rest of us gloomy by putting nasty
details in the papers, when we've come here to enjoy ourselves? _They_
don't ask people to gamble, they merely make it nice for 'em if they're
determined to, and anyhow it's honest gambling. They don't want you to
play if you can't afford it and are going to be an idiot, because they
hate rows and scandal. It's all for _our_ benefit! If a man's cad enough
to blow his brains out at the tables, all over a lady's dress, he is
whisked away so quick nobody has time to realize what's up before a
glass door in the wall has opened with a spring and shut again as if
nothing had happened. Not a croupier stops spinning. I call it
magnificent. But it does make you feel a bit creepy when anybody you've
known disappears into space!"

Lord Burden, the dilapidated earl imported as a _parti_, was of opinion
that the Austrian count had merely applied for the _viatique_; and being
granted by the management a sum large enough to pay his fare and his
food, had departed without caring to show his face again at the villa.
Others were inclined to agree with Dodo, especially the women, who were
of the type that secretly enjoys mystery and horror, when unconnected
with themselves. No one ever really knew, however (unless perhaps the
Dauntreys), what had become of the youth with hair _en brosse_, and wasp
waist so slim that the body seemed held together by a mere ligament. He
was gone: that was all, and his small place in the household was more
than filled by a German couple, an ex-officer with an adoring wife, both
of whom spent half their days in bed, testing on a roulette watch
various exciting systems which, now they had come from afar off, they
lacked courage to play at the Casino. Their name was so intricate that
Dodo Wardropp said it ought to be kept a secret. As nobody could
pronounce it, however, it amounted to that, in the end.

They did not stay long; and indeed, after the disappearance of the
Austrian count, a microbe pricking people to departure seemed to
multiply in the Villa Bella Vista. The sailor went suddenly, on receipt
of a letter from the Admiralty, that prying institution having learned
and disapproved of the way in which he was spending his leave and hi