We moved apart. The Cunarder gained her berth after a quarter of an hour’s delay. A stream of passengers flowed down the broad gangway. Running through the boisterous greetings of friends and the turmoil of people anxious to secure their luggage, I heard a crescendo of broken exclamations which carried their special import to me alone: “Oh, my dear, it was perfectly shocking. It has quite spoiled my trip.” “Must have been cracked!” “A young man like him! Just fancy it!” “Guess he was tired of bein’ rich. Never had that complaint myself.” There was no need to ask of whom they spoke. It was an awkward moment to seek information from the ship’s officers. The triumph of organization which marks the Atlantic mail service would speedily empty the crowded decks, and already two cataracts of boxes and steamer trunks were hurtling over the side into the Customs shed. My opportunity would soon arrive. So, stifling my horrible imaginings as best I might, I mixed with the throng, and thus, by chance, encountered one who had been an eye-witness of Constantine’s last madness. My most recent acquaintance, the man in uniform, while helping a passenger with his portmanteau, asked if there had been an accident before the vessel warped alongside the landing-stage. The answer he received led him to hail me in passing. “Here’s a gentleman who can tell you all about it, sir,” he said, thinking, no doubt, he ought to consolidate the gift of that sovereign. “Are you a friend of Mr. Constantine’s?” demanded the stranger, a pleasant-looking, square-faced man, whom I found afterwards to be the London partner of an important Anglo-American house of discount brokers. “No. I only happened to accompany some people who came here to meet him.” “Are they waiting yet?” “No. They heard of the affair and have gone. Of course it upset them a good deal.” “By Jove, it was ghastly. I knew Constantine--have done business with him for years, in fact. He was always a quiet, sober sort of fellow. I, for one, never suspected he was given to drink.” “Was he?” I asked. “Well, I am not exactly an expert where delirium tremens is concerned, but surely this could be nothing else?” “All I have been told is that he threw himself overboard.”