In the short story The Dead Harlequin, Colonel Monckton is an old friend of both Mr Satterthwaite and the late Lord Reggie Charnley. Monckton was present at Charnley during a fancy dress ball some fourteen years before the events in the story. Lord Charnley inexplicably took his own life just as the guests were arriving for the ball. Being one of the few eye-witnesses, Monckton recounted his version of the fourteen year old incident over dinner with Satterthwaite and Frank Bristow. What happened thereafter forms the main plot of the story.
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