“And so you think of shifting. Well, it’s no use staying in a place that doesn’t square with your ideas of comfort.” “That’s just it, Mr. Cox.” The detective had assumed this name for the purposes of the temporary friendship. “I knew after the first fortnight it wouldn’t suit me at all. But I’ve stayed nine months for reasons. It doesn’t do for a man with my record in good families to go chopping and changing every five minutes, it gets him a bad name.” Lane signified his approval of this politic conduct, and noting that the valet’s glass was empty, hastened to have it refilled, a proceeding to which Mr. Simmons offered no objection. With his shrewd knowledge of men, his habit of drawing conclusions from small but infallible signs, the detective inclined to the belief that his new friend was an acquisitive kind of fellow, a man who would take all he could get and give as little as he could in return. “Your health, Mr. Cox.” The man lifted his glass and looked appreciatively at his host, while he gave utterance to further thoughts of his master. “I don’t say Sir George isn’t all right in the matter of family, although of course we know they’ve come down through his old father playing ducks and drakes with the property. But the truth is, a poor place doesn’t suit a man at my time of life, forty-five last birthday. Wages are nothing; it’s the pickings that enable a fellow to put by and start a snug little place of his own to keep him in his old age.” A poor place, an absence of “pickings”! This confirmed the banker’s report. As a matter of fact, Lane did not want the banker’s report confirmed, he could rely on it as far as it went. He was on a much deeper game, and with that object he had sought the society of Mr. Simmons in the hope of finding him the sort of person who would help him to play it. “Now, that’s rather funny,” he said in assumed surprise. “I’ve heard a good deal about Sir George, one way and another, and I was always under the impression he was a wealthy man, had come into a large fortune.” Mr. Simmons gave a contemptuous sniff. “If he came into a large fortune, and I think I’ve heard something of that tale myself, it was before my time. I’ll bet he hasn’t got any of it left now. I tell you what he does, Mr. Cox, he bluffs a lot, he makes out to most of his acquaintances that he’s got tons of money, and, of course, several of them take his word. I’ve heard him putting the pot on often myself when he didn’t know I was listening.” An eavesdropper, this quiet, respectable-looking man! If he had the smaller infirmities, he would be pretty certain to have the bigger ones. Such was the thought of the shrewd detective. “But I’ve always heard he bets high, Mr. Simmons.”