The baronet resided on the first floor of a block of service flats in the Victoria direction, finding this mode of living very suitable to him. Simmons slept out, coming early in the morning and leaving at all sorts of times dependent upon his master’s convenience. In the course of his communications to Lane, the detective had gathered that, in many respects, it was a very easy place. Sir George did a great deal for himself, so that the valet’s duties were not onerous, and he had a lot of spare time. If his master went out for the evening, and this happened on most evenings of the week, Simmons was never required to await his return. His meals he occasionally took in the restaurant attached to the flats, but more frequently he lunched and dined at his clubs or the private houses of his acquaintances. Breakfast, a Continental one of coffee and rolls, was served in his own apartments. “As a matter of fact, he doesn’t want a valet at all,” was Simmons’s rather contemptuous comment on his master’s habits. “And if he consulted his own inclinations, I don’t believe he would keep one, for he’s that dirt mean that I know he begrudges me my wages every time he pays me. What can you expect of a man who sells all his old clothes to a second-hand dealer? Not a waistcoat or a pair of old boots have I had since I was in his service. He’s obliged to keep one to carry out his policy of ‘swank.’ He knows his friends would think it deuced queer for one in his position to be without a man.” It formed a handsome suite of apartments, with its two elegantly furnished sitting-rooms, large airy bedroom and capacious bathroom. Still, one would only put it down as the abode of a man comfortably well-off, not one supposed to be actually wealthy. “Here we are!” exclaimed Mr. Simmons, as he ushered the detective into the smaller of the two sitting-rooms, which was used as a smoking-room and study in which the owner wrote his letters and attended to his business, whatever it was. “And here’s the writing-table, and that top one on the left is the drawer in which you want to look. I’m glad it’s turned out like this, Mr. Lane; I feel a good bit easier in my mind. Nobody can call this burglary, eh? No harm in taking a peep at things that be under your hand, is there?”