“Do you know anything of a man named Willis?” asked Lane of the valet who was watching his proceedings with great interest. He was a very curious fellow, and he would dearly have liked to know the particular object of the present researches. “Yes, that’s his bookmaker,” was the answer of Simmons. Mr. Willis’s cheques were for trifling sums which seemed to prove that the baronet did not bet so high as was generally supposed, as he pretended to his friends, according to the valet’s account. But, of course, it was not proof positive. Like most men who follow racing, he would win one day and lose the next, so that at the end of the week there might be a very trifling balance against him or in his favour. What, of course, Lane was looking for was an entry a little subsequent to the first big burglary, when the diamonds and the big bundle of foreign notes had been stolen. There was certainly the biggest entry he had seen in the book about a week after the actual date of the robbery, and against it was marked the word “cash.” But it was only for seventy-five pounds. Now the diamonds alone, according to Lane’s information, had cost Mr. Morrice no less than eight thousand pounds, as the stones were big ones, perfect in matching and colour. Granted that they had been realized by the thief or thieves at a tremendous depreciation, they should at least have brought in a fourth of that sum. It was hardly possible that Sir George, even if he were a member of a gang who shared the spoil, would engage in such a dangerous operation for the sake of the paltry sum of seventy-five pounds. Including that item the total payings-in for the two months were a little over four hundred pounds. Assuming that this was a fair average, the baronet’s income would be only slightly more than two thousand a year. It was a small amount for a man who went about in good society, and according to Simmons, spent about five hundred a year at least on his clothes, and entertained his friends lavishly to lunches and dinners at the most expensive restaurants. “That’s what riles me about him,” observed the valet when he had answered Lane’s direct questions on these points. “A month ago he bought a new car that must have cost him every penny of a thousand pounds. He thinks nothing of paying fifty pounds for a dinner to his pals, I know that from one or two waiters who are friends of mine. And yet he’s so devilish mean in some things, he sells his old clothes, he begrudges me a cigar or a glass of wine, and while he’s blueing all this money, his bank won’t let him overdraw five pounds, according to his own statement which I overheard him make to his nephew.”