The detective thanked Wraile for his very lucid and helpful explanation and asked his “routine” question about his whereabouts on the evening of 24th October. Wraile looked in his diary and replied that he must have been at his office—the Ethiopian and General Development Company’s office—till nearly half-past five as he had had an appointment with a man named Yardley, managing-director of Canning, Herrup, at five and their talk couldn’t have lasted much less than half an hour—Yardley might be able to confirm that. He had then gone to his club, the Junior Services, in Pall Mall, had tea, and had another interview there with a potential client—Lukescu, the Roumanian company promoter. He was at the club certainly till seven, if not half-past, because Lukescu had been late for his appointment. There should be no difficulty in proving that because he had been very annoyed about being kept waiting and had more than once enquired whether the man had not come. Probably the hall-porter or one of the waiters would remember something about it. Poole made careful notes of this story and tried to pin Captain Wraile down to more exact time, but the latter did not appear to take great interest in the subject and declared himself quite incapable of being more exact. The detective realized that he must go to the club and make some very close enquiries—an extremely difficult task, as clubs are very reticent about the doings of their members. There was other work nearer at hand, however, and Poole, taking a respectful leave of Captain and Mrs. Wraile, made his way down the four flights of stairs and introduced himself to the hall-porter. Mr. Canting proved to be a man who did the duty that he was paid for. His employer gave him, he said, a good wage to be on duty in the hall, or in his cubby-hole looking into it, or working the lift, between the hours of 9 a. m. and 7 p. m. on week-days, 9 and 1.30 on Saturdays, with reasonable time off for meals. Being an old soldier (his row of medals—M.M., 1914 star; British and Allied Victory Medals; Belgian Croix de Guerre—showed that his had been no hollow service) he knew his duty and did it. He remembered 24th October because General Lorne, under whom he had served and who had got him this job, had given him a tip for the Ormonde Plate which had come off. The General always put him on to anything good that was going and very seldom let him down—if he did he sometimes gave him something to make up for it—a proper gentleman he was. On this occasion the General had said early in the morning he was going to Newbury and would not be back again that day.