“Finally, about a fortnight before Sir Garth’s death, he received a letter from Ryland saying that he had got entangled with another girl—I don’t know the name in this case—and that she was asking for £20,000 or matrimony—and Ryland was straight enough to say that he had found he didn’t like her after all and simply couldn’t marry her. Naturally there was a flare up; unfortunately Sir Garth read the letter when he got back to his house just after having an unpleasant shock—a narrow escape from being run over—in the City. No doubt he was feeling unwell; he sent for Ryland, who happened to be in the house—as a matter of fact I believe the boy had come there to face the music—had a first-class row with him and finally packed him off with a ‘curse and a copper coin,’ as it used to be called. Ryland left the house and never returned to it in Sir Garth’s lifetime, and then only at Miss Inez’ urgent entreaty, as she herself told me.” Mr. Menticle turned to the table beside him and began rummaging among the papers that he had brought in. “That, Inspector,” he said, “is all I have to tell you—and I have not enjoyed telling it. Here, if you wish to see it, is the revised—and unsigned—will. After the funeral and the reading of the effective will, I so far forgot myself as to tear this one across—I was upset. But here are the four pieces, they are still quite good as evidence if required—though only corroborative evidence—of mystery, of course. Being unsigned, they are no absolute evidence of Sir Garth’s intention; I might have drafted the will out of my own head, for all anyone knows. There are also, of course, the rough draft and my own notes taken at the time of Sir Garth’s instructions to me, but none of them bears Sir Garth’s signature, nor, I believe, any of his handwriting—he made no corrections.” Poole felt that, for the moment, he had got as much out of Mr. Menticle as he could expect, though he would almost certainly have some more questions to ask him later on. It was by now nearly eight o’clock and the detective felt he had done a fairly full day’s work. In any case, he wanted time to think over things before going any further. Being a single man, living in cheap rooms in Battersea—(he had refused to allow his father to supplement his professional earnings)—he had formed the habit of taking his meals at a variety of inexpensive restaurants in different parts of London. Without revealing his professional identity, he made a point of getting into conversation with the proprietors and waiters, and sometimes with the habitués of these places, with the result that he had picked up a good deal of valuable knowledge about London life, and had made a number of potentially useful friends.