At this point, the hall porter of the Wanderers’ rang through to say that Mr. Hessel was not in the Club—and would not divulge whether he had been in it that day or was expected. Cursing the ultra-discretion of Clubland, Poole determined to try Hessel’s rooms, of which he had previously obtained the address. No reply could be extracted from the flat in Whitehall Court. Nothing daunted, Poole determined to walk round there; it was just possible that Mr. Hessel was at this hour himself walking home from club or office. He was right; when he got to the great block of flats behind the War Office, he found that the banker had just come in. Mr. Hessel received the detective with a friendly smile. At Poole’s request, he repeated his account of the accident, but without throwing any fresh light on the question of the blow. He had not actually seen the man knock against Sir Garth, but he felt sure that he must have been conscious if anything so definite as a blow had been delivered. As to time, he had no means of fixing precise limits, but he would say soon after six. Poole thanked him for his information and turned to the question of appearance. “Would you say that the man was a gentleman, sir?” he asked; “perhaps I ought to put it rather differently: did he appear to be a man of leisure, a business or professional man, a clerk—or what?” Hessel thought for a time, before answering. “Now you press me,” he said. “I find it rather difficult to answer. From his remarks—something about a message to the Admiralty, as I told you—I certainly formed the unconscious impression that he was of the clerk type. But I am not really at all sure. He was quite a nice-looking, pleasant-spoken young fellow; he might really quite well have been a professional man, I suppose. His clothes were not very smart, so far as I remember—but of course that tells one little in these hard times.” “You saw him quite clearly, sir?” “Oh, yes—quite.” “Is it possible that he was someone that you know by sight—disguised?” Hessel stared at the detective. “Who do you mean?” he asked.