The arrangement suited the detective well. He would, as Hessel had said, get direct access to Sir Garth’s papers—untouched, as seemed fairly certain, except for the hurried survey that Menticle, Hessel and Mangane had all supervised. Secondly, he would, by dining with him, get an excellent opportunity of sizing up Mr. Hessel himself, and Poole always liked to form a personal opinion of the chief characters in a problem—Hessel was obviously a very important character, with his first-hand evidence that he was able to give and his intimate knowledge of the dead man’s affairs. Poole realized that Mr. Hessel was not altogether in sympathy with him—probably he had been too brusque in pressing him for answers to difficult questions; this would be an opportunity of gaining the banker’s confidence. By tacit consent, the case under investigation was not referred to during the meal at Rittoni’s, that quiet but very high-grade restaurant below one of the great shipping offices in Cockspur Street. Hessel was an excellent host, not pressing hospitality upon his guest, but seeming to understand by instinct the type of food and wine to suit both taste and occasion. He was a good talker, too, full of quiet but extremely interesting information, and with an individual sense of humour. He did not in any way monopolize the conversation, but drew the detective out—not on the subject of his work, but in an expression of opinion and experience on the general affairs of life. Undoubtedly, both men felt an increased respect for one another by the time they had walked across St. James’s Park—passing, without reference, the scene of Sir Garth’s death—to the Fratten’s home in Queen Anne’s Gate. Mangane was waiting for them, together with a severe-looking head-housemaid ready to remove—as soon as Hessel unlocked the neglected room—the outer coverings of dust; it was patent from her expression that she regarded men’s methods with anything but approval. As soon as the housemaid had finished and gone, Hessel, who kept Mangane in the room to help him find his way about, took out his keys and unlocked the writing table drawers. It was at once apparent that Sir Garth had been an extremely methodical man. Each drawer was labelled to show the general subject with which it dealt. “Bank,” “Hospital,” “Private Accounts,” “Personal,” “Company Boards,” “Investments” etc., and in each drawer the different subdivisions of the same subject were filed in paper jackets. Quickly but methodically Poole examined each drawerful in turn; in that labelled “Company Boards,” he at once found a jacket marked “Victory Finance Company,” the concern which Mangane had told him had been the subject of Sir Garth’s investigations each evening up to the time of his death—investigations which his daughter had thought were causing him considerable worry. Poole said nothing about this jacket at the moment but passed on to another drawer until he had been through them all.