"I didn't suspect him myself for a long time. The first hint of it I had was when I heard what Mr. Devereux's last words had been. Naturally, you took them to mean that Mr. Devereux was trying to send word to Mr. Thesiger that the Seven Dials had killed him. That's what the words seemed to mean on their face value. But of course I knew that that couldn't be so. It was the Seven Dials that Mr. Devereux wanted told--and what he wanted them told was something about Mr. Jimmy Thesiger. "The thing seemed incredible, because Mr. Devereux and Mr. Thesiger were close friends. But I remembered something else--that these thefts must have been committed by someone who was absolutely in the know. Someone who, if not in the Foreign Office himself, was in the way of hearing all its chit-chat. And I found it very hard to find out where Mr. Thesiger got his money. The income his father left him was a small one, yet he was able to live at a most expensive rate. Where did the money come from? "I knew that Mr. Wade had been very excited by something that he had found out. He was quite sure that he was on the right track. He didn't confide in anyone about what he thought that track was, but he did say something to Mr. Devereux about being on the point of making sure. That was just before they both went down to Chimneys for that week-end. As you know, Mr. Wade died there--apparently from an overdose of a sleeping draught. It seemed straightforward enough, but Mr. Devereux did not accept that explanation for a minute. He was convinced that Mr. Wade had been very cleverly put out of the way and that someone in the house must actually be the criminal we were all after. He came, I think, very near confiding in Mr. Thesiger, for he certainly had no suspicions of him at that moment. But something held him back. "Then he did rather a curious thing. He arranged seven clocks upon the mantelpiece, throwing away the eighth. It was meant as a symbol that the Seven Dials would revenge the death of one of their members--and he watched eagerly to see if anyone betrayed themselves or showed signs of perturbation." "And it was Jimmy Thesiger who poisoned Gerry Wade?" "Yes, he slipped the stuff into a whisky and soda which Mr. Wade had downstairs before retiring to bed. That's why he was already feeling sleepy when he wrote that letter to Miss Wade." "Then the footman, Bauer, hadn't anything to do with it?" asked Bundle.