s wife ceased to hit it off together, he had taken
to spending his evenings alone, and when at this house he always
spent 'em in here. He was last seen alive, as far as the servants are
concerned, in this room.'

Trent rose and glanced again through the papers set out on the table.
'Business letters and documents, mostly,' said Mr. Murch. 'Reports,
prospectuses, and that. A few letters on private matters, nothing in
them that I can see. The American secretary--Bunner his name is, and
a queerer card I never saw turned--he's been through this desk with
me this morning. He had got it into his head that Manderson had been
receiving threatening letters, and that the murder was the outcome of
that. But there's no trace of any such thing; and we looked at every
blessed paper. The only unusual things we found were some packets of
banknotes to a considerable amount, and a couple of little bags of unset
diamonds. I asked Mr. Bunner to put them in a safer place. It appears
that Manderson had begun buying diamonds lately as a speculation--it was
a new game to him, the secretary said, and it seemed to amuse him.'

'What about these secretaries?' Trent enquired. 'I met one called
Marlowe just now outside; a nice-looking chap with singular eyes,
unquestionably English. The other, it seems, is an American. What did
Manderson want with an English secretary?'

'Mr. Marlowe explained to me how that was. The American was his
right-hand business man, one of his office staff, who never left him.
Mr. Marlowe had nothing to do with Manderson's business as a financier,
knew nothing of it. His job was to look after Manderson's horses and
motors and yacht and sporting arrangements and that--make himself
generally useful, as you might say. He had the spending of a lot of
money, I should think. The other was confined entirely to the office
affairs, and I dare say he had his hands full. As for his being English,
it was just a fad of Manderson's to have an English secretary. He'd had
several before Mr. Marlowe.'

'He showed his taste,' observed Trent. 'It might be more than
interesting, don't you think, to be minister to the pleasures of a
modern plutocrat with a large P. Only they say that Manderson's
were exclusively of an innocent kind. Certainly Marlowe gives me the
impression that he would be weak in the part of Petronius. But to return
to the matter in hand.' He looked at his notes. 'You said just
now that he was last seen alive here, "so f