“He was. He got rather a kick out of a fat wad in his pocket, I think.”
“Lots do. What surprised me a little, though, was to find that he only had thirty pounds and some loose change on him when his body was discovered. Seventy pounds seems to be a lot to have spent in a couple of days, unless he paid some bills, of course.”
Giles glanced through a pile of receipts. “Nothing here for that date. Might have bought a trinket for his latest fancy.”
“Or the butler's mysterious stranger might have relieved him of it,” said Hannasyde thoughtfully. “I should like to meet this smiling stranger.” He picked up a small letter-file, and began methodically to go through its contents. Most of the letters he merely glanced at, and put aside, but one held his attention for some moments. “Hm! I suppose you've seen this?”
Giles looked up. “What is it? Oh, that! Yes, I've seen it. There's some more of that correspondence - oh, you've got it!”
The Superintendent was holding a badly worded request for five hundred pounds, written in Kenneth's nervous fist. The letter stated with exquisite simplicity that Kenneth was broke, engaged to be married, and must have funds to pay off a few debts. Appended to it was a typewritten sheet, headed Copy, stating with equal simplicity that Arnold had no intention of giving or lending a feckless idiot five hundred pence, let alone pounds. Further search in the file brought to light a second letter from Kenneth, scrawled on a half-sheet of notepaper. It was laconic in the extreme, and expressed an ardent desire on the writer's part to wring his brother's bloody neck.
“Very spirited,” said the Superintendent noncommittally. “I should like to keep these letters, please.”
“Do, by all means,” said Giles. “Particularly the last one.”
“Kenneth Vereker is, I take it, a client of yours?”
“He is.”