“Finance, sir? Do you mean accountancy, or—or what I might call ‘high finance’?”
“I don’t know that I’d ‘fined’ the subject down so closely, Barrod. I meant finance generally—accountancy would certainly come into it—stock markets, bill-broking and so on. Hardly ‘high finance’—that’s more international banking, isn’t it?”
“That was rather Sir Garth Fratten’s line, wasn’t it, sir? He was a banker, and certainly had an international reputation.”
“That’s not quite the same thing, I should say, as being an international banker—Fratten’s was a small private bank.—I should have thought it was more of a family affair. Still, I confess I’m very ignorant on the subject.”
“So am I, sir—an abstruse subject. Anyway, I’m afraid Poole won’t have it. I believe he did go through a course of economics sometime—I’m not quite sure when. I don’t know what he learnt at it.”
“Probably his way about a balance sheet—which is more than most of us know. What about women? Can he keep his head or is he liable to be vamped?”
“That Radinska woman didn’t put it over him in the Curzon case, anyhow, sir.”
“No, nor she did—I remember. Good-looker, too. Bit of a St. Anthony. On the whole he sounds the man for the job.”
“I think he is, sir,” agreed the Chief Inspector, with an inward chuckle.
“Call him up, then, if he’s here. May as well get on with it at once.”