Mr. Menticle gave the suggestion a moment’s thought, then nodded his head.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I can do that. I might refuse, of course, but you would get the information just the same, by using your powers, and I should merely have established an atmosphere of hostility.”
He rose, and, leaving the room, presently returned with a bundle of papers which he laid on the table beside him. Poole could not help admiring the cool common sense with which his host made a virtue of necessity.
“The will is a very simple one,” said Mr. Menticle, laying it out on his knees, and running over its clauses with his finger. “Sir Garth left comfortable though not large legacies to various distant relations, to his employees at the bank and to his domestic staff. There are various bequests to charities and two special legacies of £5000 each, one to myself and one to his intimate friend, Mr. Leopold Hessel, whom he appointed his sole executor. But taking all these together, the total forms a very small portion of his fortune, the residue of which, after paying all duties, was divided equally between Mr. Ryland and Miss Inez Fratten.”
“His son and daughter?” said Poole and, as Mr. Menticle made no comment, took silence for consent.
The detective had jotted down the outline of the will as Mr. Menticle sketched it. He ran his eye over it again.
“And the residue will amount to?” he asked.
“Impossible to say yet. Sir Garth had very wide interests. The death duties, of course, will vary according to the total amount dutiable.”
“But roughly?”
“Roughly, between four and five hundred thousand pounds, I should say.”