Mangane smiled.
“Or, of course, from this room.”
“But as far as you know, no one did go in there between the time of Sir Garth’s being brought back and your going in with Mr. Hessel to lock up?”
“No. Nobody went in through this room, because I was in here myself, and I certainly didn’t hear anyone go in from the hall.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Poole. “I expect you think I’m being very fussy, but I want to examine those papers presently and I like to know first what chance there has been of their being disturbed.”
“Oh they’ve been disturbed. I told you they had, once. The day after the will was read, Mr. Hessel came here with Menticle, the solicitor, and we went into the study and together ran through the papers in the table and in the ‘In’ and ‘Pending’ baskets—just in case anything wanted attending to at once. There was nothing of importance.”
“You were all three together in the room all the time?”
“Yes; we were only there about a quarter of an hour. Mr. Hessel said he hadn’t time to do more then. I’ve been trying to get him to come along and tackle the job but he keeps on putting it off. I believe the old chap’s really rather upset.”
“I can quite believe it. He told me that Sir Garth had been extraordinarily good to him.”
Poole paused for a minute to jot something down in his note-book. “There’s just one thing more I want to ask you,” he continued. “Miss Fratten says that her father was working rather hard every evening latterly on something that seemed to worry him. Do you know what that was?”