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 far as the servants were
concerned". That meant--?'