No detail is too small to be filed in Steerpike’s sharp, archival mind; all may prove useful for eventual manipulation, blackmail, or other use. See another insight into this chill scheme-squirmy mind. 

Beware the Steerpikes of the world and shun their attentions, altruism is nothing but a trick to them, to be foisted on gullible humans.

‘There were few secrets hidden from him, for he had that scavenger-like faculty of acquiring unashamedly and from an infinite variety of sources snatches of knowledge…’

Source: Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, introduction by Anthony Burgess (London: Vintage Books, 1998), p. 198-99