Isn't he here?" I asked.
"He has been gone since yesterday afternoon. Have you employed
him long?"
"Only a couple of weeks."
"Is he efficient? A capable man?"
"I hardly know," I said vaguely. "The place looks all right, and
I know very little about such things. I know much more about
boxes of roses than bushes of them."
"This man," pointing to the assistant, "says Alex isn't a
gardener. That he doesn't know anything about plants."
"That's very strange," I said, thinking hard. "Why, he came to
me from the Brays, who are in Europe."
"Exactly." The detective smiled. "Every man who cuts grass
isn't a gardener, Miss Innes, and just now it is our policy to
believe every person around here a rascal until he proves to be
the other thing."
Warner came up with the car then, and the conversation
stopped. As he helped me in, however, the detective said
something further.
"Not a word or sign to Alex, if he comes back," he said
cautiously.
I went first to Doctor Walker's. I was tired of beating about
the bush, and I felt that the key to Halsey's disappearance was
here at Casanova, in spite of Mr. Jamieson's theories.
The doctor was in. He came at once to the door of his
consulting-room, and there was no mask of cordiality in his
manner.
"Please come in," he said curtly.
"I shall stay here, I think, doctor." I did not like his face or
his manner; there was a subtle change in both. He had thrown of
the air of friendliness, and I thought, too, that he looked
anxious and haggard.
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