Who Is Nina Carrington

On Tuesday, then, I sent for the car, and prepared to go out. As I
waited at the porte-cochere I saw the under-gardener, an inoffensive,
grayish-haired man, trimming borders near the house.

The day detective was watching him, sitting on the carriage block.
When he saw me, he got up.

"Miss Innes," he said, taking of his hat, "do you know where Alex, the
gardener, is?"

"Why, no. 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.