The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Roberts Rinehart - 25 Titles in One Edition. Mary Roberts Rinehart
The butler said you wanted to speak to me."
Miss Cornelia regarded him anew. His hands look soft—for a gardener's, she thought. And his manners seem much too good for one— Still——
"Come in," she said briskly. The young man advanced another two steps. "You're the man my niece engaged in the city this afternoon?"
"Yes, madam." He seemed a little uneasy under her searching scrutiny. She dropped her eyes.
"I could not verify your references as the Brays are in Canada—" she proceeded.
The young man took an eager step forward. "I am sure if Mrs. Bray were here——" he began, then flushed and stopped, twisting his cap.
"Were here?" said Miss Cornelia in a curious voice. "Are you a professional gardener?"
"Yes." The young man's manner had grown a trifle defiant but Miss Cornelia's next question followed remorselessly.
"Know anything about hardy perennials?" she said in a soothing voice, while Lizzie regarded the interview with wondering eyes.
"Oh. yes," but the young man seemed curiously lacking in confidence. "They—they're the ones that keep their leaves during the winter, aren't they?"
"Come over here—closer——" said Miss Cornelia imperiously. Once more she scrutinized him and this time there was no doubt of his discomfort under her stare.
"Have you had any experience with rubeola?" she queried finally.
"Oh, yes—yes—yes, indeed," the gardener stammered. "Yes."
"And—alopecia?" pursued Miss Cornelia.
The young man seemed to fumble in his mind for the characteristics of such a flower or shrub.
"The dry weather is very hard on alopecia," he asserted finally, and was evidently relieved to see Miss Cornelia receive the statement with a pleasant smile.
"What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?" she propounded with a highly professional manner.
It appeared to be a catch-question. The young man knotted his brows. Finally a gleam of light seemed to come to him.
"Urticaria frequently needs—er—thinning," he announced decisively.
"Needs scratching you mean!" Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of disdain and faced him. "Young man, urticaria is hives, rubeola is measles, and alopecia is baldness!" she thundered. She waited a moment for his defense. None came.
"Why did you tell me you were a professional gardener?" she went on accusingly. "Why have you come here at this hour of night pretending to be something you're not?"
By all standards of drama the young man should have wilted before her wrath, Instead he suddenly smiled at her, boyishly, and threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.
"I know I shouldn't have done it!" he confessed with appealing frankness. "You'd have found me out anyhow! I don't know anything about gardening. The truth is," his tone grew somber, "I was desperate! I had to have work!"
The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person than Miss Cornelia. But her suspicions were still awake.
"'That's all, is it?"
"That's enough when you're down and out." His words had an unmistakable accent of finality. She couldn't help wanting to believe him, and yet, he wasn't what he had pretended to be—and this night of all nights was no time to take people on trust!
"How do I know you won't steal the spoons?" she queried, her voice still gruff.
"Are they nice spoons?" he asked with absurd seriousness.
She couldn't help smiling at his tone. "Beautiful spoons."
Again that engaging, boyish manner of his touched something in her heart.
"Spoons are a great temptation to me, Miss Van Gorder—but if you'll take me, I'll promise to leave them alone."
"That's extremely kind of you," she answered with grim humor, knowing herself beaten. She went over to ring for Billy.
Lizzie took the opportunity to gain her ear.
"I don't trust him, Miss Neily! He's too smooth!" she whispered warningly.
Miss Cornelia stiffened. "I haven't asked for your opinion, Lizzie," she said.
But Lizzie was not to be put off by the Van Gorder manner.
"Oh," she whispered, "you're just as bad as all the rest of 'em. A good-looking man comes in the door and your brains fly out the window!"
Miss Cornelia quelled her with a gesture and turned back to the young man. He was standing just where she had left him, his cap in his hands—but, while her back had been turned, his eyes had made a stealthy survey of the living-room—a survey that would have made it plain to Miss Cornelia, if she had seen him, that his interest in the Fleming establishment was not merely the casual interest of a servant in his new place of abode. But she had not seen and she could have told nothing from his present expression.
"Have you had anything to eat lately?" she asked in a kindly voice.
He looked down at his cap. "Not since this morning," he admitted as Billy answered the bell.
Miss Cornelia turned to the impassive Japanese. "Billy, give this man something to eat and then show him where he is to sleep."
She hesitated. The gardener's house was some distance from the main building, and with the night and the approaching storm she felt her own courage weakening. Into the bargain, whether this stranger had lied about his gardening or not, she was curiously attracted to him.
"I think," she said slowly, "that I'll have you sleep in the house here, at least for tonight. Tomorrow we can—the housemaid's room, Billy," she told the butler. And before their departure she held out a candle and a box of matches.
"Better take these with you, Brooks," she said. "The local light company crawls under its bed every time there is a thunderstorm. Good night, Brooks."
"Good night, ma'am," said the young man smiling. Following Billy to the door, he paused. "You're being mighty good to me," he said diffidently, smiled again, and disappeared after Billy.
As the door closed behind them, Miss Cornelia found herself smiling too. "That's a pleasant young fellow—no matter what he is," she said to herself decidedly, and not even Lizzie's feverish "Haven't you any sense taking strange men into the house? How do you know he isn't the Bat?" could draw a reply from her.
Again the thunder rolled as she straightened the papers and magazines on the table and Lizzie gingerly took up the ouija-board to replace it on the bookcase with the prayer book firmly on top of it. And this time, with the roll of the thunder, the lights in the living-room blinked uncertainly for an instant before they recovered their normal brilliance.
"There go the lights!" grumbled Lizzie, her fingers still touching the prayer book, as if for protection. Miss Cornelia did not answer her directly.
"We'll put the detective in the blue room when he comes," she said. "You'd better go up and see if it's all ready."
Lizzie started to obey, going toward the alcove to ascend to the second floor by the alcove stairs. But Miss Cornelia stopped her.
"Lizzie—you know that stair rail's just been varnished. Miss Dale got a stain on her sleeve there this afternoon—and Lizzie——"
"Yes'm?"
"No one is to know that he is a detective. Not even Billy." Miss Cornelia was very firm.
"Well, what'll I say he is?"
"It's nobody's business."
"A detective," moaned Lizzie, opening the hall door to go by the main staircase. "Tiptoeing around with his eye to all the keyholes. A body won't be safe in the bathtub." She shut the door with a little slap and disappeared. Miss Cornelia sat down—she had many things to think