Martin jerked up his head. “Yes, sir; that’s it.”

“How did you happen to go so quickly? Were you discharged by Mrs. Millicent?”

A dull flush rose in the tanned face. “You might as well ask how my master happened to die three days before I left, sir. Mrs. Millicent was giving up Beech Lodge and didn’t want a gardener. There was no other job in sight about here, and I couldn’t afford to hang on in the village.”

Derrick nodded with seeming carelessness. “Perhaps that’s fair enough, and as it happens I do want a gardener, but you’ll have to satisfy me completely on all points before I consider you. The circumstances are a bit out of the ordinary.”

“I’m ready to tell you anything I can, sir.”

“Then where do you come from now?”

“Upper Burma, by way of Canada. I have a sister in Alberta.” He fumbled in his pocket. “Would you be wanting to see my passport?”

“Not now, at any rate. I don’t understand why you should clear out of Sussex for Burma just because there was no job close at hand.”

“Well, sir, to tell the truth, I was that upset I wanted to get away as far as possible. I couldn’t put the master out of my head. He’d always been good to me from the first day I came, and we liked the same things, sir.”

“What was that?”

“Roses.”

He shot this out with rumbling assurance, and, strange as it sounded, Derrick believed him. It was difficult to picture this great hulk among the roses, these thick fingers training the delicate buds, but Martin’s reputation had already been established far beyond Beech Lodge. There had been, too, an assuring little break in the voice, suggesting a depth of feeling in strange contrast to this forbidding exterior. If this was acting, it was good acting. He scanned the man’s face, but as for promising any future revelations it was no more expressive than that of Perkins herself. Anything might lie hidden here. There were hints of passion in the eyes, but over him rested the touch of a complete control. If one could only get underneath that! It was obvious to Derrick that he must act deliberately—and delicately. It would be a matter of weeks, or perhaps months. The strangeness of the situation came over him with redoubled force. It was all part of a plan. Whose plan?

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