ould hasten to employ him? And what was it, after all,
that Gafferson could possibly know or prove? His brother-in-law had gone
off, and got too drunk to live, and had died. What in the name of all
that was sensible had this to do with Thorpe? Why should it even
be supposed that Gafferson associated Thorpe with any phase of the
business? And if he had any notion of a hostile movement, why should he
have delayed action so long? Why indeed!

Reassurance did not come to him, but at last an impulse to definite
action turned his footsteps toward the cluster of greenhouses in the
deepening shadow of the mansion. He would find Gafferson, and probe this
business to the uttermost. If there was discoverable in the man's manner
or glance the least evidence of a malevolent intention--he would know
what to do. Ah, what was it that he would do? He could not say, beyond
that it would be bad for Gafferson. He instinctively clenched the
fists in the pockets of his jacket as he quickened his pace. Inside the
congeries of glazed houses he was somewhat at sea. It was still light
enough to make one's way about in the passages between the stagings, but
he had no idea of the general plan of the buildings, and it seemed to
him that he frequently got back to places he had traversed before. There
were two or three subordinate gardeners in or about the houses, but
upon reflection he forbore to question them. He tried to assume an
idly indifferent air as he sauntered past, nodding almost imperceptible
acknowledgment of the forefingers they jerked upward in salutation.

He came at last upon a locked door, the key of which had been removed.
The fact vaguely surprised him, and he looked with awakened interest
through the panes of this door. The air inside seemed slightly
thickened--and then his eye caught the flicker of a flame, straight
ahead. It was nothing but the fumigation of a house; the burning spirits
in the lamp underneath the brazier were filling the structure with
vapours fatal to all insect life. In two or three hours the men would
come and open the doors and windows and ventilate the place. The
operation was quite familiar to him; it had indeed interested him more
when he first saw it done than had anything else connected with the
greenhouses.

His abstracted gaze happened to take note of the fact that the door-key
was hanging on a nail overhead, and then suddenly this seemed to be
related to something else in his thoughts--some obscur