II
‘About time someone did something about the garden,’ said Mr Crispin,as Tommy led him on a tour of the flower-beds and the vegetable garden.
‘That’s where they used to grow the spinach¹ along this kitchen gardenpath here. Behind it were some frames. They used to grow melons too.’
‘You seem to be very well aware of all this.’
‘Well, one heard a lot you know of what had been everywhere in the olddays. Old ladies tell you about the flower-beds and Alexander Parkinsontold a lot of his pals² about the foxglove leaves.’
‘He must have been a rather remarkable³ boy.’
‘Well, he had ideas and he was very keen on crime. He made a kind ofcode message out in one of Stevenson’s books: The Black Arrow.’
‘Rather a good one, that, isn’t it? I read it myself about five years ago. Be-fore that I’d never got further than Kidnapped. When I was working for–’
He hesitated.
‘Mr Solomon?’ suggested Tommy.
‘Yes, yes, that’s the name. I heard things. Heard things from old Isaac. Igather, unless I’ve heard the wrong rumours⁴, I gather that old Isaac musthave been, oh, getting on for a hundred and did some work for you here.’
‘Yes,’ said Tommy. ‘For his age he was rather wonderful, really. Heknew a lot of things he used to tell us, too. Things he couldn’t have re-membered himself.’
‘No, but he liked the gossip of the old days. He’s got relations here still,you know, who have listened to his tales and checked up on his stories. Iexpect you’ve heard a good many things yourself.’
‘So far,’ said Tommy, ‘everything seems to work out in lists of names.
Names from the past but names, naturally, that don’t mean anything tome. They can’t.’
‘All hearsay⁵?’
‘Mostly. My wife has listened to a lot of it and made some lists. I don’tknow whether any of them mean anything. I’ve got one list myself. It onlycame into my hands yesterday, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh. What’s your list?’
‘

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