“Our friend, the gardener, does have excellent taste in food,” remarked Louise. “What puzzles me is where does he get the money to pay for all this?”
“The obvious answer is that he’s not a gardener.”
“Maybe he has rooms here too, Penny.”
“I’ve been wondering about it. I mean to investigate.”
Louise glanced at her wristwatch. “Do you think we should take the time?” she asked. “It will be late afternoon now before we reach home.”
“Oh, it won’t take a minute to inquire at the desk.”
Leaving the dining room, the girls made their way to the lobby. When the desk clerk had a free moment Penny asked him if anyone by the name of Peter Henderson had taken rooms at the hotel.
“No one here by that name,” the man told her. “Wait, I’ll look to be sure.”
He consulted a card filing system which served as a register, and confirmed his first statement.
“The man I mean would be around sixty years of age,” explained Penny. “He works as a gardener at the Kippenberg estate.”