Walter P. Broadhurst, of the Marine Bank, had produced two hundred American Traction bonds, which had been placed as security with the Marine Bank for a loan of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, made to Paul Armstrong, just before his California trip. The bonds were a part of the missing traction bonds from the Traders’ Bank! While this involved the late president of the wrecked bank, to my mind it by no means cleared its cashier. The gardener mentioned by Halsey came out about two o’clock in the afternoon, and walked up from the station. I was favorably impressed by him. His references were good—he had been employed by the Brays’ until they went to Europe, and he looked young and vigorous. He asked for one assistant, and I was glad enough to get off so easily. He was a pleasant-faced young fellow, with black hair and blue eyes, and his name was Alexander Graham. I have been particular about Alex, because, as I said before, he played an important part later. That afternoon I had a new insight into the character of the dead banker. I had my first conversation with Louise. She sent for me, and against my better judgment I went. There were so many things she could not be told, in her weakened condition, that I dreaded the interview. It was much easier than I expected, however, because she asked no questions. Gertrude had gone to bed, having been up almost all night, and Halsey was absent on one of those mysterious absences of his that grew more and more frequent as time went on, until it culminated in the event of the night of June the tenth. Liddy was in attendance in the sick-room. There being little or nothing to do, she seemed to spend her time smoothing the wrinkles from the counterpane. Louise lay under a field of virgin white, folded back at an angle of geometrical exactness, and necessitating a readjustment every time the sick girl turned. Liddy heard my approach and came out to meet me. She seemed to be in a perpetual state of goose-flesh, and she had got in the habit of looking past me when she talked, as if she saw things. It had the effect of making me look over my shoulder to see what she was staring at, and was intensely irritating. “She’s awake,” Liddy said, looking uneasily down the circular staircase, which was beside me. “She was talkin’ in her sleep something awful—about dead men and coffins.” “Liddy,” I said sternly, “did you breathe a word about everything not being right here?” Liddy’s gaze had wandered to the door of the chute, now bolted securely. “Not a word,” she said, “beyond asking her a question or two, which there was no harm in. She says there never was a ghost known here.” I glared at her, speechless, and closing the door into Louise’s boudoir, to Liddy’s great disappointment, I went on to the bedroom beyond.