"In the summerhouse," Marianne replied.

Instinctively Monk glanced toward the windows, but he could see only sunlight through the cascading leaves of a weeping elm and the lush pink of a rose beyond.

"Here?" he asked. "In your own garden?"

"Yes. I go there quite often-to paint."

"Often? So anyone familiar with your day might have expected to find you there?"

She colored painfully. "I-suppose so. But I am sure that can having nothing to do with it."

He did not reply to that. "What time of day was it?" he asked instead.

"I am not certain. About half past three, I think. Or perhaps a little later. Maybe four." She shrugged very slightly. "Or even half past. I was not thinking of time."

"Before or after tea?"

"Oh-yes-I see. After tea. I suppose it must have been half past four then."

"Do you have a gardener?"

"It wasn't he!" she said, jerking forward in some alarm.

"Of course not," he soothed. "Or you would have known him. I was wondering if he had seen anyone. If he had been in the garden it might help to determine where the man came from, which direction, and perhaps how he left, even the precise time."

"Oh yes-I see."

"We do have a gardener," Julia said with keenness quickening in her face and some admiration for Monk lighting her eyes. "His name is Rodwell. He is here three days a week, in the afternoons. That was one of his days. Tomorrow he will be back again. You could ask him then."

"I shall do," Monk promised, turning back to Marianne. "Miss Gillespie, is there anything at all about the man you can recall? For example," he continued quickly, seeing her about to deny it, "how was he dressed?"

"I-I don't know what you mean." Her hands knotted more tightly in her lap, and she stared at him with mounting nervousness.

"Was he dressed in a dark jacket such as a man of business might wear?" he explained. "Or a working smock, like a gardener? Or a white shirt, like a man of leisure?"