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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Lodger, by Marie Belloc Lowndes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Lodger
+
+Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes
+
+Release Date: December, 1999 [eBook #2014]
+[Most recently updated: April 22, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LODGER ***
+
+
+
+
+The Lodger
+
+by Marie Belloc Lowndes
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+ CHAPTER II.
+ CHAPTER III.
+ CHAPTER IV.
+ CHAPTER V.
+ CHAPTER VI.
+ CHAPTER VII.
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+ CHAPTER IX.
+ CHAPTER X.
+ CHAPTER XI.
+ CHAPTER XII.
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+ CHAPTER XV.
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+ CHAPTER XX.
+ CHAPTER XXI.
+ CHAPTER XXII.
+ CHAPTER XXIII.
+ CHAPTER XXIV.
+ CHAPTER XXV.
+ CHAPTER XXVI.
+ CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+
+
+“Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into
+darkness.”
+PSALM lxxxviii. 18
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Robert Bunting and Ellen his wife sat before their dully burning,
+carefully-banked-up fire.
+
+The room, especially when it be known that it was part of a house
+standing in a grimy, if not exactly sordid, London thoroughfare, was
+exceptionally clean and well-cared-for. A casual stranger, more
+particularly one of a Superior class to their own, on suddenly opening
+the door of that sitting-room; would have thought that Mr. and Mrs.
+Bunting presented a very pleasant cosy picture of comfortable married
+life. Bunting, who was leaning back in a deep leather arm-chair, was
+clean-shaven and dapper, still in appearance what he had been for many
+years of his life—a self-respecting man-servant.
+
+On his wife, now sitting up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair,
+the marks of past servitude were less apparent; but they were there all
+the same—in her neat black stuff dress, and in her scrupulously clean,
+plain collar and cuffs. Mrs. Bunting, as a single woman, had been what
+is known as a useful maid.
+
+But peculiarly true of average English life is the time-worn English
+proverb as to appearances being deceitful. Mr. and Mrs. Bunting were
+sitting in a very nice room and in their time—how long ago it now
+seemed!—both husband and wife had been proud of their carefully chosen
+belongings. Everything in the room was strong and substantial, and each
+article of furniture had been bought at a well-conducted auction held
+in a private house.
+
+Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden,
+drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and
+yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A
+great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which
+covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat
+forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had
+been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be
+comfortable after the day’s work was done, and she had paid
+thirty-seven shillings for the chair. Only yesterday Bunting had tried
+to find a purchaser for it, but the man who had come to look at it,
+guessing their cruel necessities, had only offered them twelve
+shillings and sixpence for it; so for the present they were keeping
+their arm-chair.
+
+But man and woman want something more than mere material comfort, much
+as that is valued by the Buntings of this world. So, on the walls of
+the sitting-room, hung neatly framed if now rather faded
+photographs—photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s various former
+employers, and of the pretty country houses in which they had
+separately lived during the long years they had spent in a not unhappy
+servitude.
+
+But appearances were not only deceitful, they were more than usually
+deceitful with regard to these unfortunate people. In spite of their
+good furniture—that substantial outward sign of respectability which is
+the last thing which wise folk who fall into trouble try to dispose
+of—they were almost at the end of their tether. Already they had learnt
+to go hungry, and they were beginning to learn to go cold. Tobacco, the
+last thing the sober man foregoes among his comforts, had been given up
+some time ago by Bunting. And even Mrs. Bunting—prim, prudent, careful
+woman as she was in her way—had realised what this must mean to him. So
+well, indeed, had she understood that some days back she had crept out
+and bought him a packet of Virginia.
+
+Bunting had been touched—touched as he had not been for years by any
+woman’s thought and love for him. Painful tears had forced themselves
+into his eyes, and husband and wife had both felt in their odd,
+unemotional way, moved to the heart.
+
+Fortunately he never guessed—how could he have guessed, with his slow,
+normal, rather dull mind?—that his poor Ellen had since more than once
+bitterly regretted that fourpence-ha’penny, for they were now very near
+the soundless depths which divide those who dwell on the safe tableland
+of security—those, that is, who are sure of making a respectable, if
+not a happy, living—and the submerged multitude who, through some lack
+in themselves, or owing to the conditions under which our strange
+civilisation has become organised, struggle rudderless till they die in
+workhouse, hospital, or prison.
+
+Had the Buntings been in a class lower than their own, had they
+belonged to the great company of human beings technically known to so
+many of us as the poor, there would have been friendly neighbours ready
+to help them, and the same would have been the case had they belonged
+to the class of smug, well-meaning, if unimaginative, folk whom they
+had spent so much of their lives in serving.
+
+There was only one person in the world who might possibly be brought to
+help them. That was an aunt of Bunting’s first wife. With this woman,
+the widow of a man who had been well-to-do, lived Daisy, Bunting’s only
+child by his first wife, and during the last long two days he had been
+trying to make up his mind to write to the old lady, and that though he
+suspected that she would almost certainly retort with a cruel, sharp
+rebuff.
+
+As to their few acquaintances, former fellow-servants, and so on, they
+had gradually fallen out of touch with them. There was but one friend
+who often came to see them in their deep trouble. This was a young
+fellow named Chandler, under whose grandfather Bunting had been footman
+years and years ago. Joe Chandler had never gone into service; he was
+attached to the police; in fact not to put too fine a point upon it,
+young Chandler was a detective.
+
+When they had first taken the house which had brought them, so they
+both thought, such bad luck, Bunting had encouraged the young chap to
+come often, for his tales were well worth listening to—quite exciting
+at times. But now poor Bunting didn’t want to hear that sort of
+stories—stories of people being cleverly “nabbed,” or stupidly allowed
+to escape the fate they always, from Chandler’s point of view, richly
+deserved.
+
+But Joe still came very faithfully once or twice a week, so timing his
+calls that neither host nor hostess need press food upon him—nay, more,
+he had done that which showed him to have a good and feeling heart. He
+had offered his father’s old acquaintance a loan, and Bunting, at last,
+had taken 30s. Very little of that money now remained: Bunting still
+could jingle a few coppers in his pocket; and Mrs. Bunting had 2s. 9d.;
+that and the rent they would have to pay in five weeks, was all they
+had left. Everything of the light, portable sort that would fetch money
+had been sold. Mrs. Bunting had a fierce horror of the pawnshop. She
+had never put her feet in such a place, and she declared she never
+would—she would rather starve first.
+
+But she had said nothing when there had occurred the gradual
+disappearance of various little possessions she knew that Bunting
+valued, notably of the old-fashioned gold watch-chain which had been
+given to him after the death of his first master, a master he had
+nursed faithfully and kindly through a long and terrible illness. There
+had also vanished a twisted gold tie-pin, and a large mourning ring,
+both gifts of former employers.
+
+When people are living near that deep pit which divides the secure from
+the insecure—when they see themselves creeping closer and closer to its
+dread edge—they are apt, however loquacious by nature, to fall into
+long silences. Bunting had always been a talker, but now he talked no
+more. Neither did Mrs. Bunting, but then she had always been a silent
+woman, and that was perhaps one reason why Bunting had felt drawn to
+her from the very first moment he had seen her.
+
+It had fallen out in this way. A lady had just engaged him as butler,
+and he had been shown, by the man whose place he was to take, into the
+dining-room. There, to use his own expression, he had discovered Ellen
+Green, carefully pouring out the glass of port wine which her then
+mistress always drank at 11.30 every morning. And as he, the new
+butler, had seen her engaged in this task, as he had watched her
+carefully stopper the decanter and put it back into the old
+wine-cooler, he had said to himself, “That is the woman for me!”
+
+But now her stillness, her—her dumbness, had got on the unfortunate
+man’s nerves. He no longer felt like going into the various little
+shops, close by, patronised by him in more prosperous days, and Mrs.
+Bunting also went afield to make the slender purchases which still had
+to be made every day or two, if they were to be saved from actually
+starving to death.
+
+Suddenly, across the stillness of the dark November evening there came
+the muffled sounds of hurrying feet and of loud, shrill shouting
+outside—boys crying the late afternoon editions of the evening papers.
+
+Bunting turned uneasily in his chair. The giving up of a daily paper
+had been, after his tobacco, his bitterest deprivation. And the paper
+was an older habit than the tobacco, for servants are great readers of
+newspapers.
+
+As the shouts came through the closed windows and the thick damask
+curtains, Bunting felt a sudden sense of mind hunger fall upon him.
+
+It was a shame—a damned shame—that he shouldn’t know what was happening
+in the world outside! Only criminals are kept from hearing news of what
+is going on beyond their prison walls. And those shouts, those hoarse,
+sharp cries must portend that something really exciting had happened,
+something warranted to make a man forget for the moment his own
+intimate, gnawing troubles.
+
+He got up, and going towards the nearest window strained his ears to
+listen. There fell on them, emerging now and again from the confused
+babel of hoarse shouts, the one clear word “Murder!”
+
+Slowly Bunting’s brain pieced the loud, indistinct cries into some sort
+of connected order. Yes, that was it—“Horrible Murder! Murder at St.
+Pancras!” Bunting remembered vaguely another murder which had been
+committed near St. Pancras—that of an old lady by her servant-maid. It
+had happened a great many years ago, but was still vividly remembered,
+as of special and natural interest, among the class to which he had
+belonged.
+
+The newsboys—for there were more than one of them, a rather unusual
+thing in the Marylebone Road—were coming nearer and nearer; now they
+had adopted another cry, but he could not quite catch what they were
+crying. They were still shouting hoarsely, excitedly, but he could only
+hear a word or two now and then. Suddenly “The Avenger! The Avenger at
+his work again!” broke on his ear.
+
+During the last fortnight four very curious and brutal murders had been
+committed in London and within a comparatively small area.
+
+The first had aroused no special interest—even the second had only been
+awarded, in the paper Bunting was still then taking in, quite a small
+paragraph.
+
+Then had come the third—and with that a wave of keen excitement, for
+pinned to the dress of the victim—a drunken woman—had been found a
+three-cornered piece of paper, on which was written, in red ink, and in
+printed characters, the words,
+
+“THE AVENGER”
+
+
+It was then realised, not only by those whose business it is to
+investigate such terrible happenings, but also by the vast world of men
+and women who take an intelligent interest in such sinister mysteries,
+that the same miscreant had committed all three crimes; and before that
+extraordinary fact had had time to soak well into the public mind there
+took place yet another murder, and again the murderer had been to
+special pains to make it clear that some obscure and terrible lust for
+vengeance possessed him.
+
+Now everyone was talking of The Avenger and his crimes! Even the man
+who left their ha’porth of milk at the door each morning had spoken to
+Bunting about them that very day.
+
+Bunting came back to the fire and looked down at his wife with mild
+excitement. Then, seeing her pale, apathetic face, her look of weary,
+mournful absorption, a wave of irritation swept through him. He felt he
+could have shaken her!
+
+Ellen had hardly taken the trouble to listen when he, Bunting, had come
+back to bed that morning, and told her what the milkman had said. In
+fact, she had been quite nasty about it, intimating that she didn’t
+like hearing about such horrid things.
+
+It was a curious fact that though Mrs. Bunting enjoyed tales of pathos
+and sentiment, and would listen with frigid amusement to the details of
+a breach of promise action, she shrank from stories of immorality or of
+physical violence. In the old, happy days, when they could afford to
+buy a paper, aye, and more than one paper daily, Bunting had often had
+to choke down his interest in some exciting “case” or “mystery” which
+was affording him pleasant mental relaxation, because any allusion to
+it sharply angered Ellen.
+
+But now he was at once too dull and too miserable to care how she felt.
+
+Walking away from the window he took a slow, uncertain step towards the
+door; when there he turned half round, and there came over his
+close-shaven, round face the rather sly, pleading look with which a
+child about to do something naughty glances at its parent.
+
+But Mrs. Bunting remained quite still; her thin, narrow shoulders just
+showed above the back of the chair on which she was sitting, bolt
+upright, staring before her as if into vacancy.
+
+Bunting turned round, opened the door, and quickly he went out into the
+dark hall—they had given up lighting the gas there some time ago—and
+opened the front door.
+
+Walking down the small flagged path outside, he flung open the iron
+gate which gave on to the damp pavement. But there he hesitated. The
+coppers in his pocket seemed to have shrunk in number, and he
+remembered ruefully how far Ellen could make even four pennies go.
+
+Then a boy ran up to him with a sheaf of evening papers, and Bunting,
+being sorely tempted—fell. “Give me a _Sun_,” he said roughly, “_Sun_
+or _Echo!_”
+
+But the boy, scarcely stopping to take breath, shook his head. “Only
+penny papers left,” he gasped. “What’ll yer ’ave, sir?”
+
+With an eagerness which was mingled with shame, Bunting drew a penny
+out of his pocket and took a paper—it was the _Evening Standard_—from
+the boy’s hand.
+
+Then, very slowly, he shut the gate and walked back through the raw,
+cold air, up the flagged path, shivering yet full of eager, joyful
+anticipation.
+
+Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly he would pass a
+happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable
+self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite
+from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with
+careworn, troubled Ellen.
+
+A hot wave of unease, almost of remorse, swept over Bunting. Ellen
+would never have spent that penny on herself—he knew that well
+enough—and if it hadn’t been so cold, so foggy, so—so drizzly, he would
+have gone out again through the gate and stood under the street lamp to
+take his pleasure. He dreaded with a nervous dread the glance of
+Ellen’s cold, reproving light-blue eye. That glance would tell him that
+he had had no business to waste a penny on a paper, and that well he
+knew it!
+
+Suddenly the door in front of him opened, and he heard a familiar voice
+saying crossly, yet anxiously, “What on earth are you doing out there,
+Bunting? Come in—do! You’ll catch your death of cold! I don’t want to
+have you ill on my hands as well as everything else!” Mrs. Bunting
+rarely uttered so many words at once nowadays.
+
+He walked in through the front door of his cheerless house. “I went out
+to get a paper,” he said sullenly.
+
+After all, he was master. He had as much right to spend the money as
+she had; for the matter of that the money on which they were now both
+living had been lent, nay, pressed on him—not on Ellen—by that decent
+young chap, Joe Chandler. And he, Bunting, had done all he could; he
+had pawned everything he could pawn, while Ellen, so he resentfully
+noticed, still wore her wedding ring.
+
+He stepped past her heavily, and though she said nothing, he knew she
+grudged him his coming joy. Then, full of rage with her and contempt
+for himself, and giving himself the luxury of a mild, a very mild,
+oath—Ellen had very early made it clear she would have no swearing in
+her presence—he lit the hall gas full-flare.
+
+“How can we hope to get lodgers if they can’t even see the card?” he
+shouted angrily.
+
+And there was truth in what he said, for now that he had lit the gas,
+the oblong card, though not the word “Apartments” printed on it, could
+be plainly seen out-lined against the old-fashioned fanlight above the
+front door.
+
+Bunting went into the sitting-room, silently followed by his wife, and
+then, sitting down in his nice arm-chair, he poked the little banked-up
+fire. It was the first time Bunting had poked the fire for many a long
+day, and this exertion of marital authority made him feel better. A man
+has to assert himself sometimes, and he, Bunting, had not asserted
+himself enough lately.
+
+A little colour came into Mrs. Bunting’s pale face. She was not used to
+be flouted in this way. For Bunting, when not thoroughly upset, was the
+mildest of men.
+
+She began moving about the room, flicking off an imperceptible touch of
+dust here, straightening a piece of furniture there.
+
+But her hands trembled—they trembled with excitement, with self-pity,
+with anger. A penny? It was dreadful—dreadful to have to worry about a
+penny! But they had come to the point when one has to worry about
+pennies. Strange that her husband didn’t realise that.
+
+Bunting looked round once or twice; he would have liked to ask Ellen to
+leave off fidgeting, but he was fond of peace, and perhaps, by now, a
+little bit ashamed of himself, so he refrained from remark, and she
+soon gave over what irritated him of her own accord.
+
+But Mrs. Bunting did not come and sit down as her husband would have
+liked her to do. The sight of him, absorbed in his paper as he was,
+irritated her, and made her long to get away from him. Opening the door
+which separated the sitting-room from the bedroom behind, and—shutting
+out the aggravating vision of Bunting sitting comfortably by the now
+brightly burning fire, with the _Evening Standard_ spread out before
+him—she sat down in the cold darkness, and pressed her hands against
+her temples.
+
+Never, never had she felt so hopeless, so—so broken as now. Where was
+the good of having been an upright, conscientious, self-respecting
+woman all her life long, if it only led to this utter, degrading
+poverty and wretchedness? She and Bunting were just past the age which
+gentlefolk think proper in a married couple seeking to enter service
+together, unless, that is, the wife happens to be a professed cook. A
+cook and a butler can always get a nice situation. But Mrs. Bunting was
+no cook. She could do all right the simple things any lodger she might
+get would require, but that was all.
+
+Lodgers? How foolish she had been to think of taking lodgers! For it
+had been her doing. Bunting had been like butter in her hands.
+
+Yet they had begun well, with a lodging-house in a seaside place. There
+they had prospered, not as they had hoped to do, but still pretty well;
+and then had come an epidemic of scarlet fever, and that had meant ruin
+for them, and for dozens, nay, hundreds, of other luckless people. Then
+had followed a business experiment which had proved even more
+disastrous, and which had left them in debt—in debt to an extent they
+could never hope to repay, to a good-natured former employer.
+
+After that, instead of going back to service, as they might have done,
+perhaps, either together or separately, they had made up their minds to
+make one last effort, and they had taken over, with the trifle of money
+that remained to them, the lease of this house in the Marylebone Road.
+
+In former days, when they had each been leading the sheltered,
+impersonal, and, above all, financially easy existence which is the
+compensation life offers to those men and women who deliberately take
+upon themselves the yoke of domestic service, they had both lived in
+houses overlooking Regent’s Park. It had seemed a wise plan to settle
+in the same neighbourhood, the more so that Bunting, who had a good
+appearance, had retained the kind of connection which enables a man to
+get a job now and again as waiter at private parties.
+
+But life moves quickly, jaggedly, for people like the Buntings. Two of
+his former masters had moved to another part of London, and a caterer
+in Baker Street whom he had known went bankrupt.
+
+And now? Well, just now Bunting could not have taken a job had one been
+offered him, for he had pawned his dress clothes. He had not asked his
+wife’s permission to do this, as so good a husband ought to have done.
+He had just gone out and done it. And she had not had the heart to say
+anything; nay, it was with part of the money that he had handed her
+silently the evening he did it that she had bought that last packet of
+tobacco.
+
+And then, as Mrs. Bunting sat there thinking these painful thoughts,
+there suddenly came to the front door the sound of a loud, tremulous,
+uncertain double knock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Mr. Bunting jumped nervously to her feet. She stood for a moment
+listening in the darkness, a darkness made the blacker by the line of
+light under the door behind which sat Bunting reading his paper.
+
+And then it came again, that loud, tremulous, uncertain double knock;
+not a knock, so the listener told herself, that boded any good.
+Would-be lodgers gave sharp, quick, bold, confident raps. No; this must
+be some kind of beggar. The queerest people came at all hours, and
+asked—whining or threatening—for money.
+
+Mrs. Bunting had had some sinister experiences with men and
+women—especially women—drawn from that nameless, mysterious class made
+up of the human flotsam and jetsam which drifts about every great city.
+But since she had taken to leaving the gas in the passage unlit at
+night she had been very little troubled with that kind of visitors,
+those human bats which are attracted by any kind of light but leave
+alone those who live in darkness.
+
+She opened the door of the sitting-room. It was Bunting’s place to go
+to the front door, but she knew far better than he did how to deal with
+difficult or obtrusive callers. Still, somehow, she would have liked
+him to go to-night. But Bunting sat on, absorbed in his newspaper; all
+he did at the sound of the bedroom door opening was to look up and say,
+“Didn’t you hear a knock?”
+
+Without answering his question she went out into the hall.
+
+Slowly she opened the front door.
+
+On the top of the three steps which led up to the door, there stood the
+long, lanky figure of a man, clad in an Inverness cape and an
+old-fashioned top hat. He waited for a few seconds blinking at her,
+perhaps dazzled by the light of the gas in the passage. Mrs. Bunting’s
+trained perception told her at once that this man, odd as he looked,
+was a gentleman, belonging by birth to the class with whom her former
+employment had brought her in contact.
+
+“Is it not a fact that you let lodgings?” he asked, and there was
+something shrill, unbalanced, hesitating, in his voice.
+
+“Yes, sir,” she said uncertainly—it was a long, long time since anyone
+had come after their lodgings, anyone, that is, that they could think
+of taking into their respectable house.
+
+Instinctively she stepped a little to one side, and the stranger walked
+past her, and so into the hall.
+
+And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting noticed that he held a
+narrow bag in his left hand. It was quite a new bag, made of strong
+brown leather.
+
+“I am looking for some quiet rooms,” he said; then he repeated the
+words, “quiet rooms,” in a dreamy, absent way, and as he uttered them
+he looked nervously round him.
+
+Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully
+furnished, and was very clean.
+
+There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger’s weary feet
+fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in
+colour the flock-paper on the walls.
+
+A very superior lodging-house this, and evidently a superior
+lodging-house keeper.
+
+“You’d find my rooms quite quiet, sir,” she said gently. “And just now
+I have four to let. The house is empty, save for my husband and me,
+sir.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting spoke in a civil, passionless voice. It seemed too good to
+be true, this sudden coming of a possible lodger, and of a lodger who
+spoke in the pleasant, courteous way and voice which recalled to the
+poor woman her happy, far-off days of youth and of security.
+
+“That sounds very suitable,” he said. “Four rooms? Well, perhaps I
+ought only to take two rooms, but, still, I should like to see all four
+before I make my choice.”
+
+How fortunate, how very fortunate it was that Bunting had lit the gas!
+But for that circumstance this gentleman would have passed them by.
+
+She turned towards the staircase, quite forgetting in her agitation
+that the front door was still open; and it was the stranger whom she
+already in her mind described as “the lodger,” who turned and rather
+quickly walked down the passage and shut it.
+
+“Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry you should have had the
+trouble.”
+
+For a moment their eyes met. “It’s not safe to leave a front door open
+in London,” he said, rather sharply. “I hope you do not often do that.
+It would be so easy for anyone to slip in.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting felt rather upset. The stranger had still spoken
+courteously, but he was evidently very much put out.
+
+“I assure you, sir, I never leave my front door open,” she answered
+hastily. “You needn’t be at all afraid of that!”
+
+And then, through the closed door of the sitting-room, came the sound
+of Bunting coughing—it was just a little, hard cough, but Mrs.
+Bunting’s future lodger started violently.
+
+“Who’s that?” he said, putting out a hand and clutching her arm.
+“Whatever was that?”
+
+“Only my husband, sir. He went out to buy a paper a few minutes ago,
+and the cold just caught him, I suppose.”
+
+“Your husband—?” he looked at her intently, suspiciously. “What—what,
+may I ask, is your husband’s occupation?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting drew herself up. The question as to Bunting’s occupation
+was no one’s business but theirs. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to show
+offence. “He goes out waiting,” she said stiffly. “He was a gentleman’s
+servant, sir. He could, of course, valet you should you require him to
+do so.”
+
+And then she turned and led the way up the steep, narrow staircase.
+
+At the top of the first flight of stairs was what Mrs. Bunting, to
+herself, called the drawing-room floor. It consisted of a sitting-room
+in front, and a bedroom behind. She opened the door of the sitting-room
+and quickly lit the chandelier.
+
+This front room was pleasant enough, though perhaps a little
+over-encumbered with furniture. Covering the floor was a green carpet
+simulating moss; four chairs were placed round the table which occupied
+the exact middle of the apartment, and in the corner, opposite the door
+giving on to the landing, was a roomy, old-fashioned chiffonnier.
+
+On the dark-green walls hung a series of eight engravings, portraits of
+early Victorian belles, clad in lace and tarletan ball dresses, clipped
+from an old Book of Beauty. Mrs. Bunting was very fond of these
+pictures; she thought they gave the drawing-room a note of elegance and
+refinement.
+
+As she hurriedly turned up the gas she was glad, glad indeed, that she
+had summoned up sufficient energy, two days ago, to give the room a
+thorough turn-out.
+
+It had remained for a long time in the state in which it had been left
+by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when they had been scared into
+going away by Bunting’s rough threats of the police. But now it was in
+apple-pie order, with one paramount exception, of which Mrs. Bunting
+was painfully aware. There were no white curtains to the windows, but
+that omission could soon be remedied if this gentleman really took the
+lodgings.
+
+But what was this—? The stranger was looking round him rather
+dubiously. “This is rather—rather too grand for me,” he said at last “I
+should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er—”
+
+“—Bunting,” she said softly. “Bunting, sir.”
+
+And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again came down and
+settled on her sad, burdened heart. Perhaps she had been mistaken,
+after all—or rather, she had not been mistaken in one sense, but
+perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman—too poor, that is, to
+afford the rent of more than one room, say eight or ten shillings a
+week; eight or ten shillings a week would be very little use to her and
+Bunting, though better than nothing at all.
+
+“Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?”
+
+“No,” he said, “no. I think I should like to see what you have farther
+up the house, Mrs.—,” and then, as if making a prodigious mental
+effort, he brought out her name, “Bunting,” with a kind of gasp.
+
+The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the drawing-room
+floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact that they were
+bare of any kind of ornament. Very little trouble had been taken over
+their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same
+condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.
+
+For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel
+sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a
+sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was
+fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. It had been the
+property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over the lease
+of the house, who, knowing it to be of no monetary value, had thrown it
+in among the humble fittings they had left behind.
+
+What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as
+everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a
+bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry that
+she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.
+
+To her surprise, however, her companion’s dark, sensitive,
+hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction. “Capital!
+Capital!” he exclaimed, for the first time putting down the bag he held
+at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands together with a quick,
+nervous movement.
+
+“This is just what I have been looking for.” He walked with long, eager
+strides towards the gas stove. “First-rate—quite first-rate! Exactly
+what I wanted to find! You must understand, Mrs.—er—Bunting, that I am
+a man of science. I make, that is, all sorts of experiments, and I
+often require the—ah, well, the presence of great heat.”
+
+He shot out a hand, which she noticed shook a little, towards the
+stove. “This, too, will be useful—exceedingly useful, to me,” and he
+touched the edge of the stone sink with a lingering, caressing touch.
+
+He threw his head back and passed his hand over his high, bare
+forehead; then, moving towards a chair, he sat down—wearily. “I’m
+tired,” he muttered in a low voice, “tired—tired! I’ve been walking
+about all day, Mrs. Bunting, and I could find nothing to sit down upon.
+They do not put benches for tired men in the London streets. They do so
+on the Continent. In some ways they are far more humane on the
+Continent than they are in England, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“Indeed, sir,” she said civilly; and then, after a nervous glance, she
+asked the question of which the answer would mean so much to her, “Then
+you mean to take my rooms, sir?”
+
+“This room, certainly,” he said, looking round. “This room is exactly
+what I have been looking for, and longing for, the last few days;” and
+then hastily he added, “I mean this kind of place is what I have always
+wanted to possess, Mrs. Bunting. You would be surprised if you knew how
+difficult it is to get anything of the sort. But now my weary search
+has ended, and that is a relief—a very, very great relief to me!”
+
+He stood up and looked round him with a dreamy, abstracted air. And
+then, “Where’s my bag?” he asked suddenly, and there came a note of
+sharp, angry fear in his voice. He glared at the quiet woman standing
+before him, and for a moment Mrs. Bunting felt a tremor of fright shoot
+through her. It seemed a pity that Bunting was so far away, right down
+the house.
+
+But Mrs. Bunting was aware that eccentricity has always been a
+perquisite, as it were the special luxury, of the well-born and of the
+well-educated. Scholars, as she well knew, are never quite like other
+people, and her new lodger was undoubtedly a scholar. “Surely I had a
+bag when I came in?” he said in a scared, troubled voice.
+
+“Here it is, sir,” she said soothingly, and, stooping, picked it up and
+handed it to him. And as she did so she noticed that the bag was not at
+all heavy; it was evidently by no means full.
+
+He took it eagerly from her. “I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “But
+there is something in that bag which is very precious to me—something I
+procured with infinite difficulty, and which I could never get again
+without running into great danger, Mrs. Bunting. That must be the
+excuse for my late agitation.”
+
+“About terms, sir?” she said a little timidly, returning to the subject
+which meant so much, so very much to her.
+
+“About terms?” he echoed. And then there came a pause. “My name is
+Sleuth,” he said suddenly,—“S-l-e-u-t-h. Think of a hound, Mrs.
+Bunting, and you’ll never forget my name. I could provide you with a
+reference—” (he gave her what she described to herself as a funny,
+sideways look), “but I should prefer you to dispense with that, if you
+don’t mind. I am quite willing to pay you—well, shall we say a month in
+advance?”
+
+A spot of red shot into Mrs. Bunting’s cheeks. She felt sick with
+relief—nay, with a joy which was almost pain. She had not known till
+that moment how hungry she was—how eager for—a good meal. “That would
+be all right, sir,” she murmured.
+
+“And what are you going to charge me?” There had come a kindly, almost
+a friendly note into his voice. “With attendance, mind! I shall expect
+you to give me attendance, and I need hardly ask if you can cook, Mrs.
+Bunting?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir,” she said. “I am a plain cook. What would you say to
+twenty-five shillings a week, sir?” She looked at him deprecatingly,
+and as he did not answer she went on falteringly, “You see, sir, it may
+seem a good deal, but you would have the best of attendance and careful
+cooking—and my husband, sir—he would be pleased to valet you.”
+
+“I shouldn’t want anything of that sort done for me,” said Mr. Sleuth
+hastily. “I prefer looking after my own clothes. I am used to waiting
+on myself. But, Mrs. Bunting, I have a great dislike to sharing
+lodgings—”
+
+She interrupted eagerly, “I could let you have the use of the two
+floors for the same price—that is, until we get another lodger. I
+shouldn’t like you to sleep in the back room up here, sir. It’s such a
+poor little room. You could do as you say, sir—do your work and your
+experiments up here, and then have your meals in the drawing-room.”
+
+“Yes,” he said hesitatingly, “that sounds a good plan. And if I offered
+you two pounds, or two guineas? Might I then rely on your not taking
+another lodger?”
+
+“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d be very glad only to have you to wait on,
+sir.”
+
+“I suppose you have a key to the door of this room, Mrs. Bunting? I
+don’t like to be disturbed while I’m working.”
+
+He waited a moment, and then said again, rather urgently, “I suppose
+you have a key to this door, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir, there’s a key—a very nice little key. The people who
+lived here before had a new kind of lock put on to the door.” She went
+over, and throwing the door open, showed him that a round disk had been
+fitted above the old keyhole.
+
+He nodded his head, and then, after standing silent a little, as if
+absorbed in thought, “Forty-two shillings a week? Yes, that will suit
+me perfectly. And I’ll begin now by paying my first month’s rent in
+advance. Now, four times forty-two shillings is”—he jerked his head
+back and stared at his new landlady; for the first time he smiled, a
+queer, wry smile—“why, just eight pounds eight shillings, Mrs.
+Bunting!”
+
+He thrust his hand through into an inner pocket of his long cape-like
+coat and took out a handful of sovereigns. Then he began putting these
+down in a row on the bare wooden table which stood in the centre of the
+room. “Here’s five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten pounds. You’d better keep
+the odd change, Mrs. Bunting, for I shall want you to do some shopping
+for me to-morrow morning. I met with a misfortune to-day.” But the new
+lodger did not speak as if his misfortune, whatever it was, weighed on
+his spirits.
+
+“Indeed, sir. I’m sorry to hear that.” Mrs. Bunting’s heart was going
+thump—thump—thump. She felt extraordinarily moved, dizzy with relief
+and joy.
+
+“Yes, a very great misfortune! I lost my luggage, the few things I
+managed to bring away with me.” His voice dropped suddenly. “I
+shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered. “I was a fool to say that!”
+Then, more loudly, “Someone said to me, ‘You can’t go into a
+lodging-house without any luggage. They wouldn’t take you in.’ But
+_you_ have taken me in, Mrs. Bunting, and I’m grateful for—for the kind
+way you have met me—” He looked at her feelingly, appealingly, and Mrs.
+Bunting was touched. She was beginning to feel very kindly towards her
+new lodger.
+
+“I hope I know a gentleman when I see one,” she said, with a break in
+her staid voice.
+
+“I shall have to see about getting some clothes to-morrow, Mrs.
+Bunting.” Again he looked at her appealingly.
+
+“I expect you’d like to wash your hands now, sir. And would you tell me
+what you’d like for supper? We haven’t much in the house.”
+
+“Oh, anything’ll do,” he said hastily. “I don’t want you to go out for
+me. It’s a cold, foggy, wet night, Mrs. Bunting. If you have a little
+bread-and-butter and a cup of milk I shall be quite satisfied.”
+
+“I have a nice sausage,” she said hesitatingly.
+
+It was a very nice sausage, and she had bought it that same morning for
+Bunting’s supper; as to herself, she had been going to content herself
+with a little bread and cheese. But now—wonderful, almost, intoxicating
+thought—she could send Bunting out to get anything they both liked. The
+ten sovereigns lay in her hand full of comfort and good cheer.
+
+“A sausage? No, I fear that will hardly do. I never touch flesh meat,”
+he said; “it is a long, long time since I tasted a sausage, Mrs.
+Bunting.”
+
+“Is it indeed, sir?” She hesitated a moment, then asked stiffly, “And
+will you be requiring any beer, or wine, sir?”
+
+A strange, wild look of lowering wrath suddenly filled Mr. Sleuth’s
+pale face.
+
+“Certainly not. I thought I had made that quite clear, Mrs. Bunting. I
+had hoped to hear that you were an abstainer—”
+
+“So I am, sir, lifelong. And so’s Bunting been since we married.” She
+might have said, had she been a woman given to make such confidences,
+that she had made Bunting abstain very early in their acquaintance.
+That he had given in about that had been the thing that first made her
+believe, that he was sincere in all the nonsense that he talked to her,
+in those far-away days of his courting. Glad she was now that he had
+taken the pledge as a younger man; but for that nothing would have kept
+him from the drink during the bad times they had gone through.
+
+And then, going downstairs, she showed Mr. Sleuth the nice bedroom
+which opened out of the drawing-room. It was a replica of Mrs.
+Bunting’s own room just underneath, excepting that everything up here
+had cost just a little more, and was therefore rather better in
+quality.
+
+The new lodger looked round him with such a strange expression of
+content and peace stealing over his worn face. “A haven of rest,” he
+muttered; and then, “‘He bringeth them to their desired haven.’
+Beautiful words, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting felt a little startled. It was the first time anyone had
+quoted the Bible to her for many a long day. But it seemed to set the
+seal, as it were, on Mr. Sleuth’s respectability.
+
+What a comfort it was, too, that she had to deal with only one lodger,
+and that a gentleman, instead of with a married couple! Very peculiar
+married couples had drifted in and out of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s
+lodgings, not only here, in London, but at the seaside.
+
+How unlucky they had been, to be sure! Since they had come to London
+not a single pair of lodgers had been even moderately respectable and
+kindly. The last lot had belonged to that horrible underworld of men
+and women who, having, as the phrase goes, seen better days, now only
+keep their heads above water with the help of petty fraud.
+
+“I’ll bring you up some hot water in a minute, sir, and some clean
+towels,” she said, going to the door.
+
+And then Mr. Sleuth turned quickly round. “Mrs. Bunting”—and as he
+spoke he stammered a little—“I—I don’t want you to interpret the word
+attendance too liberally. You need not run yourself off your feet for
+me. I’m accustomed to look after myself.”
+
+And, queerly, uncomfortably, she felt herself dismissed—even a little
+snubbed. “All right, sir,” she said. “I’ll only just let you know when
+I’ve your supper ready.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+But what was a little snub compared with the intense relief and joy of
+going down and telling Bunting of the great piece of good fortune which
+had fallen their way?
+
+Staid Mrs. Bunting seemed to make but one leap down the steep stairs.
+In the hall, however, she pulled herself together, and tried to still
+her agitation. She had always disliked and despised any show of
+emotion; she called such betrayal of feeling “making a fuss.”
+
+Opening the door of their sitting-room, she stood for a moment looking
+at her husband’s bent back, and she realised, with a pang of pain, how
+the last few weeks had aged him.
+
+Bunting suddenly looked round, and, seeing his wife, stood up. He put
+the paper he had been holding down on to the table: “Well,” he said,
+“well, who was it, then?”
+
+He felt rather ashamed of himself; it was he who ought to have answered
+the door and done all that parleying of which he had heard murmurs.
+
+And then in a moment his wife’s hand shot out, and the ten sovereigns
+fell in a little clinking heap on the table.
+
+“Look there!” she whispered, with an excited, tearful quiver in her
+voice. “Look there, Bunting!”
+
+And Bunting did look there, but with a troubled, frowning gaze.
+
+He was not quick-witted, but at once he jumped to the conclusion that
+his wife had just had in a furniture dealer, and that this ten pounds
+represented all their nice furniture upstairs. If that were so, then it
+was the beginning of the end. That furniture in the first-floor front
+had cost—Ellen had reminded him of the fact bitterly only
+yesterday—seventeen pounds nine shillings, and every single item had
+been a bargain. It was too bad that she had only got ten pounds for it.
+
+Yet he hadn’t the heart to reproach her.
+
+He did not speak as he looked across at her, and meeting that troubled,
+rebuking glance, she guessed what it was that he thought had happened.
+
+“We’ve a new lodger!” she cried. “And—and, Bunting? He’s quite the
+gentleman! He actually offered to pay four weeks in advance, at two
+guineas a week.”
+
+“No, never!”
+
+Bunting moved quickly round the table, and together they stood there,
+fascinated by the little heap of gold. “But there’s ten sovereigns
+here,” he said suddenly.
+
+“Yes, the gentleman said I’d have to buy some things for him to-morrow.
+And, oh, Bunting, he’s so well spoken, I really felt that—I really felt
+that—” and then Mrs. Bunting, taking a step or two sideways, sat down,
+and throwing her little black apron over her face burst into gasping
+sobs.
+
+Bunting patted her back timidly. “Ellen?” he said, much moved by her
+agitation, “Ellen? Don’t take on so, my dear—”
+
+“I won’t,” she sobbed, “I—I won’t! I’m a fool—I know I am! But, oh, I
+didn’t think we was ever going to have any luck again!”
+
+And then she told him—or rather tried to tell him—what the lodger was
+like. Mrs. Bunting was no hand at talking, but one thing she did
+impress on her husband’s mind, namely, that Mr. Sleuth was eccentric,
+as so many clever people are eccentric—that is, in a harmless way—and
+that he must be humoured.
+
+“He says he doesn’t want to be waited on much,” she said at last wiping
+her eyes, “but I can see he will want a good bit of looking after, all
+the same, poor gentleman.”
+
+And just as the words left her mouth there came the unfamiliar sound of
+a loud ring. It was that of the drawing-room bell being pulled again
+and again.
+
+Bunting looked at his wife eagerly. “I think I’d better go up, eh,
+Ellen?” he said. He felt quite anxious to see their new lodger. For the
+matter of that, it would be a relief to be doing something again.
+
+“Yes,” she answered, “you go up! Don’t keep him waiting! I wonder what
+it is he wants? I said I’d let him know when his supper was ready.”
+
+A moment later Bunting came down again. There was an odd smile on his
+face. “Whatever d’you think he wanted?” he whispered mysteriously. And
+as she said nothing, he went on, “He’s asked me for the loan of a
+Bible!”
+
+“Well, I don’t see anything so out of the way in that,” she said
+hastily, “’specially if he don’t feel well. I’ll take it up to him.”
+
+And then going to a small table which stood between the two windows,
+Mrs. Bunting took off it a large Bible, which had been given to her as
+a wedding present by a married lady with whose mother she had lived for
+several years.
+
+“He said it would do quite well when you take up his supper,” said
+Bunting; and, then, “Ellen? He’s a queer-looking cove—not like any
+gentleman I ever had to do with.”
+
+“He is a gentleman,” said Mrs. Bunting rather fiercely.
+
+“Oh, yes, that’s all right.” But still he looked at her doubtfully. “I
+asked him if he’d like me to just put away his clothes. But, Ellen, he
+said he hadn’t got any clothes!”
+
+“No more he hasn’t;” she spoke quickly, defensively. “He had the
+misfortune to lose his luggage. He’s one dishonest folk ’ud take
+advantage of.”
+
+“Yes, one can see that with half an eye,” Bunting agreed.
+
+And then there was silence for a few moments, while Mrs. Bunting put
+down on a little bit of paper the things she wanted her husband to go
+out and buy for her. She handed him the list, together with a
+sovereign. “Be as quick as you can,” she said, “for I feel a bit
+hungry. I’ll be going down now to see about Mr. Sleuth’s supper. He
+only wants a glass of milk and two eggs. I’m glad I’ve never fallen to
+bad eggs!”
+
+“Sleuth,” echoed Bunting, staring at her. “What a queer name! How d’you
+spell it—S-l-u-t-h?”
+
+“No,” she shot out, “S-l-e—u—t—h.”
+
+“Oh,” he said doubtfully.
+
+“He said, ‘Think of a hound and you’ll never forget my name,’” and Mrs.
+Bunting smiled.
+
+When he got to the door, Bunting turned round: “We’ll now be able to
+pay young Chandler back some o’ that thirty shillings. I am glad.” She
+nodded; her heart, as the saying is, too full for words.
+
+And then each went about his and her business—Bunting out into the
+drenching fog, his wife down to her cold kitchen.
+
+The lodger’s tray was soon ready; everything upon it nicely and
+daintily arranged. Mrs. Bunting knew how to wait upon a gentleman.
+
+Just as the landlady was going up the kitchen stair, she suddenly
+remembered Mr. Sleuth’s request for a Bible. Putting the tray down in
+the hall, she went into her sitting-room and took up the Book; but when
+back in the hall she hesitated a moment as to whether it was worth
+while to make two journeys. But, no, she thought she could manage;
+clasping the large, heavy volume under her arm, and taking up the tray,
+she walked slowly up the staircase.
+
+But a great surprise awaited her; in fact, when Mr. Sleuth’s landlady
+opened the door of the drawing-room she very nearly dropped the tray.
+She actually did drop the Bible, and it fell with a heavy thud to the
+ground.
+
+The new lodger had turned all those nice framed engravings of the early
+Victorian beauties, of which Mrs. Bunting had been so proud, with their
+faces to the wall!
+
+For a moment she was really too surprised to speak. Putting the tray
+down on the table, she stooped and picked up the Book. It troubled her
+that the Book should have fallen to the ground; but really she hadn’t
+been able to help it—it was mercy that the tray hadn’t fallen, too.
+
+Mr. Sleuth got up. “I—I have taken the liberty to arrange the room as I
+should wish it to be,” he said awkwardly. “You see, Mrs.—er—Bunting, I
+felt as I sat here that these women’s eyes followed me about. It was a
+most unpleasant sensation, and gave me quite an eerie feeling.”
+
+The landlady was now laying a small tablecloth over half of the table.
+She made no answer to her lodger’s remark, for the good reason that she
+did not know what to say.
+
+Her silence seemed to distress Mr. Sleuth. After what seemed a long
+pause, he spoke again.
+
+“I prefer bare walls, Mrs. Bunting,” he spoke with some agitation. “As
+a matter of fact, I have been used to seeing bare walls about me for a
+long time.” And then, at last his landlady answered him, in a composed,
+soothing voice, which somehow did him good to hear. “I quite
+understand, sir. And when Bunting comes in he shall take the pictures
+all down. We have plenty of space in our own rooms for them.”
+
+“Thank you—thank you very much.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth appeared greatly relieved.
+
+“And I have brought you up my Bible, sir. I understood you wanted the
+loan of it?”
+
+Mr. Sleuth stared at her as if dazed for a moment; and then, rousing
+himself, he said, “Yes, yes, I do. There is no reading like the Book.
+There is something there which suits every state of mind, aye, and of
+body too—”
+
+“Very true, sir.” And then Mrs. Bunting, having laid out what really
+looked a very appetising little meal, turned round and quietly shut the
+door.
+
+She went down straight into her sitting-room and waited there for
+Bunting, instead of going to the kitchen to clear up. And as she did so
+there came to her a comfortable recollection, an incident of her
+long-past youth, in the days when she, then Ellen Green, had maided a
+dear old lady.
+
+The old lady had a favourite nephew—a bright, jolly young gentleman,
+who was learning to paint animals in Paris. And one morning Mr.
+Algernon—that was his rather peculiar Christian name—had had the
+impudence to turn to the wall six beautiful engravings of paintings
+done by the famous Mr. Landseer!
+
+Mrs. Bunting remembered all the circumstances as if they had only
+occurred yesterday, and yet she had not thought of them for years.
+
+It was quite early; she had come down—for in those days maids weren’t
+thought so much of as they are now, and she slept with the upper
+housemaid, and it was the upper housemaid’s duty to be down very
+early—and, there, in the dining-room, she had found Mr. Algernon
+engaged in turning each engraving to the wall! Now, his aunt thought
+all the world of those pictures, and Ellen had felt quite concerned,
+for it doesn’t do for a young gentleman to put himself wrong with a
+kind aunt.
+
+“Oh, sir,” she had exclaimed in dismay, “whatever are you doing?” And
+even now she could almost hear his merry voice, as he had answered, “I
+am doing my duty, fair Helen”—he had always called her “fair Helen”
+when no one was listening. “How can I draw ordinary animals when I see
+these half-human monsters staring at me all the time I am having my
+breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner?” That was what Mr. Algernon had
+said in his own saucy way, and that was what he repeated in a more
+serious, respectful manner to his aunt, when that dear old lady had
+come downstairs. In fact he had declared, quite soberly, that the
+beautiful animals painted by Mr. Landseer put his eye out!
+
+But his aunt had been very much annoyed—in fact, she had made him turn
+the pictures all back again; and as long as he stayed there he just had
+to put up with what he called “those half-human monsters.” Mrs.
+Bunting, sitting there, thinking the matter of Mr. Sleuth’s odd
+behaviour over, was glad to recall that funny incident of her long-gone
+youth. It seemed to prove that her new lodger was not so strange as he
+appeared to be. Still, when Bunting came in, she did not tell him the
+queer thing which had happened. She told herself that she would be
+quite able to manage the taking down of the pictures in the
+drawing-room herself.
+
+But before getting ready their own supper, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady went
+upstairs to clear away, and when on the staircase she heard the sound
+of—was it talking, in the drawing-room? Startled, she waited a moment
+on the landing outside the drawing-room door, then she realised that it
+was only the lodger reading aloud to himself. There was something very
+awful in the words which rose and fell on her listening ears:
+
+“A strange woman is a narrow gate. She also lieth in wait as for a
+prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.”
+
+She remained where she was, her hand on the handle of the door, and
+again there broke on her shrinking ears that curious, high, sing-song
+voice, “Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of
+death.”
+
+It made the listener feel quite queer. But at last she summoned up
+courage, knocked, and walked in.
+
+“I’d better clear away, sir, had I not?” she said. And Mr. Sleuth
+nodded.
+
+Then he got up and closed the Book. “I think I’ll go to bed now,” he
+said. “I am very, very tired. I’ve had a long and a very weary day,
+Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+After he had disappeared into the back room, Mrs. Bunting climbed up on
+a chair and unhooked the pictures which had so offended Mr. Sleuth.
+Each left an unsightly mark on the wall—but that, after all, could not
+be helped.
+
+Treading softly, so that Bunting should not hear her, she carried them
+down, two by two, and stood them behind her bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mrs. Bunting woke up the next morning feeling happier than she had felt
+for a very, very long time.
+
+For just one moment she could not think why she felt so different—and
+then she suddenly remembered.
+
+How comfortable it was to know that upstairs, just over her head, lay,
+in the well-found bed she had bought with such satisfaction at an
+auction held in a Baker Street house, a lodger who was paying two
+guineas a week! Something seemed to tell her that Mr. Sleuth would be
+“a permanency.” In any case, it wouldn’t be her fault if he wasn’t. As
+to his—his queerness, well, there’s always something funny in
+everybody. But after she had got up, and as the morning wore itself
+away, Mrs. Bunting grew a little anxious, for there came no sound at
+all from the new lodger’s rooms. At twelve, however, the drawing-room
+bell rang. Mrs. Bunting hurried upstairs. She was painfully anxious to
+please and satisfy Mr. Sleuth. His coming had only been in the nick of
+time to save them from terrible disaster.
+
+She found her lodger up, and fully dressed. He was sitting at the round
+table which occupied the middle of the sitting-room, and his landlady’s
+large Bible lay open before him.
+
+As Mrs. Bunting came in, he looked up, and she was troubled to see how
+tired and worn he seemed.
+
+“You did not happen,” he asked, “to have a Concordance, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+She shook her head; she had no idea what a Concordance could be, but
+she was quite sure that she had nothing of the sort about.
+
+And then her new lodger proceeded to tell her what it was he desired
+her to buy for him. She had supposed the bag he had brought with him to
+contain certain little necessaries of civilised life—such articles, for
+instance, as a comb and brush, a set of razors, a toothbrush, to say
+nothing of a couple of nightshirts—but no, that was evidently not so,
+for Mr. Sleuth required all these things to be bought now.
+
+After having cooked him a nice breakfast Mrs. Bunting hurried out to
+purchase the things of which he was in urgent need.
+
+How pleasant it was to feel that there was money in her purse again—not
+only someone else’s money, but money she was now in the very act of
+earning so agreeably.
+
+Mrs. Bunting first made her way to a little barber’s shop close by. It
+was there she purchased the brush and comb and the razors. It was a
+funny, rather smelly little place, and she hurried as much as she
+could, the more so that the foreigner who served her insisted on
+telling her some of the strange, peculiar details of this Avenger
+murder which had taken place forty-eight hours before, and in which
+Bunting took such a morbid interest.
+
+The conversation upset Mrs. Bunting. She didn’t want to think of
+anything painful or disagreeable on such a day as this.
+
+Then she came back and showed the lodger her various purchases. Mr.
+Sleuth was pleased with everything, and thanked her most courteously.
+But when she suggested doing his bedroom he frowned, and looked quite
+put out.
+
+“Please wait till this evening,” he said hastily. “It is my custom to
+stay at home all day. I only care to walk about the streets when the
+lights are lit. You must bear with me, Mrs. Bunting, if I seem a
+little, just a little, unlike the lodgers you have been accustomed to.
+And I must ask you to understand that I must not be disturbed when
+thinking out my problems—” He broke off short, sighed, then added
+solemnly, “for mine are the great problems of life and death.”
+
+And Mrs. Bunting willingly fell in with his wishes. In spite of her
+prim manner and love of order, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady was a true
+woman—she had, that is, an infinite patience with masculine vagaries
+and oddities.
+
+When she was downstairs again, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady met with a
+surprise; but it was quite a pleasant surprise. While she had been
+upstairs, talking to the lodger, Bunting’s young friend, Joe Chandler,
+the detective, had come in, and as she walked into the sitting-room she
+saw that her husband was pushing half a sovereign across the table
+towards Joe.
+
+Joe Chandler’s fair, good-natured face was full of satisfaction: not at
+seeing his money again, mark you, but at the news Bunting had evidently
+been telling him—that news of the sudden wonderful change in their
+fortunes, the coming of an ideal lodger.
+
+“Mr. Sleuth don’t want me to do his bedroom till he’s gone out!” she
+exclaimed. And then she sat down for a bit of a rest.
+
+It was a comfort to know that the lodger was eating his good breakfast,
+and there was no need to think of him for the present. In a few minutes
+she would be going down to make her own and Bunting’s dinner, and she
+told Joe Chandler that he might as well stop and have a bite with them.
+
+Her heart warmed to the young man, for Mrs. Bunting was in a mood which
+seldom surprised her—a mood to be pleased with anything and everything.
+Nay, more. When Bunting began to ask Joe Chandler about the last of
+those awful Avenger murders, she even listened with a certain languid
+interest to all he had to say.
+
+In the morning paper which Bunting had begun taking again that very day
+three columns were devoted to the extraordinary mystery which was now
+beginning to be the one topic of talk all over London, West and East,
+North and South. Bunting had read out little bits about it while they
+ate their breakfast, and in spite of herself Mrs. Bunting had felt
+thrilled and excited.
+
+“They do say,” observed Bunting cautiously, “They do say, Joe, that the
+police have a clue they won’t say nothing about?” He looked expectantly
+at his visitor. To Bunting the fact that Chandler was attached to the
+detective section of the Metropolitan Police invested the young man
+with a kind of sinister glory—especially just now, when these awful and
+mysterious crimes were amazing and terrifying the town.
+
+“Them who says that says wrong,” answered Chandler slowly, and a look
+of unease, of resentment came over his fair, stolid face. “’Twould make
+a good bit of difference to me if the Yard had a clue.”
+
+And then Mrs. Bunting interposed. “Why that, Joe?” she said, smiling
+indulgently; the young man’s keenness about his work pleased her. And
+in his slow, sure way Joe Chandler was very keen, and took his job very
+seriously. He put his whole heart and mind into it.
+
+“Well, ’tis this way,” he explained. “From to-day I’m on this business
+myself. You see, Mrs. Bunting, the Yard’s nettled—that’s what it is,
+and we’re all on our mettle—that we are. I was right down sorry for the
+poor chap who was on point duty in the street where the last one
+happened—”
+
+“No!” said Bunting incredulously. “You don’t mean there was a policeman
+there, within a few yards?”
+
+That fact hadn’t been recorded in his newspaper.
+
+Chandler nodded. “That’s exactly what I do mean, Mr. Bunting! The man
+is near off his head, so I’m told. He did hear a yell, so he says, but
+he took no notice—there are a good few yells in that part o’ London, as
+you can guess. People always quarrelling and rowing at one another in
+such low parts.”
+
+“Have you seen the bits of grey paper on which the monster writes his
+name?” inquired Bunting eagerly.
+
+Public imagination had been much stirred by the account of those
+three-cornered pieces of grey paper, pinned to the victims’ skirts, on
+which was roughly written in red ink and in printed characters the
+words “The Avenger.”
+
+His round, fat face was full of questioning eagerness. He put his
+elbows on the table, and stared across expectantly at the young man.
+
+“Yes, I have,” said Joe briefly.
+
+“A funny kind of visiting card, eh!” Bunting laughed; the notion struck
+him as downright comic.
+
+But Mrs. Bunting coloured. “It isn’t a thing to make a joke about,” she
+said reprovingly.
+
+And Chandler backed her up. “No, indeed,” he said feelingly. “I’ll
+never forget what I’ve been made to see over this job. And as for that
+grey bit of paper, Mr. Bunting—or, rather, those grey bits of paper”—he
+corrected himself hastily—“you know they’ve three of them now at the
+Yard—well, they gives me the horrors!”
+
+And then he jumped up. “That reminds me that I oughtn’t to be wasting
+my time in pleasant company—”
+
+“Won’t you stay and have a bit of dinner?” said Mrs. Bunting
+solicitously.
+
+But the detective shook his head. “No,” he said, “I had a bite before I
+came out. Our job’s a queer kind of job, as you know. A lot’s left to
+our discretion, so to speak, but it don’t leave us much time for lazing
+about, I can tell you.”
+
+When he reached the door he turned round, and with elaborate
+carelessness he inquired, “Any chance of Miss Daisy coming to London
+again soon?”
+
+Bunting shook his head, but his face brightened. He was very, very fond
+of his only child; the pity was he saw her so seldom. “No,” he said,
+“I’m afraid not Joe. Old Aunt, as we calls the old lady, keeps Daisy
+pretty tightly tied to her apron-string. She was quite put about that
+week the child was up with us last June.”
+
+“Indeed? Well, so long!”
+
+After his wife had let their friend out, Bunting said cheerfully, “Joe
+seems to like our Daisy, eh, Ellen?”
+
+But Mrs. Bunting shook her head scornfully. She did not exactly dislike
+the girl, though she did not hold with the way Bunting’s daughter was
+being managed by that old aunt of hers—an idle, good-for-nothing way,
+very different from the fashion in which she herself had been trained
+at the Foundling, for Mrs. Bunting as a little child had known no other
+home, no other family than those provided by good Captain Coram.
+
+“Joe Chandler’s too sensible a young chap to be thinking of girls yet
+awhile,” she said tartly.
+
+“No doubt you’re right,” Bunting agreed. “Times be changed. In my young
+days chaps always had time for that. ’Twas just a notion that came into
+my head, hearing him asking, anxious-like, after her.”
+
+About five o’clock, after the street lamps were well alight, Mr. Sleuth
+went out, and that same evening there came two parcels addressed to his
+landlady. These parcels contained clothes. But it was quite clear to
+Mrs. Bunting’s eyes that they were not new clothes. In fact, they had
+evidently been bought in some good second-hand clothes-shop. A funny
+thing for a real gentleman like Mr. Sleuth to do! It proved that he had
+given up all hope of getting back his lost luggage.
+
+When the lodger had gone out he had not taken his bag with him, of that
+Mrs. Bunting was positive. And yet, though she searched high and low
+for it, she could not find the place where Mr. Sleuth kept it. And at
+last, had it not been that she was a very clear-headed woman, with a
+good memory, she would have been disposed to think that the bag had
+never existed, save in her imagination.
+
+But no, she could not tell herself that! She remembered exactly how it
+had looked when Mr. Sleuth had first stood, a strange, queer-looking
+figure of a man, on her doorstep.
+
+She further remembered how he had put the bag down on the floor of the
+top front room, and then, forgetting what he had done, how he had asked
+her eagerly, in a tone of angry fear, where the bag was—only to find it
+safely lodged at his feet!
+
+As time went on Mrs. Bunting thought a great deal about that bag, for,
+strange and amazing fact, she never saw Mr. Sleuth’s bag again. But, of
+course, she soon formed a theory as to its whereabouts. The brown
+leather bag which had formed Mr. Sleuth’s only luggage the afternoon of
+his arrival was almost certainly locked up in the lower part of the
+drawing-room chiffonnier. Mr. Sleuth evidently always carried the key
+of the little corner cupboard about his person; Mrs. Bunting had also
+had a good hunt for that key, but, as was the case with the bag, the
+key disappeared, and she never saw either the one or the other again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+How quietly, how uneventfully, how pleasantly, sped the next few days.
+Already life was settling down into a groove. Waiting on Mr. Sleuth was
+just what Mrs. Bunting could manage to do easily, and without tiring
+herself.
+
+It had at once become clear that the lodger preferred to be waited on
+only by one person, and that person his landlady. He gave her very
+little trouble. Indeed, it did her good having to wait on the lodger;
+it even did her good that he was not like other gentlemen; for the fact
+occupied her mind, and in a way it amused her. The more so that
+whatever his oddities Mr. Sleuth had none of those tiresome,
+disagreeable ways with which landladies are only too familiar, and
+which seem peculiar only to those human beings who also happen to be
+lodgers. To take but one point: Mr. Sleuth did not ask to be called
+unduly early. Bunting and his Ellen had fallen into the way of lying
+rather late in the morning, and it was a great comfort not to have to
+turn out to make the lodger a cup of tea at seven, or even half-past
+seven. Mr. Sleuth seldom required anything before eleven.
+
+But odd he certainly was.
+
+The second evening he had been with them Mr. Sleuth had brought in a
+book of which the queer name was Cruden’s Concordance. That and the
+Bible—Mrs. Bunting had soon discovered that there was a relation
+between the two books—seemed to be the lodger’s only reading. He spent
+hours each day, generally after he had eaten the breakfast which also
+served for luncheon, poring over the Old Testament and over that
+strange kind of index to the Book.
+
+As for the delicate and yet the all-important question of money, Mr.
+Sleuth was everything—everything that the most exacting landlady could
+have wished. Never had there been a more confiding or trusting
+gentleman. On the very first day he had been with them he had allowed
+his money—the considerable sum of one hundred and eighty-four
+sovereigns—to lie about wrapped up in little pieces of rather dirty
+newspaper on his dressing-table. That had quite upset Mrs. Bunting. She
+had allowed herself respectfully to point out to him that what he was
+doing was foolish, indeed wrong. But as only answer he had laughed, and
+she had been startled when the loud, unusual and discordant sound had
+issued from his thin lips.
+
+“I know those I can trust,” he had answered, stuttering rather, as was
+his way when moved. “And—and I assure you, Mrs. Bunting, that I hardly
+have to speak to a human being—especially to a woman” (and he had drawn
+in his breath with a hissing sound) “before I know exactly what manner
+of person is before me.”
+
+It hadn’t taken the landlady very long to find out that her lodger had
+a queer kind of fear and dislike of women. When she was doing the
+staircase and landings she would often hear Mr. Sleuth reading aloud to
+himself passages in the Bible that were very uncomplimentary to her
+sex. But Mrs. Bunting had no very great opinion of her sister woman, so
+that didn’t put her out. Besides, where one’s lodger is concerned, a
+dislike of women is better than—well, than the other thing.
+
+In any case, where would have been the good of worrying about the
+lodger’s funny ways? Of course, Mr. Sleuth was eccentric. If he hadn’t
+been, as Bunting funnily styled it, “just a leetle touched upstairs,”
+he wouldn’t be here, living this strange, solitary life in lodgings. He
+would be living in quite a different sort of way with some of his
+relatives, or with a friend of his own class.
+
+There came a time when Mrs. Bunting, looking back—as even the least
+imaginative of us are apt to look back to any part of our own past
+lives which becomes for any reason poignantly memorable—wondered how
+soon it was that she had discovered that her lodger was given to
+creeping out of the house at a time when almost all living things
+prefer to sleep.
+
+She brought herself to believe—but I am inclined to doubt whether she
+was right in so believing—that the first time she became aware of this
+strange nocturnal habit of Mr. Sleuth’s happened to be during the night
+which preceded the day on which she had observed a very curious
+circumstance. This very curious circumstance was the complete
+disappearance of one of Mr. Sleuth’s three suits of clothes.
+
+It always passes my comprehension how people can remember, over any
+length of time, not every moment of certain happenings, for that is
+natural enough, but the day, the hour, the minute when these happenings
+took place! Much as she thought about it afterwards, even Mrs. Bunting
+never quite made up her mind whether it was during the fifth or the
+sixth night of Mr. Sleuth’s stay under her roof that she became aware
+that he had gone out at two in the morning and had only come in at
+five.
+
+But that there did come such a night is certain—as certain as is the
+fact that her discovery coincided with various occurrences which were
+destined to remain retrospectively memorable.
+
+It was intensely dark, intensely quiet—the darkest quietest hour of the
+night, when suddenly Mrs. Bunting was awakened from a deep, dreamless
+sleep by sounds at once unexpected and familiar. She knew at once what
+those sounds were. They were those made by Mr. Sleuth, first coming
+down the stairs, and walking on tiptoe—she was sure it was on
+tiptoe—past her door, and finally softly shutting the front door behind
+him.
+
+Try as she would, Mrs. Bunting found it quite impossible to go to sleep
+again. There she lay wide awake, afraid to move lest Bunting should
+waken up too, till she heard Mr. Sleuth, three hours later, creep back
+into the house and so up to bed.
+
+Then, and not till then, she slept again. But in the morning she felt
+very tired, so tired indeed, that she had been very glad when Bunting
+good-naturedly suggested that he should go out and do their little bit
+of marketing.
+
+The worthy couple had very soon discovered that in the matter of
+catering it was not altogether an easy matter to satisfy Mr. Sleuth,
+and that though he always tried to appear pleased. This perfect lodger
+had one serious fault from the point of view of those who keep
+lodgings. Strange to say, he was a vegetarian. He would not eat meat in
+any form. He sometimes, however, condescended to a chicken, and when he
+did so condescend he generously intimated that Mr. and Mrs. Bunting
+were welcome to a share in it.
+
+Now to-day—this day of which the happenings were to linger in Mrs.
+Bunting’s mind so very long, and to remain so very vivid, it had been
+arranged that Mr. Sleuth was to have some fish for his lunch, while
+what he left was to be “done up” to serve for his simple supper.
+
+Knowing that Bunting would be out for at least an hour, for he was a
+gregarious soul, and liked to have a gossip in the shops he frequented,
+Mrs. Bunting rose and dressed in a leisurely manner; then she went and
+“did” her front sitting-room.
+
+She felt languid and dull, as one is apt to feel after a broken night,
+and it was a comfort to her to know that Mr. Sleuth was not likely to
+ring before twelve.
+
+But long before twelve a loud ring suddenly clanged through the quiet
+house. She knew it for the front door bell.
+
+Mrs. Bunting frowned. No doubt the ring betokened one of those tiresome
+people who come round for old bottles and such-like fal-lals.
+
+She went slowly, reluctantly to the door. And then her face cleared,
+for it was that good young chap, Joe Chandler, who stood waiting
+outside.
+
+He was breathing a little hard, as if he had walked over-quickly
+through the moist, foggy air.
+
+“Why, Joe?” said Mrs. Bunting wonderingly. “Come in—do! Bunting’s out,
+but he won’t be very long now. You’ve been quite a stranger these last
+few days.”
+
+“Well, you know why, Mrs. Bunting—”
+
+She stared at him for a moment, wondering what he could mean. Then,
+suddenly she remembered. Why, of course, Joe was on a big job just
+now—the job of trying to catch The Avenger! Her husband had alluded to
+the fact again and again when reading out to her little bits from the
+halfpenny evening paper he was taking again.
+
+She led the way to the sitting-room. It was a good thing Bunting had
+insisted on lighting the fire before he went out, for now the room was
+nice and warm—and it was just horrible outside. She had felt a chill go
+right through her as she had stood, even for that second, at the front
+door.
+
+And she hadn’t been alone to feel it, for, “I say, it is jolly to be in
+here, out of that awful cold!” exclaimed Chandler, sitting down heavily
+in Bunting’s easy chair.
+
+And then Mrs. Bunting bethought herself that the young man was tired,
+as well as cold. He was pale, almost pallid under his usual healthy,
+tanned complexion—the complexion of the man who lives much out of
+doors.
+
+“Wouldn’t you like me just to make you a cup of tea?” she said
+solicitously.
+
+“Well, to tell truth, I should be right down thankful for one, Mrs.
+Bunting!” Then he looked round, and again he said her name, “Mrs.
+Bunting—?”
+
+He spoke in so odd, so thick a tone that she turned quickly. “Yes, what
+is it, Joe?” she asked. And then, in sudden terror, “You’ve never come
+to tell me that anything’s happened to Bunting? He’s not had an
+accident?”
+
+“Goodness, no! Whatever made you think that? But—but, Mrs. Bunting,
+there’s been another of them!”
+
+His voice dropped almost to a whisper. He was staring at her with
+unhappy, it seemed to her terror-filled, eyes.
+
+“Another of them?” She looked at him, bewildered—at a loss. And then
+what he meant flashed across her—“another of them” meant another of
+these strange, mysterious, awful murders.
+
+But her relief for the moment was so great—for she really had thought
+for a second that he had come to give her ill news of Bunting—that the
+feeling that she did experience on hearing this piece of news was
+actually pleasurable, though she would have been much shocked had that
+fact been brought to her notice.
+
+Almost in spite of herself, Mrs. Bunting had become keenly interested
+in the amazing series of crimes which was occupying the imagination of
+the whole of London’s nether-world. Even her refined mind had busied
+itself for the last two or three days with the strange problem so
+frequently presented to it by Bunting—for Bunting, now that they were
+no longer worried, took an open, unashamed, intense interest in “The
+Avenger” and his doings.
+
+She took the kettle off the gas-ring. “It’s a pity Bunting isn’t here,”
+she said, drawing in her breath. “He’d a-liked so much to hear you tell
+all about it, Joe.”
+
+As she spoke she was pouring boiling water into a little teapot.
+
+But Chandler said nothing, and she turned and glanced at him. “Why, you
+do look bad!” she exclaimed.
+
+And, indeed, the young fellow did look bad—very bad indeed.
+
+“I can’t help it,” he said, with a kind of gasp. “It was your saying
+that about my telling you all about it that made me turn queer. You
+see, this time I was one of the first there, and it fairly turned me
+sick—that it did. Oh, it was too awful, Mrs. Bunting! Don’t talk of
+it.”
+
+He began gulping down the hot tea before it was well made.
+
+She looked at him with sympathetic interest. “Why, Joe,” she said, “I
+never would have thought, with all the horrible sights you see, that
+anything could upset you like that.”
+
+“This isn’t like anything there’s ever been before,” he said. “And
+then—then—oh, Mrs. Bunting, ’twas I that discovered the piece of paper
+this time.”
+
+“Then it _is_ true,” she cried eagerly. “It _is_ The Avenger’s bit of
+paper! Bunting always said it was. He never believed in that practical
+joker.”
+
+“I did,” said Chandler reluctantly. “You see, there are some queer
+fellows even—even—” (he lowered his voice, and looked round him as if
+the walls had ears)—“even in the Force, Mrs. Bunting, and these murders
+have fair got on our nerves.”
+
+“No, never!” she said. “D’you think that a Bobby might do a thing like
+that?”
+
+He nodded impatiently, as if the question wasn’t worth answering. Then,
+“It was all along of that bit of paper and my finding it while the poor
+soul was still warm,”—he shuddered—“that brought me out West this
+morning. One of our bosses lives close by, in Prince Albert Terrace,
+and I had to go and tell him all about it. They never offered me a bit
+or a sup—I think they might have done that, don’t you, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+“Yes,” she said absently. “Yes, I do think so.”
+
+“But, there, I don’t know that I ought to say that,” went on Chandler.
+“He had me up in his dressing-room, and was very considerate-like to me
+while I was telling him.”
+
+“Have a bit of something now?” she said suddenly.
+
+“Oh, no, I couldn’t eat anything,” he said hastily. “I don’t feel as if
+I could ever eat anything any more.”
+
+“That’ll only make you ill.” Mrs. Bunting spoke rather crossly, for she
+was a sensible woman. And to please her he took a bite out of the slice
+of bread-and-butter she had cut for him.
+
+“I expect you’re right,” he said. “And I’ve a goodish heavy day in
+front of me. Been up since four, too—”
+
+“Four?” she said. “Was it then they found—” she hesitated a moment, and
+then said, “it?”
+
+He nodded. “It was just a chance I was near by. If I’d been half a
+minute sooner either I or the officer who found her must have knocked
+up against that—that monster. But two or three people do think they saw
+him slinking away.”
+
+“What was he like?” she asked curiously.
+
+“Well, that’s hard to answer. You see, there was such an awful fog. But
+there’s one thing they all agree about. He was carrying a bag—”
+
+“A bag?” repeated Mrs. Bunting, in a low voice. “Whatever sort of bag
+might it have been, Joe?”
+
+There had come across her—just right in her middle, like—such a strange
+sensation, a curious kind of tremor, or fluttering.
+
+She was at a loss to account for it.
+
+“Just a hand-bag,” said Joe Chandler vaguely. “A woman I spoke
+to—cross-examining her, like—who was positive she had seen him, said,
+‘Just a tall, thin shadow—that’s what he was, a tall, thin shadow of a
+man—with a bag.’”
+
+“With a bag?” repeated Mrs. Bunting absently. “How very strange and
+peculiar—”
+
+“Why, no, not strange at all. He has to carry the thing he does the
+deed with in something, Mrs. Bunting. We’ve always wondered how he hid
+it. They generally throws the knife or fire-arms away, you know.”
+
+“Do they, indeed?” Mrs. Bunting still spoke in that absent, wondering
+way. She was thinking that she really must try and see what the lodger
+had done with his bag. It was possible—in fact, when one came to think
+of it, it was very probable—that he had just lost it, being so
+forgetful a gentleman, on one of the days he had gone out, as she knew
+he was fond of doing, into the Regent’s Park.
+
+“There’ll be a description circulated in an hour or two,” went on
+Chandler. “Perhaps that’ll help catch him. There isn’t a London man or
+woman, I don’t suppose, who wouldn’t give a good bit to lay that chap
+by the heels. Well, I suppose I must be going now.”
+
+“Won’t you wait a bit longer for Bunting?” she said hesitatingly.
+
+“No, I can’t do that. But I’ll come in, maybe, either this evening or
+to-morrow, and tell you any more that’s happened. Thanks kindly for the
+tea. It’s made a man of me, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“Well, you’ve had enough to unman you, Joe.”
+
+“Aye, that I have,” he said heavily.
+
+A few minutes later Bunting did come in, and he and his wife had quite
+a little tiff—the first tiff they had had since Mr. Sleuth became their
+lodger.
+
+It fell out this way. When he heard who had been there, Bunting was
+angry that Mrs. Bunting hadn’t got more details of the horrible
+occurrence which had taken place that morning, out of Chandler.
+
+“You don’t mean to say, Ellen, that you can’t even tell me where it
+happened?” he said indignantly. “I suppose you put Chandler off—that’s
+what you did! Why, whatever did he come here for, excepting to tell us
+all about it?”
+
+“He came to have something to eat and drink,” snapped out Mrs. Bunting.
+“That’s what the poor lad came for, if you wants to know. He could
+hardly speak of it at all—he felt so bad. In fact, he didn’t say a word
+about it until he’d come right into the room and sat down. He told me
+quite enough!”
+
+“Didn’t he tell you if the piece of paper on which the murderer had
+written his name was square or three-cornered?” demanded Bunting.
+
+“No; he did not. And that isn’t the sort of thing I should have cared
+to ask him.”
+
+“The more fool you!” And then he stopped abruptly. The newsboys were
+coming down the Marylebone Road, shouting out the awful discovery which
+had been made that morning—that of The Avenger’s fifth murder. Bunting
+went out to buy a paper, and his wife took the things he had brought in
+down to the kitchen.
+
+The noise the newspaper-sellers made outside had evidently wakened Mr.
+Sleuth, for his landlady hadn’t been in the kitchen ten minutes before
+his bell rang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang again.
+
+Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast was quite ready, but for the first time since he
+had been her lodger Mrs. Bunting did not answer the summons at once.
+But when there came the second imperative tinkle—for electric bells had
+not been fitted into that old-fashioned house—she made up her mind to
+go upstairs.
+
+As she emerged into the hall from the kitchen stairway, Bunting,
+sitting comfortably in their parlour, heard his wife stepping heavily
+under the load of the well-laden tray.
+
+“Wait a minute!” he called out. “I’ll help you, Ellen,” and he came out
+and took the tray from her.
+
+She said nothing, and together they proceeded up to the drawing-room
+floor landing.
+
+There she stopped him. “Here,” she whispered quickly, “you give me
+that, Bunting. The lodger won’t like your going in to him.” And then,
+as he obeyed her, and was about to turn downstairs again, she added in
+a rather acid tone, “You might open the door for me, at any rate! How
+can I manage to do it with this here heavy tray on my hands?”
+
+She spoke in a queer, jerky way, and Bunting felt surprised—rather put
+out. Ellen wasn’t exactly what you’d call a lively, jolly woman, but
+when things were going well—as now—she was generally equable enough. He
+supposed she was still resentful of the way he had spoken to her about
+young Chandler and the new Avenger murder.
+
+However, he was always for peace, so he opened the drawing-room door,
+and as soon as he had started going downstairs Mrs. Bunting walked into
+the room.
+
+And then at once there came over her the queerest feeling of relief, of
+lightness of heart.
+
+As usual, the lodger was sitting at his old place, reading the Bible.
+
+Somehow—she could not have told you why, she would not willingly have
+told herself—she had expected to see Mr. Sleuth _looking different_.
+But no, he appeared to be exactly the same—in fact, as he glanced up at
+her a pleasanter smile than usual lighted up his thin, pallid face.
+
+“Well, Mrs. Bunting,” he said genially, “I overslept myself this
+morning, but I feel all the better for the rest.”
+
+“I’m glad of that, sir,” she answered, in a low voice. “One of the
+ladies I once lived with used to say, ‘Rest is an old-fashioned remedy,
+but it’s the best remedy of all.’”
+
+Mr. Sleuth himself removed the Bible and Cruden’s Concordance off the
+table out of her way, and then he stood watching his landlady laying
+the cloth.
+
+Suddenly he spoke again. He was not often so talkative in the morning.
+“I think, Mrs. Bunting, that there was someone with you outside the
+door just now?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Bunting helped me up with the tray.”
+
+“I’m afraid I give you a good deal of trouble,” he said hesitatingly.
+
+But she answered quickly, “Oh, no, sir! Not at all, sir! I was only
+saying yesterday that we’ve never had a lodger that gave us as little
+trouble as you do, sir.”
+
+“I’m glad of that. I am aware that my habits are somewhat peculiar.”
+
+He looked at her fixedly, as if expecting her to give some sort of
+denial to this observation. But Mrs. Bunting was an honest and truthful
+woman. It never occurred to her to question his statement. Mr. Sleuth’s
+habits were somewhat peculiar. Take that going out at night, or rather
+in the early morning, for instance? So she remained silent.
+
+After she had laid the lodger’s breakfast on the table she prepared to
+leave the room. “I suppose I’m not to do your room till you goes out,
+sir?”
+
+And Mr. Sleuth looked up sharply. “No, no!” he said. “I never want my
+room done when I am engaged in studying the Scriptures, Mrs. Bunting.
+But I am not going out to-day. I shall be carrying out a somewhat
+elaborate experiment—upstairs. If I go out at all” he waited a moment,
+and again he looked at her fixedly “—I shall wait till night-time to do
+so.” And then, coming back to the matter in hand, he added hastily,
+“Perhaps you could do my room when I go upstairs, about five o’clock—if
+that time is convenient to you, that is?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir! That’ll do nicely!”
+
+Mrs. Bunting went downstairs, and as she did so she took herself
+wordlessly, ruthlessly to task, but she did not face—even in her inmost
+heart—the strange tenors and tremors which had so shaken her. She only
+repeated to herself again and again, “I’ve got upset—that’s what I’ve
+done,” and then she spoke aloud, “I must get myself a dose at the
+chemist’s next time I’m out. That’s what I must do.”
+
+And just as she murmured the word “do,” there came a loud double knock
+on the front door.
+
+It was only the postman’s knock, but the postman was an unfamiliar
+visitor in that house, and Mrs. Bunting started violently. She was
+nervous, that’s what was the matter with her,—so she told herself
+angrily. No doubt this was a letter for Mr. Sleuth; the lodger must
+have relations and acquaintances somewhere in the world. All gentlefolk
+have. But when she picked the small envelope off the hall floor, she
+saw it was a letter from Daisy, her husband’s daughter.
+
+“Bunting!” she called out sharply. “Here’s a letter for you.”
+
+She opened the door of their sitting-room and looked in. Yes, there was
+her husband, sitting back comfortably in his easy chair, reading a
+paper. And as she saw his broad, rather rounded back, Mrs. Bunting felt
+a sudden thrill of sharp irritation. There he was, doing nothing—in
+fact, doing worse than nothing—wasting his time reading all about those
+horrid crimes.
+
+She sighed—a long, unconscious sigh. Bunting was getting into idle
+ways, bad ways for a man of his years. But how could she prevent it? He
+had been such an active, conscientious sort of man when they had first
+made acquaintance. . .
+
+She also could remember, even more clearly than Bunting did himself,
+that first meeting of theirs in the dining-room of No. 90 Cumberland
+Terrace. As she had stood there, pouring out her mistress’s glass of
+port wine, she had not been too much absorbed in her task to have a
+good out-of-her-eye look at the spruce, nice, respectable-looking
+fellow who was standing over by the window. How superior he had
+appeared even then to the man she already hoped he would succeed as
+butler!
+
+To-day, perhaps because she was not feeling quite herself, the past
+rose before her very vividly, and a lump came into her throat.
+
+Putting the letter addressed to her husband on the table, she closed
+the door softly, and went down into the kitchen; there were various
+little things to put away and clean up, as well as their dinner to
+cook. And all the time she was down there she fixed her mind
+obstinately, determinedly on Bunting and on the problem of Bunting. She
+wondered what she’d better do to get him into good ways again.
+
+Thanks to Mr. Sleuth, their outlook was now moderately bright. A week
+ago everything had seemed utterly hopeless. It seemed as if nothing
+could save them from disaster. But everything was now changed!
+
+Perhaps it would be well for her to go and see the new proprietor of
+that registry office, in Baker Street, which had lately changed hands.
+It would be a good thing for Bunting to get even an occasional job—for
+the matter of that he could now take up a fairly regular thing in the
+way of waiting. Mrs. Bunting knew that it isn’t easy to get a man out
+of idle ways once he has acquired those ways.
+
+When, at last, she went upstairs again she felt a little ashamed of
+what she had been thinking, for Bunting had laid the cloth, and laid it
+very nicely, too, and brought up the two chairs to the table.
+
+“Ellen?” he cried eagerly, “here’s news! Daisy’s coming to-morrow!
+There’s scarlet fever in their house. Old Aunt thinks she’d better come
+away for a few days. So, you see, she’ll be here for her birthday.
+Eighteen, that’s what she be on the nineteenth! It do make me feel
+old—that it do!”
+
+Mrs. Bunting put down the tray. “I can’t have the girl here just now,”
+she said shortly. “I’ve just as much to do as I can manage. The lodger
+gives me more trouble than you seem to think for.”
+
+“Rubbish!” he said sharply. “I’ll help you with the lodger. It’s your
+own fault you haven’t had help with him before. Of course, Daisy must
+come here. Whatever other place could the girl go to?”
+
+Bunting felt pugnacious—so cheerful as to be almost light-hearted. But
+as he looked across at his wife his feeling of satisfaction vanished.
+Ellen’s face was pinched and drawn to-day; she looked ill—ill and
+horribly tired. It was very aggravating of her to go and behave like
+this—just when they were beginning to get on nicely again.
+
+“For the matter of that,” he said suddenly, “Daisy’ll be able to help
+you with the work, Ellen, and she’ll brisk us both up a bit.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting made no answer. She sat down heavily at the table. And
+then she said languidly, “You might as well show me the girl’s letter.”
+
+He handed it across to her, and she read it slowly to herself.
+
+“DEAR FATHER (it ran)—I hope this finds you as well at it leaves me.
+Mrs. Puddle’s youngest has got scarlet fever, and Aunt thinks I had
+better come away at once, just to stay with you for a few days. Please
+tell Ellen I won’t give her no trouble. I’ll start at ten if I don’t
+hear nothing.—Your loving daughter,
+
+
+“DAISY.”
+
+
+“Yes, I suppose Daisy will have to come here,” Mrs. Bunting slowly.
+“It’ll do her good to have a bit of work to do for once in her life.”
+
+And with that ungraciously worded permission Bunting had to content
+himself.
+
+Quietly the rest of that eventful day sped by. When dusk fell Mr.
+Sleuth’s landlady heard him go upstairs to the top floor. She
+remembered that this was the signal for her to go and do his room.
+
+He was a tidy man, was the lodger; he did not throw his things about as
+so many gentlemen do, leaving them all over the place. No, he kept
+everything scrupulously tidy. His clothes, and the various articles
+Mrs. Bunting had bought for him during the first two days he had been
+there, were carefully arranged in the chest of drawers. He had lately
+purchased a pair of boots. Those he had arrived in were
+peculiar-looking footgear, buff leather shoes with rubber soles, and he
+had told his landlady on that very first day that he never wished them
+to go down to be cleaned.
+
+A funny idea—a funny habit that, of going out for a walk after midnight
+in weather so cold and foggy that all other folk were glad to be at
+home, snug in bed. But then Mr. Sleuth himself admitted that he was a
+funny sort of gentleman.
+
+After she had done his bedroom the landlady went into the sitting-room
+and gave it a good dusting. This room was not kept quite as nice as she
+would have liked it to be. Mrs. Bunting longed to give the drawing-room
+something of a good turn out; but Mr. Sleuth disliked her to be moving
+about in it when he himself was in his bedroom; and when up he sat
+there almost all the time. Delighted as he had seemed to be with the
+top room, he only used it when making his mysterious experiments, and
+never during the day-time.
+
+And now, this afternoon, she looked at the rosewood chiffonnier with
+longing eyes—she even gave that pretty little piece of furniture a
+slight shake. If only the doors would fly open, as the locked doors of
+old cupboards sometimes do, even after they have been securely
+fastened, how pleased she would be, how much more comfortable somehow
+she would feel!
+
+But the chiffonnier refused to give up its secret.
+
+About eight o’clock on that same evening Joe Chandler came in, just for
+a few minutes’ chat. He had recovered from his agitation of the
+morning, but he was full of eager excitement, and Mrs. Bunting listened
+in silence, intensely interested in spite of herself, while he and
+Bunting talked.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “I’m as right as a trivet now! I’ve had a good
+rest—laid down all this afternoon. You see, the Yard thinks there’s
+going to be something on to-night. He’s always done them in pairs.”
+
+“So he has,” exclaimed Bunting wonderingly. “So he has! Now, I never
+thought o’ that. Then you think, Joe, that the monster’ll be on the job
+again to-night?”
+
+Chandler nodded. “Yes. And I think there’s a very good chance of his
+being caught too—”
+
+“I suppose there’ll be a lot on the watch to-night, eh?”
+
+“I should think there will be! How many of our men d’you think there’ll
+be on night duty to-night, Mr. Bunting?”
+
+Bunting shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said helplessly.
+
+“I mean extra,” suggested Chandler, in an encouraging voice.
+
+“A thousand?” ventured Bunting.
+
+“Five thousand, Mr. Bunting.”
+
+“Never!” exclaimed Bunting, amazed.
+
+And even Mrs. Bunting echoed “Never!” incredulously.
+
+“Yes, that there will. You see, the Boss has got his monkey up!”
+Chandler drew a folded-up newspaper out of his coat pocket. “Just
+listen to this:
+
+“‘The police have reluctantly to admit that they have no clue to the
+perpetrators of these horrible crimes, and we cannot feel any surprise
+at the information that a popular attack has been organised on the
+Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. There is even talk of an
+indignation mass meeting.’
+
+
+“What d’you think of that? That’s not a pleasant thing for a gentleman
+as is doing his best to read, eh?”
+
+“Well, it does seem queer that the police can’t catch him, now doesn’t
+it?” said Bunting argumentatively.
+
+“I don’t think it’s queer at all,” said young Chandler crossly. “Now
+you just listen again! Here’s a bit of the truth for once—in a
+newspaper.” And slowly he read out:
+
+“‘The detection of crime in London now resembles a game of blind man’s
+buff, in which the detective has his hands tied and his eyes bandaged.
+Thus is he turned loose to hunt the murderer through the slums of a
+great city.’”
+
+
+“Whatever does that mean?” said Bunting. “Your hands aren’t tied, and
+your eyes aren’t bandaged, Joe?”
+
+“It’s metaphorical-like that it’s intended, Mr. Bunting. We haven’t got
+the same facilities—no, not a quarter of them—that the French ’tecs
+have.”
+
+And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting spoke: “What was that word,
+Joe—‘perpetrators’? I mean that first bit you read out.”
+
+“Yes,” he said, turning to her eagerly.
+
+“Then do they think there’s more than one of them?” she said, and a
+look of relief came over her thin face.
+
+“There’s some of our chaps thinks it’s a gang,” said Chandler. “They
+say it can’t be the work of one man.”
+
+“What do _you_ think, Joe?”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Bunting, I don’t know what to think. I’m fair puzzled.”
+
+He got up. “Don’t you come to the door. I’ll shut it all right. So
+long! See you to-morrow, perhaps.” As he had done the other evening,
+Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s visitor stopped at the door. “Any news of Miss
+Daisy?” he asked casually.
+
+“Yes; she’s coming to-morrow,” said her father. “They’ve got scarlet
+fever at her place. So Old Aunt thinks she’d better clear out.”
+
+The husband and wife went to bed early that night, but Mrs. Bunting
+found she could not sleep. She lay wide awake, hearing the hours, the
+half-hours, the quarters chime out from the belfry of the old church
+close by.
+
+And then, just as she was dozing off—it must have been about one
+o’clock—she heard the sound she had half unconsciously been expecting
+to hear, that of the lodger’s stealthy footsteps coming down the stairs
+just outside her room.
+
+He crept along the passage and let himself out very, very quietly.
+
+But though she tried to keep awake, Mrs. Bunting did not hear him come
+in again, for she soon fell into a heavy sleep.
+
+Oddly enough, she was the first to wake the next morning; odder still,
+it was she, not Bunting, who jumped out of bed, and going out into the
+passage, picked up the newspaper which had just been pushed through the
+letter-box.
+
+But having picked it up, Mrs. Bunting did not go back at once into her
+bedroom. Instead she lit the gas in the passage, and leaning up against
+the wall to steady herself, for she was trembling with cold and
+fatigue, she opened the paper.
+
+Yes, there was the heading she sought:
+
+“THE AVENGER MURDERS”
+
+
+But, oh, how glad she was to see the words that followed:
+
+“Up to the time of going to press there is little new to report
+concerning the extraordinary series of crimes which are amazing, and,
+indeed, staggering not only London, but the whole civilised world, and
+which would seem to be the work of some woman-hating teetotal fanatic.
+Since yesterday morning, when the last of these dastardly murders was
+committed, no reliable clue to the perpetrator, or perpetrators, has
+been obtained, though several arrests were made in the course of the
+day. In every case, however, those arrested were able to prove a
+satisfactory alibi.”
+
+
+And then, a little lower down:
+
+“The excitement grows and grows. It is not too much to say that even a
+stranger to London would know that something very unusual was in the
+air. As for the place where the murder was committed last night—”
+
+
+“Last night!” thought Mrs. Bunting, startled; and then she realised
+that “last night,” in this connection, meant the night before last.
+
+She began the sentence again:
+
+“As for the place where the murder was committed last night, all
+approaches to it were still blocked up to a late hour by hundreds of
+onlookers, though, of course, nothing now remains in the way of traces
+of the tragedy.”
+
+
+Slowly and carefully Mrs. Bunting folded the paper up again in its
+original creases, and then she stooped and put it back down on the mat
+where she had found it. She then turned out the gas, and going back
+into bed she lay down by her still sleeping husband.
+
+“Anything the matter?” Bunting murmured, and stirred uneasily.
+“Anything the matter, Ellen?”
+
+She answered in a whisper, a whisper thrilling with a strange gladness,
+“No, nothing, Bunting—nothing the matter! Go to sleep again, my dear.”
+
+They got up an hour later, both in a happy, cheerful mood. Bunting
+rejoiced at the thought of his daughter’s coming, and even Daisy’s
+stepmother told herself that it would be pleasant having the girl about
+the house to help her a bit.
+
+About ten o’clock Bunting went out to do some shopping. He brought back
+with him a nice little bit of pork for Daisy’s dinner, and three
+mince-pies. He even remembered to get some apples for the sauce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Just as twelve was striking a four-wheeler drew up to the gate.
+
+It brought Daisy—pink-cheeked, excited, laughing-eyed Daisy—a sight to
+gladden any father’s heart.
+
+“Old Aunt said I was to have a cab if the weather was bad,” she cried
+out joyously.
+
+There was a bit of a wrangle over the fare. King’s Cross, as all the
+world knows, is nothing like two miles from the Marylebone Road, but
+the man clamoured for one and sixpence, and hinted darkly that he had
+done the young lady a favour in bringing her at all.
+
+While he and Bunting were having words, Daisy, leaving them to it,
+walked up the flagged path to the door where her stepmother was
+awaiting her.
+
+As they were exchanging a rather frigid kiss, indeed, ’twas a mere peck
+on Mrs. Bunting’s part, there fell, with startling suddenness, loud
+cries on the still, cold air. Long-drawn and wailing, they sounded
+strangely sad as they rose and fell across the distant roar of traffic
+in the Edgware Road.
+
+“What’s that?” exclaimed Bunting wonderingly. “Why, whatever’s that?”
+
+The cabman lowered his voice. “Them’s ’a-crying out that ’orrible
+affair at King’s Cross. He’s done for two of ’em this time! That’s what
+I meant when I said I might ’a got a better fare. I wouldn’t say
+nothink before little missy there, but folk ’ave been coming from all
+over London the last five or six hours; plenty of toffs, too—but there,
+there’s nothing to see now!”
+
+“What? Another woman murdered last night?”
+
+Bunting felt tremendously thrilled. What had the five thousand
+constables been about to let such a dreadful thing happen?
+
+The cabman stared at him, surprised. “Two of ’em, I tell yer—within a
+few yards of one another. He ’ave—got a nerve—But, of course, they was
+drunk. He are got a down on the drink!”
+
+“Have they caught him?” asked Bunting perfunctorily.
+
+“Lord, no! They’ll never catch ’im! It must ’ave happened hours and
+hours ago—they was both stone cold. One each end of a little passage
+what ain’t used no more. That’s why they didn’t find ’em before.”
+
+The hoarse cries were coming nearer and nearer—two news vendors trying
+to outshout each other.
+
+“’Orrible discovery near King’s Cross!” they yelled exultingly. “The
+Avenger again!”
+
+And Bunting, with his daughter’s large straw hold-all in his hand, ran
+forward into the roadway and recklessly gave a boy a penny for a
+halfpenny paper.
+
+He felt very much moved and excited. Somehow his acquaintance with
+young Joe Chandler made these murders seem a personal affair. He hoped
+that Chandler would come in soon and tell them all about it, as he had
+done yesterday morning when he, Bunting, had unluckily been out.
+
+As he walked back into the little hall, he heard Daisy’s voice—high,
+voluble, excited—giving her stepmother a long account of the scarlet
+fever case, and how at first Old Aunt’s neighbours had thought it was
+not scarlet fever at all, but just nettlerash.
+
+But as Bunting pushed open the door of the sitting-room, there came a
+note of sharp alarm in his daughter’s voice, and he heard her cry,
+“Why, Ellen, whatever is the matter? You _do_ look bad!” and his wife’s
+muffled answer, “Open the window—do.”
+
+“’Orrible discovery near King’s Cross—a clue at last!” yelled the
+newspaper-boys triumphantly.
+
+And then, helplessly, Mrs. Bunting began to laugh. She laughed, and
+laughed, and laughed, rocking herself to and fro as if in an ecstasy of
+mirth.
+
+“Why, father, whatever’s the matter with her?”
+
+Daisy looked quite scared.
+
+“She’s in ’sterics—that’s what it is,” he said shortly. “I’ll just get
+the water-jug. Wait a minute!”
+
+Bunting felt very put out. Ellen was ridiculous—that’s what she was, to
+be so easily upset.
+
+The lodger’s bell suddenly pealed through the quiet house. Either that
+sound, or maybe the threat of the water-jug, had a magical effect on
+Mrs. Bunting. She rose to her feet, still shaking all over, but
+mentally composed.
+
+“I’ll go up,” she said a little chokingly. “As for you, child, just run
+down into the kitchen. You’ll find a piece of pork roasting in the
+oven. You might start paring the apples for the sauce.”
+
+As Mrs. Bunting went upstairs her legs felt as if they were made of
+cotton wool. She put out a trembling hand, and clutched at the banister
+for support. But soon, making a great effort over herself, she began to
+feel more steady; and after waiting for a few moments on the landing,
+she knocked at the door of the drawing-room.
+
+Mr. Sleuth’s voice answered her from the bedroom. “I’m not well,” he
+called out querulously; “I think I’ve caught a chill. I should be
+obliged if you would kindly bring me up a cup of tea, and put it
+outside my door, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“Very well, sir.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting turned and went downstairs. She still felt queer and
+giddy, so instead of going into the kitchen, she made the lodger his
+cup of tea over her sitting-room gas-ring.
+
+During their midday dinner the husband and wife had a little discussion
+as to where Daisy should sleep. It had been settled that a bed should
+be made up for her in the top back room, but Mrs. Bunting saw reason to
+change this plan. “I think ’twould be better if Daisy were to sleep
+with me, Bunting, and you was to sleep upstairs.”
+
+Bunting felt and looked rather surprised, but he acquiesced. Ellen was
+probably right; the girl would be rather lonely up there, and, after
+all, they didn’t know much about the lodger, though he seemed a
+respectable gentleman enough.
+
+Daisy was a good-natured girl; she liked London, and wanted to make
+herself useful to her stepmother. “I’ll wash up; don’t you bother to
+come downstairs,” she said cheerfully.
+
+Bunting began to walk up and down the room. His wife gave him a furtive
+glance; she wondered what he was thinking about.
+
+“Didn’t you get a paper?” she said at last.
+
+“Yes, of course I did,” he answered hastily. “But I’ve put it away. I
+thought you’d rather not look at it, as you’re that nervous.”
+
+Again she glanced at him quickly, furtively, but he seemed just as
+usual—he evidently meant just what he said and no more.
+
+“I thought they was shouting something in the street—I mean just before
+I was took bad.”
+
+It was now Bunting’s turn to stare at his wife quickly and rather
+furtively. He had felt sure that her sudden attack of queerness, of
+hysterics—call it what you might—had been due to the shouting outside.
+She was not the only woman in London who had got the Avenger murders on
+her nerves. His morning paper said quite a lot of women were afraid to
+go out alone. Was it possible that the curious way she had been taken
+just now had had nothing to do with the shouts and excitement outside?
+
+“Don’t you know what it was they were calling out?” he asked slowly.
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked across at him. She would have given a very great
+deal to be able to lie, to pretend that she did not know what those
+dreadful cries had portended. But when it came to the point she found
+she could not do so.
+
+“Yes,” she said dully. “I heard a word here and there. There’s been
+another murder, hasn’t there?”
+
+“Two other murders,” he said soberly.
+
+“Two? That’s worse news!” She turned so pale—a sallow
+greenish-white—that Bunting thought she was again going queer.
+
+“Ellen?” he said warningly, “Ellen, now do have a care! I can’t think
+what’s come over you about these murders. Turn your mind away from
+them, do! We needn’t talk about them—not so much, that is—”
+
+“But I wants to talk about them,” cried Mrs. Bunting hysterically.
+
+The husband and wife were standing, one each side of the table, the man
+with his back to the fire, the woman with her back to the door.
+
+Bunting, staring across at his wife, felt sadly perplexed and
+disturbed. She really did seem ill; even her slight, spare figure
+looked shrunk. For the first time, so he told himself ruefully, Ellen
+was beginning to look her full age. Her slender hands—she had kept the
+pretty, soft white hands of the woman who has never done rough
+work—grasped the edge of the table with a convulsive movement.
+
+Bunting didn’t at all like the look of her. “Oh, dear,” he said to
+himself, “I do hope Ellen isn’t going to be ill! That would be a to-do
+just now.”
+
+“Tell me about it,” she commanded, in a low voice. “Can’t you see I’m
+waiting to hear? Be quick now, Bunting!”
+
+“There isn’t very much to tell,” he said reluctantly. “There’s precious
+little in this paper, anyway. But the cabman what brought Daisy told
+me—”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“What I said just now. There’s two of ’em this time, and they’d both
+been drinking heavily, poor creatures.”
+
+“Was it where the others was done?” she asked looking at her husband
+fearfully.
+
+“No,” he said awkwardly. “No, it wasn’t, Ellen. It was a good bit
+farther West—in fact, not so very far from here. Near King’s
+Cross—that’s how the cabman knew about it, you see. They seems to have
+been done in a passage which isn’t used no more.” And then, as he
+thought his wife’s eyes were beginning to look rather funny, he added
+hastily. “There, that’s enough for the present! We shall soon be
+hearing a lot more about it from Joe Chandler. He’s pretty sure to come
+in some time to-day.”
+
+“Then the five thousand constables weren’t no use?” said Mrs. Bunting
+slowly.
+
+She had relaxed her grip of the table, and was standing more upright.
+
+“No use at all,” said Bunting briefly. “He is artful and no mistake
+about it. But wait a minute—” he turned and took up the paper which he
+had laid aside, on a chair. “Yes they says here that they has a clue.”
+
+“A clue, Bunting?” Mrs. Bunting spoke in a soft, weak, die-away voice,
+and again, stooping somewhat, she grasped the edge of the table.
+
+But her husband was not noticing her now. He was holding the paper
+close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a tone of considerable
+satisfaction:
+
+“‘It is gratifying to be able to state that the police at last believe
+they are in possession of a clue which will lead to the arrest of
+the—’”
+
+
+and then Bunting dropped the paper and rushed round the table.
+
+His wife, with a curious sighing moan, had slipped down on to the
+floor, taking with her the tablecloth as she went. She lay there in
+what appeared to be a dead faint. And Bunting, scared out of his wits,
+opened the door and screamed out, “Daisy! Daisy! Come up, child.
+Ellen’s took bad again.”
+
+And Daisy, hurrying in, showed an amount of sense and resource which
+even at this anxious moment roused her fond father’s admiration.
+
+“Get a wet sponge, Dad—quick!” she cried, “a sponge,—and, if you’ve got
+such a thing, a drop o’ brandy. I’ll see after her!” And then, after he
+had got the little medicine flask, “I can’t think what’s wrong with
+Ellen,” said Daisy wonderingly. “She seemed quite all right when I
+first came in. She was listening, interested-like, to what I was
+telling her, and then, suddenly—well, you saw how she was took, father?
+’Tain’t like Ellen this, is it now?”
+
+“No,” he whispered. “No, ’tain’t. But you see, child, we’ve been going
+through a pretty bad time—worse nor I should ever have let you know of,
+my dear. Ellen’s just feeling it now—that’s what it is. She didn’t say
+nothing, for Ellen’s a good plucked one, but it’s told on her—it’s told
+on her!”
+
+And then Mrs. Bunting, sitting up, slowly opened her eyes, and
+instinctively put her hand up to her head to see if her hair was all
+right.
+
+She hadn’t really been quite “off.” It would have been better for her
+if she had. She had simply had an awful feeling that she couldn’t stand
+up—more, that she must fall down. Bunting’s words touched a most
+unwonted chord in the poor woman’s heart, and the eyes which she opened
+were full of tears. She had not thought her husband knew how she had
+suffered during those weeks of starving and waiting.
+
+But she had a morbid dislike of any betrayal of sentiment. To her such
+betrayal betokened “foolishness,” and so all she said was, “There’s no
+need to make a fuss! I only turned over a little queer. I never was
+right off, Daisy.”
+
+Pettishly she pushed away the glass in which Bunting had hurriedly
+poured a little brandy. “I wouldn’t touch such stuff—no, not if I was
+dying!” she exclaimed.
+
+Putting out a languid hand, she pulled herself up, with the help of the
+table, on to her feet. “Go down again to the kitchen, child”; but there
+was a sob, a kind of tremor in her voice.
+
+“You haven’t been eating properly, Ellen—that’s what’s the matter with
+you,” said Bunting suddenly. “Now I come to think of it, you haven’t
+eat half enough these last two days. I always did say—in old days many
+a time I telled you—that a woman couldn’t live on air. But there, you
+never believed me!”
+
+Daisy stood looking from one to the other, a shadow over her bright,
+pretty face. “I’d no idea you’d had such a bad time, father,” she said
+feelingly. “Why didn’t you let me know about it? I might have got
+something out of Old Aunt.”
+
+“We didn’t want anything of that sort,” said her stepmother hastily.
+“But of course—well, I expect I’m still feeling the worry now. I don’t
+seem able to forget it. Those days of waiting, of—of—” she restrained
+herself; another moment and the word “starving” would have left her
+lips.
+
+“But everything’s all right now,” said Bunting eagerly, “all right,
+thanks to Mr. Sleuth, that is.”
+
+“Yes,” repeated his wife, in a low, strange tone of voice. “Yes, we’re
+all right now, and as you say, Bunting, it’s all along of Mr. Sleuth.”
+
+She walked across to a chair and sat down on it. “I’m just a little
+tottery still,” she muttered.
+
+And Daisy, looking at her, turned to her father and said in a whisper,
+but not so low but that Mrs. Bunting heard her, “Don’t you think Ellen
+ought to see a doctor, father? He might give her something that would
+pull her round.”
+
+“I won’t see no doctor!” said Mrs. Bunting with sudden emphasis. “I saw
+enough of doctors in my last place. Thirty-eight doctors in ten months
+did my poor missis have. Just determined on having ’em she was! Did
+they save her? No! She died just the same! Maybe a bit sooner.”
+
+“She was a freak, was your last mistress, Ellen,” began Bunting
+aggressively.
+
+Ellen had insisted on staying on in that place till her poor mistress
+died. They might have been married some months before they were married
+but for that fact. Bunting had always resented it.
+
+His wife smile wanly. “We won’t have no words about that,” she said,
+and again she spoke in a softer, kindlier tone than usual. “Daisy? If
+you won’t go down to the kitchen again, then I must”—she turned to her
+stepdaughter, and the girl flew out of the room.
+
+“I think the child grows prettier every minute,” said Bunting fondly.
+
+“Folks are too apt to forget that beauty is but skin deep,” said his
+wife. She was beginning to feel better. “But still, I do agree,
+Bunting, that Daisy’s well enough. And she seems more willing, too.”
+
+“I say, we mustn’t forget the lodger’s dinner,” Bunting spoke uneasily.
+“It’s a bit of fish to-day, isn’t it? Hadn’t I better just tell Daisy
+to see to it, and then I can take it up to him, as you’re not feeling
+quite the thing, Ellen?”
+
+“I’m quite well enough to take up Mr. Sleuth’s luncheon,” she said
+quickly. It irritated her to hear her husband speak of the lodger’s
+dinner. They had dinner in the middle of the day, but Mr. Sleuth had
+luncheon. However odd he might be, Mrs. Bunting never forgot her lodger
+was a gentleman.
+
+“After all, he likes me to wait on him, doesn’t he? I can manage all
+right. Don’t you worry,” she added after a long pause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Perhaps because his luncheon was served to him a good deal later than
+usual, Mr. Sleuth ate his nice piece of steamed sole upstairs with far
+heartier an appetite than his landlady had eaten her nice slice of
+roast pork downstairs.
+
+“I hope you’re feeling a little better, sir,” Mrs. Bunting had forced
+herself to say when she first took in his tray.
+
+And he had answered plaintively, querulously, “No, I can’t say I feel
+well to-day, Mrs. Bunting. I am tired—very tired. And as I lay in bed I
+seemed to hear so many sounds—so much crying and shouting. I trust the
+Marylebone Road is not going to become a noisy thoroughfare, Mrs.
+Bunting?”
+
+“Oh, no, sir, I don’t think that. We’re generally reckoned very quiet
+indeed, sir.”
+
+She waited a moment—try as she would, she could not allude to what
+those unwonted shouts and noises had betokened. “I expect you’ve got a
+chill, sir,” she said suddenly. “If I was you, I shouldn’t go out this
+afternoon; I’d just stay quietly indoors. There’s a lot of rough people
+about—” Perhaps there was an undercurrent of warning, of painful
+pleading, in her toneless voice which penetrated in some way to the
+brain of the lodger, for Mr. Sleuth looked up, and an uneasy, watchful
+look came into his luminous grey eyes.
+
+“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Bunting. But I think I’ll take your
+advice. That is, I will stay quietly at home, I am never at a loss to
+know what to do with myself so long as I can study the Book of Books.”
+
+“Then you’re not afraid about your eyes, sir?” said Mrs. Bunting
+curiously. Somehow she was beginning to feel better. It comforted her
+to be up here, talking to Mr. Sleuth, instead of thinking about him
+downstairs. It seemed to banish the terror which filled her soul—aye,
+and her body, too—at other times. When she was with him Mr. Sleuth was
+so gentle, so reasonable, so—so grateful.
+
+Poor kindly, solitary Mr. Sleuth! This kind of gentleman surely
+wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a human being. Eccentric—so much must be
+admitted. But Mrs. Bunting had seen a good deal of eccentric folk,
+eccentric women rather than eccentric men, in her long career as useful
+maid.
+
+Being at ordinary times an exceptionally sensible, well-balanced woman,
+she had never, in old days, allowed her mind to dwell on certain things
+she had learnt as to the aberrations of which human nature is
+capable—even well-born, well-nurtured, gentle human nature—as
+exemplified in some of the households where she had served. It would,
+indeed, be unfortunate if she now became morbid or—or hysterical.
+
+So it was in a sharp, cheerful voice, almost the voice in which she had
+talked during the first few days of Mr. Sleuth’s stay in her house,
+that she exclaimed, “Well, sir, I’ll be up again to clear away in about
+half an hour. And if you’ll forgive me for saying so, I hope you will
+stay in and have a rest to-day. Nasty, muggy weather—that’s what it is!
+If there’s any little thing you want, me or Bunting can go out and get
+it.”
+
+It must have been about four o’clock when there came a ring at the
+front door.
+
+The three were sitting chatting together, for Daisy had washed up—she
+really was saving her stepmother a good bit of trouble—and the girl was
+now amusing her elders by a funny account of Old Aunt’s pernickety
+ways.
+
+“Whoever can that be?” said Bunting, looking up. “It’s too early for
+Joe Chandler, surely.”
+
+“I’ll go,” said his wife, hurriedly jumping up from her chair. “I’ll
+go! We don’t want no strangers in here.”
+
+And as she stepped down the short bit of passage she said to herself,
+“A clue? What clue?”
+
+But when she opened the front door a glad sigh of relief broke from
+her. “Why, Joe? We never thought ’twas you! But you’re very welcome,
+I’m sure. Come in.”
+
+And Chandler came in, a rather sheepish look on his good-looking, fair
+young face.
+
+“I thought maybe that Mr. Bunting would like to know—” he began, in a
+loud, cheerful voice, and Mrs. Bunting hurriedly checked him. She
+didn’t want the lodger upstairs to hear what young Chandler might be
+going to say.
+
+“Don’t talk so loud,” she said a little sharply. “The lodger is not
+very well to-day. He’s had a cold,” she added hastily, “and during the
+last two or three days he hasn’t been able to go out.”
+
+She wondered at her temerity, her—her hypocrisy, and that moment, those
+few words, marked an epoch in Ellen Bunting’s life. It was the first
+time she had told a bold and deliberate lie. She was one of those
+women—there are many, many such—to whom there is a whole world of
+difference between the suppression of the truth and the utterance of an
+untruth.
+
+But Chandler paid no heed to her remarks. “Has Miss Daisy arrived?” he
+asked, in a lower voice.
+
+She nodded. And then he went through into the room where the father and
+daughter were sitting.
+
+“Well?” said Bunting, starting up. “Well, Joe? Now you can tell us all
+about that mysterious clue. I suppose it’d be too good news to expect
+you to tell us they’ve caught him?”
+
+“No fear of such good news as that yet awhile. If they’d caught him,”
+said Joe ruefully, “well, I don’t suppose I should be here, Mr.
+Bunting. But the Yard are circulating a description at last. And—well,
+they’ve found his weapon!”
+
+“No?” cried Bunting excitedly. “You don’t say so! Whatever sort of a
+thing is it? And are they sure ’tis his?”
+
+“Well, ’tain’t sure, but it seems to be likely.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting had slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.
+But she was still standing with her back against the door, looking at
+the group in front of her. None of them were thinking of her—she
+thanked God for that! She could hear everything that was said without
+joining in the talk and excitement.
+
+“Listen to this!” cried Joe Chandler exultantly. “’Tain’t given out
+yet—not for the public, that is—but we was all given it by eight
+o’clock this morning. Quick work that, eh?” He read out:
+
+“WANTED
+
+
+“A man, of age approximately 28, slight in figure, height approximately
+5 ft. 8 in. Complexion dark. No beard or whiskers. Wearing a black
+diagonal coat, hard felt hat, high white collar, and tie. Carried a
+newspaper parcel. Very respectable appearance.”
+
+
+Mrs. Bunting walked forward. She gave a long, fluttering sigh of
+unutterable relief.
+
+“There’s the chap!” said Joe Chandler triumphantly. “And now, Miss
+Daisy”—he turned to her jokingly, but there was a funny little tremor
+in his frank, cheerful-sounding voice—“if you knows of any nice, likely
+young fellow that answers to that description—well, you’ve only got to
+walk in and earn your reward of five hundred pounds.”
+
+“Five hundred pounds!” cried Daisy and her father simultaneously.
+
+“Yes. That’s what the Lord Mayor offered yesterday. Some private
+bloke—nothing official about it. But we of the Yard is barred from
+taking that reward, worse luck. And it’s too bad, for we has all the
+trouble, after all.”
+
+“Just hand that bit of paper over, will you?” said Bunting. “I’d like
+to con it over to myself.”
+
+Chandler threw over the bit of flimsy.
+
+A moment later Bunting looked up and handed it back. “Well, it’s clear
+enough, isn’t it?”
+
+“Yes. And there’s hundreds—nay, thousands—of young fellows that might
+be a description of,” said Chandler sarcastically. “As a pal of mine
+said this morning, ‘There isn’t a chap will like to carry a newspaper
+parcel after this.’ And it won’t do to have a respectable
+appearance—eh?”
+
+Daisy’s voice rang out in merry, pealing laughter. She greatly
+appreciated Mr. Chandler’s witticism.
+
+“Why on earth didn’t the people who saw him try and catch him?” asked
+Bunting suddenly.
+
+And Mrs. Bunting broke in, in a lower voice, “Yes, Joe—that seems odd,
+don’t it?”
+
+Joe Chandler coughed. “Well, it’s this way,” he said. “No one person
+did see all that. The man who’s described here is just made up from the
+description of two different folk who _think_ they saw him. You see,
+the murders must have taken place—well, now, let me see—perhaps at two
+o’clock this last time. Two o’clock—that’s the idea. Well, at such a
+time as that not many people are about, especially on a foggy night.
+Yes, one woman declares she saw a young chap walking away from the spot
+where ’twas done; and another one—but that was a good bit later—says
+The Avenger passed by her. It’s mostly her they’re following in this
+’ere description. And then the boss who has charge of that sort of
+thing looked up what other people had said—I mean when the other crimes
+was committed. That’s how he made up this ‘Wanted.’”
+
+“Then The Avenger may be quite a different sort of man?” said Bunting
+slowly, disappointedly.
+
+“Well, of course he may be. But, no; I think that description fits him
+all right,” said Chandler; but he also spoke in a hesitating voice.
+
+“You was saying, Joe, that they found a weapon?” observed Bunting
+insinuatingly.
+
+He was glad that Ellen allowed the discussion to go on—in fact, that
+she even seemed to take an intelligent interest in it. She had come up
+close to them, and now looked quite her old self again.
+
+“Yes. They believe they’ve found the weapon what he does his awful
+deeds with,” said Chandler. “At any rate, within a hundred yards of
+that little dark passage where they found the bodies—one at each end,
+that was—there was discovered this morning a very peculiar kind o’
+knife—‘keen as a razor, pointed as a dagger’—that’s the exact words the
+boss used when he was describing it to a lot of us. He seemed to think
+a lot more of that clue than of the other—I mean than of the
+description people gave of the chap who walked quickly by with a
+newspaper parcel. But now there’s a pretty job in front of us. Every
+shop where they sell or might a’ sold, such a thing as that knife,
+including every eating-house in the East End, has got to be called at!”
+
+“Whatever for?” asked Daisy.
+
+“Why, with an idea of finding out if anyone saw such a knife fooling
+about there any time, and, if so, in whose possession it was at the
+time. But, Mr. Bunting”—Chandler’s voice changed; it became
+businesslike, official—“they’re not going to say anything about
+that—not in newspapers—till to-morrow, so don’t you go and tell
+anybody. You see, we don’t want to frighten the fellow off. If he knew
+they’d got his knife—well, he might just make himself scarce, and they
+don’t want that! If it’s discovered that any knife of that kind was
+sold, say a month ago, to some customer whose ways are known,
+then—then—”
+
+“What’ll happen then?” said Mrs. Bunting, coming nearer.
+
+“Well, then, nothing’ll be put about it in the papers at all,” said
+Chandler deliberately. “The only objec’ of letting the public know
+about it would be if nothink was found—I mean if the search of the
+shops, and so on, was no good. Then, of course, we must try and find
+out someone—some private person-like, who’s watched that knife in the
+criminal’s possession. It’s there the reward—the five hundred pounds
+will come in.”
+
+“Oh, I’d give anything to see that knife!” exclaimed Daisy, clasping
+her hands together.
+
+“You cruel, bloodthirsty, girl!” cried her stepmother passionately.
+
+They all looked round at her, surprised.
+
+“Come, come, Ellen!” said Bunting reprovingly.
+
+“Well, it _is_ a horrible idea!” said his wife sullenly. “To go and
+sell a fellow-being for five hundred pounds.”
+
+But Daisy was offended. “Of course I’d like to see it!” she cried
+defiantly. “I never said nothing about the reward. That was Mr.
+Chandler said that! I only said I’d like to see the knife.”
+
+Chandler looked at her soothingly. “Well, the day may come when you
+_will_ see it,” he said slowly.
+
+A great idea had come into his mind.
+
+“No! What makes you think that?”
+
+“If they catches him, and if you comes along with me to see our Black
+Museum at the Yard, you’ll certainly see the knife, Miss Daisy. They
+keeps all them kind of things there. So if, as I say, this weapon
+_should_ lead to the conviction of The Avenger—well, then, that knife
+’ull be there, and you’ll see it!”
+
+“The Black Museum? Why, whatever do they have a museum in your place
+for?” asked Daisy wonderingly. “I thought there was only the British
+Museum—”
+
+And then even Mrs. Bunting, as well as Bunting and Chandler, laughed
+aloud.
+
+“You are a goosey girl!” said her father fondly. “Why, there’s a lot of
+museums in London; the town’s thick with ’em. Ask Ellen there. She and
+me used to go to them kind of places when we was courting—if the
+weather was bad.”
+
+“But our museum’s the one that would interest Miss Daisy,” broke in
+Chandler eagerly. “It’s a regular Chamber of ’Orrors!”
+
+“Why, Joe, you never told us about that place before,” said Bunting
+excitedly. “D’you really mean that there’s a museum where they keeps
+all sorts of things connected with crimes? Things like knives murders
+have been committed with?”
+
+“Knives?” cried Joe, pleased at having become the centre of attention,
+for Daisy had also fixed her blue eyes on him, and even Mrs. Bunting
+looked at him expectantly. “Much more than knives, Mr. Bunting! Why,
+they’ve got there, in little bottles, the real poison what people have
+been done away with.”
+
+“And can you go there whenever you like?” asked Daisy wonderingly. She
+had not realised before what extraordinary and agreeable privileges are
+attached to the position of a detective member of the London Police
+Force.
+
+“Well, I suppose I _could_—” Joe smiled. “Anyway I can certainly get
+leave to take a friend there.” He looked meaningly at Daisy, and Daisy
+looked eagerly at him.
+
+But would Ellen ever let her go out by herself with Mr. Chandler? Ellen
+was so prim, so—so irritatingly proper. But what was this father was
+saying? “D’you really mean that, Joe?”
+
+“Yes, of course I do!”
+
+“Well, then, look here! If it isn’t asking too much of a favour, I
+should like to go along there with you very much one day. I don’t want
+to wait till The Avenger’s caught”—Bunting smiled broadly. “I’d be
+quite content as it is with what there is in that museum o’ yours.
+Ellen, there,”—he looked across at his wife—“don’t agree with me about
+such things. Yet I don’t think I’m a bloodthirsty man! But I’m just
+terribly interested in all that sort of thing—always have been. I used
+to positively envy the butler in that Balham Mystery!”
+
+Again a look passed between Daisy and the young man—it was a look which
+contained and carried a great many things backwards and forwards, such
+as—“Now, isn’t it funny that your father should want to go to such a
+place? But still, I can’t help it if he does want to go, so we must put
+up with his company, though it would have been much nicer for us to go
+just by our two selves.” And then Daisy’s look answered quite as
+plainly, though perhaps Joe didn’t read her glance quite as clearly as
+she had read his: “Yes, it is tiresome. But father means well; and
+’twill be very pleasant going there, even if he does come too.”
+
+“Well, what d’you say to the day after to-morrow, Mr. Bunting? I’d call
+for you here about—shall we say half-past two?—and just take you and
+Miss Daisy down to the Yard. ’Twouldn’t take very long; we could go all
+the way by bus, right down to Westminster Bridge.” He looked round at
+his hostess: “Wouldn’t you join us, Mrs. Bunting? ’Tis truly a
+wonderful interesting place.”
+
+But his hostess shook her head decidedly. “’Twould turn me sick,” she
+exclaimed, “to see the bottle of poison what had done away with the
+life of some poor creature!
+
+“And as for knives—!” a look of real horror, of startled fear, crept
+over her pale face.
+
+“There, there!” said Bunting hastily. “Live and let live—that’s what I
+always say. Ellen ain’t on in this turn. She can just stay at home and
+mind the cat—I beg his pardon, I mean the lodger!”
+
+“I won’t have Mr. Sleuth laughed at,” said Mrs. Bunting darkly. “But
+there! I’m sure it’s very kind of you, Joe, to think of giving Bunting
+and Daisy such a rare treat”—she spoke sarcastically, but none of the
+three who heard her understood that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+The moment she passed though the great arched door which admits the
+stranger to that portion of New Scotland Yard where throbs the heart of
+that great organism which fights the forces of civilised crime, Daisy
+Bunting felt that she had indeed become free of the Kingdom of Romance.
+Even the lift in which the three of them were whirled up to one of the
+upper floors of the huge building was to the girl a new and delightful
+experience. Daisy had always lived a simple, quiet life in the little
+country town where dwelt Old Aunt and this was the first time a lift
+had come her way.
+
+With a touch of personal pride in the vast building, Joe Chandler
+marched his friends down a wide, airy corridor.
+
+Daisy clung to her father’s arm, a little bewildered, a little
+oppressed by her good fortune. Her happy young voice was stilled by the
+awe she felt at the wonderful place where she found herself, and by the
+glimpses she caught of great rooms full of busy, silent men engaged in
+unravelling—or so she supposed—the mysteries of crime.
+
+They were passing a half-open door when Chandler suddenly stopped
+short. “Look in there,” he said, in a low voice, addressing the father
+rather than the daughter, “that’s the Finger-Print Room. We’ve records
+here of over two hundred thousand men’s and women’s finger-tips! I
+expect you know, Mr. Bunting, as how, once we’ve got the print of a
+man’s five finger-tips, well, he’s done for—if he ever does anything
+else, that is. Once we’ve got that bit of him registered he can’t never
+escape us—no, not if he tries ever so. But though there’s nigh on a
+quarter of a million records in there, yet it don’t take—well, not half
+an hour, for them to tell whether any particular man has ever been
+convicted before! Wonderful thought, ain’t it?”
+
+“Wonderful!” said Bunting, drawing a deep breath. And then a troubled
+look came over his stolid face. “Wonderful, but also a very fearful
+thought for the poor wretches as has got their finger-prints in, Joe.”
+
+Joe laughed. “Agreed!” he said. “And the cleverer ones knows that only
+too well. Why, not long ago, one man who knew his record was here safe,
+managed to slash about his fingers something awful, just so as to make
+a blurred impression—you takes my meaning? But there, at the end of six
+weeks the skin grew all right again, and in exactly the same little
+creases as before!”
+
+“Poor devil!” said Bunting under his breath, and a cloud even came over
+Daisy’s bright eager face.
+
+They were now going along a narrower passage, and then again they came
+to a half-open door, leading into a room far smaller than that of the
+Finger-Print Identification Room.
+
+“If you’ll glance in there,” said Joe briefly, “you’ll see how we finds
+out all about any man whose finger-tips has given him away, so to
+speak. It’s here we keeps an account of what he’s done, his previous
+convictions, and so on. His finger-tips are where I told you, and his
+record in there—just connected by a number.”
+
+“Wonderful!” said Bunting, drawing in his breath. But Daisy was longing
+to get on—to get to the Black Museum. All this that Joe and her father
+were saying was quite unreal to her, and, for the matter of that not
+worth taking the trouble to understand. However, she had not long to
+wait.
+
+A broad-shouldered, pleasant-looking young fellow, who seemed on very
+friendly terms with Joe Chandler, came forward suddenly, and, unlocking
+a common-place-looking door, ushered the little party of three through
+into the Black Museum.
+
+For a moment there came across Daisy a feeling of keen disappointment
+and surprise. This big, light room simply reminded her of what they
+called the Science Room in the public library of the town where she
+lived with Old Aunt. Here, as there, the centre was taken up with plain
+glass cases fixed at a height from the floor which enabled their
+contents to be looked at closely.
+
+She walked forward and peered into the case nearest the door. The
+exhibits shown there were mostly small, shabby-looking little things,
+the sort of things one might turn out of an old rubbish cupboard in an
+untidy house—old medicine bottles, a soiled neckerchief, what looked
+like a child’s broken lantern, even a box of pills. . .
+
+As for the walls, they were covered with the queerest-looking objects;
+bits of old iron, odd-looking things made of wood and leather, and so
+on.
+
+It was really rather disappointing.
+
+Then Daisy Bunting gradually became aware that standing on a shelf just
+below the first of the broad, spacious windows which made the great
+room look so light and shadowless, was a row of life-size white plaster
+heads, each head slightly inclined to the right. There were about a
+dozen of these, not more—and they had such odd, staring, helpless,
+_real_-looking faces.
+
+“Whatever’s those?” asked Bunting in a low voice.
+
+Daisy clung a thought closer to her father’s arm. Even she guessed that
+these strange, pathetic, staring faces were the death-masks of those
+men and women who had fulfilled the awful law which ordains that the
+murderer shall be, in his turn, done to death.
+
+“All hanged!” said the guardian of the Black Museum briefly. “Casts
+taken after death.”
+
+Bunting smiled nervously. “They don’t look dead somehow. They looks
+more as if they were listening,” he said.
+
+“That’s the fault of Jack Ketch,” said the man facetiously. “It’s his
+idea—that of knotting his patient’s necktie under the left ear! That’s
+what he does to each of the gentlemen to whom he has to act valet on
+just one occasion only. It makes them lean just a bit to one side. You
+look here—?”
+
+Daisy and her father came a little closer, and the speaker pointed with
+his finger to a little dent imprinted on the left side of each neck;
+running from this indentation was a curious little furrow, well ridged
+above, showing how tightly Jack Ketch’s necktie had been drawn when its
+wearer was hurried through the gates of eternity.
+
+“They looks foolish-like, rather than terrified, or—or hurt,” said
+Bunting wonderingly.
+
+He was extraordinarily moved and fascinated by those dumb, staring
+faces.
+
+But young Chandler exclaimed in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice,
+“Well, a man would look foolish at such a time as that, with all his
+plans brought to naught—and knowing he’s only got a second to live—now
+wouldn’t he?”
+
+“Yes, I suppose he would,” said Bunting slowly.
+
+Daisy had gone a little pale. The sinister, breathless atmosphere of
+the place was beginning to tell on her. She now began to understand
+that the shabby little objects lying there in the glass case close to
+her were each and all links in the chain of evidence which, in almost
+every case, had brought some guilty man or woman to the gallows.
+
+“We had a yellow gentleman here the other day,” observed the guardian
+suddenly; “one of those Brahmins—so they calls themselves. Well, you’d
+a been quite surprised to see how that heathen took on! He
+declared—what was the word he used?”—he turned to Chandler.
+
+“He said that each of these things, with the exception of the casts,
+mind you—queer to say, he left them out—exuded evil, that was the word
+he used! Exuded—squeezed out it means. He said that being here made him
+feel very bad. And twasn’t all nonsense either. He turned quite green
+under his yellow skin, and we had to shove him out quick. He didn’t
+feel better till he’d got right to the other end of the passage!”
+
+“There now! Who’d ever think of that?” said Bunting. “I should say that
+man ’ud got something on his conscience, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Well, I needn’t stay now,” said Joe’s good-natured friend. “You show
+your friends round, Chandler. You knows the place nearly as well as I
+do, don’t you?”
+
+He smiled at Joe’s visitors, as if to say good-bye, but it seemed that
+he could not tear himself away after all.
+
+“Look here,” he said to Bunting. “In this here little case are the
+tools of Charles Peace. I expect you’ve heard of him.”
+
+“I should think I have!” cried Bunting eagerly.
+
+“Many gents as comes here thinks this case the most interesting of all.
+Peace was such a wonderful man! A great inventor they say he would have
+been, had he been put in the way of it. Here’s his ladder; you see it
+folds up quite compactly, and makes a nice little bundle—just like a
+bundle of old sticks any man might have been seen carrying about London
+in those days without attracting any attention. Why, it probably helped
+him to look like an honest working man time and time again, for on
+being arrested he declared most solemnly he’d always carried that
+ladder openly under his arm.”
+
+“The daring of that!” cried Bunting.
+
+“Yes, and when the ladder was opened out it could reach from the ground
+to the second storey of any old house. And, oh! how clever he was! Just
+open one section, and you see the other sections open automatically; so
+Peace could stand on the ground and force the thing quietly up to any
+window he wished to reach. Then he’d go away again, having done his
+job, with a mere bundle of old wood under his arm! My word, he was
+artful! I wonder if you’ve heard the tale of how Peace once lost a
+finger. Well, he guessed the constables were instructed to look out for
+a man missing a finger; so what did he do?”
+
+“Put on a false finger,” suggested Bunting.
+
+“No, indeed! Peace made up his mind just to do without a hand
+altogether. Here’s his false stump: you see, it’s made of wood—wood and
+black felt? Well, that just held his hand nicely. Why, we considers
+that one of the most ingenious contrivances in the whole museum.”
+
+Meanwhile, Daisy had let go her hold of her father. With Chandler in
+delighted attendance, she had moved away to the farther end of the
+great room, and now she was bending over yet another glass case.
+“Whatever are those little bottles for?” she asked wonderingly.
+
+There were five small phials, filled with varying quantities of cloudy
+liquids.
+
+“They’re full of poison, Miss Daisy, that’s what they are. There’s
+enough arsenic in that little whack o’ brandy to do for you and me—aye,
+and for your father as well, I should say.”
+
+“Then chemists shouldn’t sell such stuff,” said Daisy, smiling. Poison
+was so remote from herself, that the sight of these little bottles only
+brought a pleasant thrill.
+
+“No more they don’t. That was sneaked out of a flypaper, that was. Lady
+said she wanted a cosmetic for her complexion, but what she was really
+going for was flypapers for to do away with her husband. She’d got a
+bit tired of him, I suspect.”
+
+“Perhaps he was a horrid man, and deserved to be done away with,” said
+Daisy. The idea struck them both as so very comic that they began to
+laugh aloud in unison.
+
+“Did you ever hear what a certain Mrs. Pearce did?” asked Chandler,
+becoming suddenly serious.
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Daisy, and she shuddered a little. “That was the
+wicked, wicked woman what killed a pretty little baby and its mother.
+They’ve got her in Madame Tussaud’s. But Ellen, she won’t let me go to
+the Chamber of Horrors. She wouldn’t let father take me there last time
+I was in London. Cruel of her, I called it. But somehow I don’t feel as
+if I wanted to go there now, after having been here!”
+
+“Well,” said Chandler slowly, “we’ve a case full of relics of Mrs.
+Pearce. But the pram the bodies were found in, that’s at Madame
+Tussaud’s—at least so they claim, I can’t say. Now here’s something
+just as curious, and not near so dreadful. See that man’s jacket
+there?”
+
+“Yes,” said Daisy falteringly. She was beginning to feel oppressed,
+frightened. She no longer wondered that the Indian gentleman had been
+taken queer.
+
+“A burglar shot a man dead who’d disturbed him, and by mistake he went
+and left that jacket behind him. Our people noticed that one of the
+buttons was broken in two. Well, that don’t seem much of a clue, does
+it, Miss Daisy? Will you believe me when I tells you that that other
+bit of button was discovered, and that it hanged the fellow? And ’twas
+the more wonderful because all three buttons was different!”
+
+Daisy stared wonderingly, down at the little broken button which had
+hung a man. “And whatever’s that!” she asked, pointing to a piece of
+dirty-looking stuff.
+
+“Well,” said Chandler reluctantly, “that’s rather a horrible thing—that
+is. That’s a bit o’ shirt that was buried with a woman—buried in the
+ground, I mean—after her husband had cut her up and tried to burn her.
+’Twas that bit o’ shirt that brought him to the gallows.”
+
+“I considers your museum’s a very horrid place!” said Daisy pettishly,
+turning away.
+
+She longed to be out in the passage again, away from this brightly
+lighted, cheerful-looking, sinister room.
+
+But her father was now absorbed in the case containing various types of
+infernal machines. “Beautiful little works of art some of them are,”
+said his guide eagerly, and Bunting could not but agree.
+
+“Come along—do, father!” said Daisy quickly. “I’ve seen about enough
+now. If I was to stay in here much longer it ’ud give me the horrors. I
+don’t want to have no nightmares to-night. It’s dreadful to think there
+are so many wicked people in the world. Why, we might knock up against
+some murderer any minute without knowing it, mightn’t we?”
+
+“Not you, Miss Daisy,” said Chandler smilingly. “I don’t suppose you’ll
+ever come across even a common swindler, let alone anyone who’s
+committed a murder—not one in a million does that. Why, even I have
+never had anything to do with a proper murder case!”
+
+But Bunting was in no hurry. He was thoroughly enjoying every moment of
+the time. Just now he was studying intently the various photographs
+which hung on the walls of the Black Museum; especially was he pleased
+to see those connected with a famous and still mysterious case which
+had taken place not long before in Scotland, and in which the servant
+of the man who died had played a considerable part—not in elucidating,
+but in obscuring, the mystery.
+
+“I suppose a good many murderers get off?” he said musingly.
+
+And Joe Chandler’s friend nodded. “I should think they did!” he
+exclaimed. “There’s no such thing as justice here in England. ’Tis odds
+on the murderer every time. ’Tisn’t one in ten that come to the end he
+should do—to the gallows, that is.”
+
+“And what d’you think about what’s going on now—I mean about those
+Avenger murders?”
+
+Bunting lowered his voice, but Daisy and Chandler were already moving
+towards the door.
+
+“I don’t believe he’ll ever be caught,” said the other confidentially.
+“In some ways ’tis a lot more of a job to catch a madman than ’tis to
+run down just an ordinary criminal. And, of course—leastways to my
+thinking—The Avenger _is_ a madman—one of the cunning, quiet sort. Have
+you heard about the letter?” his voice dropped lower.
+
+“No,” said Bunting, staring eagerly at him. “What letter d’you mean?”
+
+“Well, there’s a letter—it’ll be in this museum some day—which came
+just before that last double event. ’Twas signed ‘The Avenger,’ in just
+the same printed characters as on that bit of paper he always leaves
+behind him. Mind you, it don’t follow that it actually was The Avenger
+what sent that letter here, but it looks uncommonly like it, and I know
+that the Boss attaches quite a lot of importance to it.”
+
+“And where was it posted?” asked Bunting. “That might be a bit of a
+clue, you know.”
+
+“Oh, no,” said the other. “They always goes a very long way to post
+anything—criminals do. It stands to reason they would. But this
+particular one was put in the Edgware Road Post Office.”
+
+“What? Close to us?” said Bunting. “Goodness! dreadful!”
+
+“Any of us might knock up against him any minute. I don’t suppose The
+Avenger’s in any way peculiar-looking—in fact we know he ain’t.”
+
+“Then you think that woman as says she saw him did see him?” asked
+Bunting hesitatingly.
+
+“Our description was made up from what she said,” answered the other
+cautiously. “But, there, you can’t tell! In a case like that it’s
+groping—groping in the dark all the time—and it’s just a lucky accident
+if it comes out right in the end. Of course, it’s upsetting us all very
+much here. You can’t wonder at that!”
+
+“No, indeed,” said Bunting quickly. “I give you my word, I’ve hardly
+thought of anything else for the last month.”
+
+Daisy had disappeared, and when her father joined her in the passage
+she was listening, with downcast eyes, to what Joe Chandler was saying.
+
+He was telling her about his real home, of the place where his mother
+lived, at Richmond—that it was a nice little house, close to the park.
+He was asking her whether she could manage to come out there one
+afternoon, explaining that his mother would give them tea, and how nice
+it would be.
+
+“I don’t see why Ellen shouldn’t let me,” the girl said rebelliously.
+“But she’s that old-fashioned and pernickety is Ellen—a regular old
+maid! And, you see, Mr. Chandler, when I’m staying with them, father
+don’t like for me to do anything that Ellen don’t approve of. But she’s
+got quite fond of you, so perhaps if you ask her—?” She looked at him,
+and he nodded sagely.
+
+“Don’t you be afraid,” he said confidently. “I’ll get round Mrs.
+Bunting. But, Miss Daisy”—he grew very red—“I’d just like to ask you a
+question—no offence meant—”
+
+“Yes?” said Daisy a little breathlessly. “There’s father close to us,
+Mr. Chandler. Tell me quick; what is it?”
+
+“Well, I take it, by what you said just now, that you’ve never walked
+out with any young fellow?”
+
+Daisy hesitated a moment; then a very pretty dimple came into her
+cheek. “No,” she said sadly. “No, Mr. Chandler, that I have not.” In a
+burst of candour she added, “You see, I never had the chance!”
+
+And Joe Chandler smiled, well pleased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+By what she regarded as a fortunate chance, Mrs. Bunting found herself
+for close on an hour quite alone in the house during her husband’s and
+Daisy’s jaunt with young Chandler.
+
+Mr. Sleuth did not often go out in the daytime, but on this particular
+afternoon, after he had finished his tea, when dusk was falling, he
+suddenly observed that he wanted a new suit of clothes, and his
+landlady eagerly acquiesced in his going out to purchase it.
+
+As soon as he had left the house, she went quickly up to the
+drawing-room floor. Now had come her opportunity of giving the two
+rooms a good dusting; but Mrs. Bunting knew well, deep in her heart,
+that it was not so much the dusting of Mr. Sleuth’s sitting-room she
+wanted to do—as to engage in a vague search for—she hardly knew for
+what.
+
+During the years she had been in service Mrs. Bunting had always had a
+deep, wordless contempt for those of her fellow-servants who read their
+employers’ private letters, and who furtively peeped into desks and
+cupboards in the hope, more vague than positive, of discovering family
+skeletons.
+
+But now, with regard to Mr. Sleuth, she was ready, aye, eager, to do
+herself what she had once so scorned others for doing.
+
+Beginning with the bedroom, she started on a methodical search. He was
+a very tidy gentleman was the lodger, and his few things,
+under-garments, and so on, were in apple-pie order. She had early
+undertaken, much to his satisfaction, to do the very little bit of
+washing he required done, with her own and Bunting’s. Luckily he wore
+soft shirts.
+
+At one time Mrs. Bunting had always had a woman in to help her with
+this tiresome weekly job, but lately she had grown quite clever at it
+herself. The only things she had to send out were Bunting’s shirts.
+Everything else she managed to do herself.
+
+From the chest of drawers she now turned her attention to the
+dressing-table.
+
+Mr. Sleuth did not take his money with him when he went out, he
+generally left it in one of the drawers below the old-fashioned
+looking-glass. And now, in a perfunctory way, his landlady pulled out
+the little drawer, but she did not touch what was lying there; she only
+glanced at the heap of sovereigns and a few bits of silver. The lodger
+had taken just enough money with him to buy the clothes he required. He
+had consulted her as to how much they would cost, making no secret of
+why he was going out, and the fact had vaguely comforted Mrs. Bunting.
+
+Now she lifted the toilet-cover, and even rolled up the carpet a little
+way, but no, there was nothing there, not so much as a scrap of paper.
+And at last, when more or less giving up the search, as she came and
+went between the two rooms, leaving the connecting door wide open, her
+mind became full of uneasy speculation and wonder as to the lodger’s
+past life.
+
+Odd Mr. Sleuth must surely always have been, but odd in a sensible sort
+of way, having on the whole the same moral ideals of conduct as have
+other people of his class. He was queer about the drink—one might say
+almost crazy on the subject—but there, as to that, he wasn’t the only
+one! She, Ellen Bunting, had once lived with a lady who was just like
+that, who was quite crazed, that is, on the question of drink and
+drunkards—She looked round the neat drawing-room with vague
+dissatisfaction. There was only one place where anything could be kept
+concealed—that place was the substantial if small mahogany chiffonnier.
+And then an idea suddenly came to Mrs. Bunting, one she had never
+thought of before.
+
+After listening intently for a moment, lest something should suddenly
+bring Mr. Sleuth home earlier than she expected, she went to the corner
+where the chiffonnier stood, and, exerting the whole of her not very
+great physical strength, she tipped forward the heavy piece of
+furniture.
+
+As she did so, she heard a queer rumbling sound,—something rolling
+about on the second shelf, something which had not been there before
+Mr. Sleuth’s arrival. Slowly, laboriously, she tipped the chiffonnier
+backwards and forwards—once, twice, thrice—satisfied, yet strangely
+troubled in her mind, for she now felt sure that the bag of which the
+disappearance had so surprised her was there, safely locked away by its
+owner.
+
+Suddenly a very uncomfortable thought came to Mrs. Bunting’s mind. She
+hoped Mr. Sleuth would not notice that his bag had shifted inside the
+cupboard. A moment later, with sharp dismay, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady
+realised that the fact that she had moved the chiffonnier must become
+known to her lodger, for a thin trickle of some dark-coloured liquid
+was oozing out though the bottom of the little cupboard door.
+
+She stooped down and touched the stuff. It showed red, bright red, on
+her finger.
+
+Mrs. Bunting grew chalky white, then recovered herself quickly. In fact
+the colour rushed into her face, and she grew hot all over.
+
+It was only a bottle of red ink she had upset—that was all! How could
+she have thought it was anything else?
+
+It was the more silly of her—so she told herself in scornful
+condemnation—because she knew that the lodger used red ink. Certain
+pages of Cruden’s Concordance were covered with notes written in Mr.
+Sleuth’s peculiar upright handwriting. In fact in some places you
+couldn’t see the margin, so closely covered was it with remarks and
+notes of interrogation.
+
+Mr. Sleuth had foolishly placed his bottle of red ink in the
+chiffonnier—that was what her poor, foolish gentleman had done; and it
+was owing to her inquisitiveness, her restless wish to know things she
+would be none the better, none the happier, for knowing, that this
+accident had taken place.
+
+She mopped up with her duster the few drops of ink which had fallen on
+the green carpet and then, still feeling, as she angrily told herself,
+foolishly upset she went once more into the back room.
+
+It was curious that Mr. Sleuth possessed no notepaper. She would have
+expected him to have made that one of his first purchases—the more so
+that paper is so very cheap, especially that rather dirty-looking grey
+Silurian paper. Mrs. Bunting had once lived with a lady who always used
+two kinds of notepaper, white for her friends and equals, grey for
+those whom she called “common people.” She, Ellen Green, as she then
+was, had always resented the fact. Strange she should remember it now,
+stranger in a way because that employer of her’s had not been a real
+lady, and Mr. Sleuth, whatever his peculiarities, was, in every sense
+of the word, a real gentleman. Somehow Mrs. Bunting felt sure that if
+he had bought any notepaper it would have been white—white and probably
+cream-laid—not grey and cheap.
+
+Again she opened the drawer of the old-fashioned wardrobe and lifted up
+the few pieces of underclothing Mr. Sleuth now possessed.
+
+But there was nothing there—nothing, that is, hidden away. When one
+came to think of it there seemed something strange in the notion of
+leaving all one’s money where anyone could take it, and in locking up
+such a valueless thing as a cheap sham leather bag, to say nothing of a
+bottle of ink.
+
+Mrs. Bunting once more opened out each of the tiny drawers below the
+looking-glass, each delicately fashioned of fine old mahogany. Mr.
+Sleuth kept his money in the centre drawer.
+
+The glass had only cost seven-and-sixpence, and, after the auction a
+dealer had come and offered her first fifteen shillings, and then a
+guinea for it. Not long ago, in Baker Street, she had seen a
+looking-glass which was the very spit of this one, labeled
+“Chippendale, Antique. £21 5s 0d.”
+
+There lay Mr. Sleuth’s money—the sovereigns, as the landlady well knew,
+would each and all gradually pass into her’s and Bunting’s possession,
+honestly earned by them no doubt but unattainable—in act
+unearnable—excepting in connection with the present owner of those
+dully shining gold sovereigns.
+
+At last she went downstairs to await Mr. Sleuth’s return.
+
+When she heard the key turn in the door, she came out into the passage.
+
+“I’m sorry to say I’ve had an accident, sir,” she said a little
+breathlessly. “Taking advantage of your being out I went up to dust the
+drawing-room, and while I was trying to get behind the chiffonnier it
+tilted. I’m afraid, sir, that a bottle of ink that was inside may have
+got broken, for just a few drops oozed out, sir. But I hope there’s no
+harm done. I wiped it up as well as I could, seeing that the doors of
+the chiffonnier are locked.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth stared at her with a wild, almost a terrified glance. But
+Mrs. Bunting stood her ground. She felt far less afraid now than she
+had felt before he came in. Then she had been so frightened that she
+had nearly gone out of the house, on to the pavement, for company.
+
+“Of course I had no idea, sir, that you kept any ink in there.”
+
+She spoke as if she were on the defensive, and the lodger’s brow
+cleared.
+
+“I was aware you used ink, sir,” Mrs. Bunting went on, “for I have seen
+you marking that book of yours—I mean the book you read together with
+the Bible. Would you like me to go out and get you another bottle,
+sir?”
+
+“No,” said Mr. Sleuth. “No, I thank you. I will at once proceed
+upstairs and see what damage has been done. When I require you I shall
+ring.”
+
+He shuffled past her, and five minutes later the drawing-room bell did
+ring.
+
+At once, from the door, Mrs. Bunting saw that the chiffonnier was wide
+open, and that the shelves were empty save for the bottle of red ink
+which had turned over and now lay in a red pool of its own making on
+the lower shelf.
+
+“I’m afraid it will have stained the wood, Mrs. Bunting. Perhaps I was
+ill-advised to keep my ink in there.”
+
+“Oh, no, sir! That doesn’t matter at all. Only a drop or two fell out
+on to the carpet, and they don’t show, as you see, sir, for it’s a dark
+corner. Shall I take the bottle away? I may as well.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth hesitated. “No,” he said, after a long pause, “I think not,
+Mrs. Bunting. For the very little I require it the ink remaining in the
+bottle will do quite well, especially if I add a little water, or
+better still, a little tea, to what already remains in the bottle. I
+only require it to mark up passages which happen to be of peculiar
+interest in my Concordance—a work, Mrs. Bunting, which I should have
+taken great pleasure in compiling myself had not this—ah—this gentleman
+called Cruden, been before.”
+
+Not only Bunting, but Daisy also, thought Ellen far pleasanter in her
+manner than usual that evening. She listened to all they had to say
+about their interesting visit to the Black Museum, and did not snub
+either of them—no, not even when Bunting told of the dreadful,
+haunting, silly-looking death-masks taken from the hanged.
+
+But a few minutes after that, when her husband suddenly asked her a
+question, Mrs. Bunting answered at random. It was clear she had not
+heard the last few words he had been saying.
+
+“A penny for your thoughts!” he said jocularly. But she shook her head.
+
+Daisy slipped out of the room, and, five minutes later, came back
+dressed up in a blue-and-white check silk gown.
+
+“My!” said her father. “You do look fine, Daisy. I’ve never seen you
+wearing that before.”
+
+“And a rare figure of fun she looks in it!” observed Mrs. Bunting
+sarcastically. And then, “I suppose this dressing up means that you’re
+expecting someone. I should have thought both of you must have seen
+enough of young Chandler for one day. I wonder when that young chap
+does his work—that I do! He never seems too busy to come and waste an
+hour or two here.”
+
+But that was the only nasty thing Ellen said all that evening. And even
+Daisy noticed that her stepmother seemed dazed and unlike herself. She
+went about her cooking and the various little things she had to do even
+more silently than was her wont.
+
+Yet under that still, almost sullen, manner, how fierce was the storm
+of dread, of sombre anguish, and, yes, of sick suspense, which shook
+her soul, and which so far affected her poor, ailing body that often
+she felt as if she could not force herself to accomplish her simple
+round of daily work.
+
+After they had finished supper Bunting went out and bought a penny
+evening paper, but as he came in he announced, with a rather rueful
+smile, that he had read so much of that nasty little print this last
+week or two that his eyes hurt him.
+
+“Let me read aloud a bit to you, father,” said Daisy eagerly, and he
+handed her the paper.
+
+Scarcely had Daisy opened her lips when a loud ring and a knock echoed
+through the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+It was only Joe. Somehow, even Bunting called him “Joe” now, and no
+longer “Chandler,” as he had mostly used to do.
+
+Mrs. Bunting had opened the front door only a very little way. She
+wasn’t going to have any strangers pushing in past her.
+
+To her sharpened, suffering senses her house had become a citadel which
+must be defended; aye, even if the besiegers were a mighty horde _with
+right on their side_. And she was always expecting that first single
+spy who would herald the battalion against whom her only weapon would
+be her woman’s wit and cunning.
+
+But when she saw who stood there smiling at her, the muscles of her
+face relaxed, and it lost the tense, anxious, almost agonised look it
+assumed the moment she turned her back on her husband and stepdaughter.
+
+“Why, Joe,” she whispered, for she had left the door open behind her,
+and Daisy had already begun to read aloud, as her father had bidden
+her. “Come in, do! It’s fairly cold to-night.”
+
+A glance at his face had shown her that there was no fresh news.
+
+Joe Chandler walked in, past her, into the little hall. Cold? Well, he
+didn’t feel cold, for he had walked quickly to be the sooner where he
+was now.
+
+Nine days had gone by since that last terrible occurrence, the double
+murder which had been committed early in the morning of the day Daisy
+had arrived in London. And though the thousands of men belonging to the
+Metropolitan Police—to say nothing of the smaller, more alert body of
+detectives attached to the Force—were keenly on the alert, not one but
+had begun to feel that there was nothing to be alert about.
+Familiarity, even with horror, breeds contempt.
+
+But with the public it was far otherwise. Each day something happened
+to revive and keep alive the mingled horror and interest this strange,
+enigmatic series of crimes had evoked. Even the more sober organs of
+the Press went on attacking, with gathering severity and indignation,
+the Commissioner of Police; and at the huge demonstration held in
+Victoria Park two days before violent speeches had also been made
+against the Home Secretary.
+
+But just now Joe Chandler wanted to forget all that. The little house
+in the Marylebone Road had become to him an enchanted isle of dreams,
+to which his thoughts were ever turning when he had a moment to spare
+from what had grown to be a wearisome, because an unsatisfactory, job.
+He secretly agreed with one of his pals who had exclaimed, and that
+within twenty-four hours of the last double crime, “Why, ’twould be
+easier to find a needle in a rick o’ hay than this—bloke!”
+
+And if that had been true then, how much truer it was now—after nine
+long, empty days had gone by?
+
+Quickly he divested himself of his great-coat, muffler, and low hat.
+Then he put his finger on his lip, and motioned smilingly to Mrs.
+Bunting to wait a moment. From where he stood in the hall the father
+and daughter made a pleasant little picture of contented domesticity.
+Joe Chandler’s honest heart swelled at the sight.
+
+Daisy, wearing the blue-and-white check silk dress about which her
+stepmother and she had had words, sat on a low stool on the left side
+of the fire, while Bunting, leaning back in his own comfortable
+arm-chair, was listening, his hand to his ear, in an attitude—as it was
+the first time she had caught him doing it, the fact brought a pang to
+Mrs. Bunting—which showed that age was beginning to creep over the
+listener.
+
+One of Daisy’s duties as companion to her great-aunt was that of
+reading the newspaper aloud, and she prided herself on her
+accomplishment.
+
+Just as Joe had put his finger on his lip Daisy had been asking, “Shall
+I read this, father?” And Bunting had answered quickly, “Aye, do, my
+dear.”
+
+He was absorbed in what he was hearing, and, on seeing Joe at the door,
+he had only just nodded his head. The young man was becoming so
+frequent a visitor as to be almost one of themselves.
+
+Daisy read out:
+
+“THE AVENGER: A—”
+
+
+And then she stopped short, for the next word puzzled her greatly.
+Bravely, however, she went on. “A the-o-ry.”
+
+“Go in—do!” whispered Mrs. Bunting to her visitor. “Why should we stay
+out here in the cold? It’s ridiculous.”
+
+“I don’t want to interrupt Miss Daisy,” whispered Chandler back, rather
+hoarsely.
+
+“Well, you’ll hear it all the better in the room. Don’t think she’ll
+stop because of you, bless you! There’s nothing shy about our Daisy!”
+
+The young man resented the tart, short tone. “Poor little girl!” he
+said to himself tenderly. “That’s what it is having a stepmother,
+instead of a proper mother.” But he obeyed Mrs. Bunting, and then he
+was pleased he had done so, for Daisy looked up, and a bright blush
+came over her pretty face.
+
+“Joe begs you won’t stop yet awhile. Go on with your reading,”
+commanded Mrs. Bunting quickly. “Now, Joe, you can go and sit over
+there, close to Daisy, and then you won’t miss a word.”
+
+There was a sarcastic inflection in her voice, even Chandler noticed
+that, but he obeyed her with alacrity, and crossing the room he went
+and sat on a chair just behind Daisy. From there he could note with
+reverent delight the charming way her fair hair grew upwards from the
+nape of her slender neck.
+
+“THE AVENGER: A THE-O-RY”
+
+
+began Daisy again, clearing her throat.
+
+“DEAR SIR—I have a suggestion to put forward for which I think there is
+a great deal to be said. It seems to me very probable that The
+Avenger—to give him the name by which he apparently wishes to be
+known—comprises in his own person the peculiarities of Jekyll and Hyde,
+Mr. Louis Stevenson’s now famous hero.
+    “The culprit, according to my point of view, is a quiet,
+    pleasant-looking gentleman who lives somewhere in the West End of
+    London. He has, however, a tragedy in his past life. He is the
+    husband of a dipsomaniac wife. She is, of course, under care, and
+    is never mentioned in the house where he lives, maybe with his
+    widowed mother and perhaps a maiden sister. They notice that he has
+    become gloomy and brooding of late, but he lives his usual life,
+    occupying himself each day with some harmless hobby. On foggy
+    nights, once the quiet household is plunged in sleep, he creeps out
+    of the house, maybe between one and two o’clock, and swiftly makes
+    his way straight to what has become The Avenger’s murder area.
+    Picking out a likely victim, he approaches her with Judas-like
+    gentleness, and having committed his awful crime, goes quietly home
+    again. After a good bath and breakfast, he turns up happy, once
+    more the quiet individual who is an excellent son, a kind brother,
+    esteemed and even beloved by a large circle of friends and
+    acquaintances. Meantime, the police are searching about the scene
+    of the tragedy for what they regard as the usual type of criminal
+    lunatic.
+    “I give this theory, Sir, for what it is worth, but I confess that
+    I am amazed the police have so wholly confined their inquiries to
+    the part of London where these murders have been actually
+    committed. I am quite sure from all that has come out—and we must
+    remember that full information is never given to the newspapers—The
+    Avenger should be sought for in the West and not in the East End of
+    London—Believe me to remain, Sir, yours very truly—”
+
+
+Again Daisy hesitated, and then with an effort she brought out the word
+“Gab-o-ri-you,” said she.
+
+“What a funny name!” said Bunting wonderingly.
+
+And then Joe broke in: “That’s the name of a French chap what wrote
+detective stories,” he said. “Pretty good, some of them are, too!”
+
+“Then this Gaboriyou has come over to study these Avenger murders, I
+take it?” said Bunting.
+
+“Oh, no,” Joe spoke with confidence. “Whoever’s written that silly
+letter just signed that name for fun.”
+
+“It is a silly letter,” Mrs. Bunting had broken in resentfully. “I
+wonder a respectable paper prints such rubbish.”
+
+“Fancy if The Avenger did turn out to be a gentleman!” cried Daisy, in
+an awe-struck voice. “There’d be a how-to-do!”
+
+“There may be something in the notion,” said her father thoughtfully.
+“After all, the monster must be somewhere. This very minute he must be
+somewhere a-hiding of himself.”
+
+“Of course he’s somewhere,” said Mrs. Bunting scornfully.
+
+She had just heard Mr. Sleuth moving overhead. ’Twould soon be time for
+the lodger’s supper.
+
+She hurried on: “But what I do say is that—that—he has nothing to do
+with the West End. Why, they say it’s a sailor from the Docks—that’s a
+good bit more likely, I take it. But there, I’m fair sick of the whole
+subject! We talk of nothing else in this house. The Avenger this—The
+Avenger that—”
+
+“I expect Joe has something to tell us new to-night,” said Bunting
+cheerfully. “Well, Joe, is there anything new?”
+
+“I say, father, just listen to this!” Daisy broke in excitedly. She
+read out:
+
+“BLOODHOUNDS TO BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED”
+
+
+“Bloodhounds?” repeated Mrs. Bunting, and there was terror in her tone.
+“Why bloodhounds? That do seem to me a most horrible idea!”
+
+Bunting looked across at her, mildly astonished. “Why, ’twould be a
+very good idea, if ’twas possible to have bloodhounds in a town. But,
+there, how can that be done in London, full of butchers’ shops, to say
+nothing of slaughter-yards and other places o’ that sort?”
+
+But Daisy went on, and to her stepmother’s shrinking ear there seemed a
+horrible thrill of delight; of gloating pleasure, in her fresh young
+voice.
+
+“Hark to this,” she said:
+
+“A man who had committed a murder in a lonely wood near Blackburn was
+traced by the help of a bloodhound, and thanks to the sagacious
+instincts of the animal, the miscreant was finally convicted and
+hanged.”
+
+
+“La, now! Who’d ever have thought of such a thing?” Bunting exclaimed,
+in admiration. “The newspapers do have some useful hints in sometimes,
+Joe.”
+
+But young Chandler shook his head. “Bloodhounds ain’t no use,” he said;
+“no use at all! If the Yard was to listen to all the suggestions that
+the last few days have brought in—well, all I can say is our work would
+be cut out for us—not but what it’s cut out for us now, if it comes to
+that!” He sighed ruefully. He was beginning to feel very tired; if only
+he could stay in this pleasant, cosy room listening to Daisy Bunting
+reading on and on for ever, instead of having to go out, as he would
+presently have to do, into the cold and foggy night!
+
+Joe Chandler was fast becoming very sick of his new job. There was a
+lot of unpleasantness attached to the business, too. Why, even in the
+house where he lived, and in the little cook-shop where he habitually
+took his meals, the people round him had taken to taunt him with the
+remissness of the police. More than that one of his pals, a man he’d
+always looked up to, because the young fellow had the gift of the gab,
+had actually been among those who had spoken at the big demonstration
+in Victoria Park, making a violent speech, not only against the
+Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but also against the Home
+Secretary.
+
+But Daisy, like most people who believe themselves blessed with the
+possession of an accomplishment, had no mind to leave off reading just
+yet.
+
+“Here’s another notion!” she exclaimed. “Another letter, father!”
+
+“PARDON TO ACCOMPLICES.
+
+
+“DEAR SIR—During the last day or two several of the more Intelligent of
+my acquaintances have suggested that The Avenger, whoever he may be,
+must be known to a certain number of persons. It is impossible that the
+perpetrator of such deeds, however nomad he may be in his habits—”
+
+
+“Now I wonder what ‘nomad’ can be?” Daisy interrupted herself, and
+looked round at her little audience.
+
+“I’ve always declared the fellow had all his senses about him,”
+observed Bunting confidently.
+
+Daisy went on, quite satisfied:
+
+“—however nomad he may be in his habit; must have some habitat where
+his ways are known to at least one person. Now the person who knows the
+terrible secret is evidently withholding information in expectation of
+a reward, or maybe because, being an accessory after the fact, he or
+she is now afraid of the consequences. My suggestion, Sir, is that the
+Home Secretary promise a free pardon. The more so that only thus can
+this miscreant be brought to justice. Unless he was caught red-handed
+in the act, it will be exceedingly difficult to trace the crime
+committed to any individual, for English law looks very askance at
+circumstantial evidence.”
+
+
+“There’s something worth listening to in that letter,” said Joe,
+leaning forward.
+
+Now he was almost touching Daisy, and he smiled involuntarily as she
+turned her gay, pretty little face the better to hear what he was
+saying.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Chandler?” she said interrogatively.
+
+“Well, d’you remember that fellow what killed an old gentleman in a
+railway carriage? He took refuge with someone—a woman his mother had
+known, and she kept him hidden for quite a long time. But at last she
+gave him up, and she got a big reward, too!”
+
+“I don’t think I’d like to give anybody up for a reward,” said Bunting,
+in his slow, dogmatic way.
+
+“Oh, yes, you would, Mr. Bunting,” said Chandler confidently. “You’d
+only be doing what it’s the plain duty of everyone—everyone, that is,
+who’s a good citizen. And you’d be getting something for doing it,
+which is more than most people gets as does their duty.”
+
+“A man as gives up someone for a reward is no better than a common
+informer,” went on Bunting obstinately. “And no man ’ud care to be
+called that! It’s different for you, Joe,” he added hastily. “It’s your
+job to catch those who’ve done anything wrong. And a man’d be a fool
+who’d take refuge—like with you. He’d be walking into the lion’s
+mouth—” Bunting laughed.
+
+And then Daisy broke in coquettishly: “If I’d done anything I wouldn’t
+mind going for help to Mr. Chandler,” she said.
+
+And Joe, with eyes kindling, cried, “No. And if you did you needn’t be
+afraid I’d give you up, Miss Daisy!”
+
+And then, to their amazement, there suddenly broke from Mrs. Bunting,
+sitting with bowed head over the table, an exclamation of impatience
+and anger, and, it seemed to those listening, of pain.
+
+“Why, Ellen, don’t you feel well?” asked Bunting quickly.
+
+“Just a spasm, a sharp stitch in my side, like,” answered the poor
+woman heavily. “It’s over now. Don’t mind me.”
+
+“But I don’t believe—no, that I don’t—that there’s anybody in the world
+who knows who The Avenger is,” went on Chandler quickly. “It stands to
+reason that anybody’d give him up—in their own interest, if not in
+anyone else’s. Who’d shelter such a creature? Why, ’twould be dangerous
+to have him in the house along with one!”
+
+“Then it’s your idea that he’s not responsible for the wicked things he
+does?” Mrs. Bunting raised her head, and looked over at Chandler with
+eager, anxious eyes.
+
+“I’d be sorry to think he wasn’t responsible enough to hang!” said
+Chandler deliberately. “After all the trouble he’s been giving us,
+too!”
+
+“Hanging’d be too good for that chap,” said Bunting.
+
+“Not if he’s not responsible,” said his wife sharply. “I never heard of
+anything so cruel—that I never did! If the man’s a madman, he ought to
+be in an asylum—that’s where he ought to be.”
+
+“Hark to her now!” Bunting looked at his Ellen with amusement.
+“Contrary isn’t the word for her! But there, I’ve noticed the last few
+days that she seemed to be taking that monster’s part. That’s what
+comes of being a born total abstainer.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting had got up from her chair. “What nonsense you do talk!”
+she said angrily. “Not but what it’s a good thing if these murders have
+emptied the public-houses of women for a bit. England’s drink is
+England’s shame—I’ll never depart from that! Now, Daisy, child, get up,
+do! Put down that paper. We’ve heard quite enough. You can be laying
+the cloth while I goes down the kitchen.”
+
+“Yes, you mustn’t be forgetting the lodger’s supper,” called out
+Bunting. “Mr. Sleuth don’t always ring—” he turned to Chandler. “For
+one thing, he’s often out about this time.”
+
+“Not often—just now and again, when he wants to buy something,” snapped
+out Mrs. Bunting. “But I hadn’t forgot his supper. He never do want it
+before eight o’clock.”
+
+“Let me take up the lodger’s supper, Ellen,” Daisy’s eager voice broke
+in. She had got up in obedience to her stepmother, and was now laying
+the cloth.
+
+“Certainly not! I told you he only wanted me to wait on him. You have
+your work cut out looking after things down here—that’s where I wants
+you to help me.”
+
+Chandler also got up. Somehow he didn’t like to be doing nothing while
+Daisy was so busy. “Yes,” he said, looking across at Mrs. Bunting, “I’d
+forgotten about your lodger. Going on all right, eh?”
+
+“Never knew so quiet and well-behaved a gentleman,” said Bunting. “He
+turned our luck, did Mr. Sleuth.”
+
+His wife left the room, and after she had gone Daisy laughed. “You’ll
+hardly believe it, Mr. Chandler, but I’ve never seen this wonderful
+lodger. Ellen keeps him to herself, that she does! If I was father I’d
+be jealous!”
+
+Both men laughed. Ellen? No, the idea was too funny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+“All I can say is, I think Daisy ought to go. One can’t always do just
+what one wants to do—not in this world, at any rate!”
+
+Mrs. Bunting did not seem to be addressing anyone in particular, though
+both her husband and her stepdaughter were in the room. She was
+standing by the table, staring straight before her, and as she spoke
+she avoided looking at either Bunting or Daisy. There was in her voice
+a tone of cross decision, of thin finality, with which they were both
+acquainted, and to which each listener knew the other would have to
+bow.
+
+There was silence for a moment, then Daisy broke out passionately, “I
+don’t see why I should go if I don’t want to!” she cried. “You’ll allow
+I’ve been useful to you, Ellen? ’Tisn’t even as if you was quite well.”
+
+“I am quite well—perfectly well!” snapped out Mrs. Bunting, and she
+turned her pale, drawn face, and looked angrily at her stepdaughter.
+
+“’Tain’t often I has a chance of being with you and father.” There were
+tears in Daisy’s voice, and Bunting glanced deprecatingly at his wife.
+
+An invitation had come to Daisy—an invitation from her own dead
+mother’s sister, who was housekeeper in a big house in Belgrave Square.
+“The family” had gone away for the Christmas holidays, and Aunt
+Margaret—Daisy was her godchild—had begged that her niece might come
+and spend two or three days with her.
+
+But the girl had already had more than one taste of what life was like
+in the great gloomy basement of 100 Belgrave Square. Aunt Margaret was
+one of those old-fashioned servants for whom the modern employer is
+always sighing. While “the family” were away it was her joy—she
+regarded it as a privilege—to wash sixty-seven pieces of very valuable
+china contained in two cabinets in the drawing-room; she also slept in
+every bed by turns, to keep them all well aired. These were the two
+duties with which she intended her young niece to assist her, and
+Daisy’s soul sickened at the prospect.
+
+But the matter had to be settled at once. The letter had come an hour
+ago, containing a stamped telegraph form, and Aunt Margaret was not one
+to be trifled with.
+
+Since breakfast the three had talked of nothing else, and from the very
+first Mrs. Bunting had said that Daisy ought to go—that there was no
+doubt about it, that it did not admit of discussion. But discuss it
+they all did, and for once Bunting stood up to his wife. But that, as
+was natural, only made his Ellen harder and more set on her own view.
+
+“What the child says is true,” he observed. “It isn’t as if you was
+quite well. You’ve been took bad twice in the last few days—you can’t
+deny of it, Ellen. Why shouldn’t I just take a bus and go over and see
+Margaret? I’d tell her just how it is. She’d understand, bless you!”
+
+“I won’t have you doing nothing of the sort!” cried Mrs. Bunting,
+speaking almost as passionately as her stepdaughter had done. “Haven’t
+I a right to be ill, haven’t I a right to be took bad, aye, and to feel
+all right again—same as other people?”
+
+Daisy turned round and clasped her hands. “Oh, Ellen!” she cried; “do
+say that you can’t spare me! I don’t want to go across to that horrid
+old dungeon of a place.”
+
+“Do as you like,” said Mrs. Bunting sullenly. “I’m fair tired of you
+both! There’ll come a day, Daisy, when you’ll know, like me, that money
+is the main thing that matters in this world; and when your Aunt
+Margaret’s left her savings to somebody else just because you wouldn’t
+spend a few days with her this Christmas, then you’ll know what it’s
+like to go without—you’ll know what a fool you were, and that nothing
+can’t alter it any more!”
+
+And then, with victory actually in her grasp, poor Daisy saw it
+snatched from her.
+
+“Ellen is right,” Bunting said heavily. “Money does matter—a terrible
+deal—though I never thought to hear Ellen say ’twas the only thing that
+mattered. But ’twould be foolish—very, very foolish, my girl, to offend
+your Aunt Margaret. It’ll only be two days after all—two days isn’t a
+very long time.”
+
+But Daisy did not hear her father’s last words. She had already rushed
+from the room, and gone down to the kitchen to hide her childish tears
+of disappointment—the childish tears which came because she was
+beginning to be a woman, with a woman’s natural instinct for building
+her own human nest.
+
+Aunt Margaret was not one to tolerate the comings of any strange young
+man, and she had a peculiar dislike to the police.
+
+“Who’d ever have thought she’d have minded as much as that!” Bunting
+looked across at Ellen deprecatingly; already his heart was misgiving
+him.
+
+“It’s plain enough why she’s become so fond of us all of a sudden,”
+said Mrs. Bunting sarcastically. And as her husband stared at her
+uncomprehendingly, she added, in a tantalising tone, “as plain as the
+nose on your face, my man.”
+
+“What d’you mean?” he said. “I daresay I’m a bit slow, Ellen, but I
+really don’t know what you’d be at?”
+
+“Don’t you remember telling me before Daisy came here that Joe Chandler
+had become sweet on her last summer? I thought it only foolishness
+then, but I’ve come round to your view—that’s all.”
+
+Bunting nodded his head slowly. Yes, Joe had got into the way of coming
+very often, and there had been the expedition to that gruesome Scotland
+Yard museum, but somehow he, Bunting, had been so interested in the
+Avenger murders that he hadn’t thought of Joe in any other
+connection—not this time, at any rate.
+
+“And do you think Daisy likes him?” There was an unwonted tone of
+excitement, of tenderness, in Bunting’s voice.
+
+His wife looked over at him; and a thin smile, not an unkindly smile by
+any means, lit up her pale face. “I’ve never been one to prophesy,” she
+answered deliberately. “But this I don’t mind telling you,
+Bunting—Daisy’ll have plenty o’ time to get tired of Joe Chandler
+before they two are dead. Mark my words!”
+
+“Well, she might do worse,” said Bunting ruminatingly. “He’s as steady
+as God makes them, and he’s already earning thirty-two shillings a
+week. But I wonder how Old Aunt’d like the notion? I don’t see her
+parting with Daisy before she must.”
+
+“I wouldn’t let no old aunt interfere with me about such a thing as
+that!” cried Mrs. Bunting. “No, not for millions of gold!” And Bunting
+looked at her in silent wonder. Ellen was singing a very different tune
+now to what she’d sung a few minutes ago, when she was so keen about
+the girl going to Belgrave Square.
+
+“If she still seems upset while she’s having her dinner,” said his wife
+suddenly, “well, you just wait till I’ve gone out for something, and
+then you just say to her, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’—just
+that, and nothing more! She’ll take it from you. And I shouldn’t be
+surprised if it comforted her quite a lot.”
+
+“For the matter of that, there’s no reason why Joe Chandler shouldn’t
+go over and see her there,” said Bunting hesitatingly.
+
+“Oh, yes, there is,” said Mrs. Bunting, smiling shrewdly. “Plenty of
+reason. Daisy’ll be a very foolish girl if she allows her aunt to know
+any of her secrets. I’ve only seen that woman once, but I know exactly
+the sort Margaret is. She’s just waiting for Old Aunt to drop off and
+then she’ll want to have Daisy herself—to wait on her, like. She’d turn
+quite nasty if she thought there was a young fellow what stood in her
+way.”
+
+She glanced at the clock, the pretty little eight-day clock which had
+been a wedding present from a kind friend of her last mistress. It had
+mysteriously disappeared during their time of trouble, and had as
+mysteriously reappeared three or four days after Mr. Sleuth’s arrival.
+
+“I’ve time to go out with that telegram,” she said briskly—somehow she
+felt better, different to what she had done the last few days—“and then
+it’ll be done. It’s no good having more words about it, and I expect we
+should have plenty more words if I wait till the child comes upstairs
+again.”
+
+She did not speak unkindly, and Bunting looked at her rather
+wonderingly. Ellen very seldom spoke of Daisy as “the child”—in fact,
+he could only remember her having done so once before, and that was a
+long time ago. They had been talking over their future life together,
+and she had said, very solemnly, “Bunting, I promise I will do my
+duty—as much as lies in my power, that is—by the child.”
+
+But Ellen had not had much opportunity of doing her duty by Daisy. As
+not infrequently happens with the duties that we are willing to do,
+that particular duty had been taken over by someone else who had no
+mind to let it go.
+
+“What shall I do if Mr. Sleuth rings?” asked Bunting, rather nervously.
+It was the first time since the lodger had come to them that Ellen had
+offered to go out in the morning.
+
+She hesitated. In her anxiety to have the matter of Daisy settled, she
+had forgotten Mr. Sleuth. Strange that she should have done so—strange,
+and, to herself, very comfortable and pleasant.
+
+“Oh, well, you can just go up and knock at the door and say I’ll be
+back in a few minutes—that I had to go out with a message. He’s quite a
+reasonable gentleman.” She went into the back room to put on her bonnet
+and thick jacket for it was very cold—getting colder every minute.
+
+As she stood, buttoning her gloves—she wouldn’t have gone out untidy
+for the world—Bunting suddenly came across to her. “Give us a kiss, old
+girl,” he said. And his wife turned up her face.
+
+“One ’ud think it was catching!” she said, but there was a lilt in her
+voice.
+
+“So it is,” Bunting briefly answered. “Didn’t that old cook get married
+just after us? She’d never ’a thought of it if it hadn’t been for you!”
+
+But once she was out, walking along the damp, uneven pavement, Mr.
+Sleuth revenged himself for his landlady’s temporary forgetfulness.
+
+During the last two days the lodger had been queer, odder than usual,
+unlike himself, or, rather, very much as he had been some ten days ago,
+just before that double murder had taken place.
+
+The night before, while Daisy was telling all about the dreadful place
+to which Joe Chandler had taken her and her father, Mrs. Bunting had
+heard Mr. Sleuth moving about overhead, restlessly walking up and down
+his sitting-room. And later, when she took up his supper, she had
+listened a moment outside the door, while he read aloud some of the
+texts his soul delighted in—terrible texts telling of the grim joys
+attendant on revenge.
+
+Mrs. Bunting was so absorbed in her thoughts, so possessed with the
+curious personality of her lodger, that she did not look where she was
+going, and suddenly a young woman bumped up against her.
+
+She started violently and looked round, dazed, as the young person
+muttered a word of apology;—then she again fell into deep thought.
+
+It was a good thing Daisy was going away for a few days; it made the
+problem of Mr. Sleuth and his queer ways less disturbing. She, Ellen,
+was sorry she had spoken so sharp-like to the girl, but after all it
+wasn’t wonderful that she had been snappy. This last night she had
+hardly slept at all. Instead, she had lain awake listening—and there is
+nothing so tiring as to lie awake listening for a sound that never
+comes.
+
+The house had remained so still you could have heard a pin drop. Mr.
+Sleuth, lying snug in his nice warm bed upstairs, had not stirred. Had
+he stirred his landlady was bound to have heard him, for his bed was,
+as we know, just above hers. No, during those long hours of darkness
+Daisy’s light, regular breathing was all that had fallen on Mrs.
+Bunting’s ears.
+
+And then her mind switched off Mr. Sleuth. She made a determined effort
+to expel him, to toss him, as it were, out of her thoughts.
+
+It seemed strange that The Avenger had stayed his hand, for, as Joe had
+said only last evening, it was full time that he should again turn that
+awful, mysterious searchlight of his on himself. Mrs. Bunting always
+visioned The Avenger as a black shadow in the centre a bright blinding
+light—but the shadow had no form or definite substance. Sometimes he
+looked like one thing, sometimes like another . . .
+
+Mrs. Bunting had now come to the corner which led up the street where
+there was a Post Office. But instead of turning sharp to the left she
+stopped short for a minute.
+
+There had suddenly come over her a feeling of horrible self-rebuke and
+even self-loathing. It was dreadful that she, of all women, should have
+longed to hear that another murder had been committed last night!
+
+Yet such was the shameful fact. She had listened all through breakfast
+hoping to hear the dread news being shouted outside; yes, and more or
+less during the long discussion which had followed on the receipt of
+Margaret’s letter she had been hoping—hoping against hope—that those
+dreadful triumphant shouts of the newspaper-sellers still might come
+echoing down the Marylebone Road. And yet hypocrite that she was, she
+had reproved Bunting when he had expressed, not disappointment
+exactly—but, well, surprise, that nothing had happened last night.
+
+Now her mind switched off to Joe Chandler. Strange to think how afraid
+she had been of that young man! She was no longer afraid of him, or
+hardly at all. He was dotty—that’s what was the matter with him, dotty
+with love for rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little Daisy. Anything might now
+go on, right under Joe Chandler’s very nose—but, bless you, he’d never
+see it! Last summer, when this affair, this nonsense of young Chandler
+and Daisy had begun, she had had very little patience with it all. In
+fact, the memory of the way Joe had gone on then, the tiresome way he
+would be always dropping in, had been one reason (though not the most
+important reason of all) why she had felt so terribly put about at the
+idea of the girl coming again. But now? Well, now she had become quite
+tolerant, quite kindly—at any rate as far as Joe Chandler was
+concerned.
+
+She wondered why.
+
+Still, ’twouldn’t do Joe a bit of harm not to see the girl for a couple
+of days. In fact ’twould be a very good thing, for then he’d think of
+Daisy—think of her to the exclusion of all else. Absence does make the
+heart grow fonder—at first, at any rate. Mrs. Bunting was well aware of
+that. During the long course of hers and Bunting’s mild courting,
+they’d been separated for about three months, and it was that three
+months which had made up her mind for her. She had got so used to
+Bunting that she couldn’t do without him, and she had felt—oddest fact
+of all—acutely, miserably jealous. But she hadn’t let him know that—no
+fear!
+
+Of course, Joe mustn’t neglect his job—that would never do. But what a
+good thing it was, after all, that he wasn’t like some of those
+detective chaps that are written about in stories—the sort of chaps
+that know everything, see everything, guess everything—even where there
+isn’t anything to see, or know, or guess!
+
+Why, to take only one little fact—Joe Chandler had never shown the
+slightest curiosity about their lodger. . . .
+
+Mrs. Bunting pulled herself together with a start, and hurried quickly
+on. Bunting would begin to wonder what had happened to her.
+
+She went into the Post Office and handed the form to the young woman
+without a word. Margaret, a sensible woman, who was accustomed to
+manage other people’s affairs, had even written out the words: “Will be
+with you to tea.—DAISY.”
+
+It was a comfort to have the thing settled once for all. If anything
+horrible was going to happen in the next two or three days—it was just
+as well Daisy shouldn’t be at home. Not that there was any _real_
+danger that anything would happen,—Mrs. Bunting felt sure of that.
+
+By this time she was out in the street again, and she began mentally
+counting up the number of murders The Avenger had committed. Nine, or
+was it ten? Surely by now The Avenger must be avenged? Surely by now,
+if—as that writer in the newspaper had suggested—he was a quiet,
+blameless gentleman living in the West End, whatever vengeance he had
+to wreak, must be satisfied?
+
+She began hurrying homewards; it wouldn’t do for the lodger to ring
+before she had got back. Bunting would never know how to manage Mr.
+Sleuth, especially if Mr. Sleuth was in one of his queer moods.
+
+Mrs. Bunting put the key into the front door lock and passed into the
+house. Then her heart stood still with fear and terror. There came the
+sound of voices—of voices she thought she did not know—in the
+sitting-room.
+
+She opened the door, and then drew a long breath. It was only Joe
+Chandler—Joe, Daisy, and Bunting, talking together. They stopped rather
+guiltily as she came in, but not before she had heard Chandler utter
+the words: “That don’t mean nothing! I’ll just run out and send another
+saying you won’t come, Miss Daisy.”
+
+And then the strangest smile came over Mrs. Bunting’s face. There had
+fallen on her ear the still distant, but unmistakable, shouts which
+betokened that something _had_ happened last night—something which made
+it worth while for the newspaper-sellers to come crying down the
+Marylebone Road.
+
+“Well?” she said a little breathlessly. “Well, Joe? I suppose you’ve
+brought us news? I suppose there’s been another?”
+
+He looked at her, surprised. “No, that there hasn’t, Mrs. Bunting—not
+as far as I know, that is. Oh, you’re thinking of those newspaper
+chaps? They’ve got to cry out something,” he grinned. “You wouldn’t ’a
+thought folk was so bloodthirsty. They’re just shouting out that
+there’s been an arrest; but we don’t take no stock of that. It’s a
+Scotchman what gave himself up last night at Dorking. He’d been
+drinking, and was a-pitying of himself. Why, since this business began,
+there’s been about twenty arrests, but they’ve all come to nothing.”
+
+“Why, Ellen, you looks quite sad, quite disappointed,” said Bunting
+jokingly. “Come to think of it, it’s high time The Avenger was at work
+again.” He laughed as he made his grim joke. Then turned to young
+Chandler: “Well, _you’ll_ be glad when its all over, my lad.”
+
+“Glad in a way,” said Chandler unwillingly. “But one ’ud have liked to
+have caught him. One doesn’t like to know such a creature’s at large,
+now, does one?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting had taken off her bonnet and jacket. “I must just go and
+see about Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast,” she said in a weary, dispirited
+voice, and left them there.
+
+She felt disappointed, and very, very depressed. As to the plot which
+had been hatching when she came in, that had no chance of success;
+Bunting would never dare let Daisy send out another telegram
+contradicting the first. Besides, Daisy’s stepmother shrewdly suspected
+that by now the girl herself wouldn’t care to do such a thing. Daisy
+had plenty of sense tucked away somewhere in her pretty little head. If
+it ever became her fate to live as a married woman in London, it would
+be best to stay on the right side of Aunt Margaret.
+
+And when she came into her kitchen the stepmother’s heart became very
+soft, for Daisy had got everything beautifully ready. In fact, there
+was nothing to do but to boil Mr. Sleuth’s two eggs. Feeling suddenly
+more cheerful than she had felt of late, Mrs. Bunting took the tray
+upstairs.
+
+“As it was rather late, I didn’t wait for you to ring, sir,” she said.
+
+And the lodger looked up from the table where, as usual, he was
+studying with painful, almost agonising intentness, the Book. “Quite
+right, Mrs. Bunting—quite right! I have been pondering over the
+command, ‘Work while it is yet light.’”
+
+“Yes, sir?” she said, and a queer, cold feeling stole over her heart.
+“Yes, sir?”
+
+“‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh—the flesh is weak,’” said Mr.
+Sleuth, with a heavy sigh.
+
+“You studies too hard, and too long—that’s what’s ailing you, sir,”
+said Mr. Sleuth’s landlady suddenly.
+
+When Mrs. Bunting went down again she found that a great deal had been
+settled in her absence; among other things, that Joe Chandler was going
+to escort Miss Daisy across to Belgrave Square. He could carry Daisy’s
+modest bag, and if they wanted to ride instead of walk, why, they could
+take the bus from Baker Street Station to Victoria—that would land them
+very near Belgrave Square.
+
+But Daisy seemed quite willing to walk; she hadn’t had a walk, she
+declared, for a long, long time—and then she blushed rosy red, and even
+her stepmother had to admit to herself that Daisy was very nice
+looking, not at all the sort of girl who ought to be allowed to go
+about the London streets by herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Daisy’s father and stepmother stood side by side at the front door,
+watching the girl and young Chandler walk off into the darkness.
+
+A yellow pall of fog had suddenly descended on London, and Joe had come
+a full half-hour before they expected him, explaining, rather lamely,
+that it was the fog which had brought him so soon.
+
+“If we was to have waited much longer, perhaps, ’twouldn’t have been
+possible to walk a yard,” he explained, and they had accepted,
+silently, his explanation.
+
+“I hope it’s quite safe sending her off like that?” Bunting looked
+deprecatingly at his wife. She had already told him more than once that
+he was too fussy about Daisy, that about his daughter he was like an
+old hen with her last chicken.
+
+“She’s safer than she would be, with you or me. She couldn’t have a
+smarter young fellow to look after her.”
+
+“It’ll be awful thick at Hyde Park Corner,” said Bunting. “It’s always
+worse there than anywhere else. If I was Joe I’d ’a taken her by the
+Underground Railway to Victoria—that ’ud been the best way, considering
+the weather ’tis.”
+
+“They don’t think anything of the weather, bless you!” said his wife.
+“They’ll walk and walk as long as there’s a glimmer left for ’em to
+steer by. Daisy’s just been pining to have a walk with that young chap.
+I wonder you didn’t notice how disappointed they both were when you was
+so set on going along with them to that horrid place.”
+
+“D’you really mean that, Ellen?” Bunting looked upset. “I understood
+Joe to say he liked my company.”
+
+“Oh, did you?” said Mrs. Bunting dryly. “I expect he liked it just
+about as much as we liked the company of that old cook who would go out
+with us when we was courting. It always was a wonder to me how the
+woman could force herself upon two people who didn’t want her.”
+
+“But I’m Daisy’s father; and an old friend of Chandler,” said Bunting
+remonstratingly. “I’m quite different from that cook. She was nothing
+to us, and we was nothing to her.”
+
+“She’d have liked to be something to you, I make no doubt,” observed
+his Ellen, shaking her head, and her husband smiled, a little
+foolishly.
+
+By this time they were back in their nice, cosy sitting-room, and a
+feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting.
+It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in
+some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early
+betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly
+curiosity concerning the lodger. “You might just let me have one peep
+at him, Ellen?” she had pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had
+shaken her head. “No, that I won’t! He’s a very quiet gentleman; but he
+knows exactly what he likes, and he don’t like anyone but me waiting on
+him. Why, even your father’s hardly seen him.”
+
+But that, naturally, had only increased Daisy’s desire to view Mr.
+Sleuth.
+
+There was another reason why Mrs. Bunting was glad that her
+stepdaughter had gone away for two days. During her absence young
+Chandler was far less likely to haunt them in the way he had taken to
+doing lately, the more so that, in spite of what she had said to her
+husband, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that Daisy would ask Joe Chandler to
+call at Belgrave Square. ’Twouldn’t be human nature—at any rate, not
+girlish human nature—not to do so, even if Joe’s coming did anger Aunt
+Margaret.
+
+Yes, it was pretty safe that with Daisy away they, the Buntings, would
+be rid of that young chap for a bit, and that would be a good thing.
+
+When Daisy wasn’t there to occupy the whole of his attention, Mrs.
+Bunting felt queerly afraid of Chandler. After all, he was a
+detective—it was his job to be always nosing about, trying to find out
+things. And, though she couldn’t fairly say to herself that he had done
+much of that sort of thing in her house, he might start doing it any
+minute. And then—then—where would she, and—and Mr. Sleuth, be?
+
+She thought of the bottle of red ink—of the leather bag which must be
+hidden somewhere—and her heart almost stopped beating. Those were the
+sort of things which, in the stories Bunting was so fond of reading,
+always led to the detection of famous criminals. . . .
+
+Mr. Sleuth’s bell for tea rang that afternoon far earlier than usual.
+The fog had probably misled him, and made him think it later than it
+was.
+
+When she went up, “I would like a cup of tea now, and just one piece of
+bread-and-butter,” the lodger said wearily. “I don’t feel like having
+anything else this afternoon.”
+
+“It’s a horrible day,” Mrs. Bunting observed, in a cheerier voice than
+usual. “No wonder you don’t feel hungry, sir. And then it isn’t so very
+long since you had your dinner, is it?”
+
+“No,” he said absently. “No, it isn’t, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+She went down, made the tea, and brought it up again. And then, as she
+came into the room, she uttered an exclamation of sharp dismay.
+
+Mr. Sleuth was dressed for going out. He was wearing his long Inverness
+cloak, and his queer old high hat lay on the table, ready for him to
+put on.
+
+“You’re never going out this afternoon, sir?” she asked falteringly.
+“Why, the fog’s awful; you can’t see a yard ahead of you!”
+
+Unknown to herself, Mrs. Bunting’s voice had risen almost to a scream.
+She moved back, still holding the tray, and stood between the door and
+her lodger, as if she meant to bar his way—to erect between Mr. Sleuth
+and the dark, foggy world outside a living barrier.
+
+“The weather never affects me at all,” he said sullenly; and he looked
+at her with so wild and pleading a look in his eyes that, slowly,
+reluctantly, she moved aside. As she did so she noticed for the first
+time that Mr. Sleuth held something in his right hand. It was the key
+of the chiffonnier cupboard. He had been on his way there when her
+coming in had disturbed him.
+
+“It’s very kind of you to be so concerned about me,” he stammered,
+“but—but, Mrs. Bunting, you must excuse me if I say that I do not
+welcome such solicitude. I prefer to be left alone. I—I cannot stay in
+your house if I feel that my comings and goings are watched—spied
+upon.”
+
+She pulled herself together. “No one spies upon you, sir,” she said,
+with considerable dignity. “I’ve done my best to satisfy you—”
+
+“You have—you have!” he spoke in a distressed, apologetic tone. “But
+you spoke just now as if you were trying to prevent my doing what I
+wish to do—indeed, what I have to do. For years I have been
+misunderstood—persecuted”—he waited a moment, then in a hollow voice
+added the one word, “tortured! Do not tell me that you are going to add
+yourself to the number of my tormentors, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+She stared at him helplessly. “Don’t you be afraid I’ll ever be that,
+sir. I only spoke as I did because—well, sir, because I thought it
+really wasn’t safe for a gentleman to go out this afternoon. Why,
+there’s hardly anyone about, though we’re so near Christmas.”
+
+He walked across to the window and looked out. “The fog is clearing
+somewhat; Mrs. Bunting,” but there was no relief in his voice, rather
+was there disappointment and dread.
+
+Plucking up courage, she followed him. Yes, Mr. Sleuth was right. The
+fog was lifting—rolling off in that sudden, mysterious way in which
+local fogs sometimes do lift in London.
+
+He turned sharply from the window. “Our conversation has made me forget
+an important thing, Mrs. Bunting. I should be glad if you would just
+leave out a glass of milk and some bread-and-butter for me this
+evening. I shall not require supper when I come in, for after my walk I
+shall probably go straight upstairs to carry through a very difficult
+experiment.”
+
+“Very good, sir.” And then Mrs. Bunting left the lodger.
+
+But when she found herself downstairs in the fog-laden hall, for it had
+drifted in as she and her husband had stood at the door seeing Daisy
+off, instead of going in to Bunting she did a very odd thing—a thing
+she had never thought of doing in her life before. She pressed her hot
+forehead against the cool bit of looking-glass let into the
+hat-and-umbrella stand. “I don’t know what to do!” she moaned to
+herself, and then, “I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!”
+
+But though she felt that her secret suspense and trouble was becoming
+intolerable, the one way in which she could have ended her misery never
+occurred to Mrs. Bunting.
+
+In the long history of crime it has very, very seldom happened that a
+woman has betrayed one who has taken refuge with her. The timorous and
+cautious woman has not infrequently hunted a human being fleeing from
+his pursuer from her door, but she has not revealed the fact that he
+was ever there. In fact, it may almost be said that such betrayal has
+never taken place unless the betrayer has been actuated by love of
+gain, or by a longing for revenge. So far, perhaps because she is
+subject rather than citizen, her duty as a component part of civilised
+society weighs but lightly on woman’s shoulders.
+
+And then—and then, in a sort of way, Mrs. Bunting had become attached
+to Mr. Sleuth. A wan smile would sometimes light up his sad face when
+he saw her come in with one of his meals, and when this happened Mrs.
+Bunting felt pleased—pleased and vaguely touched. In between
+those—those dreadful events outside, which filled her with such
+suspicion, such anguish and such suspense, she never felt any fear,
+only pity, for Mr. Sleuth.
+
+Often and often, when lying wide awake at night, she turned over the
+strange problem in her mind. After all, the lodger must have lived
+_somewhere_ during his forty-odd years of life. She did not even know
+if Mr. Sleuth had any brothers or sisters; friends she knew he had
+none. But, however odd and eccentric he was, he had evidently, or so
+she supposed, led a quiet, undistinguished kind of life, till—till now.
+
+What had made him alter all of a sudden—if, that is, he had altered?
+That was what Mrs. Bunting was always debating fitfully with herself;
+and, what was more, and very terribly, to the point, having altered,
+why should he not in time go back to what he evidently had been—that
+is, a blameless, quiet gentleman?
+
+If only he would! If only he would!
+
+As she stood in the hall, cooling her hot forehead, all these thoughts,
+these hopes and fears, jostled at lightning speed through her brain.
+
+She remembered what young Chandler had said the other day—that there
+had never been, in the history of the world, so strange a murderer as
+The Avenger had proved himself to be.
+
+She and Bunting, aye, and little Daisy too, had hung, fascinated, on
+Joe’s words, as he had told them of other famous series of murders
+which had taken place in the past, not only in England but
+abroad—especially abroad.
+
+One woman, whom all the people round her believed to be a kind,
+respectable soul, had poisoned no fewer than fifteen people in order to
+get their insurance money. Then there had been the terrible tale of an
+apparently respectable, contented innkeeper and his wife, who, living
+at the entrance to a wood, killed all those humble travellers who took
+shelter under their roof, simply for their clothes, and any valuables
+they possessed. But in all those stories the murderer or murderers
+always had a very strong motive, the motive being, in almost every
+case, a wicked lust for gold.
+
+At last, after having passed her handkerchief over her forehead, she
+went into the room where Bunting was sitting smoking his pipe.
+
+“The fog’s lifting a bit,” she said in an ill-assured voice. “I hope
+that by this time Daisy and that Joe Chandler are right out of it.”
+
+But the other shook his head silently. “No such luck!” he said briefly.
+“You don’t know what it’s like in Hyde Park, Ellen. I expect ’twill
+soon be just as heavy here as ’twas half an hour ago!”
+
+She wandered over to the window, and pulled the curtain back. “Quite a
+lot of people have come out, anyway,” she observed.
+
+“There’s a fine Christmas show in the Edgware Road. I was thinking of
+asking if you wouldn’t like to go along there with me.”
+
+“No,” she said dully. “I’m quite content to stay at home.”
+
+She was listening—listening for the sounds which would betoken that the
+lodger was coming downstairs.
+
+At last she heard the cautious, stuffless tread of his rubber-soled
+shoes shuffling along the hall. But Bunting only woke to the fact when
+the front door shut to.
+
+“That’s never Mr. Sleuth going out?” He turned on his wife, startled.
+“Why, the poor gentleman’ll come to harm—that he will! One has to be
+wide awake on an evening like this. I hope he hasn’t taken any of his
+money out with him.”
+
+“’Tisn’t the first time Mr. Sleuth’s been out in a fog,” said Mrs.
+Bunting sombrely.
+
+Somehow she couldn’t help uttering these over-true words. And then she
+turned, eager and half frightened, to see how Bunting had taken what
+she said.
+
+But he looked quite placid, as if he had hardly heard her. “We don’t
+get the good old fogs we used to get—not what people used to call
+‘London particulars.’ I expect the lodger feels like Mrs. Crowley—I’ve
+often told you about her, Ellen?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting nodded.
+
+Mrs. Crowley had been one of Bunting’s ladies, one of those he had
+liked best—a cheerful, jolly lady, who used often to give her servants
+what she called a treat. It was seldom the kind of treat they would
+have chosen for themselves, but still they appreciated her kind
+thought.
+
+“Mrs. Crowley used to say,” went on Bunting, in his slow, dogmatic way,
+“that she never minded how bad the weather was in London, so long as it
+was London and not the country. Mr. Crowley, he liked the country best,
+but Mrs. Crowley always felt dull-like there. Fog never kept her from
+going out—no, that it didn’t. She wasn’t a bit afraid. But—” he turned
+round and looked at his wife—“I am a bit surprised at Mr. Sleuth. I
+should have thought him a timid kind of gentleman—”
+
+He waited a moment, and she felt forced to answer him.
+
+“I wouldn’t exactly call him timid,” she said, in a low voice, “but he
+is very quiet, certainly. That’s why he dislikes going out when there
+are a lot of people bustling about the streets. I don’t suppose he’ll
+be out long.”
+
+She hoped with all her soul that Mr. Sleuth would be in very soon—that
+he would be daunted by the now increasing gloom.
+
+Somehow she did not feel she could sit still for very long. She got up,
+and went over to the farthest window.
+
+The fog had lifted, certainly. She could see the lamp-lights on the
+other side of the Marylebone Road, glimmering redly; and shadowy
+figures were hurrying past, mostly making their way towards the Edgware
+Road, to see the Christmas shops.
+
+At last to his wife’s relief, Bunting got up too. He went over to the
+cupboard where he kept his little store of books, and took one out.
+
+“I think I’ll read a bit,” he said. “Seems a long time since I’ve
+looked at a book. The papers was so jolly interesting for a bit, but
+now there’s nothing in ’em.”
+
+His wife remained silent. She knew what he meant. A good many days had
+gone by since the last two Avenger murders, and the papers had very
+little to say about them that they hadn’t said in different language a
+dozen times before.
+
+She went into her bedroom and came back with a bit of plain sewing.
+
+Mrs. Bunting was fond of sewing, and Bunting liked to see her so
+engaged. Since Mr. Sleuth had come to be their lodger she had not had
+much time for that sort of work.
+
+It was funny how quiet the house was without either Daisy, or—or the
+lodger, in it.
+
+At last she let her needle remain idle, and the bit of cambric slipped
+down on her knee, while she listened, longingly, for Mr. Sleuth’s
+return home.
+
+And as the minutes sped by she fell to wondering with a painful wonder
+if she would ever see her lodger again, for, from what she knew of Mr.
+Sleuth, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that if he got into any kind of—well,
+trouble outside, he would never betray where he had lived during the
+last few weeks.
+
+No, in such a case the lodger would disappear in as sudden a way as he
+had come. And Bunting would never suspect, would never know, until,
+perhaps—God, what a horrible thought—a picture published in some
+newspaper might bring a certain dreadful fact to Bunting’s knowledge.
+
+But if that happened—if that unthinkably awful thing came to pass, she
+made up her mind, here and now, never to say anything. She also would
+pretend to be amazed, shocked, unutterably horrified at the astounding
+revelation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+“There he is at last, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ’Tain’t a night you
+would wish a dog to be out in.”
+
+Bunting’s voice was full of relief, but he did not turn round and look
+at his wife as he spoke; instead, he continued to read the evening
+paper he held in his hand.
+
+He was still close to the fire, sitting back comfortably in his nice
+arm-chair. He looked very well—well and ruddy. Mrs. Bunting stared
+across at him with a touch of sharp envy, nay, more, of resentment. And
+this was very curious, for she was, in her own dry way, very fond of
+Bunting.
+
+“You needn’t feel so nervous about him; Mr. Sleuth can look out for
+himself all right.”
+
+Bunting laid the paper he had been reading down on his knee. “I can’t
+think why he wanted to go out in such weather,” he said impatiently.
+
+“Well, it’s none of your business, Bunting, now, is it?”
+
+“No, that’s true enough. Still, ’twould be a very bad thing for us if
+anything happened to him. This lodger’s the first bit of luck we’ve had
+for a terrible long time, Ellen.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting moved a little impatiently in her high chair. She remained
+silent for a moment. What Bunting had said was too obvious to be worth
+answering. Also she was listening, following in imagination her
+lodger’s quick, singularly quiet progress—“stealthy” she called it to
+herself—through the fog-filled, lamp-lit hall. Yes, now he was going up
+the staircase. What was that Bunting was saying?
+
+“It isn’t safe for decent folk to be out in such weather—no, that it
+ain’t, not unless they have something to do that won’t wait till
+to-morrow.” The speaker was looking straight into his wife’s narrow,
+colourless face. Bunting was an obstinate man, and liked to prove
+himself right. “I’ve a good mind to speak to him about it, that I have!
+He ought to be told that it isn’t safe—not for the sort of man he is—to
+be wandering about the streets at night. I read you out the accidents
+in _Lloyd’s_—shocking, they were, and all brought about by the fog! And
+then, that horrid monster ’ull soon be at his work again—”
+
+“Monster?” repeated Mrs. Bunting absently.
+
+She was trying to hear the lodger’s footsteps overhead. She was very
+curious to know whether he had gone into his nice sitting-room, or
+straight upstairs, to that cold experiment-room, as he now always
+called it.
+
+But her husband went on as if he had not heard her, and she gave up
+trying to listen to what was going on above.
+
+“It wouldn’t be very pleasant to run up against such a party as that in
+the fog, eh, Ellen?” He spoke as if the notion had a certain pleasant
+thrill in it after all.
+
+“What stuff you do talk!” said Mrs. Bunting sharply. And then she got
+up. Her husband’s remarks had disturbed her. Why couldn’t they talk of
+something pleasant when they did have a quiet bit of time together?
+
+Bunting looked down again at his paper, and she moved quietly about the
+room. Very soon it would be time for supper, and to-night she was going
+to cook her husband a nice piece of toasted cheese. That fortunate man,
+as she was fond of telling him, with mingled contempt and envy, had the
+digestion of an ostrich, and yet he was rather fanciful, as gentlemen’s
+servants who have lived in good places often are.
+
+Yes, Bunting was very lucky in the matter of his digestion. Mrs.
+Bunting prided herself on having a nice mind, and she would never have
+allowed an unrefined word—such a word as “stomach,” for instance, to
+say nothing of an even plainer term—to pass her lips, except, of
+course, to a doctor in a sick-room.
+
+Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not go down at once into her cold kitchen;
+instead, with a sudden furtive movement, she opened the door leading
+into her bedroom, and then, closing the door quietly, stepped back into
+the darkness, and stood motionless, listening.
+
+At first she heard nothing, but gradually there stole on her listening
+ears the sound of someone moving softly about in the room just
+overhead, that is, in Mr. Sleuth’s bedroom. But, try as she might, it
+was impossible for her to guess what the lodger was doing.
+
+At last she heard him open the door leading out on the little landing.
+She could hear the stairs creaking. That meant, no doubt, that Mr.
+Sleuth would pass the rest of the evening in the cheerless room above.
+He hadn’t spent any time up there for quite a long while—in fact, not
+for nearly ten days. ’Twas odd he chose to-night, when it was so foggy,
+to carry out an experiment.
+
+She groped her way to a chair and sat down. She felt very
+tired—strangely tired, as if she had gone through some great physical
+exertion.
+
+Yes, it was true that Mr. Sleuth had brought her and Bunting luck, and
+it was wrong, very wrong, of her ever to forget that.
+
+As she sat there she also reminded herself, and not for the first time,
+what the lodger’s departure would mean. It would almost certainly mean
+ruin; just as his staying meant all sorts of good things, of which
+physical comfort was the least. If Mr. Sleuth stayed on with them, as
+he showed every intention of doing, it meant respectability, and, above
+all, security.
+
+Mrs. Bunting thought of Mr. Sleuth’s money. He never received a letter,
+and yet he must have some kind of income—so much was clear. She
+supposed he went and drew his money, in sovereigns, out of a bank as he
+required it.
+
+Her mind swung round, consciously, deliberately, away from Mr. Sleuth.
+
+The Avenger? What a strange name! Again she assured herself that there
+would come a time when The Avenger, whoever he was, must feel satiated;
+when he would feel himself to be, so to speak, avenged.
+
+To go back to Mr. Sleuth; it was lucky that the lodger seemed so
+pleased, not only with the rooms, but with his landlord and
+landlady—indeed, there was no real reason why Mr. Sleuth should ever
+wish to leave such nice lodgings.
+
+Mrs. Bunting suddenly stood up. She made a strong effort, and shook off
+her awful sense of apprehension and unease. Feeling for the handle of
+the door giving into the passage she turned it, and then, with light,
+firm steps, she went down into the kitchen.
+
+When they had first taken the house, the basement had been made by her
+care, if not into a pleasant, then, at any rate, into a very clean
+place. She had had it whitewashed, and against the still white walls
+the gas stove loomed up, a great square of black iron and bright steel.
+It was a large gas-stove, the kind for which one pays four shillings a
+quarter rent to the gas company, and here, in the kitchen, there was no
+foolish shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. Mrs. Bunting was too shrewd a
+woman to have anything to do with that kind of business. There was a
+proper gas-meter, and she paid for what she consumed after she had
+consumed it.
+
+Putting her candle down on the well-scrubbed wooden table, she turned
+up the gas-jet, and blew out the candle.
+
+Then, lighting one of the gas-rings, she put a frying-pan on the stove,
+and once more her mind reverted, as if in spite of herself, to Mr.
+Sleuth. Never had there been a more confiding or trusting gentleman
+than the lodger, and yet in some ways he was so secret, so—so peculiar.
+
+She thought of the bag—that bag which had rumbled about so queerly in
+the chiffonnier. Something seemed to tell her that tonight the lodger
+had taken that bag out with him.
+
+And then she thrust away the thought of the bag almost violently from
+her mind, and went back to the more agreeable thought of Mr. Sleuth’s
+income, and of how little trouble he gave. Of course, the lodger was
+eccentric, otherwise he wouldn’t be their lodger at all—he would be
+living in quite a different sort of way with some of his relations, or
+with a friend in his own class.
+
+While these thoughts galloped disconnectedly through her mind, Mrs.
+Bunting went on with her cooking, preparing the cheese, cutting it up
+into little shreds, carefully measuring out the butter, doing
+everything, as was always her way, with a certain delicate and cleanly
+precision.
+
+And then, while in the middle of toasting the bread on which was to be
+poured the melted cheese, she suddenly heard sounds which startled her,
+made her feel uncomfortable.
+
+Shuffling, hesitating steps were creaking down the house.
+
+She looked up and listened.
+
+Surely the lodger was not going out again into the cold and foggy
+night—going out, as he had done the other evening, for a second time?
+But no; the sounds she heard, the sounds of now familiar footsteps, did
+not continue down the passage leading to the front door.
+
+Instead—Why, what was this she heard now? She began to listen so
+intently that the bread she was holding at the end of the toasting-fork
+grew quite black. With a start she became aware that this was so, and
+she frowned, vexed with herself. That came of not attending to one’s
+work.
+
+Mr. Sleuth was evidently about to do what he had never yet done. He was
+coming down into the kitchen.
+
+Nearer and nearer came the thudding sounds, treading heavily on the
+kitchen stairs, and Mrs. Bunting’s heart began to beat as if in
+response. She put out the flame of the gas-ring, unheedful of the fact
+that the cheese would stiffen and spoil in the cold air.
+
+Then she turned and faced the door.
+
+There came a fumbling at the handle, and a moment later the door
+opened, and revealed, as she had at once known and feared it would do,
+the lodger.
+
+Mr. Sleuth looked even odder than usual. He was clad in a plaid
+dressing-gown, which she had never seen him wear before, though she
+knew that he had purchased it not long after his arrival. In his hand
+was a lighted candle.
+
+When he saw the kitchen all lighted up, and the woman standing in it,
+the lodger looked inexplicably taken aback, almost aghast.
+
+“Yes, sir? What can I do for you, sir? I hope you didn’t ring, sir?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting held her ground in front of the stove. Mr. Sleuth had no
+business to come like this into her kitchen, and she intended to let
+him know that such was her view.
+
+“No, I—I didn’t ring,” he stammered awkwardly. “The truth is, I didn’t
+know you were here, Mrs. Bunting. Please excuse my costume. My
+gas-stove has gone wrong, or, rather, that shilling-in-the-slot
+arrangement has done so. So I came down to see if you had a gas-stove.
+I am going to ask you to allow me to use it to-night for an important
+experiment I wish to make.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting’s heart was beating quickly—quickly. She felt horribly
+troubled, unnaturally so. Why couldn’t Mr. Sleuth’s experiment wait
+till the morning? She stared at him dubiously, but there was that in
+his face that made her at once afraid and pitiful. It was a wild,
+eager, imploring look.
+
+“Oh, certainly, sir; but you will find it very cold down here.”
+
+“It seems most pleasantly warm,” he observed, his voice full of relief,
+“warm and cosy, after my cold room upstairs.”
+
+Warm and cosy? Mrs. Bunting stared at him in amazement. Nay, even that
+cheerless room at the top of the house must be far warmer and more cosy
+than this cold underground kitchen could possibly be.
+
+“I’ll make you a fire, sir. We never use the grate, but it’s in perfect
+order, for the first thing I did after I came into the house was to
+have the chimney swept. It was terribly dirty. It might have set the
+house on fire.” Mrs. Bunting’s housewifely instincts were roused. “For
+the matter of that, you ought to have a fire in your bedroom this cold
+night.”
+
+“By no means—I would prefer not. I certainly do not want a fire there.
+I dislike an open fire, Mrs. Bunting. I thought I had told you as
+much.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth frowned. He stood there, a strange-looking figure, his
+candle still alight, just inside the kitchen door.
+
+“I shan’t be very long, sir. Just about a quarter of an hour. You could
+come down then. I’ll have everything quite tidy for you. Is there
+anything I can do to help you?”
+
+“I do not require the use of your kitchen yet—thank you all the same,
+Mrs. Bunting. I shall come down later—altogether later—after you and
+your husband have gone to bed. But I should be much obliged if you
+would see that the gas people come to-morrow and put my stove in order.
+It might be done while I am out. That the shilling-in-the-slot machine
+should go wrong is very unpleasant. It has upset me greatly.”
+
+“Perhaps Bunting could put it right for you, sir. For the matter of
+that, I could ask him to go up now.”
+
+“No, no, I don’t want anything of that sort done to-night. Besides, he
+couldn’t put it right. I am something of an expert, Mrs. Bunting, and I
+have done all I could. The cause of the trouble is quite simple. The
+machine is choked up with shillings; a very foolish plan, so I always
+felt it to be.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth spoke pettishly, with far more heat than he was wont to
+speak, but Mrs. Bunting sympathised with him in this matter. She had
+always suspected that those slot machines were as dishonest as if they
+were human. It was dreadful, the way they swallowed up the shillings!
+She had had one once, so she knew.
+
+And as if he were divining her thoughts, Mr. Sleuth walked forward and
+stared at the stove. “Then you haven’t got a slot machine?” he said
+wonderingly. “I’m very glad of that, for I expect my experiment will
+take some time. But, of course, I shall pay you something for the use
+of the stove, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“Oh, no, sir, I wouldn’t think of charging you anything for that. We
+don’t use our stove very much, you know, sir. I’m never in the kitchen
+a minute longer than I can help this cold weather.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting was beginning to feel better. When she was actually in Mr.
+Sleuth’s presence her morbid fears would be lulled, perhaps because his
+manner almost invariably was gentle and very quiet. But still there
+came over her an eerie feeling, as, with him preceding her, they made a
+slow progress to the ground floor.
+
+Once there, the lodger courteously bade his landlady good-night, and
+proceeded upstairs to his own apartments.
+
+Mrs. Bunting returned to the kitchen. Again she lighted the stove; but
+she felt unnerved, afraid of she knew not what. As she was cooking the
+cheese, she tried to concentrate her mind on what she was doing, and on
+the whole she succeeded. But another part of her mind seemed to be
+working independently, asking her insistent questions.
+
+The place seemed to her alive with alien presences, and once she caught
+herself listening—which was absurd, for, of course, she could not hope
+to hear what Mr. Sleuth was doing two, if not three, flights upstairs.
+She wondered in what the lodger’s experiments consisted. It was odd
+that she had never been able to discover what it was he really did with
+that big gas-stove. All she knew was that he used a very high degree of
+heat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+The Buntings went to bed early that night. But Mrs. Bunting made up her
+mind to keep awake. She was set upon knowing at what hour of the night
+the lodger would come down into her kitchen to carry through his
+experiment, and, above all, she was anxious to know how long he would
+stay there.
+
+But she had had a long and a very anxious day, and presently she fell
+asleep.
+
+The church clock hard by struck two, and, suddenly Mrs. Bunting awoke.
+She felt put out, sharply annoyed with herself. How could she have
+dropped off like that? Mr. Sleuth must have been down and up again
+hours ago!
+
+Then, gradually, she became aware that there was a faint acrid odour in
+the room. Elusive, intangible, it yet seemed to encompass her and the
+snoring man by her side, almost as a vapour might have done.
+
+Mrs. Bunting sat up in bed and sniffed; and then, in spite of the cold,
+she quietly crept out of her nice, warm bedclothes, and crawled along
+to the bottom of the bed. When there, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did a very
+curious thing; she leaned over the brass rail and put her face close to
+the hinge of the door giving into the hall. Yes, it was from here that
+this strange, horrible odor was coming; the smell must be very strong
+in the passage.
+
+As, shivering, she crept back under the bedclothes, she longed to give
+her sleeping husband a good shake, and in fancy she heard herself
+saying, “Bunting, get up! There’s something strange and dreadful going
+on downstairs which we ought to know about.”
+
+But as she lay there, by her husband’s side, listening with painful
+intentness for the slightest sound, she knew very well that she would
+do nothing of the sort.
+
+What if the lodger did make a certain amount of mess—a certain amount
+of smell—in her nice clean kitchen? Was he not—was he not an almost
+perfect lodger? If they did anything to upset him, where could they
+ever hope to get another like him?
+
+Three o’clock struck before Mrs. Bunting heard slow, heavy steps
+creaking up the kitchen stairs. But Mr. Sleuth did not go straight up
+to his own quarters, as she had expected him to do. Instead, he went to
+the front door, and, opening it, put on the chain. Then he came past
+her door, and she thought—but could not be sure—that he sat down on the
+stairs.
+
+At the end of ten minutes or so she heard him go down the passage
+again. Very softly he closed the front door. By then she had divined
+why the lodger had behaved in this funny fashion. He wanted to get the
+strong, acrid smell of burning—was it of burning wool?—out of the
+house.
+
+But Mrs. Bunting, lying there in the darkness, listening to the lodger
+creeping upstairs, felt as if she herself would never get rid of the
+horrible odour.
+
+Mrs. Bunting felt herself to be all smell.
+
+At last the unhappy woman fell into a deep, troubled sleep; and then
+she dreamed a most terrible and unnatural dream. Hoarse voices seemed
+to be shouting in her ear: “The Avenger close here! The Avenger close
+here!” “’Orrible murder off the Edgware Road!” “The Avenger at his work
+again!”
+
+And even in her dream Mrs. Bunting felt angered—angered and impatient.
+She knew so well why she was being disturbed by this horrid nightmare!
+It was because of Bunting—Bunting, who could think and talk of nothing
+else than those frightful murders, in which only morbid and
+vulgar-minded people took any interest.
+
+Why, even now, in her dream, she could hear her husband speaking to her
+about it:
+
+“Ellen”—so she heard Bunting murmur in her ear—“Ellen, my dear, I’m
+just going to get up to get a paper. It’s after seven o’clock.”
+
+The shouting—nay, worse, the sound of tramping, hurrying feet smote on
+her shrinking ears. Pushing back her hair off her forehead with both
+hands, she sat up and listened.
+
+It had been no nightmare, then, but something infinitely worse—reality.
+
+Why couldn’t Bunting have lain quiet abed for awhile longer, and let
+his poor wife go on dreaming? The most awful dream would have been
+easier to bear than this awakening.
+
+She heard her husband go to the front door, and, as he bought the
+paper, exchange a few excited words with the newspaper-seller. Then he
+came back. There was a pause, and she heard him lighting the gas-ring
+in the sitting-room.
+
+Bunting always made his wife a cup of tea in the morning. He had
+promised to do this when they first married, and he had never yet
+broken his word. It was a very little thing and a very usual thing, no
+doubt, for a kind husband to do, but this morning the knowledge that he
+was doing it brought tears to Mrs. Bunting’s pale blue eyes. This
+morning he seemed to be rather longer than usual over the job.
+
+When, at last, he came in with the little tray, Bunting found his wife
+lying with her face to the wall.
+
+“Here’s your tea, Ellen,” he said, and there was a thrill of eager, nay
+happy, excitement in his voice.
+
+She turned herself round and sat up. “Well?” she asked. “Well? Why
+don’t you tell me about it?”
+
+“I thought you was asleep,” he stammered out. “I thought, Ellen, you
+never heard nothing.”
+
+“How could I have slept through all that din? Of course I heard. Why
+don’t you tell me?”
+
+“I’ve hardly had time to glance at the paper myself,” he said slowly.
+
+“You was reading it just now,” she said severely, “for I heard the
+rustling. You begun reading it before you lit the gas-ring. Don’t tell
+me! What was that they was shouting about the Edgware Road?”
+
+“Well,” said Bunting, “as you do know, I may as well tell you. The
+Avenger’s moving West—that’s what he’s doing. Last time ’twas King’s
+Cross—now ’tis the Edgware Road. I said he’d come our way, and he _has_
+come our way!”
+
+“You just go and get me that paper,” she commanded. “I wants to see for
+myself.”
+
+Bunting went into the next room; then he came back and handed her
+silently the odd-looking, thin little sheet.
+
+“Why, whatever’s this?” she asked. “This ain’t our paper!”
+
+“’Course not,” he answered, a trifle crossly. “It’s a special early
+edition of the Sun, just because of The Avenger. Here’s the bit about
+it”—he showed her the exact spot. But she would have found it, even by
+the comparatively bad light of the gas-jet now flaring over the
+dressing-table, for the news was printed in large, clear characters:—
+
+“Once more the murder fiend who chooses to call himself The Avenger has
+escaped detection. While the whole attention of the police, and of the
+great army of amateur detectives who are taking an interest in this
+strange series of atrocious crimes, were concentrating their attention
+round the East End and King’s Cross, he moved swiftly and silently
+Westward. And, choosing a time when the Edgware Road is at its busiest
+and most thronged, did another human being to death with lightning-like
+quickness and savagery.
+    “Within fifty yards of the deserted warehouse yard where he had
+    lured his victim to destruction were passing up and down scores of
+    happy, busy people, intent on their Christmas shopping. Into that
+    cheerful throng he must have plunged within a moment of committing
+    his atrocious crime. And it was only owing to the merest accident
+    that the body was discovered as soon as it was—that is, just after
+    midnight.
+    “Dr. Dowtray, who was called to the spot at once, is of opinion
+    that the woman had been dead at least three hours, if not four. It
+    was at first thought—we were going to say, hoped—that this murder
+    had nothing to do with the series which is now puzzling and
+    horrifying the whole of the civilised world. But no—pinned on the
+    edge of the dead woman’s dress was the usual now familiar
+    triangular piece of grey paper—the grimmest visiting card ever
+    designed by the wit of man! And this time The Avenger has surpassed
+    himself as regards his audacity and daring—so cold in its maniacal
+    fanaticism and abhorrent wickedness.”
+
+
+All the time that Mrs. Bunting was reading with slow, painful
+intentness, her husband was looking at her, longing, yet afraid, to
+burst out with a new idea which he was burning to confide even to his
+Ellen’s unsympathetic ears.
+
+At last, when she had quite finished, she looked up defiantly.
+
+“Haven’t you anything better to do than to stare at me like that?” she
+said irritably. “Murder or no murder, I’ve got to get up! Go away—do!”
+
+And Bunting went off into the next room.
+
+After he had gone, his wife lay back and closed her eyes. She tried to
+think of nothing. Nay, more—so strong, so determined was her will that
+for a few moments she actually did think of nothing. She felt terribly
+tired and weak, brain and body both quiescent, as does a person who is
+recovering from a long, wearing illness.
+
+Presently detached, puerile thoughts drifted across the surface of her
+mind like little clouds across a summer sky. She wondered if those
+horrid newspaper men were allowed to shout in Belgrave Square; she
+wondered if, in that case, Margaret, who was so unlike her
+brother-in-law, would get up and buy a paper. But no. Margaret was not
+one to leave her nice warm bed for such a silly reason as that.
+
+Was it to-morrow Daisy was coming back? Yes—to-morrow, not to-day.
+Well, that was a comfort, at any rate. What amusing things Daisy would
+be able to tell about her visit to Margaret! The girl had an excellent
+gift of mimicry. And Margaret, with her precise, funny ways, her
+perpetual talk about “the family,” lent herself to the cruel gift.
+
+And then Mrs. Bunting’s mind—her poor, weak, tired mind—wandered off to
+young Chandler. A funny thing love was, when you came to think of
+it—which she, Ellen Bunting, didn’t often do. There was Joe, a likely
+young fellow, seeing a lot of young women, and pretty young women,
+too,—quite as pretty as Daisy, and ten times more artful—and yet there!
+He passed them all by, had done so ever since last summer, though you
+might be sure that they, artful minxes, by no manner of means passed
+him by,—without giving them a thought! As Daisy wasn’t here, he would
+probably keep away to-day. There was comfort in that thought, too.
+
+And then Mrs. Bunting sat up, and memory returned in a dreadful turgid
+flood. If Joe _did_ come in, she must nerve herself to hear all
+that—that talk there’d be about The Avenger between him and Bunting.
+
+Slowly she dragged herself out of bed, feeling exactly as if she had
+just recovered from an illness which had left her very weak, very, very
+tired in body and soul.
+
+She stood for a moment listening—listening, and shivering, for it was
+very cold. Considering how early it still was, there seemed a lot of
+coming and going in the Marylebone Road. She could hear the
+unaccustomed sounds through her closed door and the tightly fastened
+windows of the sitting-room. There must be a regular crowd of men and
+women, on foot and in cabs, hurrying to the scene of The Avenger’s last
+extraordinary crime.
+
+She heard the sudden thud made by their usual morning paper falling
+from the letter-box on to the floor of the hall, and a moment later
+came the sound of Bunting quickly, quietly going out and getting it.
+She visualised him coming back, and sitting down with a sigh of
+satisfaction by the newly-lit fire.
+
+Languidly she began dressing herself to the accompaniment of distant
+tramping and of noise of passing traffic, which increased in volume and
+in sound as the moments slipped by.
+
+When Mrs. Bunting went down into her kitchen everything looked just as
+she had left it, and there was no trace of the acrid smell she had
+expected to find there. Instead, the cavernous, whitewashed room was
+full of fog, but she noticed that, though the shutters were bolted and
+barred as she had left them, the windows behind them had been widely
+opened to the air. She had left them shut.
+
+Making a “spill” out of a twist of newspaper—she had been taught the
+art as a girl by one of her old mistresses—she stooped and flung open
+the oven-door of her gas-stove. Yes, it was as she had expected, a
+fierce heat had been generated there since she had last used the oven,
+and through to the stone floor below had fallen a mass of black, gluey
+soot.
+
+Mrs. Bunting took the ham and eggs that she had bought the previous day
+for her own and Bunting’s breakfast upstairs, and broiled them over the
+gas-ring in their sitting-room. Her husband watched her in surprised
+silence. She had never done such a thing before.
+
+“I couldn’t stay down there,” she said; “it was so cold and foggy. I
+thought I’d make breakfast up here, just for to-day.”
+
+“Yes,” he said kindly; “that’s quite right, Ellen. I think you’ve done
+quite right, my dear.”
+
+But, when it came to the point, his wife could not eat any of the nice
+breakfast she had got ready; she only had another cup of tea.
+
+“I’m afraid you’re ill, Ellen?” Bunting asked solicitously.
+
+“No,” she said shortly; “I’m not ill at all. Don’t be silly! The
+thought of that horrible thing happening so close by has upset me, and
+put me off my food. Just hark to them now!”
+
+Through their closed windows penetrated the sound of scurrying feet and
+loud, ribald laughter. What a crowd; nay, what a mob, must be hastening
+busily to and from the spot where there was now nothing to be seen!
+
+Mrs. Bunting made her husband lock the front gate. “I don’t want any of
+those ghouls in here!” she exclaimed angrily. And then, “What a lot of
+idle people there are in the world!” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Bunting began moving about the room restlessly. He would go to the
+window; stand there awhile staring out at the people hurrying past;
+then, coming back to the fireplace, sit down.
+
+But he could not stay long quiet. After a glance at his paper, up he
+would rise from his chair, and go to the window again.
+
+“I wish you’d stay still,” his wife said at last. And then, a few
+minutes later, “Hadn’t you better put your hat and coat on and go out?”
+she exclaimed.
+
+And Bunting, with a rather shamed expression, did put on his hat and
+coat and go out.
+
+As he did so he told himself that, after all, he was but human; it was
+natural that he should be thrilled and excited by the dreadful,
+extraordinary thing which had just happened close by. Ellen wasn’t
+reasonable about such things. How queer and disagreeable she had been
+that very morning—angry with him because he had gone out to hear what
+all the row was about, and even more angry when he had come back and
+said nothing, because he thought it would annoy her to hear about it!
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Bunting forced herself to go down again into the
+kitchen, and as she went through into the low, whitewashed place, a
+tremor of fear, of quick terror, came over her. She turned and did what
+she had never in her life done before, and what she had never heard of
+anyone else doing in a kitchen. She bolted the door.
+
+But, having done this, finding herself at last alone, shut off from
+everybody, she was still beset by a strange, uncanny dread. She felt as
+if she were locked in with an invisible presence, which mocked and
+jeered, reproached and threatened her, by turns.
+
+Why had she allowed, nay encouraged, Daisy to go away for two days?
+Daisy, at any rate, was company—kind, young, unsuspecting company. With
+Daisy she could be her old sharp self. It was such a comfort to be with
+someone to whom she not only need, but ought to, say nothing. When with
+Bunting she was pursued by a sick feeling of guilt, of shame. She was
+the man’s wedded wife—in his stolid way he was very kind to her, and
+yet she was keeping from him something he certainly had a right to
+know.
+
+Not for worlds, however, would she have told Bunting of her dreadful
+suspicion—nay, of her almost certainty.
+
+At last she went across to the door and unlocked it. Then she went
+upstairs and turned out her bedroom. That made her feel a little
+better.
+
+She longed for Bunting to return, and yet in a way she was relieved by
+his absence. She would have liked to feel him near by, and yet she
+welcomed anything that took her husband out of the house.
+
+And as Mrs. Bunting swept and dusted, trying to put her whole mind into
+what she was doing, she was asking herself all the time what was going
+on upstairs.
+
+What a good rest the lodger was having! But there, that was only
+natural. Mr. Sleuth, as she well knew, had been up a long time last
+night, or rather this morning.
+
+Suddenly, the drawing-room bell rang. But Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not
+go up, as she generally did, before getting ready the simple meal which
+was the lodger’s luncheon and breakfast combined. Instead, she went
+downstairs again and hurriedly prepared the lodger’s food.
+
+Then, very slowly, with her heart beating queerly, she walked up, and
+just outside the sitting-room—for she felt sure that Mr. Sleuth had got
+up, that he was there already, waiting for her—she rested the tray on
+the top of the banisters and listened. For a few moments she heard
+nothing; then through the door came the high, quavering voice with
+which she had become so familiar:
+
+“‘She saith to him, stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret
+is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her
+guests are in the depths of hell.’”
+
+There was a long pause. Mrs. Bunting could hear the leaves of her Bible
+being turned over, eagerly, busily; and then again Mr. Sleuth broke
+out, this time in a softer voice:
+
+“‘She hath cast down many wounded from her; yea, many strong men have
+been slain by her.’” And in a softer, lower, plaintive tone came the
+words: “‘I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out
+wisdom and the reason of things; and to know the wickedness of folly,
+even of foolishness and madness.’”
+
+And as she stood there listening, a feeling of keen distress, of
+spiritual oppression, came over Mrs. Bunting. For the first time in her
+life she visioned the infinite mystery, the sadness and strangeness, of
+human life.
+
+Poor Mr. Sleuth—poor unhappy, distraught Mr. Sleuth! An overwhelming
+pity blotted out for a moment the fear, aye, and the loathing, she had
+been feeling for her lodger.
+
+She knocked at the door, and then she took up her tray.
+
+“Come in, Mrs. Bunting.” Mr. Sleuth’s voice sounded feebler, more
+toneless than usual.
+
+She turned the handle of the door and walked in. The lodger was not
+sitting in his usual place; he had taken the little round table on
+which his candle generally rested when he read in bed, out of his
+bedroom, and placed it over by the drawing-room window. On it were
+placed, open, the Bible and the Concordance. But as his landlady came
+in, Mr. Sleuth hastily closed the Bible, and began staring dreamily out
+of the window, down at the sordid, hurrying crowd of men and women
+which now swept along the Marylebone Road.
+
+“There seem a great many people out today,” he observed, without
+looking round.
+
+“Yes, sir, there do.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting began busying herself with laying the cloth and putting
+out the breakfast-lunch, and as she did so she was seized with a
+mortal, instinctive terror of the man sitting there.
+
+At last Mr. Sleuth got up and turned round. She forced herself to look
+at him. How tired, how worn, he looked, and—how strange!
+
+Walking towards the table on which lay his meal, he rubbed his hands
+together with a nervous gesture—it was a gesture he only made when
+something had pleased, nay, satisfied him. Mrs. Bunting, looking at
+him, remembered that he had rubbed his hands together thus when he had
+first seen the room upstairs, and realised that it contained a large
+gas-stove and a convenient sink.
+
+What Mr. Sleuth was doing now also reminded her in an odd way of a play
+she had once seen—a play to which a young man had taken her when she
+was a girl, unnumbered years ago, and which had thrilled and fascinated
+her. “Out, out, damned spot!” that was what the tall, fierce, beautiful
+lady who had played the part of a queen had said, twisting her hands
+together just as the lodger was doing now.
+
+“It’s a fine day,” said Mr. Sleuth, sitting down and unfolding his
+napkin. “The fog has cleared. I do not know if you will agree with me,
+Mrs. Bunting, but I always feel brighter when the sun is shining, as it
+is now, at any rate, trying to shine.” He looked at her inquiringly,
+but Mrs. Bunting could not speak. She only nodded. However, that did
+not affect Mr. Sleuth adversely.
+
+He had acquired a great liking and respect for this well-balanced,
+taciturn woman. She was the first woman for whom he had experienced any
+such feeling for many years past.
+
+He looked down at the still covered dish, and shook his head. “I don’t
+feel as if I could eat very much to-day,” he said plaintively. And then
+he suddenly took a half-sovereign out of his waistcoat pocket.
+
+Already Mrs. Bunting had noticed that it was not the same waistcoat Mr.
+Sleuth had been wearing the day before.
+
+“Mrs. Bunting, may I ask you to come here?”
+
+And after a moment of hesitation his landlady obeyed him.
+
+“Will you please accept this little gift for the use you kindly allowed
+me to make of your kitchen last night?” he said quietly. “I tried to
+make as little mess as I could, Mrs. Bunting, but—well, the truth is I
+was carrying out a very elaborate experiment.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting held out her hand, she hesitated, and then she took the
+coin. The fingers which for a moment brushed lightly against her palm
+were icy cold—cold and clammy. Mr. Sleuth was evidently not well.
+
+As she walked down the stairs, the winter sun, a scarlet ball hanging
+in the smoky sky, glinted in on Mr. Sleuth’s landlady, and threw
+blood-red gleams, or so it seemed to her, on to the piece of gold she
+was holding in her hand.
+
+The day went by, as other days had gone by in that quiet household,
+but, of course, there was far greater animation outside the little
+house than was usually the case.
+
+Perhaps because the sun was shining for the first time for some days,
+the whole of London seemed to be making holiday in that part of the
+town.
+
+When Bunting at last came back, his wife listened silently while he
+told her of the extraordinary excitement reigning everywhere. And then,
+after he had been talking a long while, she suddenly shot a strange
+look at him.
+
+“I suppose you went to see the place?” she said.
+
+And guiltily he acknowledged that he had done so.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, there wasn’t anything much to see—not now. But, oh, Ellen, the
+daring of him! Why, Ellen, if the poor soul had had time to cry
+out—which they don’t believe she had—it’s impossible someone wouldn’t
+’a heard her. They say that if he goes on doing it like that—in the
+afternoon, like—he never _will_ be caught. He must have just got mixed
+up with all the other people within ten seconds of what he’d done!”
+
+During the afternoon Bunting bought papers recklessly—in fact, he must
+have spent the best part of six-pence. But in spite of all the supposed
+and suggested clues, there was nothing—nothing at all new to read,
+less, in fact than ever before.
+
+The police, it was clear, were quite at a loss, and Mrs. Bunting began
+to feel curiously better, less tired, less ill, less—less terrified
+than she had felt through the morning.
+
+And then something happened which broke with dramatic suddenness the
+quietude of the day.
+
+They had had their tea, and Bunting was reading the last of the papers
+he had run out to buy, when suddenly there came a loud, thundering,
+double knock at the door.
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. “Why, whoever can that be?” she said.
+
+But as Bunting got up she added quickly, “You just sit down again. I’ll
+go myself. Sounds like someone after lodgings. I’ll soon send them to
+the right-about!”
+
+And then she left the room, but not before there had come another loud
+double knock.
+
+Mrs. Bunting opened the front door. In a moment she saw that the person
+who stood there was a stranger to her. He was a big, dark man, with
+fierce, black moustaches. And somehow—she could not have told you
+why—he suggested a policeman to Mrs. Bunting’s mind.
+
+This notion of hers was confirmed by the very first words he uttered.
+For, “I’m here to execute a warrant!” he exclaimed in a theatrical,
+hollow tone.
+
+With a weak cry of protest Mrs. Bunting suddenly threw out her arms as
+if to bar the way; she turned deadly white—but then, in an instant the
+supposed stranger’s laugh rang out, with loud, jovial, familiar sound!
+
+“There now, Mrs. Bunting! I never thought I’d take you in as well as
+all that!”
+
+It was Joe Chandler—Joe Chandler dressed up, as she knew he sometimes,
+not very often, did dress up in the course of his work.
+
+Mrs. Bunting began laughing—laughing helplessly, hysterically, just as
+she had done on the morning of Daisy’s arrival, when the
+newspaper-sellers had come shouting down the Marylebone Road.
+
+“What’s all this about?” Bunting came out
+
+Young Chandler ruefully shut the front door. “I didn’t mean to upset
+her like this,” he said, looking foolish; “’twas just my silly
+nonsense, Mr. Bunting.” And together they helped her into the
+sitting-room.
+
+But, once there, poor Mrs. Bunting went on worse than ever; she threw
+her black apron over her face, and began to sob hysterically.
+
+“I made sure she’d know who I was when I spoke,” went on the young
+fellow apologetically. “But, there now, I _have_ upset her. I _am_
+sorry!”
+
+“It don’t matter!” she exclaimed, throwing the apron off her face, but
+the tears were still streaming from her eyes as she sobbed and laughed
+by turns. “Don’t matter one little bit, Joe! ’Twas stupid of me to be
+so taken aback. But, there, that murder that’s happened close by, it’s
+just upset me—upset me altogether to-day.”
+
+“Enough to upset anyone—that was,” acknowledged the young man ruefully.
+“I’ve only come in for a minute, like. I haven’t no right to come when
+I’m on duty like this—”
+
+Joe Chandler was looking longingly at what remains of the meal were
+still on the table.
+
+“You can take a minute just to have a bite and a sup,” said Bunting
+hospitably; “and then you can tell us any news there is, Joe. We’re
+right in the middle of everything now, ain’t we?” He spoke with evident
+enjoyment, almost pride, in the gruesome fact.
+
+Joe nodded. Already his mouth was full of bread-and-butter. He waited a
+moment, and then: “Well I have got one piece of news—not that I suppose
+it’ll interest _you_ very much.”
+
+They both looked at him—Mrs. Bunting suddenly calm, though her breast
+still heaved from time to time.
+
+“Our Boss has resigned!” said Joe Chandler slowly, impressively.
+
+“No! Not the Commissioner o’ Police?” exclaimed Bunting.
+
+“Yes, he has. He just can’t bear what’s said about us any longer—and I
+don’t wonder! He done his best, and so’s we all. The public have just
+gone daft—in the West End, that is, to-day. As for the papers, well,
+they’re something cruel—that’s what they are. And the ridiculous ideas
+they print! You’d never believe the things they asks us to do—and quite
+serious-like.”
+
+“What d’you mean?” questioned Mrs. Bunting. She really wanted to know.
+
+“Well, the _Courier_ declares that there ought to be a house-to-house
+investigation—all over London. Just think of it! Everybody to let the
+police go all over their house, from garret to kitchen, just to see if
+The Avenger isn’t concealed there. Dotty, I calls it! Why, ’twould take
+us months and months just to do that one job in a town like London.”
+
+“I’d like to see them dare come into my house!” said Mrs. Bunting
+angrily.
+
+“It’s all along of them blarsted papers that The Avenger went to work a
+different way this time,” said Chandler slowly.
+
+Bunting had pushed a tin of sardines towards his guest, and was eagerly
+listening. “How d’you mean?” he asked. “I don’t take your meaning,
+Joe.”
+
+“Well, you see, it’s this way. The newspapers was always saying how
+extraordinary it was that The Avenger chose such a peculiar time to do
+his deeds—I mean, the time when no one’s about the streets. Now,
+doesn’t it stand to reason that the fellow, reading all that, and
+seeing the sense of it, said to himself, ‘I’ll go on another tack this
+time’? Just listen to this!” He pulled a strip of paper, part of a
+column cut from a newspaper, out of his pocket:
+
+“‘AN EX-LORD MAYOR OF LONDON ON THE AVENGER
+
+
+“‘Will the murderer be caught? Yes,’ replied Sir John, ‘he will
+certainly be caught—probably when he commits his next crime. A whole
+army of bloodhounds, metaphorical and literal, will be on his track the
+moment he draws blood again. With the whole community against him, he
+cannot escape, _especially when it be remembered that he chooses the
+quietest hour in the twenty-four to commit his crimes_.
+    “‘Londoners are now in such a state of nerves—if I may use the
+    expression, in such a state of funk—that every passer-by, however
+    innocent, is looked at with suspicion by his neighbour if his
+    avocation happens to take him abroad between the hours of one and
+    three in the morning.’
+
+
+“I’d like to gag that ex-Lord Mayor!” concluded Joe Chandler
+wrathfully.
+
+Just then the lodger’s bell rang.
+
+“Let me go up, my dear,” said Bunting.
+
+His wife still looked pale and shaken by the fright she had had.
+
+“No, no,” she said hastily. “You stop down here, and talk to Joe. I’ll
+look after Mr. Sleuth. He may be wanting his supper just a bit earlier
+than usual to-day.”
+
+Slowly, painfully, again feeling as if her legs were made of cotton
+wool, she dragged herself up to the first floor, knocked at the door,
+and then went in.
+
+“You did ring, sir?” she said, in her quiet, respectful way.
+
+And Mr. Sleuth looked up.
+
+She thought—but, as she reminded herself afterwards, it might have been
+just her idea, and nothing else—that for the first time the lodger
+looked frightened—frightened and cowed.
+
+“I heard a noise downstairs,” he said fretfully, “and I wanted to know
+what it was all about. As I told you, Mrs. Bunting, when I first took
+these rooms, quiet is essential to me.”
+
+“It was just a friend of ours, sir. I’m sorry you were disturbed. Would
+you like the knocker taken off to-morrow? Bunting’ll be pleased to do
+it if you don’t like to hear the sound of the knocks.”
+
+“Oh, no, I wouldn’t put you to such trouble as that.” Mr. Sleuth looked
+quite relieved. “Just a friend of yours, was it, Mrs. Bunting? He made
+a great deal of noise.”
+
+“Just a young fellow,” she said apologetically. “The son of one of
+Bunting’s old friends. He often comes here, sir; but he never did give
+such a great big double knock as that before. I’ll speak to him about
+it.”
+
+“Oh, no, Mrs. Bunting. I would really prefer you did nothing of the
+kind. It was just a passing annoyance—nothing more!”
+
+She waited a moment. How strange that Mr. Sleuth said nothing of the
+hoarse cries which had made of the road outside a perfect Bedlam every
+hour or two throughout that day. But no, Mr. Sleuth made no allusion to
+what might well have disturbed any quiet gentleman at his reading.
+
+“I thought maybe you’d like to have supper a little earlier to-night,
+sir?”
+
+“Just when you like, Mrs. Bunting—just when it’s convenient. I do not
+wish to put you out in any way.”
+
+She felt herself dismissed, and going out quietly, closed the door.
+
+As she did so, she heard the front door banging to. She sighed—Joe
+Chandler was really a very noisy young fellow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Mrs. Bunting slept well the night following that during which the
+lodger had been engaged in making his mysterious experiments in her
+kitchen. She was so tired, so utterly exhausted, that sleep came to her
+the moment she laid her head upon her pillow.
+
+Perhaps that was why she rose so early the next morning. Hardly giving
+herself time to swallow the tea Bunting had made and brought her, she
+got up and dressed.
+
+She had suddenly come to the conclusion that the hall and staircase
+required a thorough “doing down,” and she did not even wait till they
+had eaten their breakfast before beginning her labours. It made Bunting
+feel quite uncomfortable. As he sat by the fire reading his morning
+paper—the paper which was again of such absorbing interest—he called
+out, “There’s no need for so much hurry, Ellen. Daisy’ll be back
+to-day. Why don’t you wait till she’s come home to help you?”
+
+But from the hall where she was busy dusting, sweeping, polishing, his
+wife’s voice came back: “Girls ain’t no good at this sort of work.
+Don’t you worry about me. I feel as if I’d enjoy doing an extra bit of
+cleaning to-day. I don’t like to feel as anyone could come in and see
+my place dirty.”
+
+“No fear of that!” Bunting chuckled. And then a new thought struck him.
+“Ain’t you afraid of waking the lodger?” he called out.
+
+“Mr. Sleuth slept most of yesterday, and all last night,” she answered
+quickly. “As it is, I study him over-much; it’s a long, long time since
+I’ve done this staircase down.”
+
+All the time she was engaged in doing the hall, Mrs. Bunting left the
+sitting-room door wide open.
+
+That was a queer thing of her to do, but Bunting didn’t like to get up
+and shut her out, as it were. Still, try as he would, he couldn’t read
+with any comfort while all that noise was going on. He had never known
+Ellen make such a lot of noise before. Once or twice he looked up and
+frowned rather crossly.
+
+There came a sudden silence, and he was startled to see that Ellen was
+standing in the doorway, staring at him, doing nothing.
+
+“Come in,” he said, “do! Ain’t you finished yet?”
+
+“I was only resting a minute,” she said. “You don’t tell me nothing.
+I’d like to know if there’s anything—I mean anything new—in the paper
+this morning.”
+
+She spoke in a muffled voice, almost as if she were ashamed of her
+unusual curiosity; and her look of fatigue, of pallor, made Bunting
+suddenly uneasy. “Come in—do!” he repeated sharply. “You’ve done quite
+enough—and before breakfast, too. ’Tain’t necessary. Come in and shut
+that door.”
+
+He spoke authoritatively, and his wife, for a wonder, obeyed him.
+
+She came in, and did what she had never done before—brought the broom
+with her, and put it up against the wall in the corner.
+
+Then she sat down.
+
+“I think I’ll make breakfast up here,” she said. “I—I feel cold,
+Bunting.” And her husband stared at her surprised, for drops of
+perspiration were glistening on her forehead.
+
+He got up. “All right. I’ll go down and bring the eggs up. Don’t you
+worry. For the matter of that, I can cook them downstairs if you like.”
+
+“No,” she said obstinately. “I’d rather do my own work. You just bring
+them up here—that’ll be all right. To-morrow morning we’ll have Daisy
+to help see to things.”
+
+“Come over here and sit down comfortable in my chair,” he suggested
+kindly. “You never do take any bit of rest, Ellen. I never see’d such a
+woman!”
+
+And again she got up and meekly obeyed him, walking across the room
+with languid steps.
+
+He watched her, anxiously, uncomfortably.
+
+She took up the newspaper he had just laid down, and Bunting took two
+steps towards her.
+
+“I’ll show you the most interesting bit” he said eagerly. “It’s the
+piece headed, ‘Our Special Investigator.’ You see, they’ve started a
+special investigator of their own, and he’s got hold of a lot of little
+facts the police seem to have overlooked. The man who writes all that—I
+mean the Special Investigator—was a famous ’tec in his time, and he’s
+just come back out of his retirement o’ purpose to do this bit of work
+for the paper. You read what he says—I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if
+he ends by getting that reward! One can see he just loves the work of
+tracking people down.”
+
+“There’s nothing to be proud of in such a job,” said his wife
+listlessly.
+
+“He’ll have something to be proud of if he catches The Avenger!” cried
+Bunting. He was too keen about this affair to be put off by Ellen’s
+contradictory remarks. “You just notice that bit about the rubber
+soles. Now, no one’s thought o’ that. I’ll just tell Chandler—he don’t
+seem to me to be half awake, that young man don’t.”
+
+“He’s quite wide awake enough without you saying things to him! How
+about those eggs, Bunting? I feel quite ready for my breakfast even if
+you don’t—”
+
+Mrs. Bunting now spoke in what her husband sometimes secretly described
+to himself as “Ellen’s snarling voice.”
+
+He turned away and left the room, feeling oddly troubled. There was
+something queer about her, and he couldn’t make it out. He didn’t mind
+it when she spoke sharply and nastily to him. He was used to that. But
+now she was so up and down; so different from what she used to be! In
+old days she had always been the same, but now a man never knew where
+to have her.
+
+And as he went downstairs he pondered uneasily over his wife’s changed
+ways and manner.
+
+Take the question of his easy chair. A very small matter, no doubt, but
+he had never known Ellen sit in that chair—no, not even once, for a
+minute, since it had been purchased by her as a present for him.
+
+They had been so happy, so happy, and so—so restful, during that first
+week after Mr. Sleuth had come to them. Perhaps it was the sudden,
+dramatic change from agonising anxiety to peace and security which had
+been too much for Ellen—yes, that was what was the matter with her,
+that and the universal excitement about these Avenger murders, which
+were shaking the nerves of all London. Even Bunting, unobservant as he
+was, had come to realise that his wife took a morbid interest in these
+terrible happenings. And it was the more queer of her to do so that at
+first she refused to discuss them, and said openly that she was utterly
+uninterested in murder or crime of any sort.
+
+He, Bunting, had always had a mild pleasure in such things. In his time
+he had been a great reader of detective tales, and even now he thought
+there was no pleasanter reading. It was that which had first drawn him
+to Joe Chandler, and made him welcome the young chap as cordially as he
+had done when they first came to London.
+
+But though Ellen had tolerated, she had never encouraged, that sort of
+talk between the two men. More than once she had exclaimed
+reproachfully: “To hear you two, one would think there was no nice,
+respectable, quiet people left in the world!”
+
+But now all that was changed. She was as keen as anyone could be to
+hear the latest details of an Avenger crime. True, she took her own
+view of any theory suggested. But there! Ellen always had had her own
+notions about everything under the sun. Ellen was a woman who thought
+for herself—a clever woman, not an everyday woman by any manner of
+means.
+
+While these thoughts were going disconnectedly through his mind,
+Bunting was breaking four eggs into a basin. He was going to give Ellen
+a nice little surprise—to cook an omelette as a French chef had once
+taught him to do, years and years ago. He didn’t know how she would
+take his doing such a thing after what she had said; but never mind,
+she would enjoy the omelette when done. Ellen hadn’t been eating her
+food properly of late.
+
+And when he went up again, his wife, to his relief, and, it must be
+admitted, to his surprise, took it very well. She had not even noticed
+how long he had been downstairs, for she had been reading with intense,
+painful care the column that the great daily paper they took in had
+allotted to the one-time famous detective.
+
+According to this Special Investigator’s own account he had discovered
+all sorts of things that had escaped the eye of the police and of the
+official detectives. For instance, owing, he admitted, to a fortunate
+chance, he had been at the place where the two last murders had been
+committed very soon after the double crime had been discovered—in fact
+within half an hour, and he had found, or so he felt sure, on the
+slippery, wet pavement imprints of the murderer’s right foot.
+
+The paper reproduced the impression of a half-worn rubber sole. At the
+same time, he also admitted—for the Special Investigator was very
+honest, and he had a good bit of space to fill in the enterprising
+paper which had engaged him to probe the awful mystery—that there were
+thousands of rubber soles being worn in London. . . .
+
+And when she came to that statement Mrs. Bunting looked up, and there
+came a wan smile over her thin, closely-shut lips. It was quite
+true—that about rubber soles; there were thousands of rubber soles
+being worn just now. She felt grateful to the Special Investigator for
+having stated the fact so clearly.
+
+The column ended up with the words:
+
+“And to-day will take place the inquest on the double crime of ten days
+ago. To my mind it would be well if a preliminary public inquiry could
+be held at once. Say, on the very day the discovery of a fresh murder
+is made. In that way alone would it be possible to weigh and sift the
+evidence offered by members of the general public. For when a week or
+more has elapsed, and these same people have been examined and
+cross-examined in private by the police, their impressions have had
+time to become blurred and hopelessly confused. On that last occasion
+but one there seems no doubt that several people, at any rate two women
+and one man, actually saw the murderer hurrying from the scene of his
+atrocious double crime—this being so, to-day’s investigation may be of
+the highest value and importance. To-morrow I hope to give an account
+of the impression made on me by the inquest, and by any statements made
+during its course.”
+
+
+Even when her husband had come in with the tray Mrs. Bunting had gone
+on reading, only lifting up her eyes for a moment. At last he said
+rather crossly, “Put down that paper, Ellen, this minute! The omelette
+I’ve cooked for you will be just like leather if you don’t eat it.”
+
+But once his wife had eaten her breakfast—and, to Bunting’s
+mortification, she left more than half the nice omelette untouched—she
+took the paper up again. She turned over the big sheets, until she
+found, at the foot of one of the ten columns devoted to The Avenger and
+his crimes, the information she wanted, and then uttered an exclamation
+under her breath.
+
+What Mrs. Bunting had been looking for—what at last she had found—was
+the time and place of the inquest which was to be held that day. The
+hour named was a rather odd time—two o’clock in the afternoon, but,
+from Mrs. Bunting’s point of view, it was most convenient.
+
+By two o’clock, nay, by half-past one, the lodger would have had his
+lunch; by hurrying matters a little she and Bunting would have had
+their dinner, and—and Daisy wasn’t coming home till tea-time.
+
+She got up out of her husband’s chair. “I think you’re right,” she
+said, in a quick, hoarse tone. “I mean about me seeing a doctor,
+Bunting. I think I will go and see a doctor this very afternoon.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you like me to go with you?” he asked.
+
+“No, that I wouldn’t. In fact I wouldn’t go at all you was to go with
+me.”
+
+“All right,” he said vexedly. “Please yourself, my dear; you know
+best.”
+
+“I should think I did know best where my own health is concerned.”
+
+Even Bunting was incensed by this lack of gratitude. “’Twas I said,
+long ago, you ought to go and see the doctor; ’twas you said you
+wouldn’t!” he exclaimed pugnaciously.
+
+“Well, I’ve never said you was never right, have I? At any rate, I’m
+going.”
+
+“Have you a pain anywhere?” He stared at her with a look of real
+solicitude on his fat, phlegmatic face.
+
+Somehow Ellen didn’t look right, standing there opposite him. Her
+shoulders seemed to have shrunk; even her cheeks had fallen in a
+little. She had never looked so bad—not even when they had been half
+starving, and dreadfully, dreadfully worked.
+
+“Yes,” she said briefly, “I’ve a pain in my head, at the back of my
+neck. It doesn’t often leave me; it gets worse when anything upsets me,
+like I was upset last night by Joe Chandler.”
+
+“He was a silly ass to come and do a thing like that!” said Bunting
+crossly. “I’d a good mind to tell him so, too. But I must say, Ellen, I
+wonder he took you in—he didn’t me!”
+
+“Well, you had no chance he should—you knew who it was,” she said
+slowly.
+
+And Bunting remained silent, for Ellen was right. Joe Chandler had
+already spoken when he, Bunting, came out into the hall, and saw their
+cleverly disguised visitor.
+
+“Those big black moustaches,” he went on complainingly, “and that black
+wig—why, ’twas too ridic’lous—that’s what I call it!”
+
+“Not to anyone who didn’t know Joe,” she said sharply.
+
+“Well, I don’t know. He didn’t look like a real man—nohow. If he’s a
+wise lad, he won’t let our Daisy ever see him looking like that!” and
+Bunting laughed, a comfortable laugh.
+
+He had thought a good deal about Daisy and young Chandler the last two
+days, and, on the whole, he was well pleased. It was a dull, unnatural
+life the girl was leading with Old Aunt. And Joe was earning good
+money. They wouldn’t have long to wait, these two young people, as a
+beau and his girl often have to wait, as he, Bunting, and Daisy’s
+mother had had to do, for ever so long before they could be married.
+No, there was no reason why they shouldn’t be spliced quite soon—if so
+the fancy took them. And Bunting had very little doubt that so the
+fancy would take Joe, at any rate.
+
+But there was plenty of time. Daisy wouldn’t be eighteen till the week
+after next. They might wait till she was twenty. By that time Old Aunt
+might be dead, and Daisy might have come into quite a tidy little bit
+of money.
+
+“What are you smiling at?” said his wife sharply.
+
+And he shook himself. “I—smiling? At nothing that I knows of.” Then he
+waited a moment. “Well, if you will know, Ellen, I was just thinking of
+Daisy and that young chap Joe Chandler. He is gone on her, ain’t he?”
+
+“Gone?” And then Mrs. Bunting laughed, a queer, odd, not unkindly
+laugh. “Gone, Bunting?” she repeated. “Why, he’s out o’ sight—right,
+out of sight!”
+
+Then hesitatingly, and looking narrowly at her husband, she went on,
+twisting a bit of her black apron with her fingers as she spoke:—“I
+suppose he’ll be going over this afternoon to fetch her? Or—or d’you
+think he’ll have to be at that inquest, Bunting?”
+
+“Inquest? What inquest?” He looked at her puzzled.
+
+“Why, the inquest on them bodies found in the passage near by King’s
+Cross.”
+
+“Oh, no; he’d have no call to be at the inquest. For the matter o’
+that, I know he’s going over to fetch Daisy. He said so last night—just
+when you went up to the lodger.”
+
+“That’s just as well.” Mrs. Bunting spoke with considerable
+satisfaction. “Otherwise I suppose you’d ha’ had to go. I wouldn’t like
+the house left—not with us out of it. Mr. Sleuth _would_ be upset if
+there came a ring at the door.”
+
+“Oh, I won’t leave the house, don’t you be afraid, Ellen—not while
+you’re out.”
+
+“Not even if I’m out a good while, Bunting.”
+
+“No fear. Of course, you’ll be a long time if it’s your idea to see
+that doctor at Ealing?”
+
+He looked at her questioningly, and Mrs. Bunting nodded. Somehow
+nodding didn’t seem as bad as speaking a lie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Any ordeal is far less terrifying, far easier to meet with courage,
+when it is repeated, than is even a milder experience which is entirely
+novel.
+
+Mrs. Bunting had already attended an inquest, in the character of a
+witness, and it was one of the few happenings of her life which was
+sharply etched against the somewhat blurred screen of her memory.
+
+In a country house where the then Ellen Green had been staying for a
+fortnight with her elderly mistress, there had occurred one of those
+sudden, pitiful tragedies which occasionally destroy the serenity, the
+apparent decorum, of a large, respectable household.
+
+The under-housemaid, a pretty, happy-natured girl, had drowned herself
+for love of the footman, who had given his sweetheart cause for bitter
+jealousy. The girl had chosen to speak of her troubles to the strange
+lady’s maid rather than to her own fellow-servants, and it was during
+the conversation the two women had had together that the girl had
+threatened to take her own life.
+
+As Mrs. Bunting put on her outdoor clothes, preparatory to going out,
+she recalled very clearly all the details of that dreadful affair, and
+of the part she herself had unwillingly played in it.
+
+She visualised the country inn where the inquest on that poor,
+unfortunate creature had been held.
+
+The butler had escorted her from the Hall, for he also was to give
+evidence, and as they came up there had been a look of cheerful
+animation about the inn yard; people coming and going, many women as
+well as men, village folk, among whom the dead girl’s fate had aroused
+a great deal of interest, and the kind of horror which those who live
+on a dull countryside welcome rather than avoid.
+
+Everyone there had been particularly nice and polite to her, to Ellen
+Green; there had been a time of waiting in a room upstairs in the old
+inn, and the witnesses had been accommodated, not only with chairs, but
+with cake and wine.
+
+She remembered how she had dreaded being a witness, how she had felt as
+if she would like to run away from her nice, easy place, rather than
+have to get up and tell the little that she knew of the sad business.
+
+But it had not been so very dreadful after all. The coroner had been a
+kindly-spoken gentleman; in fact he had complimented her on the clear,
+sensible way she had given her evidence concerning the exact words the
+unhappy girl had used.
+
+One thing Ellen Green had said, in answer to a question put by an
+inquisitive juryman, had raised a laugh in the crowded, low-ceilinged
+room. “Ought not Miss Ellen Green,” so the man had asked, “to have told
+someone of the girl’s threat? If she had done so, might not the girl
+have been prevented from throwing herself into the lake?” And she, the
+witness, had answered, with some asperity—for by that time the
+coroner’s kind manner had put her at her ease—that she had not attached
+any importance to what the girl had threatened to do, never believing
+that any young woman could be so silly as to drown herself for love!
+
+Vaguely Mrs. Bunting supposed that the inquest at which she was going
+to be present this afternoon would be like that country inquest of long
+ago.
+
+It had been no mere perfunctory inquiry; she remembered very well how
+little by little that pleasant-spoken gentleman, the coroner, had got
+the whole truth out—the story, that is, of how that horrid footman,
+whom she, Ellen Green, had disliked from the first minute she had set
+eyes on him, had taken up with another young woman. It had been
+supposed that this fact would not be elicited by the coroner; but it
+had been, quietly, remorselessly; more, the dead girl’s letters had
+been read out—piteous, queerly expressed letters, full of wild love and
+bitter, threatening jealousy. And the jury had censured the young man
+most severely; she remembered the look on his face when the people,
+shrinking back, had made a passage for him to slink out of the crowded
+room.
+
+Come to think of it now, it was strange she had never told Bunting that
+long-ago tale. It had occurred years before she knew him, and somehow
+nothing had ever happened to make her tell him about it.
+
+She wondered whether Bunting had ever been to an inquest. She longed to
+ask him. But if she asked him now, this minute, he might guess where
+she was thinking of going.
+
+And then, while still moving about her bedroom, she shook her head—no,
+no, Bunting would never guess such a thing; he would never, never
+suspect her of telling him a lie.
+
+Stop—had she told a lie? She did mean to go to the doctor after the
+inquest was finished—if there was time, that is. She wondered uneasily
+how long such an inquiry was likely to last. In this case, as so very
+little had been discovered, the proceedings would surely be very
+formal—formal and therefore short.
+
+She herself had one quite definite object—that of hearing the evidence
+of those who believed they had seen the murderer leaving the spot where
+his victims lay weltering in their still flowing blood. She was filled
+with a painful, secret, and, yes, eager curiosity to hear how those who
+were so positive about the matter would describe the appearance of The
+Avenger. After all, a lot of people must have seen him, for, as Bunting
+had said only the day before to young Chandler, The Avenger was not a
+ghost; he was a living man with some kind of hiding-place where he was
+known, and where he spent his time between his awful crimes.
+
+As she came back to the sitting-room, her extreme pallor struck her
+husband.
+
+“Why, Ellen,” he said, “it is time you went to the doctor. You looks
+just as if you was going to a funeral. I’ll come along with you as far
+as the station. You’re going by train, ain’t you? Not by bus, eh? It’s
+a very long way to Ealing, you know.”
+
+“There you go! Breaking your solemn promise to me the very first
+minute!” But somehow she did not speak unkindly, only fretfully and
+sadly.
+
+And Bunting hung his head. “Why, to be sure I’d gone and clean forgot
+the lodger! But will you be all right, Ellen? Why not wait till
+to-morrow, and take Daisy with you?”
+
+“I like doing my own business in my own way, and not in someone else’s
+way!” she snapped out; and then more gently, for Bunting really looked
+concerned, and she did feel very far from well, “I’ll be all right, old
+man. Don’t you worry about me!”
+
+As she turned to go across to the door, she drew the black shawl she
+had put over her long jacket more closely round her.
+
+She felt ashamed, deeply ashamed, of deceiving so kind a husband. And
+yet, what could she do? How could she share her dreadful burden with
+poor Bunting? Why, ’twould be enough to make a man go daft. Even she
+often felt as if she could stand it no longer—as if she would give the
+world to tell someone—anyone—what it was that she suspected, what deep
+in her heart she so feared to be the truth.
+
+But, unknown to herself, the fresh outside air, fog-laden though it
+was, soon began to do her good. She had gone out far too little the
+last few days, for she had had a nervous terror of leaving the house
+unprotected, as also a great unwillingness to allow Bunting to come
+into contact with the lodger.
+
+When she reached the Underground station she stopped short. There were
+two ways of getting to St. Pancras—she could go by bus, or she could go
+by train. She decided on the latter. But before turning into the
+station her eyes strayed over the bills of the early afternoon papers
+lying on the ground.
+
+Two words,
+
+THE AVENGER,
+
+
+stared up at her in varying type.
+
+Drawing her black shawl yet a little closer about her shoulders, Mrs.
+Bunting looked down at the placards. She did not feel inclined to buy a
+paper, as many of the people round her were doing. Her eyes were
+smarting, even now, from their unaccustomed following of the close
+print in the paper Bunting took in.
+
+Slowly she turned, at last, into the Underground station.
+
+And now a piece of extraordinary good fortune befell Mrs. Bunting.
+
+The third-class carriage in which she took her place happened to be
+empty, save for the presence of a police inspector. And once they were
+well away she summoned up courage, and asked him the question she knew
+she would have to ask of someone within the next few minutes.
+
+“Can you tell me,” she said, in a low voice, “where death inquests are
+held”—she moistened her lips, waited a moment, and then concluded—“in
+the neighbourhood of King’s Cross?”
+
+The man turned and, looked at her attentively. She did not look at all
+the sort of Londoner who goes to an inquest—there are many such—just
+for the fun of the thing. Approvingly, for he was a widower, he noted
+her neat black coat and skirt; and the plain Princess bonnet which
+framed her pale, refined face.
+
+“I’m going to the Coroner’s Court myself.” he said good-naturedly. “So
+you can come along of me. You see there’s that big Avenger inquest
+going on to-day, so I think they’ll have had to make other arrangements
+for—hum, hum—ordinary cases.” And as she looked at him dumbly, he went
+on, “There’ll be a mighty crowd of people at The Avenger inquest—a lot
+of ticket folk to be accommodated, to say nothing of the public.”
+
+“That’s the inquest I’m going to,” faltered Mrs. Bunting. She could
+scarcely get the words out. She realised with acute discomfort, yes,
+and shame, how strange, how untoward, was that which she was going to
+do. Fancy a respectable woman wanting to attend a murder inquest!
+
+During the last few days all her perceptions had become sharpened by
+suspense and fear. She realised now, as she looked into the stolid face
+of her unknown friend, how she herself would have regarded any woman
+who wanted to attend such an inquiry from a simple, morbid feeling of
+curiosity. And yet—and yet that was just what she was about to do
+herself.
+
+“I’ve got a reason for wanting to go there,” she murmured. It was a
+comfort to unburden herself this little way even to a stranger.
+
+“Ah!” he said reflectively. “A—a relative connected with one of the two
+victims’ husbands, I presume?”
+
+And Mrs. Bunting bent her head.
+
+“Going to give evidence?” he asked casually, and then he turned and
+looked at Mrs. Bunting with far more attention than he had yet done.
+
+“Oh, no!” There was a world of horror, of fear in the speaker’s voice.
+
+And the inspector felt concerned and sorry. “Hadn’t seen her for quite
+a long time, I suppose?”
+
+“Never had, seen her. I’m from the country.” Something impelled Mrs.
+Bunting to say these words. But she hastily corrected herself, “At
+least, I was.”
+
+“Will he be there?”
+
+She looked at him dumbly; not in the least knowing to whom he was
+alluding.
+
+“I mean the husband,” went on the inspector hastily. “I felt sorry for
+the last poor chap—I mean the husband of the last one—he seemed so
+awfully miserable. You see, she’d been a good wife and a good mother
+till she took to the drink.”
+
+“It always is so,” breathed out Mrs. Bunting.
+
+“Aye.” He waited a moment. “D’you know anyone about the court?” he
+asked.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“Well, don’t you worry. I’ll take you in along o’ me. You’d never get
+in by yourself.”
+
+They got out; and oh, the comfort of being in some one’s charge, of
+having a determined man in uniform to look after one! And yet even now
+there was to Mrs. Bunting something dream-like, unsubstantial about the
+whole business.
+
+“If he knew—if he only knew what I know!” she kept saying over and over
+again to herself as she walked lightly by the big, burly form of the
+police inspector.
+
+“’Tisn’t far—not three minutes,” he said suddenly. “Am I walking too
+quick for you, ma’am?”
+
+“No, not at all. I’m a quick walker.”
+
+And then suddenly they turned a corner and came on a mass of people, a
+densely packed crowd of men and women, staring at a mean-looking little
+door sunk into a high wall.
+
+“Better take my arm,” the inspector suggested. “Make way there! Make
+way!” he cried authoritatively; and he swept her through the serried
+ranks which parted at the sound of his voice, at the sight of his
+uniform.
+
+“Lucky you met me,” he said, smiling. “You’d never have got through
+alone. And ’tain’t a nice crowd, not by any manner of means.”
+
+The small door opened just a little way, and they found themselves on a
+narrow stone-flagged path, leading into a square yard. A few men were
+out there, smoking.
+
+Before preceding her into the building which rose at the back of the
+yard, Mrs. Bunting’s kind new friend took out his watch. “There’s
+another twenty minutes before they’ll begin,” he said. “There’s the
+mortuary”—he pointed with his thumb to a low room built out to the
+right of the court. “Would you like to go in and see them?” he
+whispered.
+
+“Oh, no!” she cried, in a tone of extreme horror. And he looked down at
+her with sympathy, and with increased respect. She was a nice,
+respectable woman, she was. She had not come here imbued with any
+morbid, horrible curiosity, but because she thought it her duty to do
+so. He suspected her of being sister-in-law to one of The Avenger’s
+victims.
+
+They walked through into a big room or hall, now full of men talking in
+subdued yet eager, animated tones.
+
+“I think you’d better sit down here,” he said considerately, and,
+leading her to one of the benches that stood out from the whitewashed
+walls—“unless you’d rather be with the witnesses, that is.”
+
+But again she said, “Oh, no!” And then, with an effort, “Oughtn’t I to
+go into the court now, if it’s likely to be so full?”
+
+“Don’t you worry,” he said kindly. “I’ll see you get a proper place. I
+must leave you now for a minute, but I’ll come back in good time and
+look after you.”
+
+She raised the thick veil she had pulled down over her face while they
+were going through that sinister, wolfish-looking crowd outside, and
+looked about her.
+
+Many of the gentlemen—they mostly wore tall hats and good
+overcoats—standing round and about her looked vaguely familiar. She
+picked out one at once. He was a famous journalist, whose shrewd,
+animated face was familiar to her owing to the fact that it was widely
+advertised in connection with a preparation for the hair—the
+preparation which in happier, more prosperous days Bunting had had
+great faith in, and used, or so he always said, with great benefit to
+himself. This gentleman was the centre of an eager circle; half a dozen
+men were talking to him, listening deferentially when he spoke, and
+each of these men, so Mrs. Bunting realised, was a Somebody.
+
+How strange, how amazing, to reflect that from all parts of London,
+from their doubtless important avocations, one unseen, mysterious
+beckoner had brought all these men here together, to this sordid place,
+on this bitterly cold, dreary day. Here they were, all thinking of,
+talking of, evoking one unknown, mysterious personality—that of the
+shadowy and yet terribly real human being who chose to call himself The
+Avenger. And somewhere, not so very far away from them all The Avenger
+was keeping these clever, astute, highly trained minds—aye, and bodies,
+too—at bay.
+
+Even Mrs. Bunting, sitting here unnoticed, realised the irony of her
+presence among them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+It seemed to Mrs. Bunting that she had been sitting there a long
+time—it was really about a quarter of an hour—when her official friend
+came back.
+
+“Better come along now,” he whispered; “it’ll begin soon.”
+
+She followed him out into a passage, up a row of steep stone steps, and
+so into the Coroner’s Court.
+
+The court was big, well-lighted room, in some ways not unlike a chapel,
+the more so that a kind of gallery ran half-way round, a gallery
+evidently set aside for the general public, for it was now crammed to
+its utmost capacity.
+
+Mrs. Bunting glanced timidly towards the serried row of faces. Had it
+not been for her good fortune in meeting the man she was now following,
+it was there that she would have had to try and make her way. And she
+would have failed. Those people had rushed in the moment the doors were
+opened, pushing, fighting their way in a way she could never have
+pushed or fought.
+
+There were just a few women among them, set, determined-looking women,
+belonging to every class, but made one by their love of sensation and
+their power of forcing their way in where they wanted to be. But the
+women were few; the great majority of those standing there were men—men
+who were also representative of every class of Londoner.
+
+The centre of the court was like an arena; it was sunk two or three
+steps below the surrounding gallery. Just now it was comparatively
+clear of people, save for the benches on which sat the men who were to
+compose the jury. Some way from these men, huddled together in a kind
+of big pew, stood seven people—three women and four men.
+
+“D’you see the witnesses?” whispered the inspector, pointing these out
+to her. He supposed her to know one of them with familiar knowledge,
+but, if that were so, she made no sign.
+
+Between the windows, facing the whole room, was a kind of little
+platform, on which stood a desk and an arm-chair. Mrs. Bunting guessed
+rightly that it was there the coroner would sit. And to the left of the
+platform was the witness-stand, also raised considerably above the
+jury.
+
+Amazingly different, and far, far more grim and awe-inspiring than the
+scene of the inquest which had taken place so long ago, on that bright
+April day, in the village inn. There the coroner had sat on the same
+level as the jury, and the witnesses had simply stepped forward one by
+one, and taken their place before him.
+
+Looking round her fearfully, Mrs. Bunting thought she would surely die
+if ever she were exposed to the ordeal of standing in that curious
+box-like stand, and she stared across at the bench where sat the seven
+witnesses with a feeling of sincere pity in her heart.
+
+But even she soon realised that her pity was wasted. Each woman witness
+looked eager, excited, and animated; well pleased to be the centre of
+attention and attraction to the general public. It was plain each was
+enjoying her part of important, if humble, actress in the thrilling
+drama which was now absorbing the attention of all London—it might
+almost be said of the whole world.
+
+Looking at these women, Mrs. Bunting wondered vaguely which was which.
+Was it that rather draggle-tailed-looking young person who had
+certainly, or almost certainly, seen The Avenger within ten seconds of
+the double crime being committed? The woman who, aroused by one of his
+victims’ cry of terror, had rushed to her window and seen the
+murderer’s shadowy form pass swiftly by in the fog?
+
+Yet another woman, so Mrs. Bunting now remembered, had given a most
+circumstantial account of what The Avenger looked like, for he, it was
+supposed, had actually brushed by her as he passed.
+
+Those two women now before her had been interrogated and cross-examined
+again and again, not only by the police, but by representatives of
+every newspaper in London. It was from what they had both
+said—unluckily their accounts materially differed—that that official
+description of The Avenger had been worked up—that which described him
+as being a good-looking, respectable young fellow of twenty-eight,
+carrying a newspaper parcel.
+
+As for the third woman, she was doubtless an acquaintance, a boon
+companion of the dead.
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked away from the witnesses, and focused her gaze on
+another unfamiliar sight. Specially prominent, running indeed through
+the whole length of the shut-in space, that is, from the coroner’s high
+dais right across to the opening in the wooden barrier, was an
+ink-splashed table at which, when she had first taken her place, there
+had been sitting three men busily sketching; but now every seat at the
+table was occupied by tired, intelligent-looking men, each with a
+notebook, or with some loose sheets of paper, before him.
+
+“Them’s the reporters,” whispered her friend. “They don’t like coming
+till the last minute, for they has to be the last to go. At an ordinary
+inquest there are only two—maybe three—attending, but now every paper
+in the kingdom has pretty well applied for a pass to that reporters’
+table.”
+
+He looked consideringly down into the well of the court. “Now let me
+see what I can do for you—”
+
+Then he beckoned to the coroner’s officer: “Perhaps you could put this
+lady just over there, in a corner by herself? Related to a relation of
+the deceased, but doesn’t want to be—” He whispered a word or two, and
+the other nodded sympathetically, and looked at Mrs. Bunting with
+interest. “I’ll put her just here,” he muttered. “There’s no one coming
+there to-day. You see, there are only seven witnesses—sometimes we have
+a lot more than that.”
+
+And he kindly put her on a now empty bench opposite to where the seven
+witnesses stood and sat with their eager, set faces, ready—aye, more
+than ready—to play their part.
+
+For a moment every eye in the court was focused on Mrs. Bunting, but
+soon those who had stared so hungrily, so intently, at her, realised
+that she had nothing to do with the case. She was evidently there as a
+spectator, and, more fortunate than most, she had a “friend at court,”
+and so was able to sit comfortably, instead of having to stand in the
+crowd.
+
+But she was not long left in isolation. Very soon some of the
+important-looking gentlemen she had seen downstairs came into the
+court, and were ushered over to her seat while two or three among them,
+including the famous writer whose face was so familiar that it almost
+seemed to Mrs. Bunting like that of a kindly acquaintance, were
+accommodated at the reporters’ table.
+
+“Gentlemen, the Coroner.”
+
+The jury stood up, shuffling their feet, and then sat down again; over
+the spectators there fell a sudden silence.
+
+And then what immediately followed recalled to Mrs. Bunting, for the
+first time, that informal little country inquest of long ago.
+
+First came the “Oyez! Oyez!” the old Norman-French summons to all whose
+business it is to attend a solemn inquiry into the death—sudden,
+unexplained, terrible—of a fellow-being.
+
+The jury—there were fourteen of them—all stood up again. They raised
+their hands and solemnly chanted together the curious words of their
+oath.
+
+Then came a quick, informal exchange of sentences ’twixt the coroner
+and his officer.
+
+Yes, everything was in order. The jury had viewed the bodies—he quickly
+corrected himself—the body, for, technically speaking, the inquest just
+about to be held only concerned one body.
+
+And then, amid a silence so absolute that the slightest rustle could be
+heard through the court, the coroner—a clever-looking gentleman, though
+not so old as Mrs. Bunting thought he ought to have been to occupy so
+important a position on so important a day—gave a little history, as it
+were, of the terrible and mysterious Avenger crimes.
+
+He spoke very clearly, warming to his work as he went on.
+
+He told them that he had been present at the inquest held on one of The
+Avenger’s former victims. “I only went through professional curiosity,”
+he threw in by way of parenthesis, “little thinking, gentlemen, that
+the inquest on one of these unhappy creatures would ever be held in my
+court.”
+
+On and on, he went, though he had, in truth, but little to say, and
+though that little was known to every one of his listeners.
+
+Mrs. Bunting heard one of the older gentlemen sitting near her whisper
+to another: “Drawing it out all he can; that’s what he’s doing. Having
+the time of his life, evidently!” And then the other whispered back, so
+low that she could only just catch the words, “Aye, aye. But he’s a
+good chap—I knew his father; we were at school together. Takes his job
+very seriously, you know—he does to-day, at any rate.”
+
+She was listening intently, waiting for a word, a sentence, which would
+relieve her hidden terrors, or, on the other hand, confirm them. But
+the word, the sentence, was never uttered.
+
+And yet, at the very end of his long peroration, the coroner did throw
+out a hint which might mean anything—or nothing.
+
+“I am glad to say that we hope to obtain such evidence to-day as will
+in time lead to the apprehension of the miscreant who has committed,
+and is still committing, these terrible crimes.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting stared uneasily up into the coroner’s firm,
+determined-looking face. What did he mean by that? Was there any new
+evidence—evidence of which Joe Chandler, for instance, was ignorant?
+And, as if in answer to the unspoken question, her heart gave a sudden
+leap, for a big, burly man had taken his place in the witness-box—a
+policeman who had not been sitting with the other witnesses.
+
+But soon her uneasy terror became stilled. This witness was simply the
+constable who had found the first body. In quick, business-like tones
+he described exactly what had happened to him on that cold, foggy
+morning ten days ago. He was shown a plan, and he marked it slowly,
+carefully, with a thick finger. That was the exact place—no, he was
+making a mistake—that was the place where the other body had lain. He
+explained apologetically that he had got rather mixed up between the
+two bodies—that of Johanna Cobbett and Sophy Hurtle.
+
+And then the coroner intervened authoritatively: “For the purpose of
+this inquiry,” he said, “we must, I think, for a moment consider the
+two murders together.”
+
+After that, the witness went on far more comfortably; and as he
+proceeded, in a quick monotone, the full and deadly horror of The
+Avenger’s acts came over Mrs. Bunting in a great seething flood of sick
+fear and—and, yes, remorse.
+
+Up to now she had given very little thought—if, indeed, any thought—to
+the drink-sodden victims of The Avenger. It was he who had filled her
+thoughts,—he and those who were trying to track him down. But now? Now
+she felt sick and sorry she had come here to-day. She wondered if she
+would ever be able to get the vision the policeman’s words had conjured
+up out of her mind—out of her memory.
+
+And then there came an eager stir of excitement and of attention
+throughout the whole court, for the policeman had stepped down out of
+the witness-box, and one of the women witnesses was being conducted to
+his place.
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked with interest and sympathy at the woman,
+remembering how she herself had trembled with fear, trembled as that
+poor, bedraggled, common-looking person was trembling now. The woman
+had looked so cheerful, so—so well pleased with herself till a minute
+ago, but now she had become very pale, and she looked round her as a
+hunted animal might have done.
+
+But the coroner was very kind, very soothing and gentle in his manner,
+just as that other coroner had been when dealing with Ellen Green at
+the inquest on that poor drowned girl.
+
+After the witness had repeated in a toneless voice the solemn words of
+the oath, she began to be taken, step by step, though her story. At
+once Mrs. Bunting realised that this was the woman who claimed to have
+seen The Avenger from her bedroom window. Gaining confidence, as she
+went on, the witness described how she had heard a long-drawn, stifled
+screech, and, aroused from deep sleep, had instinctively jumped out of
+bed and rushed to her window.
+
+The coroner looked down at something lying on his desk. “Let me see!
+Here is the plan. Yes—I think I understand that the house in which you
+are lodging exactly faces the alley where the two crimes were
+committed?”
+
+And there arose a quick, futile discussion. The house did not face the
+alley, but the window of the witness’s bedroom faced the alley.
+
+“A distinction without a difference,” said the coroner testily. “And
+now tell us as clearly and quickly as you can what you saw when you
+looked out.”
+
+There fell a dead silence on the crowded court. And then the woman
+broke out, speaking more volubly and firmly than she had yet done. “I
+saw ’im!” she cried. “I shall never forget it—no, not till my dying
+day!” And she looked round defiantly.
+
+Mrs. Bunting suddenly remembered a chat one of the newspaper men had
+had with a person who slept under this woman’s room. That person had
+unkindly said she felt sure that Lizzie Cole had not got up that
+night—that she had made up the whole story. She, the speaker, slept
+lightly, and that night had been tending a sick child. Accordingly, she
+would have heard if there had been either the scream described by
+Lizzie Cole, or the sound of Lizzie Cole jumping out of bed.
+
+“We quite understand that you think you saw the”—the coroner
+hesitated—“the individual who had just perpetrated these terrible
+crimes. But what we want to have from you is a description of him. In
+spite of the foggy atmosphere about which all are agreed, you say you
+saw him distinctly, walking along for some yards below your window.
+Now, please, try and tell us what he was like.”
+
+The woman began twisting and untwisting the corner of a coloured
+handkerchief she held in her hand.
+
+“Let us begin at the beginning,” said the coroner patiently. “What sort
+of a hat was this man wearing when you saw him hurrying from the
+passage?”
+
+“It was just a black ’at” said the witness at last, in a husky, rather
+anxious tone.
+
+“Yes—just a black hat. And a coat—were you able to see what sort of a
+coat he was wearing?”
+
+“’E ’adn’t got no coat” she said decidedly. “No coat at all! I
+remembers that very perticulerly. I thought it queer, as it was so
+cold—everybody as can wears some sort o’ coat this weather!”
+
+A juryman who had been looking at a strip of newspaper, and apparently
+not attending at all to what the witness was saying, here jumped up and
+put out his hand.
+
+“Yes?” the coroner turned to him.
+
+“I just want to say that this ’ere witness—if her name is Lizzie Cole,
+began by saying The Avenger was wearing a coat—a big, heavy coat. I’ve
+got it here, in this bit of paper.”
+
+“I never said so!” cried the woman passionately. “I was made to say all
+those things by the young man what came to me from the _Evening Sun_.
+Just put in what ’e liked in ’is paper, ’e did—not what I said at all!”
+
+At this there was some laughter, quickly suppressed.
+
+“In future,” said the coroner severely, addressing the juryman, who had
+now sat down again, “you must ask any question you wish to ask through
+your foreman, and please wait till I have concluded my examination of
+the witness.”
+
+But this interruption, this—this accusation, had utterly upset the
+witness. She began contradicting herself hopelessly. The man she had
+seen hurrying by in the semi-darkness below was tall—no, he was short.
+He was thin—no, he was a stoutish young man. And as to whether he was
+carrying anything, there was quite an acrimonious discussion.
+
+Most positively, most confidently, the witness declared that she had
+seen a newspaper parcel under his arm; it had bulged out at the back—so
+she declared. But it was proved, very gently and firmly, that she had
+said nothing of the kind to the gentleman from Scotland Yard who had
+taken down her first account—in fact, to him she had declared
+confidently that the man had carried nothing—nothing at all; that she
+had seen his arms swinging up and down.
+
+One fact—if fact it could be called—the coroner did elicit. Lizzie Cole
+suddenly volunteered the statement that as he had passed her window he
+had looked up at her. This was quite a new statement.
+
+“He looked up at you?” repeated the coroner. “You said nothing of that
+in your examination.”
+
+“I said nothink because I was scared—nigh scared to death!”
+
+“If you could really see his countenance, for we know the night was
+dark and foggy, will you please tell me what he was like?”
+
+But the coroner was speaking casually, his hand straying over his desk;
+not a creature in that court now believed the woman’s story.
+
+“Dark!” she answered dramatically. “Dark, almost black! If you can take
+my meaning, with a sort of nigger look.”
+
+And then there was a titter. Even the jury smiled. And sharply the
+coroner bade Lizzie Cole stand down.
+
+Far more credence was given to the evidence of the next witness.
+
+This was an older, quieter-looking woman, decently dressed in black.
+Being the wife of a night watchman whose work lay in a big warehouse
+situated about a hundred yards from the alley or passage where the
+crimes had taken place, she had gone out to take her husband some food
+he always had at one in the morning. And a man had passed her,
+breathing hard and walking very quickly. Her attention had been drawn
+to him because she very seldom met anyone at that hour, and because he
+had such an odd, peculiar look and manner.
+
+Mrs. Bunting, listening attentively, realised that it was very much
+from what this witness had said that the official description of The
+Avenger had been composed—that description which had brought such
+comfort to her, Ellen Bunting’s, soul.
+
+This witness spoke quietly, confidently, and her account of the
+newspaper parcel the man was carrying was perfectly clear and positive.
+
+“It was a neat parcel,” she said, “done up with string.”
+
+She had thought it an odd thing for a respectably dressed young man to
+carry such a parcel—that was what had made her notice it. But when
+pressed, she had to admit that it had been a very foggy night—so foggy
+that she herself had been afraid of losing her way, though every step
+was familiar.
+
+When the third woman went into the box, and with sighs and tears told
+of her acquaintance with one of the deceased, with Johanna Cobbett,
+there was a stir of sympathetic attention. But she had nothing to say
+throwing any light on the investigation, save that she admitted
+reluctantly that “Anny” would have been such a nice, respectable young
+woman if it hadn’t been for the drink.
+
+Her examination was shortened as much as possible; and so was that of
+the next witness, the husband of Johanna Cobbett. He was a very
+respectable-looking man, a foreman in a big business house at Croydon.
+He seemed to feel his position most acutely. He hadn’t seen his wife
+for two years; he hadn’t had news of her for six months. Before she
+took to drink she had been an admirable wife, and—and yes, mother.
+
+Yet another painful few minutes, to anyone who had a heart, or
+imagination to understand, was spent when the father of the murdered
+woman was in the box. He had had later news of his unfortunate daughter
+than her husband had had, but of course he could throw no light at all
+on her murder or murderer.
+
+A barman, who had served both the women with drink just before the
+public-house closed for the night, was handled rather roughly. He had
+stepped with a jaunty air into the box, and came out of it looking cast
+down, uneasy.
+
+And then there took place a very dramatic, because an utterly
+unexpected, incident. It was one of which the evening papers made the
+utmost much to Mrs. Bunting’s indignation. But neither coroner nor
+jury—and they, after all, were the people who mattered—thought a great
+deal of it.
+
+There had come a pause in the proceedings. All seven witnesses had been
+heard, and a gentleman near Mrs. Bunting whispered, “They are now going
+to call Dr. Gaunt. He’s been in every big murder case for the last
+thirty years. He’s sure to have something interesting to say. It was
+really to hear him _I_ came.”
+
+But before Dr. Gaunt had time even to get up from the seat with which
+he had been accommodated close to the coroner, there came a stir among
+the general public, or, rather, among those spectators who stood near
+the low wooden door which separated the official part of the court from
+the gallery.
+
+The coroner’s officer, with an apologetic air, approached the coroner,
+and handed him up an envelope. And again in an instant, there fell
+absolute silence on the court.
+
+Looking rather annoyed, the coroner opened the envelope. He glanced
+down the sheet of notepaper it contained. Then he looked up.
+
+“Mr.—” then he glanced down again. “Mr.—ah—Mr.—is it Cannot?” he said
+doubtfully, “may come forward.”
+
+There ran a titter though the spectators, and the coroner frowned.
+
+A neat, jaunty-looking old gentleman, in a nice fur-lined overcoat,
+with a fresh, red face and white side-whiskers, was conducted from the
+place where he had been standing among the general public, to the
+witness-box.
+
+“This is somewhat out of order, Mr.—er—Cannot,” said the coroner
+severely. “You should have sent me this note before the proceedings
+began. This gentleman,” he said, addressing the jury, “informs me that
+he has something of the utmost importance to reveal in connection with
+our investigation.”
+
+“I have remained silent—I have locked what I knew within my own
+breast”—began Mr. Cannot in a quavering voice, “because I am so afraid
+of the Press! I knew if I said anything, even to the police, that my
+house would be besieged by reporters and newspaper men. . . . I have a
+delicate wife, Mr. Coroner. Such a state of things—the state of things
+I imagine—might cause her death—indeed, I hope she will never read a
+report of these proceedings. Fortunately, she has an excellent trained
+nurse—”
+
+“You will now take the oath,” said the coroner sharply. He already
+regretted having allowed this absurd person to have his say.
+
+Mr. Cannot took the oath with a gravity and decorum which had been
+lacking in most of those who had preceded him.
+
+“I will address myself to the jury,” he began.
+
+“You will do nothing of the sort,” broke in the coroner. “Now, please
+attend to me. You assert in your letter that you know who is the—the—”
+
+“The Avenger,” put in Mr. Cannot promptly.
+
+“The perpetrator of these crimes. You further declare that you met him
+on the very night he committed the murder we are now investigating?”
+
+“I do so declare,” said Mr. Cannot confidently. “Though in the best of
+health myself,”—he beamed round the court, a now amused, attentive
+court—“it is my fate to be surrounded by sick people, to have only
+ailing friends. I have to trouble you with my private affairs, Mr.
+Coroner, in order to explain why I happened to be out at so undue an
+hour as one o’clock in the morning—”
+
+Again a titter ran through the court. Even the jury broke into broad
+smiles.
+
+“Yes,” went on the witness solemnly, “I was with a sick friend—in fact,
+I may say a dying friend, for since then he has passed away. I will not
+reveal my exact dwelling-place; you, sir, have it on my notepaper. It
+is not necessary to reveal it, but you will understand me when I say
+that in order to come home I had to pass through a portion of the
+Regent’s Park; and it was there—to be exact, about the middle of
+Prince’s Terrace—when a very peculiar-looking individual stopped and
+accosted me.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting’s hand shot up to her breast. A feeling of deadly fear
+took possession of her.
+
+“I mustn’t faint,” she said to herself hurriedly. “I mustn’t faint!
+Whatever’s the matter with me?” She took out her bottle of
+smelling-salts, and gave it a good, long sniff.
+
+“He was a grim, gaunt man, was this stranger, Mr. Coroner, with a very
+odd-looking face. I should say an educated man—in common parlance, a
+gentleman. What drew my special attention to him was that he was
+talking aloud to himself—in fact, he seemed to be repeating poetry. I
+give you my word, I had no thought of The Avenger, no thought at all.
+To tell you the truth, I thought this gentleman was a poor escaped
+lunatic, a man who’d got away from his keeper. The Regent’s Park, sir,
+as I need hardly tell you, is a most quiet and soothing neighbourhood—”
+
+And then a member of the general public gave a loud guffaw.
+
+“I appeal to you; sir,” the old gentleman suddenly cried out “to
+protect me from this unseemly levity! I have not come here with any
+other object than that of doing my duty as a citizen!”
+
+“I must ask you to keep to what is strictly relevant,” said the coroner
+stiffly. “Time is going on, and I have another important witness to
+call—a medical witness. Kindly tell me, as shortly as possible, what
+made you suppose that this stranger could possibly be—” with an effort
+he brought out for the first time since the proceedings began, the
+words, “The Avenger?”
+
+“I am coming to that!” said Mr. Cannot hastily. “I am coming to that!
+Bear with me a little longer, Mr. Coroner. It was a foggy night, but
+not as foggy as it became later. And just when we were passing one
+another, I and this man, who was talking aloud to himself—he, instead
+of going on, stopped and turned towards me. That made me feel queer and
+uncomfortable, the more so that there was a very wild, mad look on his
+face. I said to him, as soothingly as possible, ‘A very foggy night,
+sir.’ And he said, ‘Yes—yes, it is a foggy night, a night fit for the
+commission of dark and salutary deeds.’ A very strange phrase, sir,
+that—‘dark and salutary deeds.’” He looked at the coroner expectantly—
+
+“Well? Well, Mr. Cannot? Was that all? Did you see this person go off
+in the direction of—of King’s Cross, for instance?”
+
+“No.” Mr. Cannot reluctantly shook his head. “No, I must honestly say I
+did not. He walked along a certain way by my side, and then he crossed
+the road and was lost in the fog.”
+
+“That will do,” said the coroner. He spoke more kindly. “I thank you,
+Mr. Cannot, for coming here and giving us what you evidently consider
+important information.”
+
+Mr. Cannot bowed, a funny, little, old-fashioned bow, and again some of
+those present tittered rather foolishly.
+
+As he was stepping down from the witness-box, he turned and looked up
+at the coroner, opening his lips as he did so. There was a murmur of
+talking going on, but Mrs. Bunting, at any rate, heard quite distinctly
+what it was that he said:
+
+“One thing I have forgotten, sir, which may be of importance. The man
+carried a bag—a rather light-coloured leather bag, in his left hand. It
+was such a bag, sir, as might well contain a long-handled knife.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked at the reporters’ table. She remembered suddenly
+that she had told Bunting about the disappearance of Mr. Sleuth’s bag.
+And then a feeling of intense thankfulness came over her; not a single
+reporter at the long, ink-stained table had put down that last remark
+of Mr. Cannot. In fact, not one of them had heard it.
+
+Again the last witness put up his hand to command attention. And then
+silence did fall on the court.
+
+“One word more,” he said in a quavering voice. “May I ask to be
+accommodated with a seat for the rest of the proceedings? I see there
+is some room left on the witnesses’ bench.” And, without waiting for
+permission, he nimbly stepped across and sat down.
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. Her friend, the inspector, was
+bending over her.
+
+“Perhaps you’d like to come along now,” he said urgently.—“I don’t
+suppose you want to hear the medical evidence. It’s always painful for
+a female to hear that. And there’ll be an awful rush when the inquest’s
+over. I could get you away quietly now.”
+
+She rose, and, pulling her veil down over her pale face, followed him
+obediently.
+
+Down the stone staircase they went, and through the big, now empty,
+room downstairs.
+
+“I’ll let you out the back way,” he said. “I expect you’re tired,
+ma’am, and will like to get home to a cup o’ tea.”
+
+“I don’t know how to thank you!” There were tears in her eyes. She was
+trembling with excitement and emotion. “You _have_ been good to me.”
+
+“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said a little awkwardly. “I expect you went
+though a pretty bad time, didn’t you?”
+
+“Will they be having that old gentleman again?” she spoke in a whisper,
+and looked up at him with a pleading, agonised look.
+
+“Good Lord, no! Crazy old fool! We’re troubled with a lot of those sort
+of people, you know, ma’am, and they often do have funny names, too.
+You see, that sort is busy all their lives in the City, or what not;
+then they retires when they gets about sixty, and they’re fit to hang
+themselves with dulness. Why, there’s hundreds of lunies of the sort to
+be met in London. You can’t go about at night and not meet ’em. Plenty
+of ’em!”
+
+“Then you don’t think there was anything in what he said?” she
+ventured.
+
+“In what that old gent said? Goodness—no!” he laughed good-naturedly.
+“But I’ll tell you what I _do_ think. If it wasn’t for the time that
+had gone by, I should believe that the second witness _had_ seen that
+crafty devil—” he lowered his voice. “But, there, Dr. Gaunt declares
+most positively—so did two other medical gentlemen—that the poor
+creatures had been dead hours when they was found. Medical gentlemen
+are always very positive about their evidence. They have to
+be—otherwise who’d believe ’em? If we’d time I could tell you of a case
+in which—well, ’twas all because of Dr. Gaunt that the murderer
+escaped. We all knew perfectly well the man we caught did it, but he
+was able to prove an alibi as to the time Dr. Gaunt _said_ the poor
+soul was killed.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+It was not late even now, for the inquest had begun very punctually,
+but Mrs. Bunting felt that no power on earth should force her to go to
+Ealing. She felt quite tired out and as if she could think of nothing.
+
+Pacing along very slowly, as if she were an old, old woman, she began
+listlessly turning her steps towards home. Somehow she felt that it
+would do her more good to stay out in the air than take the train. Also
+she would thus put off the moment—the moment to which she looked
+forward with dread and dislike—when she would have to invent a
+circumstantial story as to what she had said to the doctor, and what
+the doctor had said to her.
+
+Like most men and women of his class, Bunting took a great interest in
+other people’s ailments, the more interest that he was himself so
+remarkably healthy. He would feel quite injured if Ellen didn’t tell
+him everything that had happened; everything, that is, that the doctor
+had told her.
+
+As she walked swiftly along, at every corner, or so it seemed to her,
+and outside every public-house, stood eager boys selling the latest
+edition of the afternoon papers to equally eager buyers. “Avenger
+Inquest?” they shouted exultantly. “All the latest evidence!” At one
+place, where there were a row of contents-bills pinned to the pavement
+by stones, she stopped and looked down. “Opening of the Avenger
+Inquest. What is he really like? Full description.” On yet another ran
+the ironic query: “Avenger Inquest. Do you know him?”
+
+And as that facetious question stared up at her in huge print, Mrs.
+Bunting turned sick—so sick and faint that she did what she had never
+done before in her life—she pushed her way into a public-house, and,
+putting two pennies down on the counter, asked for, and received, a
+glass of cold water.
+
+As she walked along the now gas-lit streets, she found her mind
+dwelling persistently—not on the inquest at which she had been present,
+not even on The Avenger, but on his victims.
+
+Shudderingly, she visualised the two cold bodies lying in the mortuary.
+She seemed also to see that third body, which, though cold, must yet be
+warmer than the other two, for at this time yesterday The Avenger’s
+last victim had been alive, poor soul—alive and, according to a
+companion of hers whom the papers had already interviewed, particularly
+merry and bright.
+
+Hitherto Mrs. Bunting had been spared in any real sense a vision of The
+Avenger’s victims. Now they haunted her, and she wondered wearily if
+this fresh horror was to be added to the terrible fear which
+encompassed her night and day.
+
+As she came within sight of home, her spirit suddenly lightened. The
+narrow, drab-coloured little house, flanked each side by others exactly
+like it in every single particular, save that their front yards were
+not so well kept, looked as if it could, aye, and would, keep any
+secret closely hidden.
+
+For a moment, at any rate, The Avenger’s victims receded from her mind.
+She thought of them no more. All her thoughts were concentrated on
+Bunting—Bunting and Mr. Sleuth. She wondered what had happened during
+her absence—whether the lodger had rung his bell, and, if so, how he
+had got on with Bunting, and Bunting with him?
+
+She walked up the little flagged path wearily, and yet with a pleasant
+feeling of home-coming. And then she saw that Bunting must have been
+watching for her behind the now closely drawn curtains, for before she
+could either knock or ring he had opened the door.
+
+“I was getting quite anxious about you,” he exclaimed. “Come in, Ellen,
+quick! You must be fair perished a day like now—and you out so little
+as you are. Well? I hope you found the doctor all right?” He looked at
+her with affectionate anxiety.
+
+And then there came a sudden, happy thought to Mrs. Bunting. “No,” she
+said slowly, “Doctor Evans wasn’t in. I waited, and waited, and waited,
+but he never came in at all. ’Twas my own fault,” she added quickly.
+Even at such a moment as this she told herself that though she had, in
+a sort of way, a kind of right to lie to her husband, she had no sight
+to slander the doctor who had been so kind to her years ago. “I ought
+to have sent him a card yesterday night,” she said. “Of course, I was a
+fool to go all that way, just on chance of finding a doctor in. It
+stands to reason they’ve got to go out to people at all times of day.”
+
+“I hope they gave you a cup of tea?” he said.
+
+And again she hesitated, debating a point with herself: if the doctor
+had a decent sort of servant, of course, she, Ellen Bunting, would have
+been offered a cup of tea, especially if she explained she’d known him
+a long time.
+
+She compromised. “I was offered some,” she said, in a weak, tired
+voice. “But there, Bunting, I didn’t feel as if I wanted it. I’d be
+very grateful for a cup now—if you’d just make it for me over the
+ring.”
+
+“’Course I will,” he said eagerly. “You just come in and sit down, my
+dear. Don’t trouble to take your things off now—wait till you’ve had
+tea.”
+
+And she obeyed him. “Where’s Daisy?” she asked suddenly. “I thought the
+girl would be back by the time I got home.”
+
+“She ain’t coming home to-day”—there was an odd, sly, smiling look on
+Bunting’s face.
+
+“Did she send a telegram?” asked Mrs. Bunting.
+
+“No. Young Chandler’s just come in and told me. He’s been over there
+and,—would you believe it, Ellen?—he’s managed to make friends with
+Margaret. Wonderful what love will do, ain’t it? He went over there
+just to help Daisy carry her bag back, you know, and then Margaret told
+him that her lady had sent her some money to go to the play, and she
+actually asked Joe to go with them this evening—she and Daisy—to the
+pantomime. Did you ever hear o’ such a thing?”
+
+“Very nice for them, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Bunting absently. But she was
+pleased—pleased to have her mind taken off herself. “Then when is that
+girl coming home?” she asked patiently.
+
+“Well, it appears that Chandler’s got to-morrow morning off too—this
+evening and to-morrow morning. He’ll be on duty all night, but he
+proposes to go over and bring Daisy back in time for early dinner. Will
+that suit you, Ellen?”
+
+“Yes. That’ll be all right,” she said. “I don’t grudge the girl her bit
+of pleasure. One’s only young once. By the way, did the lodger ring
+while I was out?”
+
+Bunting turned round from the gas-ring, which he was watching to see
+the kettle boil. “No,” he said. “Come to think of it, it’s rather a
+funny thing, but the truth is, Ellen, I never gave Mr. Sleuth a
+thought. You see, Chandler came in and was telling me all about
+Margaret, laughing-like, and then something else happened while you was
+out, Ellen.”
+
+“Something else happened?” she said in a startled voice. Getting up
+from her chair she came towards her husband: “What happened? Who came?”
+
+“Just a message for me, asking if I could go to-night to wait at a
+young lady’s birthday party. In Hanover Terrace it is. A waiter—one of
+them nasty Swiss fellows as works for nothing—fell out just at the last
+minute and so they had to send for me.”
+
+His honest face shone with triumph. The man who had taken over his old
+friend’s business in Baker Street had hitherto behaved very badly to
+Bunting, and that though Bunting had been on the books for ever so
+long, and had always given every satisfaction. But this new man had
+never employed him—no, not once.
+
+“I hope you didn’t make yourself too cheap?” said his wife jealously.
+
+“No, that I didn’t! I hum’d and haw’d a lot; and I could see the fellow
+was quite worried—in fact, at the end he offered me half-a-crown more.
+So I graciously consented!”
+
+Husband and wife laughed more merrily than they had done for a long
+time.
+
+“You won’t mind being alone, here? I don’t count the lodger—he’s no
+good—” Bunting looked at her anxiously. He was only prompted to ask the
+question because lately Ellen had been so queer, so unlike herself.
+Otherwise it never would have occurred to him that she could be afraid
+of being alone in the house. She had often been so in the days when he
+got more jobs.
+
+She stared at him, a little suspiciously. “I be afraid?” she echoed.
+“Certainly not. Why should I be? I’ve never been afraid before. What
+d’you exactly mean by that, Bunting?”
+
+“Oh, nothing. I only thought you might feel funny-like, all alone on
+this ground floor. You was so upset yesterday when that young fool
+Chandler came, dressed up, to the door.”
+
+“I shouldn’t have been frightened if he’d just been an ordinary
+stranger,” she said shortly. “He said something silly to me—just in
+keeping with his character-like, and it upset me. Besides, I feel
+better now.”
+
+As she was sipping gratefully her cup of tea, there came a noise
+outside, the shouts of newspaper-sellers.
+
+“I’ll just run out,” said Bunting apologetically, “and see what
+happened at that inquest to-day. Besides, they may have a clue about
+the horrible affair last night. Chandler was full of it—when he wasn’t
+talking about Daisy and Margaret, that is. He’s on to-night, luckily
+not till twelve o’clock; plenty of time to escort the two of ’em back
+after the play. Besides, he said he’ll put them into a cab and blow the
+expense, if the panto’ goes on too long for him to take ’em home.”
+
+“On to-night?” repeated Mrs. Bunting. “Whatever for?”
+
+“Well, you see, The Avenger’s always done ’em in couples, so to speak.
+They’ve got an idea that he’ll have a try again to-night. However, even
+so, Joe’s only on from midnight till five o’clock. Then he’ll go and
+turn in a bit before going off to fetch Daisy, Fine thing to be young,
+ain’t it, Ellen?”
+
+“I can’t believe that he’d go out on such a night as this!”
+
+“What _do_ you mean?” said Bunting, staring at her. Ellen had spoken so
+oddly, as if to herself, and in so fierce and passionate a tone.
+
+“What do I mean?” she repeated—and a great fear clutched at her heart.
+What had she said? She had been thinking aloud.
+
+“Why, by saying he won’t go out. Of course, he has to go out. Besides,
+he’ll have been to the play as it is. ’Twould be a pretty thing if the
+police didn’t go out, just because it was cold!”
+
+“I—I was thinking of The Avenger,” said Mrs. Bunting. She looked at her
+husband fixedly. Somehow she had felt impelled to utter those true
+words.
+
+“He don’t take no heed of heat nor cold,” said Bunting sombrely. “I
+take it the man’s dead to all human feeling—saving, of course,
+revenge.”
+
+“So that’s your idea about him, is it?” She looked across at her
+husband. Somehow this dangerous, this perilous conversation between
+them attracted her strangely. She felt as if she must go on with it.
+“D’you think he was the man that woman said she saw? That young man
+what passed her with a newspaper parcel?”
+
+“Let me see,” he said slowly. “I thought that ’twas from the bedroom
+window a woman saw him?”
+
+“No, no. I mean the _other_ woman, what was taking her husband’s
+breakfast to him in the warehouse. She was far the most
+respectable-looking woman of the two,” said Mrs. Bunting impatiently.
+
+And then, seeing her husband’s look of utter, blank astonishment, she
+felt a thrill of unreasoning terror. She must have gone suddenly mad to
+have said what she did! Hurriedly she got up from her chair. “There,
+now,” she said; “here I am gossiping all about nothing when I ought to
+be seeing about the lodger’s supper. It was someone in the train talked
+to me about that person as thinks she saw The Avenger.”
+
+Without waiting for an answer, she went into her bedroom, lit the gas,
+and shut the door. A moment later she heard Bunting go out to buy the
+paper they had both forgotten during their dangerous discussion.
+
+As she slowly, languidly took off her nice, warm coat and shawl, Mrs.
+Bunting found herself shivering. It was dreadfully cold, quite
+unnaturally cold even for the time of year.
+
+She looked longingly towards the fireplace. It was now concealed by the
+washhand-stand, but how pleasant it would be to drag that stand aside
+and light a bit of fire, especially as Bunting was going to be out
+to-night. He would have to put on his dress clothes, and she didn’t
+like his dressing in the sitting-room. It didn’t suit her ideas that he
+should do so. How if she did light the fire here, in their bedroom? It
+would be nice for her to have bit of fire to cheer her up after he had
+gone.
+
+Mrs. Bunting knew only too well that she would have very little sleep
+the coming night. She looked over, with shuddering distaste, at her
+nice, soft bed. There she would lie, on that couch of little ease,
+listening—listening. . . .
+
+She went down to the kitchen. Everything was ready for Mr. Sleuth’s
+supper, for she had made all her preparations before going out so as
+not to have to hurry back before it suited her to do so.
+
+Leaning the tray for a moment on the top of the banisters, she
+listened. Even in that nice warm drawing-room, and with a good fire,
+how cold the lodger must feel sitting studying at the table! But
+unwonted sounds were coming through the door. Mr. Sleuth was moving
+restlessly about the room, not sitting reading, as was his wont at this
+time of the evening.
+
+She knocked, and then waited a moment.
+
+There came the sound of a sharp click, that of the key turning in the
+lock of the chiffonnier cupboard—or so Mr. Sleuth’s landlady could have
+sworn.
+
+There was a pause—she knocked again.
+
+“Come in,” said Mr. Sleuth loudly, and she opened the door and carried
+in the tray.
+
+“You are a little earlier than usual, are you not Mrs. Bunting?” he
+said, with a touch of irritation in his voice.
+
+“I don’t think so, sir, but I’ve been out. Perhaps I lost count of the
+time. I thought you’d like your breakfast early, as you had dinner
+rather sooner than usual.”
+
+“Breakfast? Did you say breakfast, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure! I meant supper.” He looked at her
+fixedly. It seemed to Mrs. Bunting that there was a terrible
+questioning look in his dark, sunken eyes.
+
+“Aren’t you well?” he said slowly. “You don’t look well, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“No, sir,” she said. “I’m not well. I went over to see a doctor this
+afternoon, to Ealing, sir.”
+
+“I hope he did you good, Mrs. Bunting”—the lodger’s voice had become
+softer, kinder in quality.
+
+“It always does me good to see the doctor,” said Mrs. Bunting
+evasively.
+
+And then a very odd smile lit up Mr. Sleuth’s face. “Doctors are a
+maligned body of men,” he said. “I’m glad to hear you speak well of
+them. They do their best, Mrs. Bunting. Being human they are liable to
+err, but I assure you they do their best.”
+
+“That I’m sure they do, sir”—she spoke heartily, sincerely. Doctors had
+always treated her most kindly, and even generously.
+
+And then, having laid the cloth, and put the lodger’s one hot dish upon
+it, she went towards the door. “Wouldn’t you like me to bring up
+another scuttleful of coals, sir? it’s bitterly cold—getting colder
+every minute. A fearful night to have to go out in—” she looked at him
+deprecatingly.
+
+And then Mr. Sleuth did something which startled her very much. Pushing
+his chair back, he jumped up and drew himself to his full height.
+
+“What d’you mean?” he stammered. “Why did you say that, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+She stared at him, fascinated, affrighted. Again there came an awful
+questioning look over his face.
+
+“I was thinking of Bunting, sir. He’s got a job to-night. He’s going to
+act as waiter at a young lady’s birthday party. I was thinking it’s a
+pity he has to turn out, and in his thin clothes, too”—she brought out
+her words jerkily.
+
+Mr. Sleuth seemed somewhat reassured, and again he sat down. “Ah!” he
+said. “Dear me—I’m sorry to hear that! I hope your husband will not
+catch cold, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+And then she shut the door, and went downstairs.
+
+Without telling Bunting what she meant to do, she dragged the heavy
+washhand-stand away from the chimneypiece, and lighted the fire.
+
+Then in some triumph she called Bunting in.
+
+“Time for you to dress,” she cried out cheerfully, “and I’ve got a
+little bit of fire for you to dress by.”
+
+As he exclaimed at her extravagance, “Well, ’twill be pleasant for me,
+too; keep me company-like while you’re out; and make the room nice and
+warm when you come in. You’ll be fair perished, even walking that short
+way,” she said.
+
+And then, while her husband was dressing, Mrs. Bunting went upstairs
+and cleared away Mr. Sleuth’s supper.
+
+The lodger said no word while she was so engaged—no word at all.
+
+He was sitting away from the table, rather an unusual thing for him to
+do, and staring into the fire, his hands on his knees.
+
+Mr. Sleuth looked lonely, very, very lonely and forlorn. Somehow, a
+great rush of pity, as well as of horror, came over Mrs. Bunting’s
+heart. He was such a—a—she searched for a word in her mind, but could
+only find the word “gentle”—he was such a nice, gentle gentleman, was
+Mr. Sleuth. Lately he had again taken to leaving his money about, as he
+had done the first day or two, and with some concern his landlady had
+seen that the store had diminished a good deal. A very simple
+calculation had made her realise that almost the whole of that missing
+money had come her way, or, at any rate, had passed through her hands.
+
+Mr. Sleuth never stinted himself as to food, or stinted them, his
+landlord and his landlady, as to what he had said he would pay. And
+Mrs. Bunting’s conscience pricked her a little, for he hardly ever used
+that room upstairs—that room for which he had paid extra so generously.
+If Bunting got another job or two through that nasty man in Baker
+Street,—and now that the ice had been broken between them it was very
+probable that he would do so, for he was a very well-trained,
+experienced waiter—then she thought she would tell Mr. Sleuth that she
+no longer wanted him to pay as much as he was now doing.
+
+She looked anxiously, deprecatingly, at his long, bent back.
+
+“Good-night, sir,” she said at last.
+
+Mr. Sleuth turned round. His face looked sad and worn.
+
+“I hope you’ll sleep well, sir.”
+
+“Yes, I’m sure I shall sleep well. But perhaps I shall take a little
+turn first. Such is my way, Mrs. Bunting; after I have been studying
+all day I require a little exercise.”
+
+“Oh, I wouldn’t go out to-night,” she said deprecatingly. “’Tisn’t fit
+for anyone to be out in the bitter cold.”
+
+“And yet—and yet”—he looked at her attentively—“there will probably be
+many people out in the streets to-night.”
+
+“A many more than usual, I fear, sir.”
+
+“Indeed?” said Mr. Sleuth quickly. “Is it not a strange thing, Mrs.
+Bunting, that people who have all day in which to amuse themselves
+should carry their revels far into the night?”
+
+“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of revellers, sir; I was thinking”—she
+hesitated, then, with a gasping effort Mrs. Bunting brought out the
+words, “of the police.”
+
+“The police?” He put up his right hand and stroked his chin two or
+three times with a nervous gesture. “But what is man—what is man’s puny
+power or strength against that of God, or even of those over whose feet
+God has set a guard?”
+
+Mr. Sleuth looked at his landlady with a kind of triumph lighting up
+his face, and Mrs. Bunting felt a shuddering sense of relief. Then she
+had not offended her lodger? She had not made him angry by that,
+that—was it a hint she had meant to convey to him?
+
+“Very true, sir,” she said respectfully. “But Providence means us to
+take care o’ ourselves too.” And then she closed the door behind her
+and went downstairs.
+
+But Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not go on, down to the kitchen. She came
+into her sitting-room, and, careless of what Bunting would think the
+next morning, put the tray with the remains of the lodger’s meal on her
+table. Having done that, and having turned out the gas in the passage
+and the sitting-room, she went into her bedroom and closed the door.
+
+The fire was burning brightly and clearly. She told herself that she
+did not need any other light to undress by.
+
+What was it made the flames of the fire shoot up, shoot down, in that
+queer way? But watching it for awhile, she did at last doze off a bit.
+
+And then—and then Mrs. Bunting woke with a sudden thumping of her
+heart. Woke to see that the fire was almost out—woke to hear a quarter
+to twelve chime out—woke at last to the sound she had been listening
+for before she fell asleep—the sound of Mr. Sleuth, wearing his
+rubber-soled shoes, creeping downstairs, along the passage, and so out,
+very, very quietly by the front door.
+
+But once she was in bed Mrs. Bunting turned restless. She tossed this
+way and that, full of discomfort and unease. Perhaps it was the
+unaccustomed firelight dancing on the walls, making queer shadows all
+round her, which kept her so wide awake.
+
+She lay thinking and listening—listening and thinking. It even occurred
+to her to do the one thing that might have quieted her excited brain—to
+get a book, one of those detective stories of which Bunting had a
+slender store in the next room, and then, lighting the gas, to sit up
+and read.
+
+No, Mrs. Bunting had always been told it was very wrong to read in bed,
+and she was not in a mood just now to begin doing anything that she had
+been told was wrong. . . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+It was a very cold night—so cold, so windy, so snow-laden was the
+atmosphere, that everyone who could do so stayed indoors.
+
+Bunting, however, was now on his way home from what had proved a really
+pleasant job. A remarkable piece of luck had come his way this evening,
+all the more welcome because it was quite unexpected! The young lady at
+whose birthday party he had been present in capacity of waiter had come
+into a fortune that day, and she had had the gracious, the surprising
+thought of presenting each of the hired waiters with a sovereign!
+
+This gift, which had been accompanied by a few kind words, had gone to
+Bunting’s heart. It had confirmed him in his Conservative principles;
+only gentlefolk ever behaved in that way; quiet, old-fashioned,
+respectable, gentlefolk, the sort of people of whom those nasty
+Radicals know nothing and care less!
+
+But the ex-butler was not as happy as he should have been. Slackening
+his footsteps, he began to think with puzzled concern of how queer his
+wife had seemed lately. Ellen had become so nervous, so “jumpy,” that
+he didn’t know what to make of her sometimes. She had never been really
+good-tempered—your capable, self-respecting woman seldom is—but she had
+never been like what she was now. And she didn’t get better as the days
+went on; in fact she got worse. Of late she had been quite hysterical,
+and for no reason at all! Take that little practical joke of young Joe
+Chandler. Ellen knew quite well he often had to go about in some kind
+of disguise, and yet how she had gone on, quite foolish-like—not at all
+as one would have expected her to do.
+
+There was another queer thing about her which disturbed him in more
+senses than one. During the last three weeks or so Ellen had taken to
+talking in her sleep. “No, no, no!” she had cried out, only the night
+before. “It isn’t true—I won’t have it said—it’s a lie!” And there had
+been a wail of horrible fear and revolt in her usually quiet, mincing
+voice.
+
+Whew! it was cold; and he had stupidly forgotten his gloves.
+
+He put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and began walking
+more quickly.
+
+As he tramped steadily along, the ex-butler suddenly caught sight of
+his lodger walking along the opposite side of the solitary street—one
+of those short streets leading off the broad road which encircles
+Regent’s Park.
+
+Well! This was a funny time o’ night to be taking a stroll for
+pleasure, like!
+
+Glancing across, Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth’s tall, thin figure
+was rather bowed, and that his head was bent toward the ground. His
+left arm was thrust into his long Inverness cape, and so was quite
+hidden, but the other side of the cape bulged out, as if the lodger
+were carrying a bag or parcel in the hand which hung down straight.
+
+Mr. Sleuth was walking rather quickly, and as he walked he talked
+aloud, which, as Bunting knew, is not unusual with gentlemen who live
+much alone. It was clear that he had not yet become aware of the
+proximity of his landlord.
+
+Bunting told himself that Ellen was right. Their lodger was certainly a
+most eccentric, peculiar person. Strange, was it not, that that odd,
+luny-like gentleman should have made all the difference to his,
+Bunting’s, and Mrs. Bunting’s happiness and comfort in life?
+
+Again glancing across at Mr. Sleuth, he reminded himself, not for the
+first time, of this perfect lodger’s one fault—his odd dislike to meat,
+and to what Bunting vaguely called to himself, sensible food.
+
+But there, you can’t have everything! The more so that the lodger was
+not one of those crazy vegetarians who won’t eat eggs and cheese. No,
+he was reasonable in this, as in everything else connected with his
+dealings with the Buntings.
+
+As we know, Bunting saw far less of the lodger than did his wife.
+Indeed, he had been upstairs only three or four times since Mr. Sleuth
+had been with them, and when his landlord had had occasion to wait on
+him the lodger had remained silent. Indeed, their gentleman had made it
+very clear that he did not like either the husband or wife to come up
+to his rooms without being definitely asked to do so.
+
+Now, surely, would be a good opportunity for a little genial
+conversation? Bunting felt pleased to see his lodger; it increased his
+general comfortable sense of satisfaction.
+
+So it was that the butler, still an active man for his years, crossed
+over the road, and, stepping briskly forward, began trying to overtake
+Mr. Sleuth. But the more he hurried along, the more the other hastened,
+and that without ever turning round to see whose steps he could hear
+echoing behind him on the now freezing pavement.
+
+Mr. Sleuth’s own footsteps were quite inaudible—an odd circumstance,
+when you came to think of it—as Bunting did think of it later, lying
+awake by Mrs. Bunting’s side in the pitch darkness. What it meant of
+course, was that the lodger had rubber soles on his shoes. Now Bunting
+had never had a pair of rubber-soled shoes sent down to him to clean.
+He had always supposed the lodger had only one pair of outdoor boots.
+
+The two men—the pursued and the pursuer—at last turned into the
+Marylebone Road; they were now within a few hundred yards of home.
+Plucking up courage, Bunting called out, his voice echoing freshly on
+the still air:
+
+“Mr. Sleuth, sir? Mr. Sleuth!”
+
+The lodger stopped and turned round.
+
+He had been walking so quickly, and he was in so poor a physical
+condition, that the sweat was pouring down his face.
+
+“Ah! So it’s you, Mr. Bunting? I heard footsteps behind me, and I
+hurried on. I wish I’d known that it was you; there are so many queer
+characters about at night in London.”
+
+“Not on a night like this, sir. Only honest folk who have business out
+of doors would be out such a night as this. It _is_ cold, sir!”
+
+And then into Bunting’s slow and honest mind there suddenly crept the
+query as to what on earth Mr. Sleuth’s own business out could be on
+this bitter night.
+
+“Cold?” the lodger repeated; he was panting a little, and his words
+came out sharp and quick through his thin lips. “I can’t say that I
+find it cold, Mr. Bunting. When the snow falls, the air always becomes
+milder.”
+
+“Yes, sir; but to-night there’s such a sharp east wind. Why, it freezes
+the very marrow in one’s bones! Still, there’s nothing like walking in
+cold weather to make one warm, as you seem to have found, sir.”
+
+Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth kept his distance in a rather strange
+way; he walked at the edge of the pavement, leaving the rest of it, on
+the wall side, to his landlord.
+
+“I lost my way,” he said abruptly. “I’ve been over Primrose Hill to see
+a friend of mine, a man with whom I studied when I was a lad, and then,
+coming back, I lost my way.”
+
+Now they had come right up to the little gate which opened on the
+shabby, paved court in front of the house—that gate which now was never
+locked.
+
+Mr. Sleuth, pushing suddenly forward, began walking up the flagged
+path, when, with a “By your leave, sir,” the ex-butler, stepping aside,
+slipped in front of his lodger, in order to open the front door for
+him.
+
+As he passed by Mr. Sleuth, the back of Bunting’s bare left hand
+brushed lightly against the long Inverness cape the lodger was wearing,
+and, to Bunting’s surprise, the stretch of cloth against which his hand
+lay for a moment was not only damp, damp maybe from stray flakes of
+snow which had settled upon it, but wet—wet and gluey.
+
+Bunting thrust his left hand into his pocket; it was with the other
+that he placed the key in the lock of the door.
+
+The two men passed into the hall together.
+
+The house seemed blackly dark in comparison with the lighted-up road
+outside, and as he groped forward, closely followed by the lodger,
+there came over Bunting a sudden, reeling sensation of mortal terror,
+an instinctive, assailing knowledge of frightful immediate danger.
+
+A stuffless voice—the voice of his first wife, the long-dead girl to
+whom his mind so seldom reverted nowadays—uttered into his ear the
+words, “Take care!”
+
+And then the lodger spoke. His voice was harsh and grating, though not
+loud.
+
+“I’m afraid, Mr. Bunting, that you must have felt something dirty,
+foul, on my coat? It’s too long a story to tell you now, but I brushed
+up against a dead animal, a creature to whose misery some thoughtful
+soul had put an end, lying across a bench on Primrose Hill.”
+
+“No, sir, no. I didn’t notice nothing. I scarcely touched you, sir.”
+
+It seemed as if a power outside himself compelled Bunting to utter
+these lying words. “And now, sir, I’ll be saying good-night to you,” he
+said.
+
+Stepping back he pressed with all the strength that was in him against
+the wall, and let the other pass him. There was a pause, and
+then—“Good-night,” returned Mr. Sleuth, in a hollow voice. Bunting
+waited until the lodger had gone upstairs, and then, lighting the gas,
+he sat down there, in the hall. Mr. Sleuth’s landlord felt very
+queer—queer and sick.
+
+He did not draw his left hand out of his pocket till he heard Mr.
+Sleuth shut the bedroom door upstairs. Then he held up his left hand
+and looked at it curiously; it was flecked, streaked with pale reddish
+blood.
+
+Taking off his boots, he crept into the room where his wife lay asleep.
+Stealthily he walked across to the wash-hand-stand, and dipped a hand
+into the water-jug.
+
+“Whatever are you doing? What on earth are you doing?” came a voice
+from the bed, and Bunting started guiltily.
+
+“I’m just washing my hands.”
+
+“Indeed, you’re doing nothing of the sort! I never heard of such a
+thing—putting your hand into the water in which I was going to wash my
+face to-morrow morning!”
+
+“I’m very sorry, Ellen,” he said meekly; “I meant to throw it away. You
+don’t suppose I would have let you wash in dirty water, do you?”
+
+She said no more, but, as he began undressing himself, Mrs. Bunting lay
+staring at him in a way that made her husband feel even more
+uncomfortable than he was already.
+
+At last he got into bed. He wanted to break the oppressive silence by
+telling Ellen about the sovereign the young lady had given him, but
+that sovereign now seemed to Bunting of no more account than if it had
+been a farthing he had picked up in the road outside.
+
+Once more his wife spoke, and he gave so great a start that it shook
+the bed.
+
+“I suppose that you don’t know that you’ve left the light burning in
+the hall, wasting our good money?” she observed tartly.
+
+He got up painfully and opened the door into the passage. It was as she
+had said; the gas was flaring away, wasting their good money—or,
+rather, Mr. Sleuth’s good money. Since he had come to be their lodger
+they had not had to touch their rent money.
+
+Bunting turned out the light and groped his way back to the room, and
+so to bed. Without speaking again to each other, both husband and wife
+lay awake till dawn.
+
+The next morning Mr. Sleuth’s landlord awoke with a start; he felt
+curiously heavy about the limbs, and tired about the eyes.
+
+Drawing his watch from under his pillow, he saw that it was seven
+o’clock. Without waking his wife, he got out of bed and pulled the
+blind a little to one side. It was snowing heavily, and, as is the way
+when it snows, even in London, everything was strangely, curiously
+still. After he had dressed he went out into the passage. As he had at
+once dreaded and hoped, their newspaper was already lying on the mat.
+It was probably the sound of its being pushed through the letter-box
+which had waked him from his unrestful sleep.
+
+He picked the paper up and went into the sitting-room then, shutting
+the door behind him carefully, he spread the newspaper wide open on the
+table, and bent over it.
+
+As Bunting at last looked up and straightened himself, an expression of
+intense relief shone upon his stolid face. The item of news he had felt
+certain would be printed in big type on the middle sheet was not there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+Feeling amazingly light-hearted, almost light-headed, Bunting lit the
+gas-ring to make his wife her morning cup of tea.
+
+While he was doing it, he suddenly heard her call out:
+
+“Bunting!” she cried weakly. “Bunting!” Quickly he hurried in response
+to her call. “Yes,” he said. “What is it, my dear? I won’t be a minute
+with your tea.” And he smiled broadly, rather foolishly.
+
+She sat up and looked at him, a dazed expression on her face.
+
+“What are you grinning at?” she asked suspiciously.
+
+“I’ve had a wonderful piece of luck,” he explained. “But you was so
+cross last night that I simply didn’t dare tell you about it.”
+
+“Well, tell me now,” she said in a low voice.
+
+“I had a sovereign given me by the young lady. You see, it was her
+birthday party, Ellen, and she’d come into a nice bit of money, and she
+gave each of us waiters a sovereign.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting made no comment. Instead, she lay back and closed her
+eyes.
+
+“What time d’you expect Daisy?” she asked languidly. “You didn’t say
+what time Joe was going to fetch her, when we was talking about it
+yesterday.”
+
+“Didn’t I? Well, I expect they’ll be in to dinner.”
+
+“I wonder, how long that old aunt of hers expects us to keep her?” said
+Mrs. Bunting thoughtfully. All the cheer died out of Bunting’s round
+face. He became sullen and angry. It would be a pretty thing if he
+couldn’t have his own daughter for a bit—especially now that they were
+doing so well!
+
+“Daisy’ll stay here just as long as she can,” he said shortly. “It’s
+too bad of you, Ellen, to talk like that! She helps you all she can;
+and she brisks us both up ever so much. Besides, ’twould be cruel—cruel
+to take the girl away just now, just as she and that young chap are
+making friends-like. One would suppose that even you would see the
+justice o’ that!”
+
+But Mrs. Bunting made no answer.
+
+Bunting went off, back into the sitting-room. The water was boiling
+now, so he made the tea; and then, as he brought the little tray in,
+his heart softened. Ellen did look really ill—ill and wizened. He
+wondered if she had a pain about which she wasn’t saying anything. She
+had never been one to grouse about herself.
+
+“The lodger and me came in together last night,” he observed genially.
+“He’s certainly a funny kind of gentleman. It wasn’t the sort of night
+one would have chosen to go out for a walk, now was it? And yet he must
+’a been out a long time if what he said was true.”
+
+“I don’t wonder a quiet gentleman like Mr. Sleuth hates the crowded
+streets,” she said slowly. “They gets worse every day—that they do! But
+go along now; I want to get up.”
+
+He went back into their sitting-room, and, having laid the fire and put
+a match to it, he sat down comfortably with his newspaper.
+
+Deep down in his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a
+feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible
+thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his
+head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt
+Mr. Sleuth’s nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to
+think of it, he _had_ mentioned brushing up against a dead animal.
+
+Perhaps Ellen was right after all. It didn’t do for one to be always
+thinking of dreadful subjects, of murders and such-like. It made one go
+dotty—that’s what it did.
+
+And just as he was telling himself that, there came to the door a loud
+knock, the peculiar rat-tat-tat of a telegraph boy. But before he had
+time to get across the room, let alone to the front door, Ellen had
+rushed through the room, clad only in a petticoat and shawl.
+
+“I’ll go,” she cried breathlessly. “I’ll go, Bunting; don’t you
+trouble.”
+
+He stared at her, surprised, and followed her into the hall.
+
+She put out a hand, and hiding herself behind the door, took the
+telegram from the invisible boy. “You needn’t wait,” she said. “If
+there’s an answer we’ll send it out ourselves.” Then she tore the
+envelope open—“Oh!” she said with a gasp of relief. “It’s only from Joe
+Chandler, to say he can’t go over to fetch Daisy this morning. Then
+you’ll have to go.”
+
+She walked back into their sitting-room. “There!” she said. “There it
+is, Bunting. You just read it.”
+
+“Am on duty this morning. Cannot fetch Miss Daisy as
+arranged.—CHANDLER.”
+
+
+“I wonder why he’s on duty?” said Bunting slowly, uncomfortably. “I
+thought Joe’s hours was as regular as clockwork—that nothing could make
+any difference to them. However, there it is. I suppose it’ll do all
+right if I start about eleven o’clock? It may have left off snowing by
+then. I don’t feel like going out again just now. I’m pretty tired this
+morning.”
+
+“You start about twelve,” said his wife quickly.
+
+“That’ll give plenty of time.”
+
+The morning went on quietly, uneventfully. Bunting received a letter
+from Old Aunt saying Daisy must come back next Monday, a little under a
+week from now. Mr. Sleuth slept soundly, or, at any rate, he made no
+sign of being awake; and though Mrs. Bunting often, stopped to listen,
+while she was doing her room, there came no sounds at all from
+overhead.
+
+Scarcely aware that it was so, both Bunting and his wife felt more
+cheerful than they had done for a long time. They had quite a pleasant
+little chat when Mrs. Bunting came and sat down for a bit, before going
+down to prepare Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast.
+
+“Daisy will be surprised to see you—not to say disappointed!” she
+observed, and she could not help laughing a little to herself at the
+thought. And when, at eleven, Bunting got up to go, she made him stay
+on a little longer. “There’s no such great hurry as that,” she said
+good-temperedly. “It’ll do quite well if you’re there by half-past
+twelve. I’ll get dinner ready myself. Daisy needn’t help with that. I
+expect Margaret has worked her pretty hard.”
+
+But at last there came the moment when Bunting had to start, and his
+wife went with him to the front door. It was still snowing, less
+heavily, but still snowing. There were very few people coming and
+going, and only just a few cabs and carts dragging cautiously along
+through the slush.
+
+Mrs. Bunting was still in the kitchen when there came a ring and a
+knock at the door—a now very familiar ring and knock. “Joe thinks
+Daisy’s home again by now!” she said, smiling to herself.
+
+Before the door was well open, she heard Chandler’s voice. “Don’t be
+scared this time, Mrs. Bunting!” But though not exactly scared, she did
+give a gasp of surprise. For there stood Joe, made up to represent a
+public-house loafer; and he looked the part to perfection, with his
+hair combed down raggedly over his forehead, his seedy-looking,
+ill-fitting, dirty clothes, and greenish-black pot hat.
+
+“I haven’t a minute,” he said a little breathlessly. “But I thought I’d
+just run in to know if Miss Daisy was safe home again. You got my
+telegram all right? I couldn’t send no other kind of message.”
+
+“She’s not back yet. Her father hasn’t been gone long after her.” Then,
+struck by a look in his eyes, “Joe, what’s the matter?” she asked
+quickly.
+
+There came a thrill of suspense in her voice, her face grew drawn,
+while what little colour there was in it receded, leaving it very pale.
+
+“Well,” he said. “Well, Mrs. Bunting, I’ve no business to say anything
+about it—but I _will_ tell _you!_”
+
+He walked in and shut the door of the sitting-room carefully behind
+him. “There’s been another of ’em!” he whispered. “But this time no one
+is to know anything about it—not for the present, I mean,” he corrected
+himself hastily. “The Yard thinks we’ve got a clue—and a good clue,
+too, this time.”
+
+“But where—and how?” faltered Mrs. Bunting.
+
+“Well, ’twas just a bit of luck being able to keep it dark for the
+present”—he still spoke in that stifled, hoarse whisper. “The poor soul
+was found dead on a bench on Primrose Hill. And just by chance ’twas
+one of our fellows saw the body first. He was on his way home, over
+Hampstead way. He knew where he’d be able to get an ambulance quick,
+and he made a very clever, secret job of it. I ’spect he’ll get
+promotion for that!”
+
+“What about the clue?” asked Mrs. Bunting, with dry lips. “You said
+there was a clue?”
+
+“Well, I don’t rightly understand about the clue myself. All I knows is
+it’s got something to do with a public-house, ‘The Hammer and Tongs,’
+which isn’t far off there. They feels sure The Avenger was in the bar
+just on closing-time.”
+
+And then Mrs. Bunting sat down. She felt better now. It was natural the
+police should suspect a public-house loafer. “Then that’s why you
+wasn’t able to go and fetch Daisy, I suppose?”
+
+He nodded. “Mum’s the word, Mrs. Bunting! It’ll all be in the last
+editions of the evening newspapers—it can’t be kep’ out. There’d be too
+much of a row if ’twas!”
+
+“Are you going off to that public-house now?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, I am. I’ve got a awk’ard job—to try and worm something out of the
+barmaid.”
+
+“Something out of the barmaid?” repeated Mrs. Bunting nervously. “Why,
+whatever for?”
+
+He came and stood close to her. “They think ’twas a gentleman,” he
+whispered.
+
+“A gentleman?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting stared at Chandler with a scared expression. “Whatever
+makes them think such a silly thing as that?”
+
+“Well, just before closing-time a very peculiar-looking gent, with a
+leather bag in his hand, went into the bar and asked for a glass of
+milk. And what d’you think he did? Paid for it with a sovereign! He
+wouldn’t take no change—just made the girl a present of it! That’s why
+the young woman what served him seems quite unwilling to give him away.
+She won’t tell now what he was like. She doesn’t know what he’s wanted
+for, and we don’t want her to know just yet. That’s one reason why
+nothing’s being said public about it. But there! I really must be going
+now. My time’ll be up at three o’clock. I thought of coming in on the
+way back, and asking you for a cup o’ tea, Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“Do,” she said. “Do, Joe. You’ll be welcome,” but there was no welcome
+in her tired voice.
+
+She let him go alone to the door, and then she went down to her
+kitchen, and began cooking Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast.
+
+The lodger would be sure to ring soon; and then any minute Bunting and
+Daisy might be home, and they’d want something, too. Margaret always
+had breakfast even when “the family” were away, unnaturally early.
+
+As she bustled about Mrs. Bunting tried to empty her mind of all
+thought. But it is very difficult to do that when one is in a state of
+torturing uncertainty. She had not dared to ask Chandler what they
+supposed that man who had gone into the public-house was really like.
+It was fortunate, indeed, that the lodger and that inquisitive young
+chap had never met face to face.
+
+At last Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang—a quiet little tinkle. But when she went
+up with his breakfast the lodger was not in his sitting-room.
+
+Supposing him to be still in his bedroom, Mrs. Bunting put the cloth on
+the table, and then she heard the sound of his footsteps coming down
+the stairs, and her quick ears detected the slight whirring sound which
+showed that the gas-stove was alight. Mr. Sleuth had already lit the
+stove; that meant that he would carry out some elaborate experiment
+this afternoon.
+
+“Still snowing?” he said doubtfully. “How very, very quiet and still
+London is when under snow, Mrs. Bunting. I have never known it quite as
+quiet as this morning. Not a sound, outside or in. A very pleasant
+change from the shouting which sometimes goes on in the Marylebone
+Road.”
+
+“Yes,” she said dully. “It’s awful quiet to-day—too quiet to my
+thinking. ’Tain’t natural-like.”
+
+The outside gate swung to, making a noisy clatter in the still air.
+
+“Is that someone coming in here?” asked Mr. Sleuth, drawing a quick,
+hissing breath. “Perhaps you will oblige me by going to the window and
+telling me who it is, Mrs. Bunting?”
+
+And his landlady obeyed him.
+
+“It’s only Bunting, sir—Bunting and his daughter.”
+
+“Oh! Is that all?”
+
+Mr. Sleuth hurried after her, and she shrank back a little. She had
+never been quite so near to the lodger before, save on that first day
+when she had been showing him her rooms.
+
+Side by side they stood, looking out of the window. And, as if aware
+that someone was standing there, Daisy turned her bright face up
+towards the window and smiled at her stepmother, and at the lodger,
+whose face she could only dimly discern.
+
+“A very sweet-looking young girl,” said Mr. Sleuth thoughtfully. And
+then he quoted a little bit of poetry, and this took Mrs. Bunting very
+much aback.
+
+“Wordsworth,” he murmured dreamily. “A poet too little read nowadays,
+Mrs. Bunting; but one with a beautiful feeling for nature, for youth,
+for innocence.”
+
+“Indeed, sir?” Mrs. Bunting stepped back a little. “Your breakfast will
+be getting cold, sir, if you don’t have it now.”
+
+He went back to the table, obediently, and sat down as a child rebuked
+might have done.
+
+And then his landlady left him.
+
+“Well?” said Bunting cheerily. “Everything went off quite all right.
+And Daisy’s a lucky girl—that she is! Her Aunt Margaret gave her five
+shillings.”
+
+But Daisy did not look as pleased as her father thought she ought to
+do.
+
+“I hope nothing’s happened to Mr. Chandler,” she said a little
+disconsolately. “The very last words he said to me last night was that
+he’d be there at ten o’clock. I got quite fidgety as the time went on
+and he didn’t come.”
+
+“He’s been here,” said Mrs. Bunting slowly.
+
+“Been here?” cried her husband. “Then why on earth didn’t he go and
+fetch Daisy, if he’d time to come here?”
+
+“He was on the way to his job,” his wife answered. “You run along,
+child, downstairs. Now that you are here you can make yourself useful.”
+
+And Daisy reluctantly obeyed. She wondered what it was her stepmother
+didn’t want her to hear.
+
+“I’ve something to tell you, Bunting.”
+
+“Yes?” He looked across uneasily. “Yes, Ellen?”
+
+“There’s been another o’ those murders. But the police don’t want
+anyone to know about it—not yet. That’s why Joe couldn’t go over and
+fetch Daisy. They’re all on duty again.”
+
+Bunting put out his hand and clutched hold of the edge of the
+mantelpiece. He had gone very red, but his wife was far too much
+concerned with her own feelings and sensations to notice it.
+
+There was a long silence between them. Then he spoke, making a great
+effort to appear unconcerned.
+
+“And where did it happen?” he asked. “Close to the other one?”
+
+She hesitated, then: “I don’t know. He didn’t say. But hush!” she added
+quickly. “Here’s Daisy! Don’t let’s talk of that horror in front of
+her-like. Besides, I promised Chandler I’d be mum.”
+
+And he acquiesced.
+
+“You can be laying the cloth, child, while I go up and clear away the
+lodger’s breakfast.” Without waiting for an answer, she hurried
+upstairs.
+
+Mr. Sleuth had left the greater part of the nice lemon sole untouched.
+“I don’t feel well to-day,” he said fretfully. “And, Mrs. Bunting? I
+should be much obliged if your husband would lend me that paper I saw
+in his hand. I do not often care to look at the public prints, but I
+should like to do so now.”
+
+She flew downstairs. “Bunting,” she said a little breathlessly, “the
+lodger would like you just to lend him the Sun.”
+
+Bunting handed it over to her. “I’ve read it through,” he observed.
+“You can tell him that I don’t want it back again.”
+
+On her way up she glanced down at the pink sheet. Occupying a third of
+the space was an irregular drawing, and under it was written, in rather
+large characters:
+
+“We are glad to be able to present our readers with an authentic
+reproduction of the footprint of the half-worn rubber sole which was
+almost certainly worn by The Avenger when he committed his double
+murder ten days ago.”
+
+
+She went into the sitting-room. To her relief it was empty.
+
+“Kindly put the paper down on the table,” came Mr. Sleuth’s muffled
+voice from the upper landing.
+
+She did so. “Yes, sir. And Bunting don’t want the paper back again,
+sir. He says he’s read it.” And then she hurried out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+All afternoon it went on snowing; and the three of them sat there,
+listening and waiting—Bunting and his wife hardly knew for what; Daisy
+for the knock which would herald Joe Chandler.
+
+And about four there came the now familiar sound.
+
+Mrs. Bunting hurried out into the passage, and as she opened the front
+door she whispered, “We haven’t said anything to Daisy yet. Young girls
+can’t keep secrets.”
+
+Chandler nodded comprehendingly. He now looked the low character he had
+assumed to the life, for he was blue with cold, disheartened, and tired
+out.
+
+Daisy gave a little cry of shocked surprise, of amusement, of welcome,
+when she saw how cleverly he was disguised.
+
+“I never!” she exclaimed. “What a difference it do make, to be sure!
+Why, you looks quite horrid, Mr. Chandler.”
+
+And, somehow, that little speech of hers amused her father so much that
+he quite cheered up. Bunting had been very dull and quiet all that
+afternoon.
+
+“It won’t take me ten minutes to make myself respectable again,” said
+the young man rather ruefully.
+
+His host and hostess, looking at him eagerly, furtively, both came to
+the conclusion that he had been unsuccessful—that he had failed, that
+is, in getting any information worth having. And though, in a sense,
+they all had a pleasant tea together, there was an air of constraint,
+even of discomfort, over the little party.
+
+Bunting felt it hard that he couldn’t ask the questions that were
+trembling on his lips; he would have felt it hard any time during the
+last month to refrain from knowing anything Joe could tell him, but now
+it seemed almost intolerable to be in this queer kind of half suspense.
+There was one important fact he longed to know, and at last came his
+opportunity of doing so, for Joe Chandler rose to leave, and this time
+it was Bunting who followed him out into the hall.
+
+“Where did it happen?” he whispered. “Just tell me that, Joe?”
+
+“Primrose Hill,” said the other briefly. “You’ll know all about it in a
+minute or two, for it’ll be all in the last editions of the evening
+papers. That’s what’s been arranged.”
+
+“No arrest I suppose?”
+
+Chandler shook his head despondently. “No,” he said, “I’m inclined to
+think the Yard was on a wrong tack altogether this time. But one can
+only do one’s best. I don’t know if Mrs. Bunting told you I’d got to
+question a barmaid about a man who was in her place just before
+closing-time. Well, she’s said all she knew, and it’s as clear as
+daylight to me that the eccentric old gent she talks about was only a
+harmless luny. He gave her a sovereign just because she told him she
+was a teetotaller!” He laughed ruefully.
+
+Even Bunting was diverted at the notion. “Well, that’s a queer thing
+for a barmaid to be!” he exclaimed. “She’s niece to the people what
+keeps the public,” explained Chandler; and then he went out of the
+front door with a cheerful “So long!”
+
+When Bunting went back into the sitting-room Daisy had disappeared. She
+had gone downstairs with the tray. “Where’s my girl?” he said
+irritably.
+
+“She’s just taken the tray downstairs.”
+
+He went out to the top of the kitchen stairs, and called out sharply,
+“Daisy! Daisy, child! Are you down there?”
+
+“Yes, father,” came her eager, happy voice.
+
+“Better come up out of that cold kitchen.”
+
+He turned and came back to his wife. “Ellen, is the lodger in? I
+haven’t heard him moving about. Now mind what I says, please! I don’t
+want Daisy to be mixed up with him.”
+
+“Mr. Sleuth don’t seem very well to-day,” answered Mrs. Bunting
+quietly. “’Tain’t likely I should let Daisy have anything to do with
+him. Why, she’s never even seen him. ’Tain’t likely I should allow her
+to begin waiting on him now.”
+
+But though she was surprised and a little irritated by the tone in
+which Bunting had spoken, no glimmer of the truth illumined her mind.
+So accustomed had she become to bearing alone the burden of her awful
+secret, that it would have required far more than a cross word or two,
+far more than the fact that Bunting looked ill and tired, for her to
+have come to suspect that her secret was now shared by another, and
+that other her husband.
+
+Again and again the poor soul had agonised and trembled at the thought
+of her house being invaded by the police, but that was only because she
+had always credited the police with supernatural powers of detection.
+That they should come to know the awful fact she kept hidden in her
+breast would have seemed to her, on the whole, a natural thing, but
+that Bunting should even dimly suspect it appeared beyond the range of
+possibility.
+
+And yet even Daisy noticed a change in her father. He sat cowering over
+the fire—saying nothing, doing nothing.
+
+“Why, father, ain’t you well?” the girl asked more than once.
+
+And, looking up, he would answer, “Yes, I’m well enough, my girl, but I
+feels cold. It’s awful cold. I never did feel anything like the cold
+we’ve got just now.”
+
+At eight the now familiar shouts and cries began again outside.
+
+“The Avenger again!” “Another horrible crime!” “Extra speshul
+edition!”—such were the shouts, the exultant yells, hurled through the
+clear, cold air. They fell, like bombs into the quiet room.
+
+Both Bunting and his wife remained silent, but Daisy’s cheeks grew pink
+with excitement, and her eye sparkled.
+
+“Hark, father! Hark, Ellen! D’you hear that?” she exclaimed childishly,
+and even clapped her hands. “I do wish Mr. Chandler had been here. He
+_would_ ’a been startled!”
+
+“Don’t, Daisy!” and Bunting frowned.
+
+Then, getting up, he stretched himself. “It’s fair getting on my mind,”
+he said, “these horrible things happening. I’d like to get right away
+from London, just as far as I could—that I would!”
+
+“Up to John-o’-Groat’s?” said Daisy, laughing. And then, “Why, father,
+ain’t you going out to get a paper?”
+
+“Yes, I suppose I must.”
+
+Slowly he went out of the room, and, lingering a moment in the hall, he
+put on his greatcoat and hat. Then he opened the front door, and walked
+down the flagged path. Opening the iron gate, he stepped out on the
+pavement, then crossed the road to where the newspaper-boys now stood.
+
+The boy nearest to him only had the _Sun_—a late edition of the paper
+he had already read. It annoyed Bunting to give a penny for a ha’penny
+rag of which he already knew the main contents. But there was nothing
+else to do.
+
+Standing under a lamp-post, he opened out the newspaper. It was
+bitingly cold; that, perhaps, was why his hand shook as he looked down
+at the big headlines. For Bunting had been very unfair to the
+enterprise of the editor of his favourite evening paper. This special
+edition was full of new matter—new matter concerning The Avenger.
+
+First, in huge type right across the page, was the brief statement that
+The Avenger had now committed his ninth crime, and that he had chosen
+quite a new locality, namely, the lonely stretch of rising ground known
+to Londoners as Primrose Hill.
+
+“The police,” so Bunting read, “are very reserved as to the
+circumstances which led to the finding of the body of The Avenger’s
+latest victim. But we have reason to believe that they possess several
+really important clues, and that one of them is concerned with the
+half-worn rubber sole of which we are the first to reproduce an outline
+to-day. (See over page.)”
+
+
+And Bunting, turning the sheet round about, saw the irregular outline
+he had already seen in the early edition of the Sun, that purporting to
+be a facsimile of the imprint left by The Avenger’s rubber sole.
+
+He stared down at the rough outline which took up so much of the space
+which should have been devoted to reading matter with a queer, sinking
+feeling of terrified alarm. Again and again criminals had been tracked
+by the marks their boots or shoes had made at or near the scenes of
+their misdoings.
+
+Practically the only job Bunting did in his own house of a menial kind
+was the cleaning of the boots and shoes. He had already visualised
+early this very afternoon the little row with which he dealt each
+morning—first came his wife’s strong, serviceable boots, then his own
+two pairs, a good deal patched and mended, and next to his own Mr.
+Sleuth’s strong, hardly worn, and expensive buttoned boots. Of late a
+dear little coquettish high-heeled pair of outdoor shoes with thin,
+paperlike soles, bought by Daisy for her trip to London, had ended the
+row. The girl had worn these thin shoes persistently, in defiance of
+Ellen’s reproof and advice, and he, Bunting, had only once had to clean
+her more sensible country pair, and that only because the others had
+become wet through the day he and she had accompanied young Chandler to
+Scotland Yard.
+
+Slowly he returned across the road. Somehow the thought of going in
+again, of hearing his wife’s sarcastic comments, of parrying Daisy’s
+eager questions, had become intolerable. So he walked slowly, trying to
+put off the evil moment when he would have to tell them what was in his
+paper.
+
+The lamp under which he had stood reading was not exactly opposite the
+house. It was rather to the right of it. And when, having crossed over
+the roadway, he walked along the pavement towards his own gate, he
+heard odd, shuffling sounds coming from the inner side of the low wall
+which shut off his little courtyard from the pavement.
+
+Now, under ordinary circumstances Bunting would have rushed forward to
+drive out whoever was there. He and his wife had often had trouble,
+before the cold weather began, with vagrants seeking shelter there. But
+to-night he stayed outside, listening intently, sick with suspense and
+fear.
+
+Was it possible that their place was being watched—already? He thought
+it only too likely. Bunting, like Mrs. Bunting, credited the police
+with almost supernatural powers, especially since he had paid that
+visit to Scotland Yard.
+
+But to Bunting’s amazement, and, yes, relief, it was his lodger who
+suddenly loomed up in the dim light.
+
+Mr. Sleuth must have been stooping down, for his tall, lank form had
+been quite concealed till he stepped forward from behind the low wall
+on to the flagged path leading to the front door.
+
+The lodger was carrying a brown paper parcel, and, as he walked along,
+the new boots he was wearing creaked, and the tap-tap of hard
+nail-studded heels rang out on the flat-stones of the narrow path.
+
+Bunting, still standing outside the gate, suddenly knew what it was his
+lodger had been doing on the other side of the low wall. Mr. Sleuth had
+evidently been out to buy himself another pair of new boots, and then
+he had gone inside the gate and had put them on, placing his old
+footgear in the paper in which the new pair had been wrapped.
+
+The ex-butler waited—waited quite a long time, not only until Mr.
+Sleuth had let himself into the house, but till the lodger had had time
+to get well away, upstairs.
+
+Then he also walked up the flagged pathway, and put his latchkey in the
+door. He lingered as long over the job of hanging his hat and coat up
+in the hall as he dared, in fact till his wife called out to him. Then
+he went in, and throwing the paper down on the table, he said sullenly:
+“There it is! You can see it all for yourself—not that there’s very
+much to see,” and groped his way to the fire.
+
+His wife looked at him in sharp alarm. “Whatever have you done to
+yourself?” she exclaimed. “You’re ill—that’s what it is, Bunting. You
+got a chill last night!”
+
+“I told you I’d got a chill,” he muttered. “’Twasn’t last night,
+though; ’twas going out this morning, coming back in the bus. Margaret
+keeps that housekeeper’s room o’ hers like a hothouse—that’s what she
+does. ’Twas going out from there into the biting wind, that’s what did
+for me. It must be awful to stand about in such weather; ’tis a wonder
+to me how that young fellow, Joe Chandler, can stand the life—being out
+in all weathers like he is.”
+
+Bunting spoke at random, his one anxiety being to get away from what
+was in the paper, which now lay, neglected, on the table.
+
+“Those that keep out o’ doors all day never do come to no harm,” said
+his wife testily. “But if you felt so bad, whatever was you out so long
+for, Bunting? I thought you’d gone away somewhere! D’you mean you only
+went to get the paper?”
+
+“I just stopped for a second to look at it under the lamp,” he muttered
+apologetically.
+
+“That was a silly thing to do!”
+
+“Perhaps it was,” he admitted meekly.
+
+Daisy had taken up the paper. “Well, they don’t say much,” she said
+disappointedly. “Hardly anything at all! But perhaps Mr. Chandler ’ll
+be in soon again. If so, he’ll tell us more about it.”
+
+“A young girl like you oughtn’t to want to know anything about
+murders,” said her stepmother severely. “Joe won’t think any the better
+of you for your inquisitiveness about such things. If I was you, Daisy,
+I shouldn’t say nothing about it if he does come in—which I fair tell
+you I hope he won’t. I’ve seen enough of that young chap to-day.”
+
+“He didn’t come in for long—not to-day,” said Daisy, her lip trembling.
+
+“I can tell you one thing that’ll surprise you, my dear”—Mrs. Bunting
+looked significantly at her stepdaughter. She also wanted to get away
+from that dread news—which yet was no news.
+
+“Yes?” said Daisy, rather defiantly. “What is it, Ellen?”
+
+“Maybe you’ll be surprised to hear that Joe did come in this morning.
+He knew all about that affair then, but he particular asked that you
+shouldn’t be told anything about it.”
+
+“Never!” cried Daisy, much mortified.
+
+“Yes,” went on her stepmother ruthlessly. “You just ask your father
+over there if it isn’t true.”
+
+“’Tain’t a healthy thing to speak overmuch about such happenings,” said
+Bunting heavily.
+
+“If I was Joe,” went on Mrs. Bunting, quickly pursuing her advantage,
+“I shouldn’t want to talk about such horrid things when I comes in to
+have a quiet chat with friends. But the minute he comes in that poor
+young chap is set upon—mostly, I admit, by your father,” she looked at
+her husband severely. “But you does your share, too, Daisy! You asks
+him this, you asks him that—he’s fair puzzled sometimes. It don’t do to
+be so inquisitive.”
+
+And perhaps because of this little sermon on Mrs. Bunting’s part when
+young Chandler did come in again that evening, very little was said of
+the new Avenger murder.
+
+Bunting made no reference to it at all, and though Daisy said a word,
+it was but a word. And Joe Chandler thought he had never spent a
+pleasanter evening in his life—for it was he and Daisy who talked all
+the time, their elders remaining for the most part silent.
+
+Daisy told of all that she had done with Aunt Margaret. She described
+the long, dull hours and the queer jobs her aunt set her to do—the
+washing up of all the fine drawing-room china in a big basin lined with
+flannel, and how terrified she (Daisy) had been lest there should come
+even one teeny little chip to any of it. Then she went on to relate
+some of the funny things Aunt Margaret had told her about “the family.”
+
+There came a really comic tale, which hugely interested and delighted
+Chandler. This was of how Aunt Margaret’s lady had been taken in by an
+impostor—an impostor who had come up, just as she was stepping out of
+her carriage, and pretended to have a fit on the doorstep. Aunt
+Margaret’s lady, being a soft one, had insisted on the man coming into
+the hall, where he had been given all kinds of restoratives. When the
+man had at last gone off, it was found that he had “wolfed” young
+master’s best walking-stick, one with a fine tortoise-shell top to it.
+Thus had Aunt Margaret proved to her lady that the man had been
+shamming, and her lady had been very angry—near had a fit herself!
+
+“There’s a lot of that about,” said Chandler, laughing. “Incorrigible
+rogues and vagabonds—that’s what those sort of people are!”
+
+And then he, in his turn, told an elaborate tale of an exceptionally
+clever swindler whom he himself had brought to book. He was very proud
+of that job, it had formed a white stone in his career as a detective.
+And even Mrs. Bunting was quite interested to hear about it.
+
+Chandler was still sitting there when Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang. For
+awhile no one stirred; then Bunting looked questioningly at his wife.
+
+“Did you hear that?” he said. “I think, Ellen, that was the lodger’s
+bell.”
+
+She got up, without alacrity, and went upstairs.
+
+“I rang,” said Mr. Sleuth weakly, “to tell you I don’t require any
+supper to-night, Mrs. Bunting. Only a glass of milk, with a lump of
+sugar in it. That is all I require—nothing more. I feel very very far
+from well”—and he had a hunted, plaintive expression on his face. “And
+then I thought your husband would like his paper back again, Mrs.
+Bunting.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting, looking at him fixedly, with a sad intensity of gaze of
+which she was quite unconscious, answered, “Oh, no, sir! Bunting don’t
+require that paper now. He read it all through.” Something impelled her
+to add, ruthlessly, “He’s got another paper by now, sir. You may have
+heard them come shouting outside. Would you like me to bring you up
+that other paper, sir?”
+
+And Mr. Sleuth shook his head. “No,” he said querulously. “I much
+regret now having asked for the one paper I did read, for it disturbed
+me, Mrs. Bunting. There was nothing of any value in it—there never is
+in any public print. I gave up reading newspapers years ago, and I much
+regret that I broke through my rule to-day.”
+
+As if to indicate to her that he did not wish for any more
+conversation, the lodger then did what he had never done before in his
+landlady’s presence. He went over to the fireplace and deliberately
+turned his back on her.
+
+She went down and brought up the glass of milk and the lump of sugar he
+had asked for.
+
+Now he was in his usual place, sitting at the table, studying the Book.
+
+When Mrs. Bunting went back to the others they were chatting merrily.
+She did not notice that the merriment was confined to the two young
+people.
+
+“Well?” said Daisy pertly. “How about the lodger, Ellen? Is he all
+right?”
+
+“Yes,” she said stiffly. “Of course he is!”
+
+“He must feel pretty dull sitting up there all by himself—awful
+lonely-like, I call it,” said the girl.
+
+But her stepmother remained silent.
+
+“Whatever does he do with himself all day?” persisted Daisy.
+
+“Just now he’s reading the Bible,” Mrs. Bunting answered, shortly and
+dryly.
+
+“Well, I never! That’s a funny thing for a gentleman to do!”
+
+And Joe, alone of her three listeners, laughed—a long hearty peal of
+amusement.
+
+“There’s nothing to laugh at,” said Mrs. Bunting sharply. “I should
+feel ashamed of being caught laughing at anything connected with the
+Bible.”
+
+And poor Joe became suddenly quite serious. This was the first time
+that Mrs. Bunting had ever spoken really nastily to him, and he
+answered very humbly, “I beg pardon. I know I oughtn’t to have laughed
+at anything to do with the Bible, but you see, Miss Daisy said it so
+funny-like, and, by all accounts, your lodger must be a queer card,
+Mrs. Bunting.”
+
+“He’s no queerer than many people I could mention,” she said quickly;
+and with these enigmatic words she got up, and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Each hour of the days that followed held for Bunting its full meed of
+aching fear and suspense.
+
+The unhappy man was ever debating within himself what course he should
+pursue, and, according to his mood and to the state of his mind at any
+particular moment, he would waver between various widely-differing
+lines of action.
+
+He told himself again and again, and with fretful unease, that the most
+awful thing about it all was that _he wasn’t sure_. If only he could
+have been _sure_, he might have made up his mind exactly what it was he
+ought to do.
+
+But when telling himself this he was deceiving himself, and he was
+vaguely conscious of the fact; for, from Bunting’s point of view,
+almost any alternative would have been preferable to that which to
+some, nay, perhaps to most, householders would have seemed the only
+thing to do, namely, to go to the police. But Londoners of Bunting’s
+class have an uneasy fear of the law. To his mind it would be ruin for
+him and for his Ellen to be mixed up publicly in such a terrible
+affair. No one concerned in the business would give them and their
+future a thought, but it would track them to their dying day, and,
+above all, it would make it quite impossible for them ever to get again
+into a good joint situation. It was that for which Bunting, in his
+secret soul, now longed with all his heart.
+
+No, some other way than going to the police must be found—and he racked
+his slow brain to find it.
+
+The worst of it was that every hour that went by made his future course
+more difficult and more delicate, and increased the awful weight on his
+conscience.
+
+If only he really knew! If only he could feel quite sure! And then he
+would tell himself that, after all, he had very little to go upon; only
+suspicion—suspicion, and a secret, horrible certainty that his
+suspicion was justified.
+
+And so at last Bunting began to long for a solution which he knew to be
+indefensible from every point of view; he began to hope, that is, in
+the depths of his heart, that the lodger would again go out one evening
+on his horrible business and be caught—red-handed.
+
+But far from going out on any business, horrible or other, Mr. Sleuth
+now never went out at all. He kept upstairs, and often spent quite a
+considerable part of his day in bed. He still felt, so he assured Mrs.
+Bunting, very far from well. He had never thrown off the chill he had
+caught on that bitter night he and his landlord had met on their
+several ways home.
+
+Joe Chandler, too, had become a terrible complication to Daisy’s
+father. The detective spent every waking hour that he was not on duty
+with the Buntings; and Bunting, who at one time had liked him so well
+and so cordially, now became mortally afraid of him.
+
+But though the young man talked of little else than The Avenger, and
+though on one evening he described at immense length the
+eccentric-looking gent who had given the barmaid a sovereign, picturing
+Mr. Sleuth with such awful accuracy that both Bunting and Mrs. Bunting
+secretly and separately turned sick when they listened to him, he never
+showed the slightest interest in their lodger.
+
+At last there came a morning when Bunting and Chandler held a strange
+conversation about The Avenger. The young fellow had come in earlier
+than usual, and just as he arrived Mrs. Bunting and Daisy were starting
+out to do some shopping. The girl would fain have stopped behind, but
+her stepmother had given her a very peculiar, disagreeable look, daring
+her, so to speak, to be so forward, and Daisy had gone on with a
+flushed, angry look on her pretty face.
+
+And then, as young Chandler stepped through into the sitting-room, it
+suddenly struck Bunting that the young man looked unlike
+himself—indeed, to the ex-butler’s apprehension there was something
+almost threatening in Chandler’s attitude.
+
+“I want a word with you, Mr. Bunting,” he began abruptly, falteringly.
+“And I’m glad to have the chance now that Mrs. Bunting and Miss Daisy
+are out.”
+
+Bunting braced himself to hear the awful words—the accusation of having
+sheltered a murderer, the monster whom all the world was seeking, under
+his roof. And then he remembered a phrase, a horrible legal
+phrase—“Accessory after the fact.” Yes, he had been that, there wasn’t
+any doubt about it!
+
+“Yes?” he said. “What is it, Joe?” and then the unfortunate man sat
+down in his chair. “Yes?” he said again uncertainly; for young Chandler
+had now advanced to the table, he was looking at Bunting fixedly—the
+other thought threateningly. “Well, out with it, Joe! Don’t keep me in
+suspense.”
+
+And then a slight smile broke over the young man’s face. “I don’t think
+what I’ve got to say can take you by surprise, Mr. Bunting.”
+
+And Bunting wagged his head in a way that might mean anything—yes or
+no, as the case might be.
+
+The two men looked at one another for what seemed a very, very long
+time to the elder of them. And then, making a great effort, Joe
+Chandler brought out the words, “Well, I suppose you know what it is I
+want to talk about. I’m sure Mrs. Bunting would, from a look or two
+she’s lately cast on me. It’s your daughter—it’s Miss Daisy.”
+
+And then Bunting gave a kind of cry, ’twixt a sob and a laugh. “My
+girl?” he cried. “Good Lord, Joe! Is that all you wants to talk about?
+Why, you fair frightened me—that you did!”
+
+And, indeed, the relief was so great that the room swam round as he
+stared across it at his daughter’s lover, that lover who was also the
+embodiment of that now awful thing to him, the law. He smiled, rather
+foolishly, at his visitor; and Chandler felt a sharp wave of
+irritation, of impatience sweep over his good-natured soul. Daisy’s
+father was an old stupid—that’s what he was.
+
+And then Bunting grew serious. The room ceased to go round. “As far as
+I’m concerned,” he said, with a good deal of solemnity, even a little
+dignity, “you have my blessing, Joe. You’re a very likely young chap,
+and I had a true respect for your father.”
+
+“Yes,” said Chandler, “that’s very kind of you, Mr. Bunting. But how
+about her—her herself?”
+
+Bunting stared at him. It pleased him to think that Daisy hadn’t given
+herself away, as Ellen was always hinting the girl was doing.
+
+“I can’t answer for Daisy,” he said heavily. “You’ll have to ask her
+yourself—that’s not a job any other man can do for you, my lad.”
+
+“I never gets a chance. I never sees her, not by our two selves,” said
+Chandler, with some heat. “You don’t seem to understand, Mr. Bunting,
+that I never do see Miss Daisy alone,” he repeated. “I hear now that
+she’s going away Monday, and I’ve only once had the chance of a walk
+with her. Mrs. Bunting’s very particular, not to say pernickety in her
+ideas, Mr. Bunting—”
+
+“That’s a fault on the right side, that is—with a young girl,” said
+Bunting thoughtfully.
+
+And Chandler nodded. He quite agreed that as regarded other young chaps
+Mrs. Bunting could not be too particular.
+
+“She’s been brought up like a lady, my Daisy has,” went on Bunting,
+with some pride. “That Old Aunt of hers hardly lets her out of her
+sight.”
+
+“I was coming to the old aunt,” said Chandler heavily. “Mrs. Bunting
+she talks as if your daughter was going to stay with that old woman the
+whole of her natural life—now is that right? That’s what I wants to ask
+you, Mr. Bunting,—is that right?”
+
+“I’ll say a word to Ellen, don’t you fear,” said Bunting abstractedly.
+
+His mind had wandered off, away from Daisy and this nice young chap, to
+his now constant anxious preoccupation. “You come along to-morrow,” he
+said, “and I’ll see you gets your walk with Daisy. It’s only right you
+and she should have a chance of seeing one another without old folk
+being by; else how’s the girl to tell whether she likes you or not! For
+the matter of that, you hardly knows her, Joe—” He looked at the young
+man consideringly.
+
+Chandler shook his head impatiently. “I knows her quite as well as I
+wants to know her,” he said. “I made up my mind the very first time I
+see’d her, Mr. Bunting.”
+
+“No! Did you really?” said Bunting. “Well, come to think of it, I did
+so with her mother; aye, and years after, with Ellen, too. But I hope
+_you’ll_ never want no second, Chandler.”
+
+“God forbid!” said the young man under his breath. And then he asked,
+rather longingly, “D’you think they’ll be out long now, Mr. Bunting?”
+
+And Bunting woke up to a due sense of hospitality. “Sit down, sit down;
+do!” he said hastily. “I don’t believe they’ll be very long. They’ve
+only got a little bit of shopping to do.”
+
+And then, in a changed, in a ringing, nervous tone, he asked, “And how
+about your job, Joe? Nothing new, I take it? I suppose you’re all just
+waiting for _the next time?_”
+
+“Aye—that’s about the figure of it.” Chandler’s voice had also changed;
+it was now sombre, menacing. “We’re fair tired of it—beginning to
+wonder when it’ll end, that we are!”
+
+“Do you ever try and make to yourself a picture of what the master’s
+like?” asked Bunting. Somehow, he felt he must ask that.
+
+“Yes,” said Joe slowly. “I’ve a sort of notion—a savage, fierce-looking
+devil, the chap must be. It’s that description that was circulated put
+us wrong. I don’t believe it was the man that knocked up against that
+woman in the fog—no, not one bit I don’t. But I wavers, I can’t quite
+make up my mind. Sometimes I think it’s a sailor—the foreigner they
+talks about, that goes away for eight or nine days in between, to
+Holland maybe, or to France. Then, again, I says to myself that it’s a
+butcher, a man from the Central Market. Whoever it is, it’s someone
+used to killing, that’s flat.”
+
+“Then it don’t seem to you possible—?” (Bunting got up and walked over
+to the window.) “You don’t take any stock, I suppose, in that idea some
+of the papers put out, that the man is”—then he hesitated and brought
+out, with a gasp—“a gentleman?”
+
+Chandler looked at him, surprised. “No,” he said deliberately. “I’ve
+made up my mind that’s quite a wrong tack, though I knows that some of
+our fellows—big pots, too—are quite sure that the fellow what gave the
+girl the sovereign is the man we’re looking for. You see, Mr. Bunting,
+if that’s the fact—well, it stands to reason the fellow’s an escaped
+lunatic; and if he’s an escaped lunatic he’s got a keeper, and they’d
+be raising a hue and cry after him; now, wouldn’t they?”
+
+“You don’t think,” went on Bunting, lowering his voice, “that he could
+be just staying somewhere, lodging like?”
+
+“D’you mean that The Avenger may be a toff, staying in some West-end
+hotel, Mr. Bunting? Well, things almost as funny as that ’ud be have
+come to pass.” He smiled as if the notion was a funny one.
+
+“Yes, something o’ that sort,” muttered Bunting.
+
+“Well, if your idea’s correct, Mr. Bunting—”
+
+“I never said ’twas my idea,” said Bunting, all in a hurry.
+
+“Well, if that idea’s correct then, ’twill make our task more difficult
+than ever. Why, ’twould be looking for a needle in a field of hay, Mr.
+Bunting! But there! I don’t think it’s anything quite so unlikely as
+that—not myself I don’t.” He hesitated. “There’s some of us”—he lowered
+his voice—“that hopes he’ll betake himself off—The Avenger, I mean—to
+another big city, to Manchester or to Edinburgh. There’d be plenty of
+work for him to do there,” and Chandler chuckled at his own grim joke.
+
+And then, to both men’s secret relief, for Bunting was now mortally
+afraid of this discussion concerning The Avenger and his doings, they
+heard Mrs. Bunting’s key in the lock.
+
+Daisy blushed rosy-red with pleasure when she saw that young Chandler
+was still there. She had feared that when they got home he would be
+gone, the more so that Ellen, just as if she was doing it on purpose,
+had lingered aggravatingly long over each small purchase.
+
+“Here’s Joe come to ask if he can take Daisy out for a walk,” blurted
+out Bunting.
+
+“My mother says as how she’d like you to come to tea, over at
+Richmond,” said Chandler awkwardly, “I just come in to see whether we
+could fix it up, Miss Daisy.” And Daisy looked imploringly at her
+stepmother.
+
+“D’you mean now—this minute?” asked Mrs. Bunting tartly.
+
+“No, o’ course not”—Bunting broke in hastily. “How you do go on,
+Ellen!”
+
+“What day did your mother mention would be convenient to her?” asked
+Mrs. Bunting, looking at the young man satirically.
+
+Chandler hesitated. His mother had not mentioned any special day—in
+fact, his mother had shown a surprising lack of anxiety to see Daisy at
+all. But he had talked her round.
+
+“How about Saturday?” suggested Bunting. “That’s Daisy’s birthday.
+’Twould be a birthday treat for her to go to Richmond, and she’s going
+back to Old Aunt on Monday.”
+
+“I can’t go Saturday,” said Chandler disconsolately. “I’m on duty
+Saturday.”
+
+“Well, then, let it be Sunday,” said Bunting firmly. And his wife
+looked at him surprised; he seldom asserted himself so much in her
+presence.
+
+“What do you say, Miss Daisy?” said Chandler.
+
+“Sunday would be very nice,” said Daisy demurely. And then, as the
+young man took up his hat, and as her stepmother did not stir, Daisy
+ventured to go out into the hall with him for a minute.
+
+Chandler shut the door behind them, and so was spared the hearing of
+Mrs. Bunting’s whispered remark: “When I was a young woman folk didn’t
+gallivant about on Sunday; those who was courting used to go to church
+together, decent-like—”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+Daisy’s eighteenth birthday dawned uneventfully. Her father gave her
+what he had always promised she should have on her eighteenth
+birthday—a watch. It was a pretty little silver watch, which Bunting
+had bought secondhand on the last day he had been happy—it seemed a
+long, long time ago now.
+
+Mrs. Bunting thought a silver watch a very extravagant present but she
+was far too wretched, far too absorbed in her own thoughts, to trouble
+much about it. Besides, in such matters she had generally had the good
+sense not to interfere between her husband and his child.
+
+In the middle of the birthday morning Bunting went out to buy himself
+some more tobacco. He had never smoked so much as in the last four
+days, excepting, perhaps, the week that had followed on his leaving
+service. Smoking a pipe had then held all the exquisite pleasure which
+we are told attaches itself to the eating of forbidden fruit.
+
+His tobacco had now become his only relaxation; it acted on his nerves
+as an opiate, soothing his fears and helping him to think. But he had
+been overdoing it, and it was that which now made him feel so “jumpy,”
+so he assured himself, when he found himself starting at any casual
+sound outside, or even when his wife spoke to him suddenly.
+
+Just now Ellen and Daisy were down in the kitchen, and Bunting didn’t
+quite like the sensation of knowing that there was only one pair of
+stairs between Mr. Sleuth and himself. So he quietly slipped out of the
+house without telling Ellen that he was going out.
+
+In the last four days Bunting had avoided his usual haunts; above all,
+he had avoided even passing the time of day to his acquaintances and
+neighbours. He feared, with a great fear, that they would talk to him
+of a subject which, because it filled his mind to the exclusion of all
+else, might make him betray the knowledge—no, not knowledge, rather
+the—the suspicion—that dwelt within him.
+
+But to-day the unfortunate man had a curious, instinctive longing for
+human companionship—companionship, that is, other than that of his wife
+and of his daughter.
+
+This longing for a change of company finally led him into a small,
+populous thoroughfare hard by the Edgware Road. There were more people
+there than usual just now, for the housewives of the neighbourhood were
+doing their Saturday marketing for Sunday. The ex-butler turned into a
+small old-fashioned shop where he generally bought his tobacco.
+
+Bunting passed the time of day with the tobacconist, and the two fell
+into desultory talk, but to his customer’s relief and surprise the man
+made no allusion to the subject of which all the neighbourhood must
+still be talking.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, while still standing by the counter, and
+before he had paid for the packet of tobacco he held in his hand,
+Bunting, through the open door, saw with horrified surprise that Ellen,
+his wife, was standing, alone, outside a greengrocer’s shop just
+opposite.
+
+Muttering a word of apology, he rushed out of the shop and across the
+road.
+
+“Ellen!” he gasped hoarsely, “you’ve never gone and left my little girl
+alone in the house with the lodger?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting’s face went yellow with fear. “I thought you was indoors,”
+she cried. “You _was_ indoors! Whatever made you come out for, without
+first making sure I’d stay in?”
+
+Bunting made no answer; but, as they stared at each other in
+exasperated silence, each now knew that the other knew.
+
+They turned and scurried down the crowded street. “Don’t run,” he said
+suddenly; “we shall get there just as quickly if we walk fast. People
+are noticing you, Ellen. Don’t run.”
+
+He spoke breathlessly, but it was breathlessness induced by fear and by
+excitement, not by the quick pace at which they were walking.
+
+At last they reached their own gate, and Bunting pushed past in front
+of his wife.
+
+After all, Daisy was his child; Ellen couldn’t know how he was feeling.
+
+He seemed to take the path in one leap, then fumbled for a moment with
+his latchkey.
+
+Opening wide the door, “Daisy!” he called out, in a wailing voice,
+“Daisy, my dear! where are you?”
+
+“Here I am, father. What is it?”
+
+“She’s all right.” Bunting turned a grey face to his wife. “She’s all
+right, Ellen.”
+
+He waited a moment, leaning against the wall of the passage. “It did
+give me a turn,” he said, and then, warningly, “Don’t frighten the
+girl, Ellen.”
+
+Daisy was standing before the fire in their sitting room, admiring
+herself in the glass.
+
+“Oh, father,” she exclaimed, without turning round, “I’ve seen the
+lodger! He’s quite a nice gentleman, though, to be sure, he does look a
+cure. He rang his bell, but I didn’t like to go up; and so he came down
+to ask Ellen for something. We had quite a nice little chat—that we
+had. I told him it was my birthday, and he asked me and Ellen to go to
+Madame Tussaud’s with him this afternoon.” She laughed, a little
+self-consciously. “Of course, I could see he was ’centric, and then at
+first he spoke so funnily. ‘And who be you?’ he says, threatening-like.
+And I says to him, ‘I’m Mr. Bunting’s daughter, sir.’ ‘Then you’re a
+very fortunate girl’—that’s what he says, Ellen—‘to ’ave such a nice
+stepmother as you’ve got. That’s why,’ he says, ‘you look such a good,
+innocent girl.’ And then he quoted a bit of the Prayer Book. ‘Keep
+innocency,’ he says, wagging his head at me. Lor’! It made me feel as
+if I was with Old Aunt again.”
+
+“I won’t have you going out with the lodger—that’s flat.”
+
+Bunting spoke in a muffled, angry tone. He was wiping his forehead with
+one hand, while with the other he mechanically squeezed the little
+packet of tobacco, for which, as he now remembered, he had forgotten to
+pay.
+
+Daisy pouted. “Oh, father, I think you might let me have a treat on my
+birthday! I told him that Saturday wasn’t a very good day—at least, so
+I’d heard—for Madame Tussaud’s. Then he said we could go early, while
+the fine folk are still having their dinners.” She turned to her
+stepmother, then giggled happily. “He particularly said you was to
+come, too. The lodger has a wonderful fancy for you, Ellen; if I was
+father, I’d feel quite jealous!”
+
+Her last words were cut across by a tap-tap on the door.
+
+Bunting and his wife looked at each other apprehensively. Was it
+possible that, in their agitation, they had left the front door open,
+and that _someone_, some merciless myrmidon of the law, had crept in
+behind them?
+
+Both felt a curious thrill of satisfaction when they saw that it was
+only Mr. Sleuth—Mr. Sleuth dressed for going out; the tall hat he had
+worn when he had first come to them was in his hand, but he was wearing
+a coat instead of his Inverness cape.
+
+“I heard you come in”—he addressed Mrs. Bunting in his high, whistling,
+hesitating voice—“and so I’ve come down to ask you if you and Miss
+Bunting will come to Madame Tussaud’s now. I have never seen those
+famous waxworks, though I’ve heard of the place all my life.”
+
+As Bunting forced himself to look fixedly at his lodger, a sudden doubt
+bringing with it a sense of immeasurable relief, came to Mr. Sleuth’s
+landlord.
+
+Surely it was inconceivable that this gentle, mild-mannered gentleman
+could be the monster of cruelty and cunning that Bunting had now for
+the terrible space of four days believed him to be!
+
+He tried to catch his wife’s eye, but Mrs. Bunting was looking away,
+staring into vacancy. She still, of course, wore the bonnet and cloak
+in which she had just been out to do her marketing. Daisy was already
+putting on her hat and coat.
+
+“Well?” said Mr. Sleuth. Then Mrs. Bunting turned, and it seemed to his
+landlady that he was looking at her threateningly. “Well?”
+
+“Yes, sir. We’ll come in a minute,” she said dully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+Madame Tussaud’s had hitherto held pleasant memories for Mrs. Bunting.
+In the days when she and Bunting were courting they often spent there
+part of their afternoon-out.
+
+The butler had an acquaintance, a man named Hopkins, who was one of the
+waxworks staff, and this man had sometimes given him passes for “self
+and lady.” But this was the first time Mrs. Bunting had been inside the
+place since she had come to live almost next door, as it were, to the
+big building.
+
+They walked in silence to the familiar entrance, and then, after the
+ill-assorted trio had gone up the great staircase and into the first
+gallery, Mr. Sleuth suddenly stopped short. The presence of those
+curious, still, waxen figures which suggest so strangely death in life,
+seemed to surprise and affright him.
+
+Daisy took quick advantage of the lodger’s hesitation and unease.
+
+“Oh, Ellen,” she cried, “do let us begin by going into the Chamber of
+Horrors! I’ve never been in there. Old Aunt made father promise he
+wouldn’t take me the only time I’ve ever been here. But now that I’m
+eighteen I can do just as I like; besides, Old Aunt will never know.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth looked down at her, and a smile passed for a moment over his
+worn, gaunt face.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “let us go into the Chamber of Horrors; that’s a good
+idea, Miss Bunting. I’ve always wanted to see the Chamber of Horrors.”
+
+They turned into the great room in which the Napoleonic relics were
+then kept, and which led into the curious, vault-like chamber where
+waxen effigies of dead criminals stand grouped in wooden docks.
+
+Mrs. Bunting was at once disturbed and relieved to see her husband’s
+old acquaintance, Mr. Hopkins, in charge of the turnstile admitting the
+public to the Chamber of Horrors.
+
+“Well, you _are_ a stranger,” the man observed genially. “I do believe
+that this is the very first time I’ve seen you in here, Mrs. Bunting,
+since you was married!”
+
+“Yes,” she said, “that is so. And this is my husband’s daughter, Daisy;
+I expect you’ve heard of her, Mr. Hopkins. And this”—she hesitated a
+moment—“is our lodger, Mr. Sleuth.”
+
+But Mr. Sleuth frowned and shuffled away. Daisy, leaving her
+stepmother’s side, joined him.
+
+Two, as all the world knows, is company, three is none. Mrs. Bunting
+put down three sixpences.
+
+“Wait a minute,” said Hopkins; “you can’t go into the Chamber of
+Horrors just yet. But you won’t have to wait more than four or five
+minutes, Mrs. Bunting. It’s this way, you see; our boss is in there,
+showing a party round.” He lowered his voice. “It’s Sir John Burney—I
+suppose you know who Sir John Burney is?”
+
+“No,” she answered indifferently, “I don’t know that I ever heard of
+him.”
+
+She felt slightly—oh, very sightly—uneasy about Daisy. She would have
+liked her stepdaughter to keep well within sight and sound, but Mr.
+Sleuth was now taking the girl down to the other end of the room.
+
+“Well, I hope you never _will_ know him—not in any personal sense, Mrs.
+Bunting.” The man chuckled. “He’s the Commissioner of Police—the new
+one—that’s what Sir John Burney is. One of the gentlemen he’s showing
+round our place is the Paris Police boss—whose job is on all fours, so
+to speak, with Sir John’s. The Frenchy has brought his daughter with
+him, and there are several other ladies. Ladies always likes horrors,
+Mrs. Bunting; that’s our experience here. ‘Oh, take me to the Chamber
+of Horrors’—that’s what they say the minute they gets into this here
+building!”
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked at him thoughtfully. It occurred to Mr. Hopkins
+that she was very wan and tired; she used to look better in the old
+days, when she was still in service, before Bunting married her.
+
+“Yes,” she said; “that’s just what my stepdaughter said just now. ‘Oh,
+take me to the Chamber of Horrors’—that’s exactly what she did say when
+we got upstairs.”
+
+A group of people, all talking and laughing together; were advancing,
+from within the wooden barrier, toward the turnstile.
+
+Mrs. Bunting stared at them nervously. She wondered which of them was
+the gentleman with whom Mr. Hopkins had hoped she would never be
+brought into personal contact; she thought she could pick him out among
+the others. He was a tall, powerful, handsome gentleman, with a
+military appearance.
+
+Just now he was smiling down into the face of a young lady. “Monsieur
+Barberoux is quite right,” he was saying in a loud, cheerful voice,
+“our English law is too kind to the criminal, especially to the
+murderer. If we conducted our trials in the French fashion, the place
+we have just left would be very much fuller than it is to-day. A man of
+whose guilt we are absolutely assured is oftener than not acquitted,
+and then the public taunt us with ‘another undiscovered crime!’”
+
+“D’you mean, Sir John, that murderers sometimes escape scot-free? Take
+the man who has been committing all these awful murders this last
+month? I suppose there’s no doubt _he’ll_ be hanged—if he’s ever
+caught, that is!”
+
+Her girlish voice rang out, and Mrs. Bunting could hear every word that
+was said.
+
+The whole party gathered round, listening eagerly. “Well, no.” He spoke
+very deliberately. “I doubt if that particular murderer ever will be
+hanged.”
+
+“You mean that you’ll never catch him?” the girl spoke with a touch of
+airy impertinence in her clear voice.
+
+“I think we shall end by catching him—because”—he waited a moment, then
+added in a lower voice—“now don’t give me away to a newspaper fellow,
+Miss Rose—because now I think we do know who the murderer in question
+is—”
+
+Several of those standing near by uttered expressions of surprise and
+incredulity.
+
+“Then why don’t you catch him?” cried the girl indignantly.
+
+“I didn’t say we knew _where_ he was; I only said we knew who he was,
+or, rather, perhaps I ought to say that I personally have a very strong
+suspicion of his identity.”
+
+Sir John’s French colleague looked up quickly. “De Leipsic and
+Liverpool man?” he said interrogatively.
+
+The other nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’ve had the case turned up?”
+
+Then, speaking very quickly, as if he wished to dismiss the subject
+from his own mind, and from that of his auditors, he went on:
+
+“Four murders of the kind were committed eight years ago—two in
+Leipsic, the others, just afterwards, in Liverpool,—and there were
+certain peculiarities connected with the crimes which made it clear
+they were committed by the same hand. The perpetrator was caught,
+fortunately for us, red-handed, just as he was leaving the house of his
+last victim, for in Liverpool the murder was committed in a house. I
+myself saw the unhappy man—I say unhappy, for there is no doubt at all
+that he was mad”—he hesitated, and added in a lower tone—“suffering
+from an acute form of religious mania. I myself saw him, as I say, at
+some length. But now comes the really interesting point. I have just
+been informed that a month ago this criminal lunatic, as we must of
+course regard him, made his escape from the asylum where he was
+confined. He arranged the whole thing with extraordinary cunning and
+intelligence, and we should probably have caught him long ago, were it
+not that he managed, when on his way out of the place, to annex a
+considerable sum of money in gold, with which the wages of the asylum
+staff were about to be paid. It is owing to that fact that his escape
+was, very wrongly, concealed—”
+
+He stopped abruptly, as if sorry he had said so much, and a moment
+later the party were walking in Indian file through the turnstile, Sir
+John Burney leading the way.
+
+Mrs. Bunting looked straight before her. She felt—so she expressed it
+to her husband later—as if she had been turned to stone.
+
+Even had she wished to do so, she had neither the time nor the power to
+warn her lodger of his danger, for Daisy and her companion were now
+coming down the room, bearing straight for the Commissioner of Police.
+In another moment Mrs. Bunting’s lodger and Sir John Burney were face
+to face.
+
+Mr. Sleuth swerved to one side; there came a terrible change over his
+pale, narrow face; it became discomposed, livid with rage and terror.
+
+But, to Mrs. Bunting’s relief—yes, to her inexpressible relief—Sir John
+Burney and his friends swept on. They passed Mr. Sleuth and the girl by
+his side, unaware, or so it seemed to her, that there was anyone else
+in the room but themselves.
+
+“Hurry up, Mrs. Bunting,” said the turnstile-keeper; “you and your
+friends will have the place all to yourselves for a bit.” From an
+official he had become a man, and it was the man in Mr. Hopkins that
+gallantly addressed pretty Daisy Bunting: “It seems strange that a
+young lady like you should want to go in and see all those ’orrible
+frights,” he said jestingly.
+
+“Mrs. Bunting, may I trouble you to come over here for a moment?”
+
+The words were hissed rather than spoken by Mr. Sleuth’s lips.
+
+His landlady took a doubtful step towards him.
+
+“A last word with you, Mrs. Bunting.” The lodger’s face was still
+distorted with fear and passion. “Do not think to escape the
+consequences of your hideous treachery. I trusted you, Mrs. Bunting,
+and you betrayed me! But I am protected by a higher power, for I still
+have much to do.” Then, his voice sinking to a whisper, he hissed out
+“Your end will be bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.
+Your feet shall go down to death, and your steps take hold on hell.”
+
+Even while Mr. Sleuth was muttering these strange, dreadful words, he
+was looking round, glancing this way and that, seeking a way of escape.
+
+At last his eyes became fixed on a small placard placed above a
+curtain. “Emergency Exit” was written there. Mrs. Bunting thought he
+was going to make a dash for the place; but Mr. Sleuth did something
+very different. Leaving his landlady’s side, he walked over to the
+turnstile, he fumbled in his pocket for a moment, and then touched the
+man on the arm. “I feel ill,” he said, speaking very rapidly; “very ill
+indeed! It is the atmosphere of this place. I want you to let me out by
+the quickest way. It would be a pity for me to faint here—especially
+with ladies about.”
+
+His left hand shot out and placed what he had been fumbling for in his
+pocket on the other’s bare palm. “I see there’s an emergency exit over
+there. Would it be possible for me to get out that way?”
+
+“Well, yes, sir; I think so.”
+
+The man hesitated; he felt a slight, a very sight, feeling of
+misgiving. He looked at Daisy, flushed and smiling, happy and
+unconcerned, and then at Mrs. Bunting. She was very pale; but surely
+her lodger’s sudden seizure was enough to make her feel worried.
+Hopkins felt the half-sovereign pleasantly tickling his palm. The Paris
+Prefect of Police had given him only half-a-crown—mean, shabby
+foreigner!
+
+“Yes, sir; I can let you out that way,” he said at last, “and p’raps
+when you’re standing out in the air, on the iron balcony, you’ll feel
+better. But then, you know, sir, you’ll have to come round to the front
+if you wants to come in again, for those emergency doors only open
+outward.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Sleuth hurriedly. “I quite understand! If I feel
+better I’ll come in by the front way, and pay another shilling—that’s
+only fair.”
+
+“You needn’t do that if you’ll just explain what happened here.”
+
+The man went and pulled the curtain aside, and put his shoulder against
+the door. It burst open, and the light, for a moment, blinded Mr.
+Sleuth.
+
+He passed his hand over his eyes. “Thank you,” he muttered, “thank you.
+I shall get all right out there.”
+
+An iron stairway led down into a small stable yard, of which the door
+opened into a side street.
+
+Mr. Sleuth looked round once more; he really did feel very ill—ill and
+dazed. How pleasant it would be to take a flying leap over the balcony
+railing and find rest, eternal rest, below.
+
+But no—he thrust the thought, the temptation, from him. Again a
+convulsive look of rage came over his face. He had remembered his
+landlady. How could the woman whom he had treated so generously have
+betrayed him to his arch-enemy?—to the official, that is, who had
+entered into a conspiracy years ago to have him confined—him, an
+absolutely sane man with a great avenging work to do in the world—in a
+lunatic asylum.
+
+He stepped out into the open air, and the curtain, falling-to behind
+him, blotted out the tall, thin figure from the little group of people
+who had watched him disappear.
+
+Even Daisy felt a little scared. “He did look bad, didn’t he, now?” she
+turned appealingly to Mr. Hopkins.
+
+“Yes, that he did, poor gentleman—your lodger, too?” he looked
+sympathetically at Mrs. Bunting.
+
+She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Yes,” she repeated dully, “my
+lodger.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+In vain Mr. Hopkins invited Mrs. Bunting and her pretty stepdaughter to
+step through into the Chamber of Horrors. “I think we ought to go
+straight home,” said Mr. Sleuth’s landlady decidedly. And Daisy meekly
+assented. Somehow the girl felt confused, a little scared by the
+lodger’s sudden disappearance. Perhaps this unwonted feeling of hers
+was induced by the look of stunned surprise and, yes, pain, on her
+stepmother’s face.
+
+Slowly they made their way out of the building, and when they got home
+it was Daisy who described the strange way Mr. Sleuth had been taken.
+
+“I don’t suppose he’ll be long before he comes home,” said Bunting
+heavily, and he cast an anxious, furtive look at his wife. She looked
+as if stricken in a vital part; he saw from her face that there was
+something wrong—very wrong indeed.
+
+The hours dragged on. All three felt moody and ill at ease. Daisy knew
+there was no chance that young Chandler would come in to-day.
+
+About six o’clock Mrs. Bunting went upstairs. She lit the gas in Mr.
+Sleuth’s sitting-room and looked about her with a fearful glance.
+Somehow everything seemed to speak to her of the lodger, there lay her
+Bible and his Concordance, side by side on the table, exactly as he had
+left them, when he had come downstairs and suggested that ill-starred
+expedition to his landlord’s daughter. She took a few steps forward,
+listening the while anxiously for the familiar sound of the click in
+the door which would tell her that the lodger had come back, and then
+she went over to the window and looked out.
+
+What a cold night for a man to be wandering about, homeless,
+friendless, and, as she suspected with a pang, with but very little
+money on him!
+
+Turning abruptly, she went into the lodger’s bedroom and opened the
+drawer of the looking-glass.
+
+Yes, there lay the much-diminished heap of sovereigns. If only he had
+taken his money out with him! She wondered painfully whether he had
+enough on his person to secure a good night’s lodging, and then
+suddenly she remembered that which brought relief to her mind. The
+lodger had given something to that Hopkins fellow—either a sovereign or
+half a sovereign, she wasn’t sure which.
+
+The memory of Mr. Sleuth’s cruel words to her, of his threat, did not
+disturb her overmuch. It had been a mistake—all a mistake. Far from
+betraying Mr. Sleuth, she had sheltered him—kept his awful secret as
+she could not have kept it had she known, or even dimly suspected, the
+horrible fact with which Sir John Burney’s words had made her
+acquainted; namely, that Mr. Sleuth was victim of no temporary
+aberration, but that he was, and had been for years, a madman, a
+homicidal maniac.
+
+In her ears there still rang the Frenchman’s half careless yet
+confident question, “De Leipsic and Liverpool man?”
+
+Following a sudden impulse, she went back into the sitting-room, and
+taking a black-headed pin out of her bodice stuck it amid the leaves of
+the Bible. Then she opened the Book, and looked at the page the pin had
+marked:—
+
+“My tabernacle is spoiled and all my cords are broken . . . There is
+none to stretch forth my tent any more and to set up my curtains.”
+
+At last leaving the Bible open, Mrs. Bunting went downstairs, and as
+she opened the door of her sitting-room Daisy came towards her
+stepmother.
+
+“I’ll go down and start getting the lodger’s supper ready for you,”
+said the girl good-naturedly. “He’s certain to come in when he gets
+hungry. But he did look upset, didn’t he, Ellen? Right down bad—that he
+did!”
+
+Mrs. Bunting made no answer; she simply stepped aside to allow Daisy to
+go down.
+
+“Mr. Sleuth won’t never come back no more,” she said sombrely, and then
+she felt both glad and angry at the extraordinary change which came
+over her husband’s face. Yet, perversely, that look of relief, of
+right-down joy, chiefly angered her, and tempted her to add, “That’s to
+say, I don’t suppose he will.”
+
+And Bunting’s face altered again; the old, anxious, depressed look, the
+look it had worn the last few days, returned.
+
+“What makes you think he mayn’t come back?” he muttered.
+
+“Too long to tell you now,” she said. “Wait till the child’s gone to
+bed.”
+
+And Bunting had to restrain his curiosity.
+
+And then, when at last Daisy had gone off to the back room where she
+now slept with her stepmother, Mrs. Bunting beckoned to her husband to
+follow her upstairs.
+
+Before doing so he went down the passage and put the chain on the door.
+And about this they had a few sharp whispered words.
+
+“You’re never going to shut him out?” she expostulated angrily, beneath
+her breath.
+
+“I’m not going to leave Daisy down here with that man perhaps walking
+in any minute.”
+
+“Mr. Sleuth won’t hurt Daisy, bless you! Much more likely to hurt me,”
+and she gave a half sob.
+
+Bunting stared at her. “What do you mean?” he said roughly. “Come
+upstairs and tell me what you mean.”
+
+And then, in what had been the lodger’s sitting-room, Mrs. Bunting told
+her husband exactly what it was that had happened.
+
+He listened in heavy silence.
+
+“So you see,” she said at last, “you see, Bunting, that ’twas me that
+was right after all. The lodger was never responsible for his actions.
+I never thought he was, for my part.”
+
+And Bunting stared at her ruminatingly. “Depends on what you call
+responsible—” he began argumentatively.
+
+But she would have none of that. “I heard the gentleman say myself that
+he was a lunatic,” she said fiercely. And then, dropping her voice, “A
+religious maniac—that’s what he called him.”
+
+“Well, he never seemed so to me,” said Bunting stoutly. “He simply
+seemed to me ’centric—that’s all he did. Not a bit madder than many I
+could tell you of.” He was walking round the room restlessly, but he
+stopped short at last. “And what d’you think we ought to do now?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting shook her head impatiently. “I don’t think we ought to do
+nothing,” she said. “Why should we?”
+
+And then again he began walking round the room in an aimless fashion
+that irritated her.
+
+“If only I could put out a bit of supper for him somewhere where he
+would get it! And his money, too? I hate to feel it’s in there.”
+
+“Don’t you make any mistake—he’ll come back for that,” said Bunting,
+with decision.
+
+But Mrs. Bunting shook her head. She knew better. “Now,” she said, “you
+go off up to bed. It’s no use us sitting up any longer.”
+
+And Bunting acquiesced.
+
+She ran down and got him a bedroom candle—there was no gas in the
+little back bedroom upstairs. And then she watched him go slowly up.
+
+Suddenly he turned and came down again. “Ellen,” he said, in an urgent
+whisper, “if I was you I’d take the chain off the door, and I’d lock
+myself in—that’s what I’m going to do. Then he can sneak in and take
+his dirty money away.”
+
+Mrs. Bunting neither nodded nor shook her head. Slowly she went
+downstairs, and there she carried out half of Bunting’s advice. She
+took, that is, the chain off the front door. But she did not go to bed,
+neither did she lock herself in. She sat up all night, waiting. At
+half-past seven she made herself a cup of tea, and then she went into
+her bedroom.
+
+Daisy opened her eyes.
+
+“Why, Ellen,” she said, “I suppose I was that tired, and slept so
+sound, that I never heard you come to bed or get up—funny, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Young people don’t sleep as light as do old folks,” Mrs. Bunting said
+sententiously.
+
+“Did the lodger come in after all? I suppose he’s upstairs now?”
+
+Mrs. Bunting shook her head. “It looks as if ’twould be a fine day for
+you down at Richmond,” she observed in a kindly tone.
+
+And Daisy smiled, a very happy, confident little smile.
+
+That evening Mrs. Bunting forced herself to tell young Chandler that
+their lodger had, so to speak, disappeared. She and Bunting had thought
+carefully over what they would say, and so well did they carry out
+their programme, or, what is more likely, so full was young Chandler of
+the long happy day he and Daisy had spent together, that he took their
+news very calmly.
+
+“Gone away, has he?” he observed casually. “Well, I hope he paid up all
+right?”
+
+“Oh, yes, yes,” said Mrs. Bunting hastily. “No trouble of that sort.”
+
+And Bunting said shamefacedly, “Aye, aye, the lodger was quite an
+honest gentleman, Joe. But I feel worried, about him. He was such a
+poor, gentle chap—not the sort o’ man one likes to think of as
+wandering about by himself.”
+
+“You always said he was ’centric,” said Joe thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes, he was that,” said Bunting slowly. “Regular right-down queer.
+Leetle touched, you know, under the thatch,” and, as he tapped his head
+significantly, both young people burst out laughing.
+
+“Would you like a description of him circulated?” asked Joe
+good-naturedly.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looked at one another.
+
+“No, I don’t think so. Not yet awhile at any rate. ’Twould upset him
+awfully, you see.”
+
+And Joe acquiesced. “You’d be surprised at the number o’ people who
+disappears and are never heard of again,” he said cheerfully. And then
+he got up, very reluctantly.
+
+Daisy, making no bones about it this time, followed him out into the
+passage, and shut the sitting-room door behind her.
+
+When she came back she walked over to where her father was sitting in
+his easy chair, and standing behind him she put her arms round his
+neck.
+
+Then she bent down her head. “Father,” she said, “I’ve a bit of news
+for you!”
+
+“Yes, my dear?”
+
+“Father, I’m engaged! Aren’t you surprised?”
+
+“Well, what do _you_ think?” said Bunting fondly. Then he turned round
+and, catching hold of her head, gave her a good, hearty kiss.
+
+“What’ll Old Aunt say, I wonder?” he whispered.
+
+“Don’t you worry about Old Aunt,” exclaimed his wife suddenly. “I’ll
+manage Old Aunt! I’ll go down and see her. She and I have always got on
+pretty comfortable together, as you knows well, Daisy.”
+
+“Yes,” said Daisy a little wonderingly. “I know you have, Ellen.”
+
+Mr. Sleuth never came back, and at last after many days and many nights
+had gone by, Mrs. Bunting left off listening for the click of the lock
+which she at once hoped and feared would herald her lodger’s return.
+
+As suddenly and as mysteriously as they had begun the “Avenger” murders
+stopped, but there came a morning in the early spring when a gardener,
+working in the Regent’s Park, found a newspaper in which was wrapped,
+together with a half-worn pair of rubber-soled shoes, a long,
+peculiarly shaped knife. The fact, though of considerable interest to
+the police, was not chronicled in any newspaper, but about the same
+time a picturesque little paragraph went the round of the press
+concerning a small boxful of sovereigns which had been anonymously
+forwarded to the Governors of the Foundling Hospital.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Bunting had been as good as her word about “Old Aunt,”
+and that lady had received the wonderful news concerning Daisy in a
+more philosophical spirit than her great-niece had expected her to do.
+She only observed that it was odd to reflect that if gentlefolks leave
+a house in charge of the police a burglary is pretty sure to follow—a
+remark which Daisy resented much more than did her Joe.
+
+Mr. Bunting and his Ellen are now in the service of an old lady, by
+whom they are feared as well as respected, and whom they make very
+comfortable.
+
+
+
+
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