The Lodger
by
Marie Belloc Lowndes
Part 1 out of 5
The Lodger
by Marie Belloc Lowndes
"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 un-fortunate 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 said. 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 eats 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 beard 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 bad 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 thee 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 lave 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 bad 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 Buntlng 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 phase 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 wile 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," Buntlng 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 dear 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 dosed 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 bad 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 hells 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 wile 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,
"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.
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