The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (page 3)

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 dock, 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-checked, 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, singularity 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 be 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 bad 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