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Title: The Lodger

Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes

Release Date: December, 1999 [eBook #2014]
[Most recently updated: April 22, 2021]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LODGER ***




The Lodger

by Marie Belloc Lowndes


Contents

 CHAPTER I.
 CHAPTER II.
 CHAPTER III.
 CHAPTER IV.
 CHAPTER V.
 CHAPTER VI.
 CHAPTER VII.
 CHAPTER VIII.
 CHAPTER IX.
 CHAPTER X.
 CHAPTER XI.
 CHAPTER XII.
 CHAPTER XIII.
 CHAPTER XIV.
 CHAPTER XV.
 CHAPTER XVI.
 CHAPTER XVII.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
 CHAPTER XIX.
 CHAPTER XX.
 CHAPTER XXI.
 CHAPTER XXII.
 CHAPTER XXIII.
 CHAPTER XXIV.
 CHAPTER XXV.
 CHAPTER XXVI.
 CHAPTER XXVII.




“Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into
darkness.”
PSALM lxxxviii. 18




CHAPTER I.


Robert Bunting and Ellen his wife sat before their dully burning,
carefully-banked-up fire.

The room, especially when it be known that it was part of a house
standing in a grimy, if not exactly sordid, London thoroughfare, was
exceptionally clean and well-cared-for. A casual stranger, more
particularly one of a Superior class to their own, on suddenly opening
the door of that sitting-room; would have thought that Mr. and Mrs.
Bunting presented a very pleasant cosy picture of comfortable married
life. Bunting, who was leaning back in a deep leather arm-chair, was
clean-shaven and dapper, still in appearance what he had been for many
years of his life—a self-respecting man-servant.

On his wife, now sitting up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair,
the marks of past servitude were less apparent; but they were there all
the same—in her neat black stuff dress, and in her scrupulously clean,
plain collar and cuffs. Mrs. Bunting, as a single woman, had been what
is known as a useful maid.

But peculiarly true of average English life is the time-worn English
proverb as to appearances being deceitful. Mr. and Mrs. Bunting were
sitting in a very nice room and in their time—how long ago it now
seemed!—both husband and wife had been proud of their carefully chosen
belongings. Everything in the room was strong and substantial, and each
article of furniture had been bought at a well-conducted auction held
in a private house.

Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden,
drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and
yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A
great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which
covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat
forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had
been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be
comfortable after the day’s work was done, and she had paid
thirty-seven shillings for the chair. Only yesterday Bunting had tried
to find a purchaser for it, but the man who had come to look at it,
guessing their cruel necessities, had only offered them twelve
shillings and sixpence for it; so for the present they were keeping
their arm-chair.

But man and woman want something more than mere material comfort, much
as that is valued by the Buntings of this world. So, on the walls of
the sitting-room, hung neatly framed if now rather faded
photographs—photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s various former
employers, and of the pretty country houses in which they had
separately lived during the long years they had spent in a not unhappy
servitude.

But appearances were not only deceitful, they were more than usually
deceitful with regard to these unfortunate people. In spite of their
good furniture—that substantial outward sign of respectability which is
the last thing which wise folk who fall into trouble try to dispose
of—they were almost at the end of their tether. Already they had learnt
to go hungry, and they were beginning to learn to go cold. Tobacco, the
last thing the sober man foregoes among his comforts, had been given up
some time ago by Bunting. And even Mrs. Bunting—prim, prudent, careful
woman as she was in her way—had realised what this must mean to him. So
well, indeed, had she understood that some days back she had crept out
and bought him a packet of Virginia.

Bunting had been touched—touched as he had not been for years by any
woman’s thought and love for him. Painful tears had forced themselves
into his eyes, and husband and wife had both felt in their odd,
unemotional way, moved to the heart.

Fortunately he never guessed—how could he have guessed, with his slow,
normal, rather dull mind?—that his poor Ellen had since more than once
bitterly regretted that fourpence-ha’penny, for they were now very near
the soundless depths which divide those who dwell on the safe tableland
of security—those, that is, who are sure of making a respectable, if
not a happy, living—and the submerged multitude who, through some lack
in themselves, or owing to the conditions under which our strange
civilisation has become organised, struggle rudderless till they die in
workhouse, hospital, or prison.

Had the Buntings been in a class lower than their own, had they
belonged to the great company of human beings technically known to so
many of us as the poor, there would have been friendly neighbours ready
to help them, and the same would have been the case had they belonged
to the class of smug, well-meaning, if unimaginative, folk whom they
had spent so much of their lives in serving.

There was only one person in the world who might possibly be brought to
help them. That was an aunt of Bunting’s first wife. With this woman,
the widow of a man who had been well-to-do, lived Daisy, Bunting’s only
child by his first wife, and during the last long two days he had been
trying to make up his mind to write to the old lady, and that though he
suspected that she would almost certainly retort with a cruel, sharp
rebuff.

As to their few acquaintances, former fellow-servants, and so on, they
had gradually fallen out of touch with them. There was but one friend
who often came to see them in their deep trouble. This was a young
fellow named Chandler, under whose grandfather Bunting had been footman
years and years ago. Joe Chandler had never gone into service; he was
attached to the police; in fact not to put too fine a point upon it,
young Chandler was a detective.

When they had first taken the house which had brought them, so they
both thought, such bad luck, Bunting had encouraged the young chap to
come often, for his tales were well worth listening to—quite exciting
at times. But now poor Bunting didn’t want to hear that sort of
stories—stories of people being cleverly “nabbed,” or stupidly allowed
to escape the fate they always, from Chandler’s point of view, richly
deserved.

But Joe still came very faithfully once or twice a week, so timing his
calls that neither host nor hostess need press food upon him—nay, more,
he had done that which showed him to have a good and feeling heart. He
had offered his father’s old acquaintance a loan, and Bunting, at last,
had taken 30s. Very little of that money now remained: Bunting still
could jingle a few coppers in his pocket; and Mrs. Bunting had 2s. 9d.;
that and the rent they would have to pay in five weeks, was all they
had left. Everything of the light, portable sort that would fetch money
had been sold. Mrs. Bunting had a fierce horror of the pawnshop. She
had never put her feet in such a place, and she declared she never
would—she would rather starve first.

But she had said nothing when there had occurred the gradual
disappearance of various little possessions she knew that Bunting
valued, notably of the old-fashioned gold watch-chain which had been
given to him after the death of his first master, a master he had
nursed faithfully and kindly through a long and terrible illness. There
had also vanished a twisted gold tie-pin, and a large mourning ring,
both gifts of former employers.

When people are living near that deep pit which divides the secure from
the insecure—when they see themselves creeping closer and closer to its
dread edge—they are apt, however loquacious by nature, to fall into
long silences. Bunting had always been a talker, but now he talked no
more. Neither did Mrs. Bunting, but then she had always been a silent
woman, and that was perhaps one reason why Bunting had felt drawn to
her from the very first moment he had seen her.

It had fallen out in this way. A lady had just engaged him as butler,
and he had been shown, by the man whose place he was to take, into the
dining-room. There, to use his own expression, he had discovered Ellen
Green, carefully pouring out the glass of port wine which her then
mistress always drank at 11.30 every morning. And as he, the new
butler, had seen her engaged in this task, as he had watched her
carefully stopper the decanter and put it back into the old
wine-cooler, he had said to himself, “That is the woman for me!”

But now her stillness, her—her dumbness, had got on the unfortunate
man’s nerves. He no longer felt like going into the various little
shops, close by, patronised by him in more prosperous days, and Mrs.
Bunting also went afield to make the slender purchases which still had
to be made every day or two, if they were to be saved from actually
starving to death.

Suddenly, across the stillness of the dark November evening there came
the muffled sounds of hurrying feet and of loud, shrill shouting
outside—boys crying the late afternoon editions of the evening papers.

Bunting turned uneasily in his chair. The giving up of a daily paper
had been, after his tobacco, his bitterest deprivation. And the paper
was an older habit than the tobacco, for servants are great readers of
newspapers.

As the shouts came through the closed windows and the thick damask
curtains, Bunting felt a sudden sense of mind hunger fall upon him.

It was a shame—a damned shame—that he shouldn’t know what was happening
in the world outside! Only criminals are kept from hearing news of what
is going on beyond their prison walls. And those shouts, those hoarse,
sharp cries must portend that something really exciting had happened,
something warranted to make a man forget for the moment his own
intimate, gnawing troubles.

He got up, and going towards the nearest window strained his ears to
listen. There fell on them, emerging now and again from the confused
babel of hoarse shouts, the one clear word “Murder!”

Slowly Bunting’s brain pieced the loud, indistinct cries into some sort
of connected order. Yes, that was it—“Horrible Murder! Murder at St.
Pancras!” Bunting remembered vaguely another murder which had been
committed near St. Pancras—that of an old lady by her servant-maid. It
had happened a great many years ago, but was still vividly remembered,
as of special and natural interest, among the class to which he had
belonged.

The newsboys—for there were more than one of them, a rather unusual
thing in the Marylebone Road—were coming nearer and nearer; now they
had adopted another cry, but he could not quite catch what they were
crying. They were still shouting hoarsely, excitedly, but he could only
hear a word or two now and then. Suddenly “The Avenger! The Avenger at
his work again!” broke on his ear.

During the last fortnight four very curious and brutal murders had been
committed in London and within a comparatively small area.

The first had aroused no special interest—even the second had only been
awarded, in the paper Bunting was still then taking in, quite a small
paragraph.

Then had come the third—and with that a wave of keen excitement, for
pinned to the dress of the victim—a drunken woman—had been found a
three-cornered piece of paper, on which was written, in red ink, and in
printed characters, the words,

“THE AVENGER”


It was then realised, not only by those whose business it is to
investigate such terrible happenings, but also by the vast world of men
and women who take an intelligent interest in such sinister mysteries,
that the same miscreant had committed all three crimes; and before that
extraordinary fact had had time to soak well into the public mind there
took place yet another murder, and again the murderer had been to
special pains to make it clear that some obscure and terrible lust for
vengeance possessed him.

Now everyone was talking of The Avenger and his crimes! Even the man
who left their ha’porth of milk at the door each morning had spoken to
Bunting about them that very day.

Bunting came back to the fire and looked down at his wife with mild
excitement. Then, seeing her pale, apathetic face, her look of weary,
mournful absorption, a wave of irritation swept through him. He felt he
could have shaken her!

Ellen had hardly taken the trouble to listen when he, Bunting, had come
back to bed that morning, and told her what the milkman had said. In
fact, she had been quite nasty about it, intimating that she didn’t
like hearing about such horrid things.

It was a curious fact that though Mrs. Bunting enjoyed tales of pathos
and sentiment, and would listen with frigid amusement to the details of
a breach of promise action, she shrank from stories of immorality or of
physical violence. In the old, happy days, when they could afford to
buy a paper, aye, and more than one paper daily, Bunting had often had
to choke down his interest in some exciting “case” or “mystery” which
was affording him pleasant mental relaxation, because any allusion to
it sharply angered Ellen.

But now he was at once too dull and too miserable to care how she felt.

Walking away from the window he took a slow, uncertain step towards the
door; when there he turned half round, and there came over his
close-shaven, round face the rather sly, pleading look with which a
child about to do something naughty glances at its parent.

But Mrs. Bunting remained quite still; her thin, narrow shoulders just
showed above the back of the chair on which she was sitting, bolt
upright, staring before her as if into vacancy.

Bunting turned round, opened the door, and quickly he went out into the
dark hall—they had given up lighting the gas there some time ago—and
opened the front door.

Walking down the small flagged path outside, he flung open the iron
gate which gave on to the damp pavement. But there he hesitated. The
coppers in his pocket seemed to have shrunk in number, and he
remembered ruefully how far Ellen could make even four pennies go.

Then a boy ran up to him with a sheaf of evening papers, and Bunting,
being sorely tempted—fell. “Give me a _Sun_,” he said roughly, “_Sun_
or _Echo!_”

But the boy, scarcely stopping to take breath, shook his head. “Only
penny papers left,” he gasped. “What’ll yer ’ave, sir?”

With an eagerness which was mingled with shame, Bunting drew a penny
out of his pocket and took a paper—it was the _Evening Standard_—from
the boy’s hand.

Then, very slowly, he shut the gate and walked back through the raw,
cold air, up the flagged path, shivering yet full of eager, joyful
anticipation.

Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly he would pass a
happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable
self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite
from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with
careworn, troubled Ellen.

A hot wave of unease, almost of remorse, swept over Bunting. Ellen
would never have spent that penny on herself—he knew that well
enough—and if it hadn’t been so cold, so foggy, so—so drizzly, he would
have gone out again through the gate and stood under the street lamp to
take his pleasure. He dreaded with a nervous dread the glance of
Ellen’s cold, reproving light-blue eye. That glance would tell him that
he had had no business to waste a penny on a paper, and that well he
knew it!

Suddenly the door in front of him opened, and he heard a familiar voice
saying crossly, yet anxiously, “What on earth are you doing out there,
Bunting? Come in—do! You’ll catch your death of cold! I don’t want to
have you ill on my hands as well as everything else!” Mrs. Bunting
rarely uttered so many words at once nowadays.

He walked in through the front door of his cheerless house. “I went out
to get a paper,” he said sullenly.

After all, he was master. He had as much right to spend the money as
she had; for the matter of that the money on which they were now both
living had been lent, nay, pressed on him—not on Ellen—by that decent
young chap, Joe Chandler. And he, Bunting, had done all he could; he
had pawned everything he could pawn, while Ellen, so he resentfully
noticed, still wore her wedding ring.

He stepped past her heavily, and though she said nothing, he knew she
grudged him his coming joy. Then, full of rage with her and contempt
for himself, and giving himself the luxury of a mild, a very mild,
oath—Ellen had very early made it clear she would have no swearing in
her presence—he lit the hall gas full-flare.

“How can we hope to get lodgers if they can’t even see the card?” he
shouted angrily.

And there was truth in what he said, for now that he had lit the gas,
the oblong card, though not the word “Apartments” printed on it, could
be plainly seen out-lined against the old-fashioned fanlight above the
front door.

Bunting went into the sitting-room, silently followed by his wife, and
then, sitting down in his nice arm-chair, he poked the little banked-up
fire. It was the first time Bunting had poked the fire for many a long
day, and this exertion of marital authority made him feel better. A man
has to assert himself sometimes, and he, Bunting, had not asserted
himself enough lately.

A little colour came into Mrs. Bunting’s pale face. She was not used to
be flouted in this way. For Bunting, when not thoroughly upset, was the
mildest of men.

She began moving about the room, flicking off an imperceptible touch of
dust here, straightening a piece of furniture there.

But her hands trembled—they trembled with excitement, with self-pity,
with anger. A penny? It was dreadful—dreadful to have to worry about a
penny! But they had come to the point when one has to worry about
pennies. Strange that her husband didn’t realise that.

Bunting looked round once or twice; he would have liked to ask Ellen to
leave off fidgeting, but he was fond of peace, and perhaps, by now, a
little bit ashamed of himself, so he refrained from remark, and she
soon gave over what irritated him of her own accord.

But Mrs. Bunting did not come and sit down as her husband would have
liked her to do. The sight of him, absorbed in his paper as he was,
irritated her, and made her long to get away from him. Opening the door
which separated the sitting-room from the bedroom behind, and—shutting
out the aggravating vision of Bunting sitting comfortably by the now
brightly burning fire, with the _Evening Standard_ spread out before
him—she sat down in the cold darkness, and pressed her hands against
her temples.

Never, never had she felt so hopeless, so—so broken as now. Where was
the good of having been an upright, conscientious, self-respecting
woman all her life long, if it only led to this utter, degrading
poverty and wretchedness? She and Bunting were just past the age which
gentlefolk think proper in a married couple seeking to enter service
together, unless, that is, the wife happens to be a professed cook. A
cook and a butler can always get a nice situation. But Mrs. Bunting was
no cook. She could do all right the simple things any lodger she might
get would require, but that was all.

Lodgers? How foolish she had been to think of taking lodgers! For it
had been her doing. Bunting had been like butter in her hands.

Yet they had begun well, with a lodging-house in a seaside place. There
they had prospered, not as they had hoped to do, but still pretty well;
and then had come an epidemic of scarlet fever, and that had meant ruin
for them, and for dozens, nay, hundreds, of other luckless people. Then
had followed a business experiment which had proved even more
disastrous, and which had left them in debt—in debt to an extent they
could never hope to repay, to a good-natured former employer.

After that, instead of going back to service, as they might have done,
perhaps, either together or separately, they had made up their minds to
make one last effort, and they had taken over, with the trifle of money
that remained to them, the lease of this house in the Marylebone Road.

In former days, when they had each been leading the sheltered,
impersonal, and, above all, financially easy existence which is the
compensation life offers to those men and women who deliberately take
upon themselves the yoke of domestic service, they had both lived in
houses overlooking Regent’s Park. It had seemed a wise plan to settle
in the same neighbourhood, the more so that Bunting, who had a good
appearance, had retained the kind of connection which enables a man to
get a job now and again as waiter at private parties.

But life moves quickly, jaggedly, for people like the Buntings. Two of
his former masters had moved to another part of London, and a caterer
in Baker Street whom he had known went bankrupt.

And now? Well, just now Bunting could not have taken a job had one been
offered him, for he had pawned his dress clothes. He had not asked his
wife’s permission to do this, as so good a husband ought to have done.
He had just gone out and done it. And she had not had the heart to say
anything; nay, it was with part of the money that he had handed her
silently the evening he did it that she had bought that last packet of
tobacco.

And then, as Mrs. Bunting sat there thinking these painful thoughts,
there suddenly came to the front door the sound of a loud, tremulous,
uncertain double knock.




CHAPTER II.


Mr. Bunting jumped nervously to her feet. She stood for a moment
listening in the darkness, a darkness made the blacker by the line of
light under the door behind which sat Bunting reading his paper.

And then it came again, that loud, tremulous, uncertain double knock;
not a knock, so the listener told herself, that boded any good.
Would-be lodgers gave sharp, quick, bold, confident raps. No; this must
be some kind of beggar. The queerest people came at all hours, and
asked—whining or threatening—for money.

Mrs. Bunting had had some sinister experiences with men and
women—especially women—drawn from that nameless, mysterious class made
up of the human flotsam and jetsam which drifts about every great city.
But since she had taken to leaving the gas in the passage unlit at
night she had been very little troubled with that kind of visitors,
those human bats which are attracted by any kind of light but leave
alone those who live in darkness.

She opened the door of the sitting-room. It was Bunting’s place to go
to the front door, but she knew far better than he did how to deal with
difficult or obtrusive callers. Still, somehow, she would have liked
him to go to-night. But Bunting sat on, absorbed in his newspaper; all
he did at the sound of the bedroom door opening was to look up and say,
“Didn’t you hear a knock?”

Without answering his question she went out into the hall.

Slowly she opened the front door.

On the top of the three steps which led up to the door, there stood the
long, lanky figure of a man, clad in an Inverness cape and an
old-fashioned top hat. He waited for a few seconds blinking at her,
perhaps dazzled by the light of the gas in the passage. Mrs. Bunting’s
trained perception told her at once that this man, odd as he looked,
was a gentleman, belonging by birth to the class with whom her former
employment had brought her in contact.

“Is it not a fact that you let lodgings?” he asked, and there was
something shrill, unbalanced, hesitating, in his voice.

“Yes, sir,” she said uncertainly—it was a long, long time since anyone
had come after their lodgings, anyone, that is, that they could think
of taking into their respectable house.

Instinctively she stepped a little to one side, and the stranger walked
past her, and so into the hall.

And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting noticed that he held a
narrow bag in his left hand. It was quite a new bag, made of strong
brown leather.

“I am looking for some quiet rooms,” he said; then he repeated the
words, “quiet rooms,” in a dreamy, absent way, and as he uttered them
he looked nervously round him.

Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully
furnished, and was very clean.

There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger’s weary feet
fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in
colour the flock-paper on the walls.

A very superior lodging-house this, and evidently a superior
lodging-house keeper.

“You’d find my rooms quite quiet, sir,” she said gently. “And just now
I have four to let. The house is empty, save for my husband and me,
sir.”

Mrs. Bunting spoke in a civil, passionless voice. It seemed too good to
be true, this sudden coming of a possible lodger, and of a lodger who
spoke in the pleasant, courteous way and voice which recalled to the
poor woman her happy, far-off days of youth and of security.

“That sounds very suitable,” he said. “Four rooms? Well, perhaps I
ought only to take two rooms, but, still, I should like to see all four
before I make my choice.”

How fortunate, how very fortunate it was that Bunting had lit the gas!
But for that circumstance this gentleman would have passed them by.

She turned towards the staircase, quite forgetting in her agitation
that the front door was still open; and it was the stranger whom she
already in her mind described as “the lodger,” who turned and rather
quickly walked down the passage and shut it.

“Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry you should have had the
trouble.”

For a moment their eyes met. “It’s not safe to leave a front door open
in London,” he said, rather sharply. “I hope you do not often do that.
It would be so easy for anyone to slip in.”

Mrs. Bunting felt rather upset. The stranger had still spoken
courteously, but he was evidently very much put out.

“I assure you, sir, I never leave my front door open,” she answered
hastily. “You needn’t be at all afraid of that!”

And then, through the closed door of the sitting-room, came the sound
of Bunting coughing—it was just a little, hard cough, but Mrs.
Bunting’s future lodger started violently.

“Who’s that?” he said, putting out a hand and clutching her arm.
“Whatever was that?”

“Only my husband, sir. He went out to buy a paper a few minutes ago,
and the cold just caught him, I suppose.”

“Your husband—?” he looked at her intently, suspiciously. “What—what,
may I ask, is your husband’s occupation?”

Mrs. Bunting drew herself up. The question as to Bunting’s occupation
was no one’s business but theirs. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to show
offence. “He goes out waiting,” she said stiffly. “He was a gentleman’s
servant, sir. He could, of course, valet you should you require him to
do so.”

And then she turned and led the way up the steep, narrow staircase.

At the top of the first flight of stairs was what Mrs. Bunting, to
herself, called the drawing-room floor. It consisted of a sitting-room
in front, and a bedroom behind. She opened the door of the sitting-room
and quickly lit the chandelier.

This front room was pleasant enough, though perhaps a little
over-encumbered with furniture. Covering the floor was a green carpet
simulating moss; four chairs were placed round the table which occupied
the exact middle of the apartment, and in the corner, opposite the door
giving on to the landing, was a roomy, old-fashioned chiffonnier.

On the dark-green walls hung a series of eight engravings, portraits of
early Victorian belles, clad in lace and tarletan ball dresses, clipped
from an old Book of Beauty. Mrs. Bunting was very fond of these
pictures; she thought they gave the drawing-room a note of elegance and
refinement.

As she hurriedly turned up the gas she was glad, glad indeed, that she
had summoned up sufficient energy, two days ago, to give the room a
thorough turn-out.

It had remained for a long time in the state in which it had been left
by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when they had been scared into
going away by Bunting’s rough threats of the police. But now it was in
apple-pie order, with one paramount exception, of which Mrs. Bunting
was painfully aware. There were no white curtains to the windows, but
that omission could soon be remedied if this gentleman really took the
lodgings.

But what was this—? The stranger was looking round him rather
dubiously. “This is rather—rather too grand for me,” he said at last “I
should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er—”

“—Bunting,” she said softly. “Bunting, sir.”

And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again came down and
settled on her sad, burdened heart. Perhaps she had been mistaken,
after all—or rather, she had not been mistaken in one sense, but
perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman—too poor, that is, to
afford the rent of more than one room, say eight or ten shillings a
week; eight or ten shillings a week would be very little use to her and
Bunting, though better than nothing at all.

“Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?”

“No,” he said, “no. I think I should like to see what you have farther
up the house, Mrs.—,” and then, as if making a prodigious mental
effort, he brought out her name, “Bunting,” with a kind of gasp.

The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the drawing-room
floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact that they were
bare of any kind of ornament. Very little trouble had been taken over
their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same
condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.

For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel
sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a
sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was
fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. It had been the
property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over the lease
of the house, who, knowing it to be of no monetary value, had thrown it
in among the humble fittings they had left behind.

What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as
everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a
bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry that
she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.

To her surprise, however, her companion’s dark, sensitive,
hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction. “Capital!
Capital!” he exclaimed, for the first time putting down the bag he held
at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands together with a quick,
nervous movement.

“This is just what I have been looking for.” He walked with long, eager
strides towards the gas stove. “First-rate—quite first-rate! Exactly
what I wanted to find! You must understand, Mrs.—er—Bunting, that I am
a man of science. I make, that is, all sorts of experiments, and I
often require the—ah, well, the presence of great heat.”

He shot out a hand, which she noticed shook a little, towards the
stove. “This, too, will be useful—exceedingly useful, to me,” and he
touched the edge of the stone sink with a lingering, caressing touch.

He threw his head back and passed his hand over his high, bare
forehead; then, moving towards a chair, he sat down—wearily. “I’m
tired,” he muttered in a low voice, “tired—tired! I’ve been walking
about all day, Mrs. Bunting, and I could find nothing to sit down upon.
They do not put benches for tired men in the London streets. They do so
on the Continent. In some ways they are far more humane on the
Continent than they are in England, Mrs. Bunting.”

“Indeed, sir,” she said civilly; and then, after a nervous glance, she
asked the question of which the answer would mean so much to her, “Then
you mean to take my rooms, sir?”

“This room, certainly,” he said, looking round. “This room is exactly
what I have been looking for, and longing for, the last few days;” and
then hastily he added, “I mean this kind of place is what I have always
wanted to possess, Mrs. Bunting. You would be surprised if you knew how
difficult it is to get anything of the sort. But now my weary search
has ended, and that is a relief—a very, very great relief to me!”

He stood up and looked round him with a dreamy, abstracted air. And
then, “Where’s my bag?” he asked suddenly, and there came a note of
sharp, angry fear in his voice. He glared at the quiet woman standing
before him, and for a moment Mrs. Bunting felt a tremor of fright shoot
through her. It seemed a pity that Bunting was so far away, right down
the house.

But Mrs. Bunting was aware that eccentricity has always been a
perquisite, as it were the special luxury, of the well-born and of the
well-educated. Scholars, as she well knew, are never quite like other
people, and her new lodger was undoubtedly a scholar. “Surely I had a
bag when I came in?” he said in a scared, troubled voice.

“Here it is, sir,” she said soothingly, and, stooping, picked it up and
handed it to him. And as she did so she noticed that the bag was not at
all heavy; it was evidently by no means full.

He took it eagerly from her. “I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “But
there is something in that bag which is very precious to me—something I
procured with infinite difficulty, and which I could never get again
without running into great danger, Mrs. Bunting. That must be the
excuse for my late agitation.”

“About terms, sir?” she said a little timidly, returning to the subject
which meant so much, so very much to her.

“About terms?” he echoed. And then there came a pause. “My name is
Sleuth,” he said suddenly,—“S-l-e-u-t-h. Think of a hound, Mrs.
Bunting, and you’ll never forget my name. I could provide you with a
reference—” (he gave her what she described to herself as a funny,
sideways look), “but I should prefer you to dispense with that, if you
don’t mind. I am quite willing to pay you—well, shall we say a month in
advance?”

A spot of red shot into Mrs. Bunting’s cheeks. She felt sick with
relief—nay, with a joy which was almost pain. She had not known till
that moment how hungry she was—how eager for—a good meal. “That would
be all right, sir,” she murmured.

“And what are you going to charge me?” There had come a kindly, almost
a friendly note into his voice. “With attendance, mind! I shall expect
you to give me attendance, and I need hardly ask if you can cook, Mrs.
Bunting?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” she said. “I am a plain cook. What would you say to
twenty-five shillings a week, sir?” She looked at him deprecatingly,
and as he did not answer she went on falteringly, “You see, sir, it may
seem a good deal, but you would have the best of attendance and careful
cooking—and my husband, sir—he would be pleased to valet you.”

“I shouldn’t want anything of that sort done for me,” said Mr. Sleuth
hastily. “I prefer looking after my own clothes. I am used to waiting
on myself. But, Mrs. Bunting, I have a great dislike to sharing
lodgings—”

She interrupted eagerly, “I could let you have the use of the two
floors for the same price—that is, until we get another lodger. I
shouldn’t like you to sleep in the back room up here, sir. It’s such a
poor little room. You could do as you say, sir—do your work and your
experiments up here, and then have your meals in the drawing-room.”

“Yes,” he said hesitatingly, “that sounds a good plan. And if I offered
you two pounds, or two guineas? Might I then rely on your not taking
another lodger?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d be very glad only to have you to wait on,
sir.”

“I suppose you have a key to the door of this room, Mrs. Bunting? I
don’t like to be disturbed while I’m working.”

He waited a moment, and then said again, rather urgently, “I suppose
you have a key to this door, Mrs. Bunting?”

“Oh, yes, sir, there’s a key—a very nice little key. The people who
lived here before had a new kind of lock put on to the door.” She went
over, and throwing the door open, showed him that a round disk had been
fitted above the old keyhole.

He nodded his head, and then, after standing silent a little, as if
absorbed in thought, “Forty-two shillings a week? Yes, that will suit
me perfectly. And I’ll begin now by paying my first month’s rent in
advance. Now, four times forty-two shillings is”—he jerked his head
back and stared at his new landlady; for the first time he smiled, a
queer, wry smile—“why, just eight pounds eight shillings, Mrs.
Bunting!”

He thrust his hand through into an inner pocket of his long cape-like
coat and took out a handful of sovereigns. Then he began putting these
down in a row on the bare wooden table which stood in the centre of the
room. “Here’s five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten pounds. You’d better keep
the odd change, Mrs. Bunting, for I shall want you to do some shopping
for me to-morrow morning. I met with a misfortune to-day.” But the new
lodger did not speak as if his misfortune, whatever it was, weighed on
his spirits.

“Indeed, sir. I’m sorry to hear that.” Mrs. Bunting’s heart was going
thump—thump—thump. She felt extraordinarily moved, dizzy with relief
and joy.

“Yes, a very great misfortune! I lost my luggage, the few things I
managed to bring away with me.” His voice dropped suddenly. “I
shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered. “I was a fool to say that!”
Then, more loudly, “Someone said to me, ‘You can’t go into a
lodging-house without any luggage. They wouldn’t take you in.’ But
_you_ have taken me in, Mrs. Bunting, and I’m grateful for—for the kind
way you have met me—” He looked at her feelingly, appealingly, and Mrs.
Bunting was touched. She was beginning to feel very kindly towards her
new lodger.

“I hope I know a gentleman when I see one,” she said, with a break in
her staid voice.

“I shall have to see about getting some clothes to-morrow, Mrs.
Bunting.” Again he looked at her appealingly.

“I expect you’d like to wash your hands now, sir. And would you tell me
what you’d like for supper? We haven’t much in the house.”

“Oh, anything’ll do,” he said hastily. “I don’t want you to go out for
me. It’s a cold, foggy, wet night, Mrs. Bunting. If you have a little
bread-and-butter and a cup of milk I shall be quite satisfied.”

“I have a nice sausage,” she said hesitatingly.

It was a very nice sausage, and she had bought it that same morning for
Bunting’s supper; as to herself, she had been going to content herself
with a little bread and cheese. But now—wonderful, almost, intoxicating
thought—she could send Bunting out to get anything they both liked. The
ten sovereigns lay in her hand full of comfort and good cheer.

“A sausage? No, I fear that will hardly do. I never touch flesh meat,”
he said; “it is a long, long time since I tasted a sausage, Mrs.
Bunting.”

“Is it indeed, sir?” She hesitated a moment, then asked stiffly, “And
will you be requiring any beer, or wine, sir?”

A strange, wild look of lowering wrath suddenly filled Mr. Sleuth’s
pale face.

“Certainly not. I thought I had made that quite clear, Mrs. Bunting. I
had hoped to hear that you were an abstainer—”

“So I am, sir, lifelong. And so’s Bunting been since we married.” She
might have said, had she been a woman given to make such confidences,
that she had made Bunting abstain very early in their acquaintance.
That he had given in about that had been the thing that first made her
believe, that he was sincere in all the nonsense that he talked to her,
in those far-away days of his courting. Glad she was now that he had
taken the pledge as a younger man; but for that nothing would have kept
him from the drink during the bad times they had gone through.

And then, going downstairs, she showed Mr. Sleuth the nice bedroom
which opened out of the drawing-room. It was a replica of Mrs.
Bunting’s own room just underneath, excepting that everything up here
had cost just a little more, and was therefore rather better in
quality.

The new lodger looked round him with such a strange expression of
content and peace stealing over his worn face. “A haven of rest,” he
muttered; and then, “‘He bringeth them to their desired haven.’
Beautiful words, Mrs. Bunting.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mrs. Bunting felt a little startled. It was the first time anyone had
quoted the Bible to her for many a long day. But it seemed to set the
seal, as it were, on Mr. Sleuth’s respectability.

What a comfort it was, too, that she had to deal with only one lodger,
and that a gentleman, instead of with a married couple! Very peculiar
married couples had drifted in and out of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s
lodgings, not only here, in London, but at the seaside.

How unlucky they had been, to be sure! Since they had come to London
not a single pair of lodgers had been even moderately respectable and
kindly. The last lot had belonged to that horrible underworld of men
and women who, having, as the phrase goes, seen better days, now only
keep their heads above water with the help of petty fraud.

“I’ll bring you up some hot water in a minute, sir, and some clean
towels,” she said, going to the door.

And then Mr. Sleuth turned quickly round. “Mrs. Bunting”—and as he
spoke he stammered a little—“I—I don’t want you to interpret the word
attendance too liberally. You need not run yourself off your feet for
me. I’m accustomed to look after myself.”

And, queerly, uncomfortably, she felt herself dismissed—even a little
snubbed. “All right, sir,” she said. “I’ll only just let you know when
I’ve your supper ready.”




CHAPTER III.


But what was a little snub compared with the intense relief and joy of
going down and telling Bunting of the great piece of good fortune which
had fallen their way?

Staid Mrs. Bunting seemed to make but one leap down the steep stairs.
In the hall, however, she pulled herself together, and tried to still
her agitation. She had always disliked and despised any show of
emotion; she called such betrayal of feeling “making a fuss.”

Opening the door of their sitting-room, she stood for a moment looking
at her husband’s bent back, and she realised, with a pang of pain, how
the last few weeks had aged him.

Bunting suddenly looked round, and, seeing his wife, stood up. He put
the paper he had been holding down on to the table: “Well,” he said,
“well, who was it, then?”

He felt rather ashamed of himself; it was he who ought to have answered
the door and done all that parleying of which he had heard murmurs.

And then in a moment his wife’s hand shot out, and the ten sovereigns
fell in a little clinking heap on the table.

“Look there!” she whispered, with an excited, tearful quiver in her
voice. “Look there, Bunting!”

And Bunting did look there, but with a troubled, frowning gaze.

He was not quick-witted, but at once he jumped to the conclusion that
his wife had just had in a furniture dealer, and that this ten pounds
represented all their nice furniture upstairs. If that were so, then it
was the beginning of the end. That furniture in the first-floor front
had cost—Ellen had reminded him of the fact bitterly only
yesterday—seventeen pounds nine shillings, and every single item had
been a bargain. It was too bad that she had only got ten pounds for it.

Yet he hadn’t the heart to reproach her.

He did not speak as he looked across at her, and meeting that troubled,
rebuking glance, she guessed what it was that he thought had happened.

“We’ve a new lodger!” she cried. “And—and, Bunting? He’s quite the
gentleman! He actually offered to pay four weeks in advance, at two
guineas a week.”

“No, never!”

Bunting moved quickly round the table, and together they stood there,
fascinated by the little heap of gold. “But there’s ten sovereigns
here,” he said suddenly.

“Yes, the gentleman said I’d have to buy some things for him to-morrow.
And, oh, Bunting, he’s so well spoken, I really felt that—I really felt
that—” and then Mrs. Bunting, taking a step or two sideways, sat down,
and throwing her little black apron over her face burst into gasping
sobs.

Bunting patted her back timidly. “Ellen?” he said, much moved by her
agitation, “Ellen? Don’t take on so, my dear—”

“I won’t,” she sobbed, “I—I won’t! I’m a fool—I know I am! But, oh, I
didn’t think we was ever going to have any luck again!”

And then she told him—or rather tried to tell him—what the lodger was
like. Mrs. Bunting was no hand at talking, but one thing she did
impress on her husband’s mind, namely, that Mr. Sleuth was eccentric,
as so many clever people are eccentric—that is, in a harmless way—and
that he must be humoured.

“He says he doesn’t want to be waited on much,” she said at last wiping
her eyes, “but I can see he will want a good bit of looking after, all
the same, poor gentleman.”

And just as the words left her mouth there came the unfamiliar sound of
a loud ring. It was that of the drawing-room bell being pulled again
and again.

Bunting looked at his wife eagerly. “I think I’d better go up, eh,
Ellen?” he said. He felt quite anxious to see their new lodger. For the
matter of that, it would be a relief to be doing something again.

“Yes,” she answered, “you go up! Don’t keep him waiting! I wonder what
it is he wants? I said I’d let him know when his supper was ready.”

A moment later Bunting came down again. There was an odd smile on his
face. “Whatever d’you think he wanted?” he whispered mysteriously. And
as she said nothing, he went on, “He’s asked me for the loan of a
Bible!”

“Well, I don’t see anything so out of the way in that,” she said
hastily, “’specially if he don’t feel well. I’ll take it up to him.”

And then going to a small table which stood between the two windows,
Mrs. Bunting took off it a large Bible, which had been given to her as
a wedding present by a married lady with whose mother she had lived for
several years.

“He said it would do quite well when you take up his supper,” said
Bunting; and, then, “Ellen? He’s a queer-looking cove—not like any
gentleman I ever had to do with.”

“He is a gentleman,” said Mrs. Bunting rather fiercely.

“Oh, yes, that’s all right.” But still he looked at her doubtfully. “I
asked him if he’d like me to just put away his clothes. But, Ellen, he
said he hadn’t got any clothes!”

“No more he hasn’t;” she spoke quickly, defensively. “He had the
misfortune to lose his luggage. He’s one dishonest folk ’ud take
advantage of.”

“Yes, one can see that with half an eye,” Bunting agreed.

And then there was silence for a few moments, while Mrs. Bunting put
down on a little bit of paper the things she wanted her husband to go
out and buy for her. She handed him the list, together with a
sovereign. “Be as quick as you can,” she said, “for I feel a bit
hungry. I’ll be going down now to see about Mr. Sleuth’s supper. He
only wants a glass of milk and two eggs. I’m glad I’ve never fallen to
bad eggs!”

“Sleuth,” echoed Bunting, staring at her. “What a queer name! How d’you
spell it—S-l-u-t-h?”

“No,” she shot out, “S-l-e—u—t—h.”

“Oh,” he said doubtfully.

“He said, ‘Think of a hound and you’ll never forget my name,’” and Mrs.
Bunting smiled.

When he got to the door, Bunting turned round: “We’ll now be able to
pay young Chandler back some o’ that thirty shillings. I am glad.” She
nodded; her heart, as the saying is, too full for words.

And then each went about his and her business—Bunting out into the
drenching fog, his wife down to her cold kitchen.

The lodger’s tray was soon ready; everything upon it nicely and
daintily arranged. Mrs. Bunting knew how to wait upon a gentleman.

Just as the landlady was going up the kitchen stair, she suddenly
remembered Mr. Sleuth’s request for a Bible. Putting the tray down in
the hall, she went into her sitting-room and took up the Book; but when
back in the hall she hesitated a moment as to whether it was worth
while to make two journeys. But, no, she thought she could manage;
clasping the large, heavy volume under her arm, and taking up the tray,
she walked slowly up the staircase.

But a great surprise awaited her; in fact, when Mr. Sleuth’s landlady
opened the door of the drawing-room she very nearly dropped the tray.
She actually did drop the Bible, and it fell with a heavy thud to the
ground.

The new lodger had turned all those nice framed engravings of the early
Victorian beauties, of which Mrs. Bunting had been so proud, with their
faces to the wall!

For a moment she was really too surprised to speak. Putting the tray
down on the table, she stooped and picked up the Book. It troubled her
that the Book should have fallen to the ground; but really she hadn’t
been able to help it—it was mercy that the tray hadn’t fallen, too.

Mr. Sleuth got up. “I—I have taken the liberty to arrange the room as I
should wish it to be,” he said awkwardly. “You see, Mrs.—er—Bunting, I
felt as I sat here that these women’s eyes followed me about. It was a
most unpleasant sensation, and gave me quite an eerie feeling.”

The landlady was now laying a small tablecloth over half of the table.
She made no answer to her lodger’s remark, for the good reason that she
did not know what to say.

Her silence seemed to distress Mr. Sleuth. After what seemed a long
pause, he spoke again.

“I prefer bare walls, Mrs. Bunting,” he spoke with some agitation. “As
a matter of fact, I have been used to seeing bare walls about me for a
long time.” And then, at last his landlady answered him, in a composed,
soothing voice, which somehow did him good to hear. “I quite
understand, sir. And when Bunting comes in he shall take the pictures
all down. We have plenty of space in our own rooms for them.”

“Thank you—thank you very much.”

Mr. Sleuth appeared greatly relieved.

“And I have brought you up my Bible, sir. I understood you wanted the
loan of it?”

Mr. Sleuth stared at her as if dazed for a moment; and then, rousing
himself, he said, “Yes, yes, I do. There is no reading like the Book.
There is something there which suits every state of mind, aye, and of
body too—”

“Very true, sir.” And then Mrs. Bunting, having laid out what really
looked a very appetising little meal, turned round and quietly shut the
door.

She went down straight into her sitting-room and waited there for
Bunting, instead of going to the kitchen to clear up. And as she did so
there came to her a comfortable recollection, an incident of her
long-past youth, in the days when she, then Ellen Green, had maided a
dear old lady.

The old lady had a favourite nephew—a bright, jolly young gentleman,
who was learning to paint animals in Paris. And one morning Mr.
Algernon—that was his rather peculiar Christian name—had had the
impudence to turn to the wall six beautiful engravings of paintings
done by the famous Mr. Landseer!

Mrs. Bunting remembered all the circumstances as if they had only
occurred yesterday, and yet she had not thought of them for years.

It was quite early; she had come down—for in those days maids weren’t
thought so much of as they are now, and she slept with the upper
housemaid, and it was the upper housemaid’s duty to be down very
early—and, there, in the dining-room, she had found Mr. Algernon
engaged in turning each engraving to the wall! Now, his aunt thought
all the world of those pictures, and Ellen had felt quite concerned,
for it doesn’t do for a young gentleman to put himself wrong with a
kind aunt.

“Oh, sir,” she had exclaimed in dismay, “whatever are you doing?” And
even now she could almost hear his merry voice, as he had answered, “I
am doing my duty, fair Helen”—he had always called her “fair Helen”
when no one was listening. “How can I draw ordinary animals when I see
these half-human monsters staring at me all the time I am having my
breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner?” That was what Mr. Algernon had
said in his own saucy way, and that was what he repeated in a more
serious, respectful manner to his aunt, when that dear old lady had
come downstairs. In fact he had declared, quite soberly, that the
beautiful animals painted by Mr. Landseer put his eye out!

But his aunt had been very much annoyed—in fact, she had made him turn
the pictures all back again; and as long as he stayed there he just had
to put up with what he called “those half-human monsters.” Mrs.
Bunting, sitting there, thinking the matter of Mr. Sleuth’s odd
behaviour over, was glad to recall that funny incident of her long-gone
youth. It seemed to prove that her new lodger was not so strange as he
appeared to be. Still, when Bunting came in, she did not tell him the
queer thing which had happened. She told herself that she would be
quite able to manage the taking down of the pictures in the
drawing-room herself.

But before getting ready their own supper, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady went
upstairs to clear away, and when on the staircase she heard the sound
of—was it talking, in the drawing-room? Startled, she waited a moment
on the landing outside the drawing-room door, then she realised that it
was only the lodger reading aloud to himself. There was something very
awful in the words which rose and fell on her listening ears:

“A strange woman is a narrow gate. She also lieth in wait as for a
prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.”

She remained where she was, her hand on the handle of the door, and
again there broke on her shrinking ears that curious, high, sing-song
voice, “Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of
death.”

It made the listener feel quite queer. But at last she summoned up
courage, knocked, and walked in.

“I’d better clear away, sir, had I not?” she said. And Mr. Sleuth
nodded.

Then he got up and closed the Book. “I think I’ll go to bed now,” he
said. “I am very, very tired. I’ve had a long and a very weary day,
Mrs. Bunting.”

After he had disappeared into the back room, Mrs. Bunting climbed up on
a chair and unhooked the pictures which had so offended Mr. Sleuth.
Each left an unsightly mark on the wall—but that, after all, could not
be helped.

Treading softly, so that Bunting should not hear her, she carried them
down, two by two, and stood them behind her bed.




CHAPTER IV.


Mrs. Bunting woke up the next morning feeling happier than she had felt
for a very, very long time.

For just one moment she could not think why she felt so different—and
then she suddenly remembered.

How comfortable it was to know that upstairs, just over her head, lay,
in the well-found bed she had bought with such satisfaction at an
auction held in a Baker Street house, a lodger who was paying two
guineas a week! Something seemed to tell her that Mr. Sleuth would be
“a permanency.” In any case, it wouldn’t be her fault if he wasn’t. As
to his—his queerness, well, there’s always something funny in
everybody. But after she had got up, and as the morning wore itself
away, Mrs. Bunting grew a little anxious, for there came no sound at
all from the new lodger’s rooms. At twelve, however, the drawing-room
bell rang. Mrs. Bunting hurried upstairs. She was painfully anxious to
please and satisfy Mr. Sleuth. His coming had only been in the nick of
time to save them from terrible disaster.

She found her lodger up, and fully dressed. He was sitting at the round
table which occupied the middle of the sitting-room, and his landlady’s
large Bible lay open before him.

As Mrs. Bunting came in, he looked up, and she was troubled to see how
tired and worn he seemed.

“You did not happen,” he asked, “to have a Concordance, Mrs. Bunting?”

She shook her head; she had no idea what a Concordance could be, but
she was quite sure that she had nothing of the sort about.

And then her new lodger proceeded to tell her what it was he desired
her to buy for him. She had supposed the bag he had brought with him to
contain certain little necessaries of civilised life—such articles, for
instance, as a comb and brush, a set of razors, a toothbrush, to say
nothing of a couple of nightshirts—but no, that was evidently not so,
for Mr. Sleuth required all these things to be bought now.

After having cooked him a nice breakfast Mrs. Bunting hurried out to
purchase the things of which he was in urgent need.

How pleasant it was to feel that there was money in her purse again—not
only someone else’s money, but money she was now in the very act of
earning so agreeably.

Mrs. Bunting first made her way to a little barber’s shop close by. It
was there she purchased the brush and comb and the razors. It was a
funny, rather smelly little place, and she hurried as much as she
could, the more so that the foreigner who served her insisted on
telling her some of the strange, peculiar details of this Avenger
murder which had taken place forty-eight hours before, and in which
Bunting took such a morbid interest.

The conversation upset Mrs. Bunting. She didn’t want to think of
anything painful or disagreeable on such a day as this.

Then she came back and showed the lodger her various purchases. Mr.
Sleuth was pleased with everything, and thanked her most courteously.
But when she suggested doing his bedroom he frowned, and looked quite
put out.

“Please wait till this evening,” he said hastily. “It is my custom to
stay at home all day. I only care to walk about the streets when the
lights are lit. You must bear with me, Mrs. Bunting, if I seem a
little, just a little, unlike the lodgers you have been accustomed to.
And I must ask you to understand that I must not be disturbed when
thinking out my problems—” He broke off short, sighed, then added
solemnly, “for mine are the great problems of life and death.”

And Mrs. Bunting willingly fell in with his wishes. In spite of her
prim manner and love of order, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady was a true
woman—she had, that is, an infinite patience with masculine vagaries
and oddities.

When she was downstairs again, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady met with a
surprise; but it was quite a pleasant surprise. While she had been
upstairs, talking to the lodger, Bunting’s young friend, Joe Chandler,
the detective, had come in, and as she walked into the sitting-room she
saw that her husband was pushing half a sovereign across the table
towards Joe.

Joe Chandler’s fair, good-natured face was full of satisfaction: not at
seeing his money again, mark you, but at the news Bunting had evidently
been telling him—that news of the sudden wonderful change in their
fortunes, the coming of an ideal lodger.

“Mr. Sleuth don’t want me to do his bedroom till he’s gone out!” she
exclaimed. And then she sat down for a bit of a rest.

It was a comfort to know that the lodger was eating his good breakfast,
and there was no need to think of him for the present. In a few minutes
she would be going down to make her own and Bunting’s dinner, and she
told Joe Chandler that he might as well stop and have a bite with them.

Her heart warmed to the young man, for Mrs. Bunting was in a mood which
seldom surprised her—a mood to be pleased with anything and everything.
Nay, more. When Bunting began to ask Joe Chandler about the last of
those awful Avenger murders, she even listened with a certain languid
interest to all he had to say.

In the morning paper which Bunting had begun taking again that very day
three columns were devoted to the extraordinary mystery which was now
beginning to be the one topic of talk all over London, West and East,
North and South. Bunting had read out little bits about it while they
ate their breakfast, and in spite of herself Mrs. Bunting had felt
thrilled and excited.

“They do say,” observed Bunting cautiously, “They do say, Joe, that the
police have a clue they won’t say nothing about?” He looked expectantly
at his visitor. To Bunting the fact that Chandler was attached to the
detective section of the Metropolitan Police invested the young man
with a kind of sinister glory—especially just now, when these awful and
mysterious crimes were amazing and terrifying the town.

“Them who says that says wrong,” answered Chandler slowly, and a look
of unease, of resentment came over his fair, stolid face. “’Twould make
a good bit of difference to me if the Yard had a clue.”

And then Mrs. Bunting interposed. “Why that, Joe?” she said, smiling
indulgently; the young man’s keenness about his work pleased her. And
in his slow, sure way Joe Chandler was very keen, and took his job very
seriously. He put his whole heart and mind into it.

“Well, ’tis this way,” he explained. “From to-day I’m on this business
myself. You see, Mrs. Bunting, the Yard’s nettled—that’s what it is,
and we’re all on our mettle—that we are. I was right down sorry for the
poor chap who was on point duty in the street where the last one
happened—”

“No!” said Bunting incredulously. “You don’t mean there was a policeman
there, within a few yards?”

That fact hadn’t been recorded in his newspaper.

Chandler nodded. “That’s exactly what I do mean, Mr. Bunting! The man
is near off his head, so I’m told. He did hear a yell, so he says, but
he took no notice—there are a good few yells in that part o’ London, as
you can guess. People always quarrelling and rowing at one another in
such low parts.”

“Have you seen the bits of grey paper on which the monster writes his
name?” inquired Bunting eagerly.

Public imagination had been much stirred by the account of those
three-cornered pieces of grey paper, pinned to the victims’ skirts, on
which was roughly written in red ink and in printed characters the
words “The Avenger.”

His round, fat face was full of questioning eagerness. He put his
elbows on the table, and stared across expectantly at the young man.

“Yes, I have,” said Joe briefly.

“A funny kind of visiting card, eh!” Bunting laughed; the notion struck
him as downright comic.

But Mrs. Bunting coloured. “It isn’t a thing to make a joke about,” she
said reprovingly.

And Chandler backed her up. “No, indeed,” he said feelingly. “I’ll
never forget what I’ve been made to see over this job. And as for that
grey bit of paper, Mr. Bunting—or, rather, those grey bits of paper”—he
corrected himself hastily—“you know they’ve three of them now at the
Yard—well, they gives me the horrors!”

And then he jumped up. “That reminds me that I oughtn’t to be wasting
my time in pleasant company—”

“Won’t you stay and have a bit of dinner?” said Mrs. Bunting
solicitously.

But the detective shook his head. “No,” he said, “I had a bite before I
came out. Our job’s a queer kind of job, as you know. A lot’s left to
our discretion, so to speak, but it don’t leave us much time for lazing
about, I can tell you.”

When he reached the door he turned round, and with elaborate
carelessness he inquired, “Any chance of Miss Daisy coming to London
again soon?”

Bunting shook his head, but his face brightened. He was very, very fond
of his only child; the pity was he saw her so seldom. “No,” he said,
“I’m afraid not Joe. Old Aunt, as we calls the old lady, keeps Daisy
pretty tightly tied to her apron-string. She was quite put about that
week the child was up with us last June.”

“Indeed? Well, so long!”

After his wife had let their friend out, Bunting said cheerfully, “Joe
seems to like our Daisy, eh, Ellen?”

But Mrs. Bunting shook her head scornfully. She did not exactly dislike
the girl, though she did not hold with the way Bunting’s daughter was
being managed by that old aunt of hers—an idle, good-for-nothing way,
very different from the fashion in which she herself had been trained
at the Foundling, for Mrs. Bunting as a little child had known no other
home, no other family than those provided by good Captain Coram.

“Joe Chandler’s too sensible a young chap to be thinking of girls yet
awhile,” she said tartly.

“No doubt you’re right,” Bunting agreed. “Times be changed. In my young
days chaps always had time for that. ’Twas just a notion that came into
my head, hearing him asking, anxious-like, after her.”

About five o’clock, after the street lamps were well alight, Mr. Sleuth
went out, and that same evening there came two parcels addressed to his
landlady. These parcels contained clothes. But it was quite clear to
Mrs. Bunting’s eyes that they were not new clothes. In fact, they had
evidently been bought in some good second-hand clothes-shop. A funny
thing for a real gentleman like Mr. Sleuth to do! It proved that he had
given up all hope of getting back his lost luggage.

When the lodger had gone out he had not taken his bag with him, of that
Mrs. Bunting was positive. And yet, though she searched high and low
for it, she could not find the place where Mr. Sleuth kept it. And at
last, had it not been that she was a very clear-headed woman, with a
good memory, she would have been disposed to think that the bag had
never existed, save in her imagination.

But no, she could not tell herself that! She remembered exactly how it
had looked when Mr. Sleuth had first stood, a strange, queer-looking
figure of a man, on her doorstep.

She further remembered how he had put the bag down on the floor of the
top front room, and then, forgetting what he had done, how he had asked
her eagerly, in a tone of angry fear, where the bag was—only to find it
safely lodged at his feet!

As time went on Mrs. Bunting thought a great deal about that bag, for,
strange and amazing fact, she never saw Mr. Sleuth’s bag again. But, of
course, she soon formed a theory as to its whereabouts. The brown
leather bag which had formed Mr. Sleuth’s only luggage the afternoon of
his arrival was almost certainly locked up in the lower part of the
drawing-room chiffonnier. Mr. Sleuth evidently always carried the key
of the little corner cupboard about his person; Mrs. Bunting had also
had a good hunt for that key, but, as was the case with the bag, the
key disappeared, and she never saw either the one or the other again.




CHAPTER V.


How quietly, how uneventfully, how pleasantly, sped the next few days.
Already life was settling down into a groove. Waiting on Mr. Sleuth was
just what Mrs. Bunting could manage to do easily, and without tiring
herself.

It had at once become clear that the lodger preferred to be waited on
only by one person, and that person his landlady. He gave her very
little trouble. Indeed, it did her good having to wait on the lodger;
it even did her good that he was not like other gentlemen; for the fact
occupied her mind, and in a way it amused her. The more so that
whatever his oddities Mr. Sleuth had none of those tiresome,
disagreeable ways with which landladies are only too familiar, and
which seem peculiar only to those human beings who also happen to be
lodgers. To take but one point: Mr. Sleuth did not ask to be called
unduly early. Bunting and his Ellen had fallen into the way of lying
rather late in the morning, and it was a great comfort not to have to
turn out to make the lodger a cup of tea at seven, or even half-past
seven. Mr. Sleuth seldom required anything before eleven.

But odd he certainly was.

The second evening he had been with them Mr. Sleuth had brought in a
book of which the queer name was Cruden’s Concordance. That and the
Bible—Mrs. Bunting had soon discovered that there was a relation
between the two books—seemed to be the lodger’s only reading. He spent
hours each day, generally after he had eaten the breakfast which also
served for luncheon, poring over the Old Testament and over that
strange kind of index to the Book.

As for the delicate and yet the all-important question of money, Mr.
Sleuth was everything—everything that the most exacting landlady could
have wished. Never had there been a more confiding or trusting
gentleman. On the very first day he had been with them he had allowed
his money—the considerable sum of one hundred and eighty-four
sovereigns—to lie about wrapped up in little pieces of rather dirty
newspaper on his dressing-table. That had quite upset Mrs. Bunting. She
had allowed herself respectfully to point out to him that what he was
doing was foolish, indeed wrong. But as only answer he had laughed, and
she had been startled when the loud, unusual and discordant sound had
issued from his thin lips.

“I know those I can trust,” he had answered, stuttering rather, as was
his way when moved. “And—and I assure you, Mrs. Bunting, that I hardly
have to speak to a human being—especially to a woman” (and he had drawn
in his breath with a hissing sound) “before I know exactly what manner
of person is before me.”

It hadn’t taken the landlady very long to find out that her lodger had
a queer kind of fear and dislike of women. When she was doing the
staircase and landings she would often hear Mr. Sleuth reading aloud to
himself passages in the Bible that were very uncomplimentary to her
sex. But Mrs. Bunting had no very great opinion of her sister woman, so
that didn’t put her out. Besides, where one’s lodger is concerned, a
dislike of women is better than—well, than the other thing.

In any case, where would have been the good of worrying about the
lodger’s funny ways? Of course, Mr. Sleuth was eccentric. If he hadn’t
been, as Bunting funnily styled it, “just a leetle touched upstairs,”
he wouldn’t be here, living this strange, solitary life in lodgings. He
would be living in quite a different sort of way with some of his
relatives, or with a friend of his own class.

There came a time when Mrs. Bunting, looking back—as even the least
imaginative of us are apt to look back to any part of our own past
lives which becomes for any reason poignantly memorable—wondered how
soon it was that she had discovered that her lodger was given to
creeping out of the house at a time when almost all living things
prefer to sleep.

She brought herself to believe—but I am inclined to doubt whether she
was right in so believing—that the first time she became aware of this
strange nocturnal habit of Mr. Sleuth’s happened to be during the night
which preceded the day on which she had observed a very curious
circumstance. This very curious circumstance was the complete
disappearance of one of Mr. Sleuth’s three suits of clothes.

It always passes my comprehension how people can remember, over any
length of time, not every moment of certain happenings, for that is
natural enough, but the day, the hour, the minute when these happenings
took place! Much as she thought about it afterwards, even Mrs. Bunting
never quite made up her mind whether it was during the fifth or the
sixth night of Mr. Sleuth’s stay under her roof that she became aware
that he had gone out at two in the morning and had only come in at
five.

But that there did come such a night is certain—as certain as is the
fact that her discovery coincided with various occurrences which were
destined to remain retrospectively memorable.

It was intensely dark, intensely quiet—the darkest quietest hour of the
night, when suddenly Mrs. Bunting was awakened from a deep, dreamless
sleep by sounds at once unexpected and familiar. She knew at once what
those sounds were. They were those made by Mr. Sleuth, first coming
down the stairs, and walking on tiptoe—she was sure it was on
tiptoe—past her door, and finally softly shutting the front door behind
him.

Try as she would, Mrs. Bunting found it quite impossible to go to sleep
again. There she lay wide awake, afraid to move lest Bunting should
waken up too, till she heard Mr. Sleuth, three hours later, creep back
into the house and so up to bed.

Then, and not till then, she slept again. But in the morning she felt
very tired, so tired indeed, that she had been very glad when Bunting
good-naturedly suggested that he should go out and do their little bit
of marketing.

The worthy couple had very soon discovered that in the matter of
catering it was not altogether an easy matter to satisfy Mr. Sleuth,
and that though he always tried to appear pleased. This perfect lodger
had one serious fault from the point of view of those who keep
lodgings. Strange to say, he was a vegetarian. He would not eat meat in
any form. He sometimes, however, condescended to a chicken, and when he
did so condescend he generously intimated that Mr. and Mrs. Bunting
were welcome to a share in it.

Now to-day—this day of which the happenings were to linger in Mrs.
Bunting’s mind so very long, and to remain so very vivid, it had been
arranged that Mr. Sleuth was to have some fish for his lunch, while
what he left was to be “done up” to serve for his simple supper.

Knowing that Bunting would be out for at least an hour, for he was a
gregarious soul, and liked to have a gossip in the shops he frequented,
Mrs. Bunting rose and dressed in a leisurely manner; then she went and
“did” her front sitting-room.

She felt languid and dull, as one is apt to feel after a broken night,
and it was a comfort to her to know that Mr. Sleuth was not likely to
ring before twelve.

But long before twelve a loud ring suddenly clanged through the quiet
house. She knew it for the front door bell.

Mrs. Bunting frowned. No doubt the ring betokened one of those tiresome
people who come round for old bottles and such-like fal-lals.

She went slowly, reluctantly to the door. And then her face cleared,
for it was that good young chap, Joe Chandler, who stood waiting
outside.

He was breathing a little hard, as if he had walked over-quickly
through the moist, foggy air.

“Why, Joe?” said Mrs. Bunting wonderingly. “Come in—do! Bunting’s out,
but he won’t be very long now. You’ve been quite a stranger these last
few days.”

“Well, you know why, Mrs. Bunting—”

She stared at him for a moment, wondering what he could mean. Then,
suddenly she remembered. Why, of course, Joe was on a big job just
now—the job of trying to catch The Avenger! Her husband had alluded to
the fact again and again when reading out to her little bits from the
halfpenny evening paper he was taking again.

She led the way to the sitting-room. It was a good thing Bunting had
insisted on lighting the fire before he went out, for now the room was
nice and warm—and it was just horrible outside. She had felt a chill go
right through her as she had stood, even for that second, at the front
door.

And she hadn’t been alone to feel it, for, “I say, it is jolly to be in
here, out of that awful cold!” exclaimed Chandler, sitting down heavily
in Bunting’s easy chair.

And then Mrs. Bunting bethought herself that the young man was tired,
as well as cold. He was pale, almost pallid under his usual healthy,
tanned complexion—the complexion of the man who lives much out of
doors.

“Wouldn’t you like me just to make you a cup of tea?” she said
solicitously.

“Well, to tell truth, I should be right down thankful for one, Mrs.
Bunting!” Then he looked round, and again he said her name, “Mrs.
Bunting—?”

He spoke in so odd, so thick a tone that she turned quickly. “Yes, what
is it, Joe?” she asked. And then, in sudden terror, “You’ve never come
to tell me that anything’s happened to Bunting? He’s not had an
accident?”

“Goodness, no! Whatever made you think that? But—but, Mrs. Bunting,
there’s been another of them!”

His voice dropped almost to a whisper. He was staring at her with
unhappy, it seemed to her terror-filled, eyes.

“Another of them?” She looked at him, bewildered—at a loss. And then
what he meant flashed across her—“another of them” meant another of
these strange, mysterious, awful murders.

But her relief for the moment was so great—for she really had thought
for a second that he had come to give her ill news of Bunting—that the
feeling that she did experience on hearing this piece of news was
actually pleasurable, though she would have been much shocked had that
fact been brought to her notice.

Almost in spite of herself, Mrs. Bunting had become keenly interested
in the amazing series of crimes which was occupying the imagination of
the whole of London’s nether-world. Even her refined mind had busied
itself for the last two or three days with the strange problem so
frequently presented to it by Bunting—for Bunting, now that they were
no longer worried, took an open, unashamed, intense interest in “The
Avenger” and his doings.

She took the kettle off the gas-ring. “It’s a pity Bunting isn’t here,”
she said, drawing in her breath. “He’d a-liked so much to hear you tell
all about it, Joe.”

As she spoke she was pouring boiling water into a little teapot.

But Chandler said nothing, and she turned and glanced at him. “Why, you
do look bad!” she exclaimed.

And, indeed, the young fellow did look bad—very bad indeed.

“I can’t help it,” he said, with a kind of gasp. “It was your saying
that about my telling you all about it that made me turn queer. You
see, this time I was one of the first there, and it fairly turned me
sick—that it did. Oh, it was too awful, Mrs. Bunting! Don’t talk of
it.”

He began gulping down the hot tea before it was well made.

She looked at him with sympathetic interest. “Why, Joe,” she said, “I
never would have thought, with all the horrible sights you see, that
anything could upset you like that.”

“This isn’t like anything there’s ever been before,” he said. “And
then—then—oh, Mrs. Bunting, ’twas I that discovered the piece of paper
this time.”

“Then it _is_ true,” she cried eagerly. “It _is_ The Avenger’s bit of
paper! Bunting always said it was. He never believed in that practical
joker.”

“I did,” said Chandler reluctantly. “You see, there are some queer
fellows even—even—” (he lowered his voice, and looked round him as if
the walls had ears)—“even in the Force, Mrs. Bunting, and these murders
have fair got on our nerves.”

“No, never!” she said. “D’you think that a Bobby might do a thing like
that?”

He nodded impatiently, as if the question wasn’t worth answering. Then,
“It was all along of that bit of paper and my finding it while the poor
soul was still warm,”—he shuddered—“that brought me out West this
morning. One of our bosses lives close by, in Prince Albert Terrace,
and I had to go and tell him all about it. They never offered me a bit
or a sup—I think they might have done that, don’t you, Mrs. Bunting?”

“Yes,” she said absently. “Yes, I do think so.”

“But, there, I don’t know that I ought to say that,” went on Chandler.
“He had me up in his dressing-room, and was very considerate-like to me
while I was telling him.”

“Have a bit of something now?” she said suddenly.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t eat anything,” he said hastily. “I don’t feel as if
I could ever eat anything any more.”

“That’ll only make you ill.” Mrs. Bunting spoke rather crossly, for she
was a sensible woman. And to please her he took a bite out of the slice
of bread-and-butter she had cut for him.

“I expect you’re right,” he said. “And I’ve a goodish heavy day in
front of me. Been up since four, too—”

“Four?” she said. “Was it then they found—” she hesitated a moment, and
then said, “it?”

He nodded. “It was just a chance I was near by. If I’d been half a
minute sooner either I or the officer who found her must have knocked
up against that—that monster. But two or three people do think they saw
him slinking away.”

“What was he like?” she asked curiously.

“Well, that’s hard to answer. You see, there was such an awful fog. But
there’s one thing they all agree about. He was carrying a bag—”

“A bag?” repeated Mrs. Bunting, in a low voice. “Whatever sort of bag
might it have been, Joe?”

There had come across her—just right in her middle, like—such a strange
sensation, a curious kind of tremor, or fluttering.

She was at a loss to account for it.

“Just a hand-bag,” said Joe Chandler vaguely. “A woman I spoke
to—cross-examining her, like—who was positive she had seen him, said,
‘Just a tall, thin shadow—that’s what he was, a tall, thin shadow of a
man—with a bag.’”

“With a bag?” repeated Mrs. Bunting absently. “How very strange and
peculiar—”

“Why, no, not strange at all. He has to carry the thing he does the
deed with in something, Mrs. Bunting. We’ve always wondered how he hid
it. They generally throws the knife or fire-arms away, you know.”

“Do they, indeed?” Mrs. Bunting still spoke in that absent, wondering
way. She was thinking that she really must try and see what the lodger
had done with his bag. It was possible—in fact, when one came to think
of it, it was very probable—that he had just lost it, being so
forgetful a gentleman, on one of the days he had gone out, as she knew
he was fond of doing, into the Regent’s Park.

“There’ll be a description circulated in an hour or two,” went on
Chandler. “Perhaps that’ll help catch him. There isn’t a London man or
woman, I don’t suppose, who wouldn’t give a good bit to lay that chap
by the heels. Well, I suppose I must be going now.”

“Won’t you wait a bit longer for Bunting?” she said hesitatingly.

“No, I can’t do that. But I’ll come in, maybe, either this evening or
to-morrow, and tell you any more that’s happened. Thanks kindly for the
tea. It’s made a man of me, Mrs. Bunting.”

“Well, you’ve had enough to unman you, Joe.”

“Aye, that I have,” he said heavily.

A few minutes later Bunting did come in, and he and his wife had quite
a little tiff—the first tiff they had had since Mr. Sleuth became their
lodger.

It fell out this way. When he heard who had been there, Bunting was
angry that Mrs. Bunting hadn’t got more details of the horrible
occurrence which had taken place that morning, out of Chandler.

“You don’t mean to say, Ellen, that you can’t even tell me where it
happened?” he said indignantly. “I suppose you put Chandler off—that’s
what you did! Why, whatever did he come here for, excepting to tell us
all about it?”

“He came to have something to eat and drink,” snapped out Mrs. Bunting.
“That’s what the poor lad came for, if you wants to know. He could
hardly speak of it at all—he felt so bad. In fact, he didn’t say a word
about it until he’d come right into the room and sat down. He told me
quite enough!”

“Didn’t he tell you if the piece of paper on which the murderer had
written his name was square or three-cornered?” demanded Bunting.

“No; he did not. And that isn’t the sort of thing I should have cared
to ask him.”

“The more fool you!” And then he stopped abruptly. The newsboys were
coming down the Marylebone Road, shouting out the awful discovery which
had been made that morning—that of The Avenger’s fifth murder. Bunting
went out to buy a paper, and his wife took the things he had brought in
down to the kitchen.

The noise the newspaper-sellers made outside had evidently wakened Mr.
Sleuth, for his landlady hadn’t been in the kitchen ten minutes before
his bell rang.




CHAPTER VI.


Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang again.

Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast was quite ready, but for the first time since he
had been her lodger Mrs. Bunting did not answer the summons at once.
But when there came the second imperative tinkle—for electric bells had
not been fitted into that old-fashioned house—she made up her mind to
go upstairs.

As she emerged into the hall from the kitchen stairway, Bunting,
sitting comfortably in their parlour, heard his wife stepping heavily
under the load of the well-laden tray.

“Wait a minute!” he called out. “I’ll help you, Ellen,” and he came out
and took the tray from her.

She said nothing, and together they proceeded up to the drawing-room
floor landing.

There she stopped him. “Here,” she whispered quickly, “you give me
that, Bunting. The lodger won’t like your going in to him.” And then,
as he obeyed her, and was about to turn downstairs again, she added in
a rather acid tone, “You might open the door for me, at any rate! How
can I manage to do it with this here heavy tray on my hands?”

She spoke in a queer, jerky way, and Bunting felt surprised—rather put
out. Ellen wasn’t exactly what you’d call a lively, jolly woman, but
when things were going well—as now—she was generally equable enough. He
supposed she was still resentful of the way he had spoken to her about
young Chandler and the new Avenger murder.

However, he was always for peace, so he opened the drawing-room door,
and as soon as he had started going downstairs Mrs. Bunting walked into
the room.

And then at once there came over her the queerest feeling of relief, of
lightness of heart.

As usual, the lodger was sitting at his old place, reading the Bible.

Somehow—she could not have told you why, she would not willingly have
told herself—she had expected to see Mr. Sleuth _looking different_.
But no, he appeared to be exactly the same—in fact, as he glanced up at
her a pleasanter smile than usual lighted up his thin, pallid face.

“Well, Mrs. Bunting,” he said genially, “I overslept myself this
morning, but I feel all the better for the rest.”

“I’m glad of that, sir,” she answered, in a low voice. “One of the
ladies I once lived with used to say, ‘Rest is an old-fashioned remedy,
but it’s the best remedy of all.’”

Mr. Sleuth himself removed the Bible and Cruden’s Concordance off the
table out of her way, and then he stood watching his landlady laying
the cloth.

Suddenly he spoke again. He was not often so talkative in the morning.
“I think, Mrs. Bunting, that there was someone with you outside the
door just now?”

“Yes, sir. Bunting helped me up with the tray.”

“I’m afraid I give you a good deal of trouble,” he said hesitatingly.

But she answered quickly, “Oh, no, sir! Not at all, sir! I was only
saying yesterday that we’ve never had a lodger that gave us as little
trouble as you do, sir.”

“I’m glad of that. I am aware that my habits are somewhat peculiar.”

He looked at her fixedly, as if expecting her to give some sort of
denial to this observation. But Mrs. Bunting was an honest and truthful
woman. It never occurred to her to question his statement. Mr. Sleuth’s
habits were somewhat peculiar. Take that going out at night, or rather
in the early morning, for instance? So she remained silent.

After she had laid the lodger’s breakfast on the table she prepared to
leave the room. “I suppose I’m not to do your room till you goes out,
sir?”

And Mr. Sleuth looked up sharply. “No, no!” he said. “I never want my
room done when I am engaged in studying the Scriptures, Mrs. Bunting.
But I am not going out to-day. I shall be carrying out a somewhat
elaborate experiment—upstairs. If I go out at all” he waited a moment,
and again he looked at her fixedly “—I shall wait till night-time to do
so.” And then, coming back to the matter in hand, he added hastily,
“Perhaps you could do my room when I go upstairs, about five o’clock—if
that time is convenient to you, that is?”

“Oh, yes, sir! That’ll do nicely!”

Mrs. Bunting went downstairs, and as she did so she took herself
wordlessly, ruthlessly to task, but she did not face—even in her inmost
heart—the strange tenors and tremors which had so shaken her. She only
repeated to herself again and again, “I’ve got upset—that’s what I’ve
done,” and then she spoke aloud, “I must get myself a dose at the
chemist’s next time I’m out. That’s what I must do.”

And just as she murmured the word “do,” there came a loud double knock
on the front door.

It was only the postman’s knock, but the postman was an unfamiliar
visitor in that house, and Mrs. Bunting started violently. She was
nervous, that’s what was the matter with her,—so she told herself
angrily. No doubt this was a letter for Mr. Sleuth; the lodger must
have relations and acquaintances somewhere in the world. All gentlefolk
have. But when she picked the small envelope off the hall floor, she
saw it was a letter from Daisy, her husband’s daughter.

“Bunting!” she called out sharply. “Here’s a letter for you.”

She opened the door of their sitting-room and looked in. Yes, there was
her husband, sitting back comfortably in his easy chair, reading a
paper. And as she saw his broad, rather rounded back, Mrs. Bunting felt
a sudden thrill of sharp irritation. There he was, doing nothing—in
fact, doing worse than nothing—wasting his time reading all about those
horrid crimes.

She sighed—a long, unconscious sigh. Bunting was getting into idle
ways, bad ways for a man of his years. But how could she prevent it? He
had been such an active, conscientious sort of man when they had first
made acquaintance. . .

She also could remember, even more clearly than Bunting did himself,
that first meeting of theirs in the dining-room of No. 90 Cumberland
Terrace. As she had stood there, pouring out her mistress’s glass of
port wine, she had not been too much absorbed in her task to have a
good out-of-her-eye look at the spruce, nice, respectable-looking
fellow who was standing over by the window. How superior he had
appeared even then to the man she already hoped he would succeed as
butler!

To-day, perhaps because she was not feeling quite herself, the past
rose before her very vividly, and a lump came into her throat.

Putting the letter addressed to her husband on the table, she closed
the door softly, and went down into the kitchen; there were various
little things to put away and clean up, as well as their dinner to
cook. And all the time she was down there she fixed her mind
obstinately, determinedly on Bunting and on the problem of Bunting. She
wondered what she’d better do to get him into good ways again.

Thanks to Mr. Sleuth, their outlook was now moderately bright. A week
ago everything had seemed utterly hopeless. It seemed as if nothing
could save them from disaster. But everything was now changed!

Perhaps it would be well for her to go and see the new proprietor of
that registry office, in Baker Street, which had lately changed hands.
It would be a good thing for Bunting to get even an occasional job—for
the matter of that he could now take up a fairly regular thing in the
way of waiting. Mrs. Bunting knew that it isn’t easy to get a man out
of idle ways once he has acquired those ways.

When, at last, she went upstairs again she felt a little ashamed of
what she had been thinking, for Bunting had laid the cloth, and laid it
very nicely, too, and brought up the two chairs to the table.

“Ellen?” he cried eagerly, “here’s news! Daisy’s coming to-morrow!
There’s scarlet fever in their house. Old Aunt thinks she’d better come
away for a few days. So, you see, she’ll be here for her birthday.
Eighteen, that’s what she be on the nineteenth! It do make me feel
old—that it do!”

Mrs. Bunting put down the tray. “I can’t have the girl here just now,”
she said shortly. “I’ve just as much to do as I can manage. The lodger
gives me more trouble than you seem to think for.”

“Rubbish!” he said sharply. “I’ll help you with the lodger. It’s your
own fault you haven’t had help with him before. Of course, Daisy must
come here. Whatever other place could the girl go to?”

Bunting felt pugnacious—so cheerful as to be almost light-hearted. But
as he looked across at his wife his feeling of satisfaction vanished.
Ellen’s face was pinched and drawn to-day; she looked ill—ill and
horribly tired. It was very aggravating of her to go and behave like
this—just when they were beginning to get on nicely again.

“For the matter of that,” he said suddenly, “Daisy’ll be able to help
you with the work, Ellen, and she’ll brisk us both up a bit.”

Mrs. Bunting made no answer. She sat down heavily at the table. And
then she said languidly, “You might as well show me the girl’s letter.”

He handed it across to her, and she read it slowly to herself.

“DEAR FATHER (it ran)—I hope this finds you as well at it leaves me.
Mrs. Puddle’s youngest has got scarlet fever, and Aunt thinks I had
better come away at once, just to stay with you for a few days. Please
tell Ellen I won’t give her no trouble. I’ll start at ten if I don’t
hear nothing.—Your loving daughter,


“DAISY.”


“Yes, I suppose Daisy will have to come here,” Mrs. Bunting slowly.
“It’ll do her good to have a bit of work to do for once in her life.”

And with that ungraciously worded permission Bunting had to content
himself.

Quietly the rest of that eventful day sped by. When dusk fell Mr.
Sleuth’s landlady heard him go upstairs to the top floor. She
remembered that this was the signal for her to go and do his room.

He was a tidy man, was the lodger; he did not throw his things about as
so many gentlemen do, leaving them all over the place. No, he kept
everything scrupulously tidy. His clothes, and the various articles
Mrs. Bunting had bought for him during the first two days he had been
there, were carefully arranged in the chest of drawers. He had lately
purchased a pair of boots. Those he had arrived in were
peculiar-looking footgear, buff leather shoes with rubber soles, and he
had told his landlady on that very first day that he never wished them
to go down to be cleaned.

A funny idea—a funny habit that, of going out for a walk after midnight
in weather so cold and foggy that all other folk were glad to be at
home, snug in bed. But then Mr. Sleuth himself admitted that he was a
funny sort of gentleman.

After she had done his bedroom the landlady went into the sitting-room
and gave it a good dusting. This room was not kept quite as nice as she
would have liked it to be. Mrs. Bunting longed to give the drawing-room
something of a good turn out; but Mr. Sleuth disliked her to be moving
about in it when he himself was in his bedroom; and when up he sat
there almost all the time. Delighted as he had seemed to be with the
top room, he only used it when making his mysterious experiments, and
never during the day-time.

And now, this afternoon, she looked at the rosewood chiffonnier with
longing eyes—she even gave that pretty little piece of furniture a
slight shake. If only the doors would fly open, as the locked doors of
old cupboards sometimes do, even after they have been securely
fastened, how pleased she would be, how much more comfortable somehow
she would feel!

But the chiffonnier refused to give up its secret.

About eight o’clock on that same evening Joe Chandler came in, just for
a few minutes’ chat. He had recovered from his agitation of the
morning, but he was full of eager excitement, and Mrs. Bunting listened
in silence, intensely interested in spite of herself, while he and
Bunting talked.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m as right as a trivet now! I’ve had a good
rest—laid down all this afternoon. You see, the Yard thinks there’s
going to be something on to-night. He’s always done them in pairs.”

“So he has,” exclaimed Bunting wonderingly. “So he has! Now, I never
thought o’ that. Then you think, Joe, that the monster’ll be on the job
again to-night?”

Chandler nodded. “Yes. And I think there’s a very good chance of his
being caught too—”

“I suppose there’ll be a lot on the watch to-night, eh?”

“I should think there will be! How many of our men d’you think there’ll
be on night duty to-night, Mr. Bunting?”

Bunting shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said helplessly.

“I mean extra,” suggested Chandler, in an encouraging voice.

“A thousand?” ventured Bunting.

“Five thousand, Mr. Bunting.”

“Never!” exclaimed Bunting, amazed.

And even Mrs. Bunting echoed “Never!” incredulously.

“Yes, that there will. You see, the Boss has got his monkey up!”
Chandler drew a folded-up newspaper out of his coat pocket. “Just
listen to this:

“‘The police have reluctantly to admit that they have no clue to the
perpetrators of these horrible crimes, and we cannot feel any surprise
at the information that a popular attack has been organised on the
Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. There is even talk of an
indignation mass meeting.’


“What d’you think of that? That’s not a pleasant thing for a gentleman
as is doing his best to read, eh?”

“Well, it does seem queer that the police can’t catch him, now doesn’t
it?” said Bunting argumentatively.

“I don’t think it’s queer at all,” said young Chandler crossly. “Now
you just listen again! Here’s a bit of the truth for once—in a
newspaper.” And slowly he read out:

“‘The detection of crime in London now resembles a game of blind man’s
buff, in which the detective has his hands tied and his eyes bandaged.
Thus is he turned loose to hunt the murderer through the slums of a
great city.’”


“Whatever does that mean?” said Bunting. “Your hands aren’t tied, and
your eyes aren’t bandaged, Joe?”

“It’s metaphorical-like that it’s intended, Mr. Bunting. We haven’t got
the same facilities—no, not a quarter of them—that the French ’tecs
have.”

And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting spoke: “What was that word,
Joe—‘perpetrators’? I mean that first bit you read out.”

“Yes,” he said, turning to her eagerly.

“Then do they think there’s more than one of them?” she said, and a
look of relief came over her thin face.

“There’s some of our chaps thinks it’s a gang,” said Chandler. “They
say it can’t be the work of one man.”

“What do _you_ think, Joe?”

“Well, Mrs. Bunting, I don’t know what to think. I’m fair puzzled.”

He got up. “Don’t you come to the door. I’ll shut it all right. So
long! See you to-morrow, perhaps.” As he had done the other evening,
Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s visitor stopped at the door. “Any news of Miss
Daisy?” he asked casually.

“Yes; she’s coming to-morrow,” said her father. “They’ve got scarlet
fever at her place. So Old Aunt thinks she’d better clear out.”

The husband and wife went to bed early that night, but Mrs. Bunting
found she could not sleep. She lay wide awake, hearing the hours, the
half-hours, the quarters chime out from the belfry of the old church
close by.

And then, just as she was dozing off—it must have been about one
o’clock—she heard the sound she had half unconsciously been expecting
to hear, that of the lodger’s stealthy footsteps coming down the stairs
just outside her room.

He crept along the passage and let himself out very, very quietly.

But though she tried to keep awake, Mrs. Bunting did not hear him come
in again, for she soon fell into a heavy sleep.

Oddly enough, she was the first to wake the next morning; odder still,
it was she, not Bunting, who jumped out of bed, and going out into the
passage, picked up the newspaper which had just been pushed through the
letter-box.

But having picked it up, Mrs. Bunting did not go back at once into her
bedroom. Instead she lit the gas in the passage, and leaning up against
the wall to steady herself, for she was trembling with cold and
fatigue, she opened the paper.

Yes, there was the heading she sought:

“THE AVENGER MURDERS”


But, oh, how glad she was to see the words that followed:

“Up to the time of going to press there is little new to report
concerning the extraordinary series of crimes which are amazing, and,
indeed, staggering not only London, but the whole civilised world, and
which would seem to be the work of some woman-hating teetotal fanatic.
Since yesterday morning, when the last of these dastardly murders was
committed, no reliable clue to the perpetrator, or perpetrators, has
been obtained, though several arrests were made in the course of the
day. In every case, however, those arrested were able to prove a
satisfactory alibi.”


And then, a little lower down:

“The excitement grows and grows. It is not too much to say that even a
stranger to London would know that something very unusual was in the
air. As for the place where the murder was committed last night—”


“Last night!” thought Mrs. Bunting, startled; and then she realised
that “last night,” in this connection, meant the night before last.

She began the sentence again:

“As for the place where the murder was committed last night, all
approaches to it were still blocked up to a late hour by hundreds of
onlookers, though, of course, nothing now remains in the way of traces
of the tragedy.”


Slowly and carefully Mrs. Bunting folded the paper up again in its
original creases, and then she stooped and put it back down on the mat
where she had found it. She then turned out the gas, and going back
into bed she lay down by her still sleeping husband.

“Anything the matter?” Bunting murmured, and stirred uneasily.
“Anything the matter, Ellen?”

She answered in a whisper, a whisper thrilling with a strange gladness,
“No, nothing, Bunting—nothing the matter! Go to sleep again, my dear.”

They got up an hour later, both in a happy, cheerful mood. Bunting
rejoiced at the thought of his daughter’s coming, and even Daisy’s
stepmother told herself that it would be pleasant having the girl about
the house to help her a bit.

About ten o’clock Bunting went out to do some shopping. He brought back
with him a nice little bit of pork for Daisy’s dinner, and three
mince-pies. He even remembered to get some apples for the sauce.




CHAPTER VII.


Just as twelve was striking a four-wheeler drew up to the gate.

It brought Daisy—pink-cheeked, excited, laughing-eyed Daisy—a sight to
gladden any father’s heart.

“Old Aunt said I was to have a cab if the weather was bad,” she cried
out joyously.

There was a bit of a wrangle over the fare. King’s Cross, as all the
world knows, is nothing like two miles from the Marylebone Road, but
the man clamoured for one and sixpence, and hinted darkly that he had
done the young lady a favour in bringing her at all.

While he and Bunting were having words, Daisy, leaving them to it,
walked up the flagged path to the door where her stepmother was
awaiting her.

As they were exchanging a rather frigid kiss, indeed, ’twas a mere peck
on Mrs. Bunting’s part, there fell, with startling suddenness, loud
cries on the still, cold air. Long-drawn and wailing, they sounded
strangely sad as they rose and fell across the distant roar of traffic
in the Edgware Road.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Bunting wonderingly. “Why, whatever’s that?”

The cabman lowered his voice. “Them’s ’a-crying out that ’orrible
affair at King’s Cross. He’s done for two of ’em this time! That’s what
I meant when I said I might ’a got a better fare. I wouldn’t say
nothink before little missy there, but folk ’ave been coming from all
over London the last five or six hours; plenty of toffs, too—but there,
there’s nothing to see now!”

“What? Another woman murdered last night?”

Bunting felt tremendously thrilled. What had the five thousand
constables been about to let such a dreadful thing happen?

The cabman stared at him, surprised. “Two of ’em, I tell yer—within a
few yards of one another. He ’ave—got a nerve—But, of course, they was
drunk. He are got a down on the drink!”

“Have they caught him?” asked Bunting perfunctorily.

“Lord, no! They’ll never catch ’im! It must ’ave happened hours and
hours ago—they was both stone cold. One each end of a little passage
what ain’t used no more. That’s why they didn’t find ’em before.”

The hoarse cries were coming nearer and nearer—two news vendors trying
to outshout each other.

“’Orrible discovery near King’s Cross!” they yelled exultingly. “The
Avenger again!”

And Bunting, with his daughter’s large straw hold-all in his hand, ran
forward into the roadway and recklessly gave a boy a penny for a
halfpenny paper.

He felt very much moved and excited. Somehow his acquaintance with
young Joe Chandler made these murders seem a personal affair. He hoped
that Chandler would come in soon and tell them all about it, as he had
done yesterday morning when he, Bunting, had unluckily been out.

As he walked back into the little hall, he heard Daisy’s voice—high,
voluble, excited—giving her stepmother a long account of the scarlet
fever case, and how at first Old Aunt’s neighbours had thought it was
not scarlet fever at all, but just nettlerash.

But as Bunting pushed open the door of the sitting-room, there came a
note of sharp alarm in his daughter’s voice, and he heard her cry,
“Why, Ellen, whatever is the matter? You _do_ look bad!” and his wife’s
muffled answer, “Open the window—do.”

“’Orrible discovery near King’s Cross—a clue at last!” yelled the
newspaper-boys triumphantly.

And then, helplessly, Mrs. Bunting began to laugh. She laughed, and
laughed, and laughed, rocking herself to and fro as if in an ecstasy of
mirth.

“Why, father, whatever’s the matter with her?”

Daisy looked quite scared.

“She’s in ’sterics—that’s what it is,” he said shortly. “I’ll just get
the water-jug. Wait a minute!”

Bunting felt very put out. Ellen was ridiculous—that’s what she was, to
be so easily upset.

The lodger’s bell suddenly pealed through the quiet house. Either that
sound, or maybe the threat of the water-jug, had a magical effect on
Mrs. Bunting. She rose to her feet, still shaking all over, but
mentally composed.

“I’ll go up,” she said a little chokingly. “As for you, child, just run
down into the kitchen. You’ll find a piece of pork roasting in the
oven. You might start paring the apples for the sauce.”

As Mrs. Bunting went upstairs her legs felt as if they were made of
cotton wool. She put out a trembling hand, and clutched at the banister
for support. But soon, making a great effort over herself, she began to
feel more steady; and after waiting for a few moments on the landing,
she knocked at the door of the drawing-room.

Mr. Sleuth’s voice answered her from the bedroom. “I’m not well,” he
called out querulously; “I think I’ve caught a chill. I should be
obliged if you would kindly bring me up a cup of tea, and put it
outside my door, Mrs. Bunting.”

“Very well, sir.”

Mrs. Bunting turned and went downstairs. She still felt queer and
giddy, so instead of going into the kitchen, she made the lodger his
cup of tea over her sitting-room gas-ring.

During their midday dinner the husband and wife had a little discussion
as to where Daisy should sleep. It had been settled that a bed should
be made up for her in the top back room, but Mrs. Bunting saw reason to
change this plan. “I think ’twould be better if Daisy were to sleep
with me, Bunting, and you was to sleep upstairs.”

Bunting felt and looked rather surprised, but he acquiesced. Ellen was
probably right; the girl would be rather lonely up there, and, after
all, they didn’t know much about the lodger, though he seemed a
respectable gentleman enough.

Daisy was a good-natured girl; she liked London, and wanted to make
herself useful to her stepmother. “I’ll wash up; don’t you bother to
come downstairs,” she said cheerfully.

Bunting began to walk up and down the room. His wife gave him a furtive
glance; she wondered what he was thinking about.

“Didn’t you get a paper?” she said at last.

“Yes, of course I did,” he answered hastily. “But I’ve put it away. I
thought you’d rather not look at it, as you’re that nervous.”

Again she glanced at him quickly, furtively, but he seemed just as
usual—he evidently meant just what he said and no more.

“I thought they was shouting something in the street—I mean just before
I was took bad.”

It was now Bunting’s turn to stare at his wife quickly and rather
furtively. He had felt sure that her sudden attack of queerness, of
hysterics—call it what you might—had been due to the shouting outside.
She was not the only woman in London who had got the Avenger murders on
her nerves. His morning paper said quite a lot of women were afraid to
go out alone. Was it possible that the curious way she had been taken
just now had had nothing to do with the shouts and excitement outside?

“Don’t you know what it was they were calling out?” he asked slowly.

Mrs. Bunting looked across at him. She would have given a very great
deal to be able to lie, to pretend that she did not know what those
dreadful cries had portended. But when it came to the point she found
she could not do so.

“Yes,” she said dully. “I heard a word here and there. There’s been
another murder, hasn’t there?”

“Two other murders,” he said soberly.

“Two? That’s worse news!” She turned so pale—a sallow
greenish-white—that Bunting thought she was again going queer.

“Ellen?” he said warningly, “Ellen, now do have a care! I can’t think
what’s come over you about these murders. Turn your mind away from
them, do! We needn’t talk about them—not so much, that is—”

“But I wants to talk about them,” cried Mrs. Bunting hysterically.

The husband and wife were standing, one each side of the table, the man
with his back to the fire, the woman with her back to the door.

Bunting, staring across at his wife, felt sadly perplexed and
disturbed. She really did seem ill; even her slight, spare figure
looked shrunk. For the first time, so he told himself ruefully, Ellen
was beginning to look her full age. Her slender hands—she had kept the
pretty, soft white hands of the woman who has never done rough
work—grasped the edge of the table with a convulsive movement.

Bunting didn’t at all like the look of her. “Oh, dear,” he said to
himself, “I do hope Ellen isn’t going to be ill! That would be a to-do
just now.”

“Tell me about it,” she commanded, in a low voice. “Can’t you see I’m
waiting to hear? Be quick now, Bunting!”

“There isn’t very much to tell,” he said reluctantly. “There’s precious
little in this paper, anyway. But the cabman what brought Daisy told
me—”

“Well?”

“What I said just now. There’s two of ’em this time, and they’d both
been drinking heavily, poor creatures.”

“Was it where the others was done?” she asked looking at her husband
fearfully.

“No,” he said awkwardly. “No, it wasn’t, Ellen. It was a good bit
farther West—in fact, not so very far from here. Near King’s
Cross—that’s how the cabman knew about it, you see. They seems to have
been done in a passage which isn’t used no more.” And then, as he
thought his wife’s eyes were beginning to look rather funny, he added
hastily. “There, that’s enough for the present! We shall soon be
hearing a lot more about it from Joe Chandler. He’s pretty sure to come
in some time to-day.”

“Then the five thousand constables weren’t no use?” said Mrs. Bunting
slowly.

She had relaxed her grip of the table, and was standing more upright.

“No use at all,” said Bunting briefly. “He is artful and no mistake
about it. But wait a minute—” he turned and took up the paper which he
had laid aside, on a chair. “Yes they says here that they has a clue.”

“A clue, Bunting?” Mrs. Bunting spoke in a soft, weak, die-away voice,
and again, stooping somewhat, she grasped the edge of the table.

But her husband was not noticing her now. He was holding the paper
close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a tone of considerable
satisfaction:

“‘It is gratifying to be able to state that the police at last believe
they are in possession of a clue which will lead to the arrest of
the—’”


and then Bunting dropped the paper and rushed round the table.

His wife, with a curious sighing moan, had slipped down on to the
floor, taking with her the tablecloth as she went. She lay there in
what appeared to be a dead faint. And Bunting, scared out of his wits,
opened the door and screamed out, “Daisy! Daisy! Come up, child.
Ellen’s took bad again.”

And Daisy, hurrying in, showed an amount of sense and resource which
even at this anxious moment roused her fond father’s admiration.

“Get a wet sponge, Dad—quick!” she cried, “a sponge,—and, if you’ve got
such a thing, a drop o’ brandy. I’ll see after her!” And then, after he
had got the little medicine flask, “I can’t think what’s wrong with
Ellen,” said Daisy wonderingly. “She seemed quite all right when I
first came in. She was listening, interested-like, to what I was
telling her, and then, suddenly—well, you saw how she was took, father?
’Tain’t like Ellen this, is it now?”

“No,” he whispered. “No, ’tain’t. But you see, child, we’ve been going
through a pretty bad time—worse nor I should ever have let you know of,
my dear. Ellen’s just feeling it now—that’s what it is. She didn’t say
nothing, for Ellen’s a good plucked one, but it’s told on her—it’s told
on her!”

And then Mrs. Bunting, sitting up, slowly opened her eyes, and
instinctively put her hand up to her head to see if her hair was all
right.

She hadn’t really been quite “off.” It would have been better for her
if she had. She had simply had an awful feeling that she couldn’t stand
up—more, that she must fall down. Bunting’s words touched a most
unwonted chord in the poor woman’s heart, and the eyes which she opened
were full of tears. She had not thought her husband knew how she had
suffered during those weeks of starving and waiting.

But she had a morbid dislike of any betrayal of sentiment. To her such
betrayal betokened “foolishness,” and so all she said was, “There’s no
need to make a fuss! I only turned over a little queer. I never was
right off, Daisy.”

Pettishly she pushed away the glass in which Bunting had hurriedly
poured a little brandy. “I wouldn’t touch such stuff—no, not if I was
dying!” she exclaimed.

Putting out a languid hand, she pulled herself up, with the help of the
table, on to her feet. “Go down again to the kitchen, child”; but there
was a sob, a kind of tremor in her voice.

“You haven’t been eating properly, Ellen—that’s what’s the matter with
you,” said Bunting suddenly. “Now I come to think of it, you haven’t
eat half enough these last two days. I always did say—in old days many
a time I telled you—that a woman couldn’t live on air. But there, you
never believed me!”

Daisy stood looking from one to the other, a shadow over her bright,
pretty face. “I’d no idea you’d had such a bad time, father,” she said
feelingly. “Why didn’t you let me know about it? I might have got
something out of Old Aunt.”

“We didn’t want anything of that sort,” said her stepmother hastily.
“But of course—well, I expect I’m still feeling the worry now. I don’t
seem able to forget it. Those days of waiting, of—of—” she restrained
herself; another moment and the word “starving” would have left her
lips.

“But everything’s all right now,” said Bunting eagerly, “all right,
thanks to Mr. Sleuth, that is.”

“Yes,” repeated his wife, in a low, strange tone of voice. “Yes, we’re
all right now, and as you say, Bunting, it’s all along of Mr. Sleuth.”

She walked across to a chair and sat down on it. “I’m just a little
tottery still,” she muttered.

And Daisy, looking at her, turned to her father and said in a whisper,
but not so low but that Mrs. Bunting heard her, “Don’t you think Ellen
ought to see a doctor, father? He might give her something that would
pull her round.”

“I won’t see no doctor!” said Mrs. Bunting with sudden emphasis. “I saw
enough of doctors in my last place. Thirty-eight doctors in ten months
did my poor missis have. Just determined on having ’em she was! Did
they save her? No! She died just the same! Maybe a bit sooner.”

“She was a freak, was your last mistress, Ellen,” began Bunting
aggressively.

Ellen had insisted on staying on in that place till her poor mistress
died. They might have been married some months before they were married
but for that fact. Bunting had always resented it.

His wife smile wanly. “We won’t have no words about that,” she said,
and again she spoke in a softer, kindlier tone than usual. “Daisy? If
you won’t go down to the kitchen again, then I must”—she turned to her
stepdaughter, and the girl flew out of the room.

“I think the child grows prettier every minute,” said Bunting fondly.

“Folks are too apt to forget that beauty is but skin deep,” said his
wife. She was beginning to feel better. “But still, I do agree,
Bunting, that Daisy’s well enough. And she seems more willing, too.”

“I say, we mustn’t forget the lodger’s dinner,” Bunting spoke uneasily.
“It’s a bit of fish to-day, isn’t it? Hadn’t I better just tell Daisy
to see to it, and then I can take it up to him, as you’re not feeling
quite the thing, Ellen?”

“I’m quite well enough to take up Mr. Sleuth’s luncheon,” she said
quickly. It irritated her to hear her husband speak of the lodger’s
dinner. They had dinner in the middle of the day, but Mr. Sleuth had
luncheon. However odd he might be, Mrs. Bunting never forgot her lodger
was a gentleman.

“After all, he likes me to wait on him, doesn’t he? I can manage all
right. Don’t you worry,” she added after a long pause.




CHAPTER VIII.


Perhaps because his luncheon was served to him a good deal later than
usual, Mr. Sleuth ate his nice piece of steamed sole upstairs with far
heartier an appetite than his landlady had eaten her nice slice of
roast pork downstairs.

“I hope you’re feeling a little better, sir,” Mrs. Bunting had forced
herself to say when she first took in his tray.

And he had answered plaintively, querulously, “No, I can’t say I feel
well to-day, Mrs. Bunting. I am tired—very tired. And as I lay in bed I
seemed to hear so many sounds—so much crying and shouting. I trust the
Marylebone Road is not going to become a noisy thoroughfare, Mrs.
Bunting?”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t think that. We’re generally reckoned very quiet
indeed, sir.”

She waited a moment—try as she would, she could not allude to what
those unwonted shouts and noises had betokened. “I expect you’ve got a
chill, sir,” she said suddenly. “If I was you, I shouldn’t go out this
afternoon; I’d just stay quietly indoors. There’s a lot of rough people
about—” Perhaps there was an undercurrent of warning, of painful
pleading, in her toneless voice which penetrated in some way to the
brain of the lodger, for Mr. Sleuth looked up, and an uneasy, watchful
look came into his luminous grey eyes.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Bunting. But I think I’ll take your
advice. That is, I will stay quietly at home, I am never at a loss to
know what to do with myself so long as I can study the Book of Books.”

“Then you’re not afraid about your eyes, sir?” said Mrs. Bunting
curiously. Somehow she was beginning to feel better. It comforted her
to be up here, talking to Mr. Sleuth, instead of thinking about him
downstairs. It seemed to banish the terror which filled her soul—aye,
and her body, too—at other times. When she was with him Mr. Sleuth was
so gentle, so reasonable, so—so grateful.

Poor kindly, solitary Mr. Sleuth! This kind of gentleman surely
wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a human being. Eccentric—so much must be
admitted. But Mrs. Bunting had seen a good deal of eccentric folk,
eccentric women rather than eccentric men, in her long career as useful
maid.

Being at ordinary times an exceptionally sensible, well-balanced woman,
she had never, in old days, allowed her mind to dwell on certain things
she had learnt as to the aberrations of which human nature is
capable—even well-born, well-nurtured, gentle human nature—as
exemplified in some of the households where she had served. It would,
indeed, be unfortunate if she now became morbid or—or hysterical.

So it was in a sharp, cheerful voice, almost the voice in which she had
talked during the first few days of Mr. Sleuth’s stay in her house,
that she exclaimed, “Well, sir, I’ll be up again to clear away in about
half an hour. And if you’ll forgive me for saying so, I hope you will
stay in and have a rest to-day. Nasty, muggy weather—that’s what it is!
If there’s any little thing you want, me or Bunting can go out and get
it.”

It must have been about four o’clock when there came a ring at the
front door.

The three were sitting chatting together, for Daisy had washed up—she
really was saving her stepmother a good bit of trouble—and the girl was
now amusing her elders by a funny account of Old Aunt’s pernickety
ways.

“Whoever can that be?” said Bunting, looking up. “It’s too early for
Joe Chandler, surely.”

“I’ll go,” said his wife, hurriedly jumping up from her chair. “I’ll
go! We don’t want no strangers in here.”

And as she stepped down the short bit of passage she said to herself,
“A clue? What clue?”

But when she opened the front door a glad sigh of relief broke from
her. “Why, Joe? We never thought ’twas you! But you’re very welcome,
I’m sure. Come in.”

And Chandler came in, a rather sheepish look on his good-looking, fair
young face.

“I thought maybe that Mr. Bunting would like to know—” he began, in a
loud, cheerful voice, and Mrs. Bunting hurriedly checked him. She
didn’t want the lodger upstairs to hear what young Chandler might be
going to say.

“Don’t talk so loud,” she said a little sharply. “The lodger is not
very well to-day. He’s had a cold,” she added hastily, “and during the
last two or three days he hasn’t been able to go out.”

She wondered at her temerity, her—her hypocrisy, and that moment, those
few words, marked an epoch in Ellen Bunting’s life. It was the first
time she had told a bold and deliberate lie. She was one of those
women—there are many, many such—to whom there is a whole world of
difference between the suppression of the truth and the utterance of an
untruth.

But Chandler paid no heed to her remarks. “Has Miss Daisy arrived?” he
asked, in a lower voice.

She nodded. And then he went through into the room where the father and
daughter were sitting.

“Well?” said Bunting, starting up. “Well, Joe? Now you can tell us all
about that mysterious clue. I suppose it’d be too good news to expect
you to tell us they’ve caught him?”

“No fear of such good news as that yet awhile. If they’d caught him,”
said Joe ruefully, “well, I don’t suppose I should be here, Mr.
Bunting. But the Yard are circulating a description at last. And—well,
they’ve found his weapon!”

“No?” cried Bunting excitedly. “You don’t say so! Whatever sort of a
thing is it? And are they sure ’tis his?”

“Well, ’tain’t sure, but it seems to be likely.”

Mrs. Bunting had slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.
But she was still standing with her back against the door, looking at
the group in front of her. None of them were thinking of her—she
thanked God for that! She could hear everything that was said without
joining in the talk and excitement.

“Listen to this!” cried Joe Chandler exultantly. “’Tain’t given out
yet—not for the public, that is—but we was all given it by eight
o’clock this morning. Quick work that, eh?” He read out:

“WANTED


“A man, of age approximately 28, slight in figure, height approximately
5 ft. 8 in. Complexion dark. No beard or whiskers. Wearing a black
diagonal coat, hard felt hat, high white collar, and tie. Carried a
newspaper parcel. Very respectable appearance.”


Mrs. Bunting walked forward. She gave a long, fluttering sigh of
unutterable relief.

“There’s the chap!” said Joe Chandler triumphantly. “And now, Miss
Daisy”—he turned to her jokingly, but there was a funny little tremor
in his frank, cheerful-sounding voice—“if you knows of any nice, likely
young fellow that answers to that description—well, you’ve only got to
walk in and earn your reward of five hundred pounds.”

“Five hundred pounds!” cried Daisy and her father simultaneously.

“Yes. That’s what the Lord Mayor offered yesterday. Some private
bloke—nothing official about it. But we of the Yard is barred from
taking that reward, worse luck. And it’s too bad, for we has all the
trouble, after all.”

“Just hand that bit of paper over, will you?” said Bunting. “I’d like
to con it over to myself.”

Chandler threw over the bit of flimsy.

A moment later Bunting looked up and handed it back. “Well, it’s clear
enough, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And there’s hundreds—nay, thousands—of young fellows that might
be a description of,” said Chandler sarcastically. “As a pal of mine
said this morning, ‘There isn’t a chap will like to carry a newspaper
parcel after this.’ And it won’t do to have a respectable
appearance—eh?”

Daisy’s voice rang out in merry, pealing laughter. She greatly
appreciated Mr. Chandler’s witticism.

“Why on earth didn’t the people who saw him try and catch him?” asked
Bunting suddenly.

And Mrs. Bunting broke in, in a lower voice, “Yes, Joe—that seems odd,
don’t it?”

Joe Chandler coughed. “Well, it’s this way,” he said. “No one person
did see all that. The man who’s described here is just made up from the
description of two different folk who _think_ they saw him. You see,
the murders must have taken place—well, now, let me see—perhaps at two
o’clock this last time. Two o’clock—that’s the idea. Well, at such a
time as that not many people are about, especially on a foggy night.
Yes, one woman declares she saw a young chap walking away from the spot
where ’twas done; and another one—but that was a good bit later—says
The Avenger passed by her. It’s mostly her they’re following in this
’ere description. And then the boss who has charge of that sort of
thing looked up what other people had said—I mean when the other crimes
was committed. That’s how he made up this ‘Wanted.’”

“Then The Avenger may be quite a different sort of man?” said Bunting
slowly, disappointedly.

“Well, of course he may be. But, no; I think that description fits him
all right,” said Chandler; but he also spoke in a hesitating voice.

“You was saying, Joe, that they found a weapon?” observed Bunting
insinuatingly.

He was glad that Ellen allowed the discussion to go on—in fact, that
she even seemed to take an intelligent interest in it. She had come up
close to them, and now looked quite her old self again.

“Yes. They believe they’ve found the weapon what he does his awful
deeds with,” said Chandler. “At any rate, within a hundred yards of
that little dark passage where they found the bodies—one at each end,
that was—there was discovered this morning a very peculiar kind o’
knife—‘keen as a razor, pointed as a dagger’—that’s the exact words the
boss used when he was describing it to a lot of us. He seemed to think
a lot more of that clue than of the other—I mean than of the
description people gave of the chap who walked quickly by with a
newspaper parcel. But now there’s a pretty job in front of us. Every
shop where they sell or might a’ sold, such a thing as that knife,
including every eating-house in the East End, has got to be called at!”

“Whatever for?” asked Daisy.

“Why, with an idea of finding out if anyone saw such a knife fooling
about there any time, and, if so, in whose possession it was at the
time. But, Mr. Bunting”—Chandler’s voice changed; it became
businesslike, official—“they’re not going to say anything about
that—not in newspapers—till to-morrow, so don’t you go and tell
anybody. You see, we don’t want to frighten the fellow off. If he knew
they’d got his knife—well, he might just make himself scarce, and they
don’t want that! If it’s discovered that any knife of that kind was
sold, say a month ago, to some customer whose ways are known,
then—then—”

“What’ll happen then?” said Mrs. Bunting, coming nearer.

“Well, then, nothing’ll be put about it in the papers at all,” said
Chandler deliberately. “The only objec’ of letting the public know
about it would be if nothink was found—I mean if the search of the
shops, and so on, was no good. Then, of course, we must try and find
out someone—some private person-like, who’s watched that knife in the
criminal’s possession. It’s there the reward—the five hundred pounds
will come in.”

“Oh, I’d give anything to see that knife!” exclaimed Daisy, clasping
her hands together.

“You cruel, bloodthirsty, girl!” cried her stepmother passionately.

They all looked round at her, surprised.

“Come, come, Ellen!” said Bunting reprovingly.

“Well, it _is_ a horrible idea!” said his wife sullenly. “To go and
sell a fellow-being for five hundred pounds.”

But Daisy was offended. “Of course I’d like to see it!” she cried
defiantly. “I never said nothing about the reward. That was Mr.
Chandler said that! I only said I’d like to see the knife.”

Chandler looked at her soothingly. “Well, the day may come when you
_will_ see it,” he said slowly.

A great idea had come into his mind.

“No! What makes you think that?”

“If they catches him, and if you comes along with me to see our Black
Museum at the Yard, you’ll certainly see the knife, Miss Daisy. They
keeps all them kind of things there. So if, as I say, this weapon
_should_ lead to the conviction of The Avenger—well, then, that knife
’ull be there, and you’ll see it!”

“The Black Museum? Why, whatever do they have a museum in your place
for?” asked Daisy wonderingly. “I thought there was only the British
Museum—”

And then even Mrs. Bunting, as well as Bunting and Chandler, laughed
aloud.

“You are a goosey girl!” said her father fondly. “Why, there’s a lot of
museums in London; the town’s thick with ’em. Ask Ellen there. She and
me used to go to them kind of places when we was courting—if the
weather was bad.”

“But our museum’s the one that would interest Miss Daisy,” broke in
Chandler eagerly. “It’s a regular Chamber of ’Orrors!”

“Why, Joe, you never told us about that place before,” said Bunting
excitedly. “D’you really mean that there’s a museum where they keeps
all sorts of things connected with crimes? Things like knives murders
have been committed with?”

“Knives?” cried Joe, pleased at having become the centre of attention,
for Daisy had also fixed her blue eyes on him, and even Mrs. Bunting
looked at him expectantly. “Much more than knives, Mr. Bunting! Why,
they’ve got there, in little bottles, the real poison what people have
been done away with.”

“And can you go there whenever you like?” asked Daisy wonderingly. She
had not realised before what extraordinary and agreeable privileges are
attached to the position of a detective member of the London Police
Force.

“Well, I suppose I _could_—” Joe smiled. “Anyway I can certainly get
leave to take a friend there.” He looked meaningly at Daisy, and Daisy
looked eagerly at him.

But would Ellen ever let her go out by herself with Mr. Chandler? Ellen
was so prim, so—so irritatingly proper. But what was this father was
saying? “D’you really mean that, Joe?”

“Yes, of course I do!”

“Well, then, look here! If it isn’t asking too much of a favour, I
should like to go along there with you very much one day. I don’t want
to wait till The Avenger’s caught”—Bunting smiled broadly. “I’d be
quite content as it is with what there is in that museum o’ yours.
Ellen, there,”—he looked across at his wife—“don’t agree with me about
such things. Yet I don’t think I’m a bloodthirsty man! But I’m just
terribly interested in all that sort of thing—always have been. I used
to positively envy the butler in that Balham Mystery!”

Again a look passed between Daisy and the young man—it was a look which
contained and carried a great many things backwards and forwards, such
as—“Now, isn’t it funny that your father should want to go to such a
place? But still, I can’t help it if he does want to go, so we must put
up with his company, though it would have been much nicer for us to go
just by our two selves.” And then Daisy’s look answered quite as
plainly, though perhaps Joe didn’t read her glance quite as clearly as
she had read his: “Yes, it is tiresome. But father means well; and
’twill be very pleasant going there, even if he does come too.”

“Well, what d’you say to the day after to-morrow, Mr. Bunting? I’d call
for you here about—shall we say half-past two?—and just take you and
Miss Daisy down to the Yard. ’Twouldn’t take very long; we could go all
the way by bus, right down to Westminster Bridge.” He looked round at
his hostess: “Wouldn’t you join us, Mrs. Bunting? ’Tis truly a
wonderful interesting place.”

But his hostess shook her head decidedly. “’Twould turn me sick,” she
exclaimed, “to see the bottle of poison what had done away with the
life of some poor creature!

“And as for knives—!” a look of real horror, of startled fear, crept
over her pale face.

“There, there!” said Bunting hastily. “Live and let live—that’s what I
always say. Ellen ain’t on in this turn. She can just stay at home and
mind the cat—I beg his pardon, I mean the lodger!”

“I won’t have Mr. Sleuth laughed at,” said Mrs. Bunting darkly. “But
there! I’m sure it’s very kind of you, Joe, to think of giving Bunting
and Daisy such a rare treat”—she spoke sarcastically, but none of the
three who heard her understood that.




CHAPTER IX.


The moment she passed though the great arched door which admits the
stranger to that portion of New Scotland Yard where throbs the heart of
that great organism which fights the forces of civilised crime, Daisy
Bunting felt that she had indeed become free of the Kingdom of Romance.
Even the lift in which the three of them were whirled up to one of the
upper floors of the huge building was to the girl a new and delightful
experience. Daisy had always lived a simple, quiet life in the little
country town where dwelt Old Aunt and this was the first time a lift
had come her way.

With a touch of personal pride in the vast building, Joe Chandler
marched his friends down a wide, airy corridor.

Daisy clung to her father’s arm, a little bewildered, a little
oppressed by her good fortune. Her happy young voice was stilled by the
awe she felt at the wonderful place where she found herself, and by the
glimpses she caught of great rooms full of busy, silent men engaged in
unravelling—or so she supposed—the mysteries of crime.

They were passing a half-open door when Chandler suddenly stopped
short. “Look in there,” he said, in a low voice, addressing the father
rather than the daughter, “that’s the Finger-Print Room. We’ve records
here of over two hundred thousand men’s and women’s finger-tips! I
expect you know, Mr. Bunting, as how, once we’ve got the print of a
man’s five finger-tips, well, he’s done for—if he ever does anything
else, that is. Once we’ve got that bit of him registered he can’t never
escape us—no, not if he tries ever so. But though there’s nigh on a
quarter of a million records in there, yet it don’t take—well, not half
an hour, for them to tell whether any particular man has ever been
convicted before! Wonderful thought, ain’t it?”

“Wonderful!” said Bunting, drawing a deep breath. And then a troubled
look came over his stolid face. “Wonderful, but also a very fearful
thought for the poor wretches as has got their finger-prints in, Joe.”

Joe laughed. “Agreed!” he said. “And the cleverer ones knows that only
too well. Why, not long ago, one man who knew his record was here safe,
managed to slash about his fingers something awful, just so as to make
a blurred impression—you takes my meaning? But there, at the end of six
weeks the skin grew all right again, and in exactly the same little
creases as before!”

“Poor devil!” said Bunting under his breath, and a cloud even came over
Daisy’s bright eager face.

They were now going along a narrower passage, and then again they came
to a half-open door, leading into a room far smaller than that of the
Finger-Print Identification Room.

“If you’ll glance in there,” said Joe briefly, “you’ll see how we finds
out all about any man whose finger-tips has given him away, so to
speak. It’s here we keeps an account of what he’s done, his previous
convictions, and so on. His finger-tips are where I told you, and his
record in there—just connected by a number.”

“Wonderful!” said Bunting, drawing in his breath. But Daisy was longing
to get on—to get to the Black Museum. All this that Joe and her father
were saying was quite unreal to her, and, for the matter of that not
worth taking the trouble to understand. However, she had not long to
wait.

A broad-shouldered, pleasant-looking young fellow, who seemed on very
friendly terms with Joe Chandler, came forward suddenly, and, unlocking
a common-place-looking door, ushered the little party of three through
into the Black Museum.

For a moment there came across Daisy a feeling of keen disappointment
and surprise. This big, light room simply reminded her of what they
called the Science Room in the public library of the town where she
lived with Old Aunt. Here, as there, the centre was taken up with plain
glass cases fixed at a height from the floor which enabled their
contents to be looked at closely.

She walked forward and peered into the case nearest the door. The
exhibits shown there were mostly small, shabby-looking little things,
the sort of things one might turn out of an old rubbish cupboard in an
untidy house—old medicine bottles, a soiled neckerchief, what looked
like a child’s broken lantern, even a box of pills. . .

As for the walls, they were covered with the queerest-looking objects;
bits of old iron, odd-looking things made of wood and leather, and so
on.

It was really rather disappointing.

Then Daisy Bunting gradually became aware that standing on a shelf just
below the first of the broad, spacious windows which made the great
room look so light and shadowless, was a row of life-size white plaster
heads, each head slightly inclined to the right. There were about a
dozen of these, not more—and they had such odd, staring, helpless,
_real_-looking faces.

“Whatever’s those?” asked Bunting in a low voice.

Daisy clung a thought closer to her father’s arm. Even she guessed that
these strange, pathetic, staring faces were the death-masks of those
men and women who had fulfilled the awful law which ordains that the
murderer shall be, in his turn, done to death.

“All hanged!” said the guardian of the Black Museum briefly. “Casts
taken after death.”

Bunting smiled nervously. “They don’t look dead somehow. They looks
more as if they were listening,” he said.

“That’s the fault of Jack Ketch,” said the man facetiously. “It’s his
idea—that of knotting his patient’s necktie under the left ear! That’s
what he does to each of the gentlemen to whom he has to act valet on
just one occasion only. It makes them lean just a bit to one side. You
look here—?”

Daisy and her father came a little closer, and the speaker pointed with
his finger to a little dent imprinted on the left side of each neck;
running from this indentation was a curious little furrow, well ridged
above, showing how tightly Jack Ketch’s necktie had been drawn when its
wearer was hurried through the gates of eternity.

“They looks foolish-like, rather than terrified, or—or hurt,” said
Bunting wonderingly.

He was extraordinarily moved and fascinated by those dumb, staring
faces.

But young Chandler exclaimed in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice,
“Well, a man would look foolish at such a time as that, with all his
plans brought to naught—and knowing he’s only got a second to live—now
wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, I suppose he would,” said Bunting slowly.

Daisy had gone a little pale. The sinister, breathless atmosphere of
the place was beginning to tell on her. She now began to understand
that the shabby little objects lying there in the glass case close to
her were each and all links in the chain of evidence which, in almost
every case, had brought some guilty man or woman to the gallows.

“We had a yellow gentleman here the other day,” observed the guardian
suddenly; “one of those Brahmins—so they calls themselves. Well, you’d
a been quite surprised to see how that heathen took on! He
declared—what was the word he used?”—he turned to Chandler.

“He said that each of these things, with the exception of the casts,
mind you—queer to say, he left them out—exuded evil, that was the word
he used! Exuded—squeezed out it means. He said that being here made him
feel very bad. And twasn’t all nonsense either. He turned quite green
under his yellow skin, and we had to shove him out quick. He didn’t
feel better till he’d got right to the other end of the passage!”

“There now! Who’d ever think of that?” said Bunting. “I should say that
man ’ud got something on his conscience, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, I needn’t stay now,” said Joe’s good-natured friend. “You show
your friends round, Chandler. You knows the place nearly as well as I
do, don’t you?”

He smiled at Joe’s visitors, as if to say good-bye, but it seemed that
he could not tear himself away after all.

“Look here,” he said to Bunting. “In this here little case are the
tools of Charles Peace. I expect you’ve heard of him.”

“I should think I have!” cried Bunting eagerly.

“Many gents as comes here thinks this case the most interesting of all.
Peace was such a wonderful man! A great inventor they say he would have
been, had he been put in the way of it. Here’s his ladder; you see it
folds up quite compactly, and makes a nice little bundle—just like a
bundle of old sticks any man might have been seen carrying about London
in those days without attracting any attention. Why, it probably helped
him to look like an honest working man time and time again, for on
being arrested he declared most solemnly he’d always carried that
ladder openly under his arm.”

“The daring of that!” cried Bunting.

“Yes, and when the ladder was opened out it could reach from the ground
to the second storey of any old house. And, oh! how clever he was! Just
open one section, and you see the other sections open automatically; so
Peace could stand on the ground and force the thing quietly up to any
window he wished to reach. Then he’d go away again, having done his
job, with a mere bundle of old wood under his arm! My word, he was
artful! I wonder if you’ve heard the tale of how Peace once lost a
finger. Well, he guessed the constables were instructed to look out for
a man missing a finger; so what did he do?”

“Put on a false finger,” suggested Bunting.

“No, indeed! Peace made up his mind just to do without a hand
altogether. Here’s his false stump: you see, it’s made of wood—wood and
black felt? Well, that just held his hand nicely. Why, we considers
that one of the most ingenious contrivances in the whole museum.”

Meanwhile, Daisy had let go her hold of her father. With Chandler in
delighted attendance, she had moved away to the farther end of the
great room, and now she was bending over yet another glass case.
“Whatever are those little bottles for?” she asked wonderingly.

There were five small phials, filled with varying quantities of cloudy
liquids.

“They’re full of poison, Miss Daisy, that’s what they are. There’s
enough arsenic in that little whack o’ brandy to do for you and me—aye,
and for your father as well, I should say.”

“Then chemists shouldn’t sell such stuff,” said Daisy, smiling. Poison
was so remote from herself, that the sight of these little bottles only
brought a pleasant thrill.

“No more they don’t. That was sneaked out of a flypaper, that was. Lady
said she wanted a cosmetic for her complexion, but what she was really
going for was flypapers for to do away with her husband. She’d got a
bit tired of him, I suspect.”

“Perhaps he was a horrid man, and deserved to be done away with,” said
Daisy. The idea struck them both as so very comic that they began to
laugh aloud in unison.

“Did you ever hear what a certain Mrs. Pearce did?” asked Chandler,
becoming suddenly serious.

“Oh, yes,” said Daisy, and she shuddered a little. “That was the
wicked, wicked woman what killed a pretty little baby and its mother.
They’ve got her in Madame Tussaud’s. But Ellen, she won’t let me go to
the Chamber of Horrors. She wouldn’t let father take me there last time
I was in London. Cruel of her, I called it. But somehow I don’t feel as
if I wanted to go there now, after having been here!”

“Well,” said Chandler slowly, “we’ve a case full of relics of Mrs.
Pearce. But the pram the bodies were found in, that’s at Madame
Tussaud’s—at least so they claim, I can’t say. Now here’s something
just as curious, and not near so dreadful. See that man’s jacket
there?”

“Yes,” said Daisy falteringly. She was beginning to feel oppressed,
frightened. She no longer wondered that the Indian gentleman had been
taken queer.

“A burglar shot a man dead who’d disturbed him, and by mistake he went
and left that jacket behind him. Our people noticed that one of the
buttons was broken in two. Well, that don’t seem much of a clue, does
it, Miss Daisy? Will you believe me when I tells you that that other
bit of button was discovered, and that it hanged the fellow? And ’twas
the more wonderful because all three buttons was different!”

Daisy stared wonderingly, down at the little broken button which had
hung a man. “And whatever’s that!” she asked, pointing to a piece of
dirty-looking stuff.

“Well,” said Chandler reluctantly, “that’s rather a horrible thing—that
is. That’s a bit o’ shirt that was buried with a woman—buried in the
ground, I mean—after her husband had cut her up and tried to burn her.
’Twas that bit o’ shirt that brought him to the gallows.”

“I considers your museum’s a very horrid place!” said Daisy pettishly,
turning away.

She longed to be out in the passage again, away from this brightly
lighted, cheerful-looking, sinister room.

But her father was now absorbed in the case containing various types of
infernal machines. “Beautiful little works of art some of them are,”
said his guide eagerly, and Bunting could not but agree.

“Come along—do, father!” said Daisy quickly. “I’ve seen about enough
now. If I was to stay in here much longer it ’ud give me the horrors. I
don’t want to have no nightmares to-night. It’s dreadful to think there
are so many wicked people in the world. Why, we might knock up against
some murderer any minute without knowing it, mightn’t we?”

“Not you, Miss Daisy,” said Chandler smilingly. “I don’t suppose you’ll
ever come across even a common swindler, let alone anyone who’s
committed a murder—not one in a million does that. Why, even I have
never had anything to do with a proper murder case!”

But Bunting was in no hurry. He was thoroughly enjoying every moment of
the time. Just now he was studying intently the various photographs
which hung on the walls of the Black Museum; especially was he pleased
to see those connected with a famous and still mysterious case which
had taken place not long before in Scotland, and in which the servant
of the man who died had played a considerable part—not in elucidating,
but in obscuring, the mystery.

“I suppose a good many murderers get off?” he said musingly.

And Joe Chandler’s friend nodded. “I should think they did!” he
exclaimed. “There’s no such thing as justice here in England. ’Tis odds
on the murderer every time. ’Tisn’t one in ten that come to the end he
should do—to the gallows, that is.”

“And what d’you think about what’s going on now—I mean about those
Avenger murders?”

Bunting lowered his voice, but Daisy and Chandler were already moving
towards the door.

“I don’t believe he’ll ever be caught,” said the other confidentially.
“In some ways ’tis a lot more of a job to catch a madman than ’tis to
run down just an ordinary criminal. And, of course—leastways to my
thinking—The Avenger _is_ a madman—one of the cunning, quiet sort. Have
you heard about the letter?” his voice dropped lower.

“No,” said Bunting, staring eagerly at him. “What letter d’you mean?”

“Well, there’s a letter—it’ll be in this museum some day—which came
just before that last double event. ’Twas signed ‘The Avenger,’ in just
the same printed characters as on that bit of paper he always leaves
behind him. Mind you, it don’t follow that it actually was The Avenger
what sent that letter here, but it looks uncommonly like it, and I know
that the Boss attaches quite a lot of importance to it.”

“And where was it posted?” asked Bunting. “That might be a bit of a
clue, you know.”

“Oh, no,” said the other. “They always goes a very long way to post
anything—criminals do. It stands to reason they would. But this
particular one was put in the Edgware Road Post Office.”

“What? Close to us?” said Bunting. “Goodness! dreadful!”

“Any of us might knock up against him any minute. I don’t suppose The
Avenger’s in any way peculiar-looking—in fact we know he ain’t.”

“Then you think that woman as says she saw him did see him?” asked
Bunting hesitatingly.

“Our description was made up from what she said,” answered the other
cautiously. “But, there, you can’t tell! In a case like that it’s
groping—groping in the dark all the time—and it’s just a lucky accident
if it comes out right in the end. Of course, it’s upsetting us all very
much here. You can’t wonder at that!”

“No, indeed,” said Bunting quickly. “I give you my word, I’ve hardly
thought of anything else for the last month.”

Daisy had disappeared, and when her father joined her in the passage
she was listening, with downcast eyes, to what Joe Chandler was saying.

He was telling her about his real home, of the place where his mother
lived, at Richmond—that it was a nice little house, close to the park.
He was asking her whether she could manage to come out there one
afternoon, explaining that his mother would give them tea, and how nice
it would be.

“I don’t see why Ellen shouldn’t let me,” the girl said rebelliously.
“But she’s that old-fashioned and pernickety is Ellen—a regular old
maid! And, you see, Mr. Chandler, when I’m staying with them, father
don’t like for me to do anything that Ellen don’t approve of. But she’s
got quite fond of you, so perhaps if you ask her—?” She looked at him,
and he nodded sagely.

“Don’t you be afraid,” he said confidently. “I’ll get round Mrs.
Bunting. But, Miss Daisy”—he grew very red—“I’d just like to ask you a
question—no offence meant—”

“Yes?” said Daisy a little breathlessly. “There’s father close to us,
Mr. Chandler. Tell me quick; what is it?”

“Well, I take it, by what you said just now, that you’ve never walked
out with any young fellow?”

Daisy hesitated a moment; then a very pretty dimple came into her
cheek. “No,” she said sadly. “No, Mr. Chandler, that I have not.” In a
burst of candour she added, “You see, I never had the chance!”

And Joe Chandler smiled, well pleased.




CHAPTER X.


By what she regarded as a fortunate chance, Mrs. Bunting found herself
for close on an hour quite alone in the house during her husband’s and
Daisy’s jaunt with young Chandler.

Mr. Sleuth did not often go out in the daytime, but on this particular
afternoon, after he had finished his tea, when dusk was falling, he
suddenly observed that he wanted a new suit of clothes, and his
landlady eagerly acquiesced in his going out to purchase it.

As soon as he had left the house, she went quickly up to the
drawing-room floor. Now had come her opportunity of giving the two
rooms a good dusting; but Mrs. Bunting knew well, deep in her heart,
that it was not so much the dusting of Mr. Sleuth’s sitting-room she
wanted to do—as to engage in a vague search for—she hardly knew for
what.

During the years she had been in service Mrs. Bunting had always had a
deep, wordless contempt for those of her fellow-servants who read their
employers’ private letters, and who furtively peeped into desks and
cupboards in the hope, more vague than positive, of discovering family
skeletons.

But now, with regard to Mr. Sleuth, she was ready, aye, eager, to do
herself what she had once so scorned others for doing.

Beginning with the bedroom, she started on a methodical search. He was
a very tidy gentleman was the lodger, and his few things,
under-garments, and so on, were in apple-pie order. She had early
undertaken, much to his satisfaction, to do the very little bit of
washing he required done, with her own and Bunting’s. Luckily he wore
soft shirts.

At one time Mrs. Bunting had always had a woman in to help her with
this tiresome weekly job, but lately she had grown quite clever at it
herself. The only things she had to send out were Bunting’s shirts.
Everything else she managed to do herself.

From the chest of drawers she now turned her attention to the
dressing-table.

Mr. Sleuth did not take his money with him when he went out, he
generally left it in one of the drawers below the old-fashioned
looking-glass. And now, in a perfunctory way, his landlady pulled out
the little drawer, but she did not touch what was lying there; she only
glanced at the heap of sovereigns and a few bits of silver. The lodger
had taken just enough money with him to buy the clothes he required. He
had consulted her as to how much they would cost, making no secret of
why he was going out, and the fact had vaguely comforted Mrs. Bunting.

Now she lifted the toilet-cover, and even rolled up the carpet a little
way, but no, there was nothing there, not so much as a scrap of paper.
And at last, when more or less giving up the search, as she came and
went between the two rooms, leaving the connecting door wide open, her
mind became full of uneasy speculation and wonder as to the lodger’s
past life.

Odd Mr. Sleuth must surely always have been, but odd in a sensible sort
of way, having on the whole the same moral ideals of conduct as have
other people of his class. He was queer about the drink—one might say
almost crazy on the subject—but there, as to that, he wasn’t the only
one! She, Ellen Bunting, had once lived with a lady who was just like
that, who was quite crazed, that is, on the question of drink and
drunkards—She looked round the neat drawing-room with vague
dissatisfaction. There was only one place where anything could be kept
concealed—that place was the substantial if small mahogany chiffonnier.
And then an idea suddenly came to Mrs. Bunting, one she had never
thought of before.

After listening intently for a moment, lest something should suddenly
bring Mr. Sleuth home earlier than she expected, she went to the corner
where the chiffonnier stood, and, exerting the whole of her not very
great physical strength, she tipped forward the heavy piece of
furniture.

As she did so, she heard a queer rumbling sound,—something rolling
about on the second shelf, something which had not been there before
Mr. Sleuth’s arrival. Slowly, laboriously, she tipped the chiffonnier
backwards and forwards—once, twice, thrice—satisfied, yet strangely
troubled in her mind, for she now felt sure that the bag of which the
disappearance had so surprised her was there, safely locked away by its
owner.

Suddenly a very uncomfortable thought came to Mrs. Bunting’s mind. She
hoped Mr. Sleuth would not notice that his bag had shifted inside the
cupboard. A moment later, with sharp dismay, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady
realised that the fact that she had moved the chiffonnier must become
known to her lodger, for a thin trickle of some dark-coloured liquid
was oozing out though the bottom of the little cupboard door.

She stooped down and touched the stuff. It showed red, bright red, on
her finger.

Mrs. Bunting grew chalky white, then recovered herself quickly. In fact
the colour rushed into her face, and she grew hot all over.

It was only a bottle of red ink she had upset—that was all! How could
she have thought it was anything else?

It was the more silly of her—so she told herself in scornful
condemnation—because she knew that the lodger used red ink. Certain
pages of Cruden’s Concordance were covered with notes written in Mr.
Sleuth’s peculiar upright handwriting. In fact in some places you
couldn’t see the margin, so closely covered was it with remarks and
notes of interrogation.

Mr. Sleuth had foolishly placed his bottle of red ink in the
chiffonnier—that was what her poor, foolish gentleman had done; and it
was owing to her inquisitiveness, her restless wish to know things she
would be none the better, none the happier, for knowing, that this
accident had taken place.

She mopped up with her duster the few drops of ink which had fallen on
the green carpet and then, still feeling, as she angrily told herself,
foolishly upset she went once more into the back room.

It was curious that Mr. Sleuth possessed no notepaper. She would have
expected him to have made that one of his first purchases—the more so
that paper is so very cheap, especially that rather dirty-looking grey
Silurian paper. Mrs. Bunting had once lived with a lady who always used
two kinds of notepaper, white for her friends and equals, grey for
those whom she called “common people.” She, Ellen Green, as she then
was, had always resented the fact. Strange she should remember it now,
stranger in a way because that employer of her’s had not been a real
lady, and Mr. Sleuth, whatever his peculiarities, was, in every sense
of the word, a real gentleman. Somehow Mrs. Bunting felt sure that if
he had bought any notepaper it would have been white—white and probably
cream-laid—not grey and cheap.

Again she opened the drawer of the old-fashioned wardrobe and lifted up
the few pieces of underclothing Mr. Sleuth now possessed.

But there was nothing there—nothing, that is, hidden away. When one
came to think of it there seemed something strange in the notion of
leaving all one’s money where anyone could take it, and in locking up
such a valueless thing as a cheap sham leather bag, to say nothing of a
bottle of ink.

Mrs. Bunting once more opened out each of the tiny drawers below the
looking-glass, each delicately fashioned of fine old mahogany. Mr.
Sleuth kept his money in the centre drawer.

The glass had only cost seven-and-sixpence, and, after the auction a
dealer had come and offered her first fifteen shillings, and then a
guinea for it. Not long ago, in Baker Street, she had seen a
looking-glass which was the very spit of this one, labeled
“Chippendale, Antique. £21 5s 0d.”

There lay Mr. Sleuth’s money—the sovereigns, as the landlady well knew,
would each and all gradually pass into her’s and Bunting’s possession,
honestly earned by them no doubt but unattainable—in act
unearnable—excepting in connection with the present owner of those
dully shining gold sovereigns.

At last she went downstairs to await Mr. Sleuth’s return.

When she heard the key turn in the door, she came out into the passage.

“I’m sorry to say I’ve had an accident, sir,” she said a little
breathlessly. “Taking advantage of your being out I went up to dust the
drawing-room, and while I was trying to get behind the chiffonnier it
tilted. I’m afraid, sir, that a bottle of ink that was inside may have
got broken, for just a few drops oozed out, sir. But I hope there’s no
harm done. I wiped it up as well as I could, seeing that the doors of
the chiffonnier are locked.”

Mr. Sleuth stared at her with a wild, almost a terrified glance. But
Mrs. Bunting stood her ground. She felt far less afraid now than she
had felt before he came in. Then she had been so frightened that she
had nearly gone out of the house, on to the pavement, for company.

“Of course I had no idea, sir, that you kept any ink in there.”

She spoke as if she were on the defensive, and the lodger’s brow
cleared.

“I was aware you used ink, sir,” Mrs. Bunting went on, “for I have seen
you marking that book of yours—I mean the book you read together with
the Bible. Would you like me to go out and get you another bottle,
sir?”

“No,” said Mr. Sleuth. “No, I thank you. I will at once proceed
upstairs and see what damage has been done. When I require you I shall
ring.”

He shuffled past her, and five minutes later the drawing-room bell did
ring.

At once, from the door, Mrs. Bunting saw that the chiffonnier was wide
open, and that the shelves were empty save for the bottle of red ink
which had turned over and now lay in a red pool of its own making on
the lower shelf.

“I’m afraid it will have stained the wood, Mrs. Bunting. Perhaps I was
ill-advised to keep my ink in there.”

“Oh, no, sir! That doesn’t matter at all. Only a drop or two fell out
on to the carpet, and they don’t show, as you see, sir, for it’s a dark
corner. Shall I take the bottle away? I may as well.”

Mr. Sleuth hesitated. “No,” he said, after a long pause, “I think not,
Mrs. Bunting. For the very little I require it the ink remaining in the
bottle will do quite well, especially if I add a little water, or
better still, a little tea, to what already remains in the bottle. I
only require it to mark up passages which happen to be of peculiar
interest in my Concordance—a work, Mrs. Bunting, which I should have
taken great pleasure in compiling myself had not this—ah—this gentleman
called Cruden, been before.”

Not only Bunting, but Daisy also, thought Ellen far pleasanter in her
manner than usual that evening. She listened to all they had to say
about their interesting visit to the Black Museum, and did not snub
either of them—no, not even when Bunting told of the dreadful,
haunting, silly-looking death-masks taken from the hanged.

But a few minutes after that, when her husband suddenly asked her a
question, Mrs. Bunting answered at random. It was clear she had not
heard the last few words he had been saying.

“A penny for your thoughts!” he said jocularly. But she shook her head.

Daisy slipped out of the room, and, five minutes later, came back
dressed up in a blue-and-white check silk gown.

“My!” said her father. “You do look fine, Daisy. I’ve never seen you
wearing that before.”

“And a rare figure of fun she looks in it!” observed Mrs. Bunting
sarcastically. And then, “I suppose this dressing up means that you’re
expecting someone. I should have thought both of you must have seen
enough of young Chandler for one day. I wonder when that young chap
does his work—that I do! He never seems too busy to come and waste an
hour or two here.”

But that was the only nasty thing Ellen said all that evening. And even
Daisy noticed that her stepmother seemed dazed and unlike herself. She
went about her cooking and the various little things she had to do even
more silently than was her wont.

Yet under that still, almost sullen, manner, how fierce was the storm
of dread, of sombre anguish, and, yes, of sick suspense, which shook
her soul, and which so far affected her poor, ailing body that often
she felt as if she could not force herself to accomplish her simple
round of daily work.

After they had finished supper Bunting went out and bought a penny
evening paper, but as he came in he announced, with a rather rueful
smile, that he had read so much of that nasty little print this last
week or two that his eyes hurt him.

“Let me read aloud a bit to you, father,” said Daisy eagerly, and he
handed her the paper.

Scarcely had Daisy opened her lips when a loud ring and a knock echoed
through the house.




CHAPTER XI.


It was only Joe. Somehow, even Bunting called him “Joe” now, and no
longer “Chandler,” as he had mostly used to do.

Mrs. Bunting had opened the front door only a very little way. She
wasn’t going to have any strangers pushing in past her.

To her sharpened, suffering senses her house had become a citadel which
must be defended; aye, even if the besiegers were a mighty horde _with
right on their side_. And she was always expecting that first single
spy who would herald the battalion against whom her only weapon would
be her woman’s wit and cunning.

But when she saw who stood there smiling at her, the muscles of her
face relaxed, and it lost the tense, anxious, almost agonised look it
assumed the moment she turned her back on her husband and stepdaughter.

“Why, Joe,” she whispered, for she had left the door open behind her,
and Daisy had already begun to read aloud, as her father had bidden
her. “Come in, do! It’s fairly cold to-night.”

A glance at his face had shown her that there was no fresh news.

Joe Chandler walked in, past her, into the little hall. Cold? Well, he
didn’t feel cold, for he had walked quickly to be the sooner where he
was now.

Nine days had gone by since that last terrible occurrence, the double
murder which had been committed early in the morning of the day Daisy
had arrived in London. And though the thousands of men belonging to the
Metropolitan Police—to say nothing of the smaller, more alert body of
detectives attached to the Force—were keenly on the alert, not one but
had begun to feel that there was nothing to be alert about.
Familiarity, even with horror, breeds contempt.

But with the public it was far otherwise. Each day something happened
to revive and keep alive the mingled horror and interest this strange,
enigmatic series of crimes had evoked. Even the more sober organs of
the Press went on attacking, with gathering severity and indignation,
the Commissioner of Police; and at the huge demonstration held in
Victoria Park two days before violent speeches had also been made
against the Home Secretary.

But just now Joe Chandler wanted to forget all that. The little house
in the Marylebone Road had become to him an enchanted isle of dreams,
to which his thoughts were ever turning when he had a moment to spare
from what had grown to be a wearisome, because an unsatisfactory, job.
He secretly agreed with one of his pals who had exclaimed, and that
within twenty-four hours of the last double crime, “Why, ’twould be
easier to find a needle in a rick o’ hay than this—bloke!”

And if that had been true then, how much truer it was now—after nine
long, empty days had gone by?

Quickly he divested himself of his great-coat, muffler, and low hat.
Then he put his finger on his lip, and motioned smilingly to Mrs.
Bunting to wait a moment. From where he stood in the hall the father
and daughter made a pleasant little picture of contented domesticity.
Joe Chandler’s honest heart swelled at the sight.

Daisy, wearing the blue-and-white check silk dress about which her
stepmother and she had had words, sat on a low stool on the left side
of the fire, while Bunting, leaning back in his own comfortable
arm-chair, was listening, his hand to his ear, in an attitude—as it was
the first time she had caught him doing it, the fact brought a pang to
Mrs. Bunting—which showed that age was beginning to creep over the
listener.

One of Daisy’s duties as companion to her great-aunt was that of
reading the newspaper aloud, and she prided herself on her
accomplishment.

Just as Joe had put his finger on his lip Daisy had been asking, “Shall
I read this, father?” And Bunting had answered quickly, “Aye, do, my
dear.”

He was absorbed in what he was hearing, and, on seeing Joe at the door,
he had only just nodded his head. The young man was becoming so
frequent a visitor as to be almost one of themselves.

Daisy read out:

“THE AVENGER: A—”


And then she stopped short, for the next word puzzled her greatly.
Bravely, however, she went on. “A the-o-ry.”

“Go in—do!” whispered Mrs. Bunting to her visitor. “Why should we stay
out here in the cold? It’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t want to interrupt Miss Daisy,” whispered Chandler back, rather
hoarsely.

“Well, you’ll hear it all the better in the room. Don’t think she’ll
stop because of you, bless you! There’s nothing shy about our Daisy!”

The young man resented the tart, short tone. “Poor little girl!” he
said to himself tenderly. “That’s what it is having a stepmother,
instead of a proper mother.” But he obeyed Mrs. Bunting, and then he
was pleased he had done so, for Daisy looked up, and a bright blush
came over her pretty face.

“Joe begs you won’t stop yet awhile. Go on with your reading,”
commanded Mrs. Bunting quickly. “Now, Joe, you can go and sit over
there, close to Daisy, and then you won’t miss a word.”

There was a sarcastic inflection in her voice, even Chandler noticed
that, but he obeyed her with alacrity, and crossing the room he went
and sat on a chair just behind Daisy. From there he could note with
reverent delight the charming way her fair hair grew upwards from the
nape of her slender neck.

“THE AVENGER: A THE-O-RY”


began Daisy again, clearing her throat.

“DEAR SIR—I have a suggestion to put forward for which I think there is
a great deal to be said. It seems to me very probable that The
Avenger—to give him the name by which he apparently wishes to be
known—comprises in his own person the peculiarities of Jekyll and Hyde,
Mr. Louis Stevenson’s now famous hero.
    “The culprit, according to my point of view, is a quiet,
    pleasant-looking gentleman who lives somewhere in the West End of
    London. He has, however, a tragedy in his past life. He is the
    husband of a dipsomaniac wife. She is, of course, under care, and
    is never mentioned in the house where he lives, maybe with his
    widowed mother and perhaps a maiden sister. They notice that he has
    become gloomy and brooding of late, but he lives his usual life,
    occupying himself each day with some harmless hobby. On foggy
    nights, once the quiet household is plunged in sleep, he creeps out
    of the house, maybe between one and two o’clock, and swiftly makes
    his way straight to what has become The Avenger’s murder area.
    Picking out a likely victim, he approaches her with Judas-like
    gentleness, and having committed his awful crime, goes quietly home
    again. After a good bath and breakfast, he turns up happy, once
    more the quiet individual who is an excellent son, a kind brother,
    esteemed and even beloved by a large circle of friends and
    acquaintances. Meantime, the police are searching about the scene
    of the tragedy for what they regard as the usual type of criminal
    lunatic.
    “I give this theory, Sir, for what it is worth, but I confess that
    I am amazed the police have so wholly confined their inquiries to
    the part of London where these murders have been actually
    committed. I am quite sure from all that has come out—and we must
    remember that full information is never given to the newspapers—The
    Avenger should be sought for in the West and not in the East End of
    London—Believe me to remain, Sir, yours very truly—”


Again Daisy hesitated, and then with an effort she brought out the word
“Gab-o-ri-you,” said she.

“What a funny name!” said Bunting wonderingly.

And then Joe broke in: “That’s the name of a French chap what wrote
detective stories,” he said. “Pretty good, some of them are, too!”

“Then this Gaboriyou has come over to study these Avenger murders, I
take it?” said Bunting.

“Oh, no,” Joe spoke with confidence. “Whoever’s written that silly
letter just signed that name for fun.”

“It is a silly letter,” Mrs. Bunting had broken in resentfully. “I
wonder a respectable paper prints such rubbish.”

“Fancy if The Avenger did turn out to be a gentleman!” cried Daisy, in
an awe-struck voice. “There’d be a how-to-do!”

“There may be something in the notion,” said her father thoughtfully.
“After all, the monster must be somewhere. This very minute he must be
somewhere a-hiding of himself.”

“Of course he’s somewhere,” said Mrs. Bunting scornfully.

She had just heard Mr. Sleuth moving overhead. ’Twould soon be time for
the lodger’s supper.

She hurried on: “But what I do say is that—that—he has nothing to do
with the West End. Why, they say it’s a sailor from the Docks—that’s a
good bit more likely, I take it. But there, I’m fair sick of the whole
subject! We talk of nothing else in this house. The Avenger this—The
Avenger that—”

“I expect Joe has something to tell us new to-night,” said Bunting
cheerfully. “Well, Joe, is there anything new?”

“I say, father, just listen to this!” Daisy broke in excitedly. She
read out:

“BLOODHOUNDS TO BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED”


“Bloodhounds?” repeated Mrs. Bunting, and there was terror in her tone.
“Why bloodhounds? That do seem to me a most horrible idea!”

Bunting looked across at her, mildly astonished. “Why, ’twould be a
very good idea, if ’twas possible to have bloodhounds in a town. But,
there, how can that be done in London, full of butchers’ shops, to say
nothing of slaughter-yards and other places o’ that sort?”

But Daisy went on, and to her stepmother’s shrinking ear there seemed a
horrible thrill of delight; of gloating pleasure, in her fresh young
voice.

“Hark to this,” she said:

“A man who had committed a murder in a lonely wood near Blackburn was
traced by the help of a bloodhound, and thanks to the sagacious
instincts of the animal, the miscreant was finally convicted and
hanged.”


“La, now! Who’d ever have thought of such a thing?” Bunting exclaimed,
in admiration. “The newspapers do have some useful hints in sometimes,
Joe.”

But young Chandler shook his head. “Bloodhounds ain’t no use,” he said;
“no use at all! If the Yard was to listen to all the suggestions that
the last few days have brought in—well, all I can say is our work would
be cut out for us—not but what it’s cut out for us now, if it comes to
that!” He sighed ruefully. He was beginning to feel very tired; if only
he could stay in this pleasant, cosy room listening to Daisy Bunting
reading on and on for ever, instead of having to go out, as he would
presently have to do, into the cold and foggy night!

Joe Chandler was fast becoming very sick of his new job. There was a
lot of unpleasantness attached to the business, too. Why, even in the
house where he lived, and in the little cook-shop where he habitually
took his meals, the people round him had taken to taunt him with the
remissness of the police. More than that one of his pals, a man he’d
always looked up to, because the young fellow had the gift of the gab,
had actually been among those who had spoken at the big demonstration
in Victoria Park, making a violent speech, not only against the
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but also against the Home
Secretary.

But Daisy, like most people who believe themselves blessed with the
possession of an accomplishment, had no mind to leave off reading just
yet.

“Here’s another notion!” she exclaimed. “Another letter, father!”

“PARDON TO ACCOMPLICES.


“DEAR SIR—During the last day or two several of the more Intelligent of
my acquaintances have suggested that The Avenger, whoever he may be,
must be known to a certain number of persons. It is impossible that the
perpetrator of such deeds, however nomad he may be in his habits—”


“Now I wonder what ‘nomad’ can be?” Daisy interrupted herself, and
looked round at her little audience.

“I’ve always declared the fellow had all his senses about him,”
observed Bunting confidently.

Daisy went on, quite satisfied:

“—however nomad he may be in his habit; must have some habitat where
his ways are known to at least one person. Now the person who knows the
terrible secret is evidently withholding information in expectation of
a reward, or maybe because, being an accessory after the fact, he or
she is now afraid of the consequences. My suggestion, Sir, is that the
Home Secretary promise a free pardon. The more so that only thus can
this miscreant be brought to justice. Unless he was caught red-handed
in the act, it will be exceedingly difficult to trace the crime
committed to any individual, for English law looks very askance at
circumstantial evidence.”


“There’s something worth listening to in that letter,” said Joe,
leaning forward.

Now he was almost touching Daisy, and he smiled involuntarily as she
turned her gay, pretty little face the better to hear what he was
saying.

“Yes, Mr. Chandler?” she said interrogatively.

“Well, d’you remember that fellow what killed an old gentleman in a
railway carriage? He took refuge with someone—a woman his mother had
known, and she kept him hidden for quite a long time. But at last she
gave him up, and she got a big reward, too!”

“I don’t think I’d like to give anybody up for a reward,” said Bunting,
in his slow, dogmatic way.

“Oh, yes, you would, Mr. Bunting,” said Chandler confidently. “You’d
only be doing what it’s the plain duty of everyone—everyone, that is,
who’s a good citizen. And you’d be getting something for doing it,
which is more than most people gets as does their duty.”

“A man as gives up someone for a reward is no better than a common
informer,” went on Bunting obstinately. “And no man ’ud care to be
called that! It’s different for you, Joe,” he added hastily. “It’s your
job to catch those who’ve done anything wrong. And a man’d be a fool
who’d take refuge—like with you. He’d be walking into the lion’s
mouth—” Bunting laughed.

And then Daisy broke in coquettishly: “If I’d done anything I wouldn’t
mind going for help to Mr. Chandler,” she said.

And Joe, with eyes kindling, cried, “No. And if you did you needn’t be
afraid I’d give you up, Miss Daisy!”

And then, to their amazement, there suddenly broke from Mrs. Bunting,
sitting with bowed head over the table, an exclamation of impatience
and anger, and, it seemed to those listening, of pain.

“Why, Ellen, don’t you feel well?” asked Bunting quickly.

“Just a spasm, a sharp stitch in my side, like,” answered the poor
woman heavily. “It’s over now. Don’t mind me.”

“But I don’t believe—no, that I don’t—that there’s anybody in the world
who knows who The Avenger is,” went on Chandler quickly. “It stands to
reason that anybody’d give him up—in their own interest, if not in
anyone else’s. Who’d shelter such a creature? Why, ’twould be dangerous
to have him in the house along with one!”

“Then it’s your idea that he’s not responsible for the wicked things he
does?” Mrs. Bunting raised her head, and looked over at Chandler with
eager, anxious eyes.

“I’d be sorry to think he wasn’t responsible enough to hang!” said
Chandler deliberately. “After all the trouble he’s been giving us,
too!”

“Hanging’d be too good for that chap,” said Bunting.

“Not if he’s not responsible,” said his wife sharply. “I never heard of
anything so cruel—that I never did! If the man’s a madman, he ought to
be in an asylum—that’s where he ought to be.”

“Hark to her now!” Bunting looked at his Ellen with amusement.
“Contrary isn’t the word for her! But there, I’ve noticed the last few
days that she seemed to be taking that monster’s part. That’s what
comes of being a born total abstainer.”

Mrs. Bunting had got up from her chair. “What nonsense you do talk!”
she said angrily. “Not but what it’s a good thing if these murders have
emptied the public-houses of women for a bit. England’s drink is
England’s shame—I’ll never depart from that! Now, Daisy, child, get up,
do! Put down that paper. We’ve heard quite enough. You can be laying
the cloth while I goes down the kitchen.”

“Yes, you mustn’t be forgetting the lodger’s supper,” called out
Bunting. “Mr. Sleuth don’t always ring—” he turned to Chandler. “For
one thing, he’s often out about this time.”

“Not often—just now and again, when he wants to buy something,” snapped
out Mrs. Bunting. “But I hadn’t forgot his supper. He never do want it
before eight o’clock.”

“Let me take up the lodger’s supper, Ellen,” Daisy’s eager voice broke
in. She had got up in obedience to her stepmother, and was now laying
the cloth.

“Certainly not! I told you he only wanted me to wait on him. You have
your work cut out looking after things down here—that’s where I wants
you to help me.”

Chandler also got up. Somehow he didn’t like to be doing nothing while
Daisy was so busy. “Yes,” he said, looking across at Mrs. Bunting, “I’d
forgotten about your lodger. Going on all right, eh?”

“Never knew so quiet and well-behaved a gentleman,” said Bunting. “He
turned our luck, did Mr. Sleuth.”

His wife left the room, and after she had gone Daisy laughed. “You’ll
hardly believe it, Mr. Chandler, but I’ve never seen this wonderful
lodger. Ellen keeps him to herself, that she does! If I was father I’d
be jealous!”

Both men laughed. Ellen? No, the idea was too funny.




CHAPTER XII.


“All I can say is, I think Daisy ought to go. One can’t always do just
what one wants to do—not in this world, at any rate!”

Mrs. Bunting did not seem to be addressing anyone in particular, though
both her husband and her stepdaughter were in the room. She was
standing by the table, staring straight before her, and as she spoke
she avoided looking at either Bunting or Daisy. There was in her voice
a tone of cross decision, of thin finality, with which they were both
acquainted, and to which each listener knew the other would have to
bow.

There was silence for a moment, then Daisy broke out passionately, “I
don’t see why I should go if I don’t want to!” she cried. “You’ll allow
I’ve been useful to you, Ellen? ’Tisn’t even as if you was quite well.”

“I am quite well—perfectly well!” snapped out Mrs. Bunting, and she
turned her pale, drawn face, and looked angrily at her stepdaughter.

“’Tain’t often I has a chance of being with you and father.” There were
tears in Daisy’s voice, and Bunting glanced deprecatingly at his wife.

An invitation had come to Daisy—an invitation from her own dead
mother’s sister, who was housekeeper in a big house in Belgrave Square.
“The family” had gone away for the Christmas holidays, and Aunt
Margaret—Daisy was her godchild—had begged that her niece might come
and spend two or three days with her.

But the girl had already had more than one taste of what life was like
in the great gloomy basement of 100 Belgrave Square. Aunt Margaret was
one of those old-fashioned servants for whom the modern employer is
always sighing. While “the family” were away it was her joy—she
regarded it as a privilege—to wash sixty-seven pieces of very valuable
china contained in two cabinets in the drawing-room; she also slept in
every bed by turns, to keep them all well aired. These were the two
duties with which she intended her young niece to assist her, and
Daisy’s soul sickened at the prospect.

But the matter had to be settled at once. The letter had come an hour
ago, containing a stamped telegraph form, and Aunt Margaret was not one
to be trifled with.

Since breakfast the three had talked of nothing else, and from the very
first Mrs. Bunting had said that Daisy ought to go—that there was no
doubt about it, that it did not admit of discussion. But discuss it
they all did, and for once Bunting stood up to his wife. But that, as
was natural, only made his Ellen harder and more set on her own view.

“What the child says is true,” he observed. “It isn’t as if you was
quite well. You’ve been took bad twice in the last few days—you can’t
deny of it, Ellen. Why shouldn’t I just take a bus and go over and see
Margaret? I’d tell her just how it is. She’d understand, bless you!”

“I won’t have you doing nothing of the sort!” cried Mrs. Bunting,
speaking almost as passionately as her stepdaughter had done. “Haven’t
I a right to be ill, haven’t I a right to be took bad, aye, and to feel
all right again—same as other people?”

Daisy turned round and clasped her hands. “Oh, Ellen!” she cried; “do
say that you can’t spare me! I don’t want to go across to that horrid
old dungeon of a place.”

“Do as you like,” said Mrs. Bunting sullenly. “I’m fair tired of you
both! There’ll come a day, Daisy, when you’ll know, like me, that money
is the main thing that matters in this world; and when your Aunt
Margaret’s left her savings to somebody else just because you wouldn’t
spend a few days with her this Christmas, then you’ll know what it’s
like to go without—you’ll know what a fool you were, and that nothing
can’t alter it any more!”

And then, with victory actually in her grasp, poor Daisy saw it
snatched from her.

“Ellen is right,” Bunting said heavily. “Money does matter—a terrible
deal—though I never thought to hear Ellen say ’twas the only thing that
mattered. But ’twould be foolish—very, very foolish, my girl, to offend
your Aunt Margaret. It’ll only be two days after all—two days isn’t a
very long time.”

But Daisy did not hear her father’s last words. She had already rushed
from the room, and gone down to the kitchen to hide her childish tears
of disappointment—the childish tears which came because she was
beginning to be a woman, with a woman’s natural instinct for building
her own human nest.

Aunt Margaret was not one to tolerate the comings of any strange young
man, and she had a peculiar dislike to the police.

“Who’d ever have thought she’d have minded as much as that!” Bunting
looked across at Ellen deprecatingly; already his heart was misgiving
him.

“It’s plain enough why she’s become so fond of us all of a sudden,”
said Mrs. Bunting sarcastically. And as her husband stared at her
uncomprehendingly, she added, in a tantalising tone, “as plain as the
nose on your face, my man.”

“What d’you mean?” he said. “I daresay I’m a bit slow, Ellen, but I
really don’t know what you’d be at?”

“Don’t you remember telling me before Daisy came here that Joe Chandler
had become sweet on her last summer? I thought it only foolishness
then, but I’ve come round to your view—that’s all.”

Bunting nodded his head slowly. Yes, Joe had got into the way of coming
very often, and there had been the expedition to that gruesome Scotland
Yard museum, but somehow he, Bunting, had been so interested in the
Avenger murders that he hadn’t thought of Joe in any other
connection—not this time, at any rate.

“And do you think Daisy likes him?” There was an unwonted tone of
excitement, of tenderness, in Bunting’s voice.

His wife looked over at him; and a thin smile, not an unkindly smile by
any means, lit up her pale face. “I’ve never been one to prophesy,” she
answered deliberately. “But this I don’t mind telling you,
Bunting—Daisy’ll have plenty o’ time to get tired of Joe Chandler
before they two are dead. Mark my words!”

“Well, she might do worse,” said Bunting ruminatingly. “He’s as steady
as God makes them, and he’s already earning thirty-two shillings a
week. But I wonder how Old Aunt’d like the notion? I don’t see her
parting with Daisy before she must.”

“I wouldn’t let no old aunt interfere with me about such a thing as
that!” cried Mrs. Bunting. “No, not for millions of gold!” And Bunting
looked at her in silent wonder. Ellen was singing a very different tune
now to what she’d sung a few minutes ago, when she was so keen about
the girl going to Belgrave Square.

“If she still seems upset while she’s having her dinner,” said his wife
suddenly, “well, you just wait till I’ve gone out for something, and
then you just say to her, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’—just
that, and nothing more! She’ll take it from you. And I shouldn’t be
surprised if it comforted her quite a lot.”

“For the matter of that, there’s no reason why Joe Chandler shouldn’t
go over and see her there,” said Bunting hesitatingly.

“Oh, yes, there is,” said Mrs. Bunting, smiling shrewdly. “Plenty of
reason. Daisy’ll be a very foolish girl if she allows her aunt to know
any of her secrets. I’ve only seen that woman once, but I know exactly
the sort Margaret is. She’s just waiting for Old Aunt to drop off and
then she’ll want to have Daisy herself—to wait on her, like. She’d turn
quite nasty if she thought there was a young fellow what stood in her
way.”

She glanced at the clock, the pretty little eight-day clock which had
been a wedding present from a kind friend of her last mistress. It had
mysteriously disappeared during their time of trouble, and had as
mysteriously reappeared three or four days after Mr. Sleuth’s arrival.

“I’ve time to go out with that telegram,” she said briskly—somehow she
felt better, different to what she had done the last few days—“and then
it’ll be done. It’s no good having more words about it, and I expect we
should have plenty more words if I wait till the child comes upstairs
again.”

She did not speak unkindly, and Bunting looked at her rather
wonderingly. Ellen very seldom spoke of Daisy as “the child”—in fact,
he could only remember her having done so once before, and that was a
long time ago. They had been talking over their future life together,
and she had said, very solemnly, “Bunting, I promise I will do my
duty—as much as lies in my power, that is—by the child.”

But Ellen had not had much opportunity of doing her duty by Daisy. As
not infrequently happens with the duties that we are willing to do,
that particular duty had been taken over by someone else who had no
mind to let it go.

“What shall I do if Mr. Sleuth rings?” asked Bunting, rather nervously.
It was the first time since the lodger had come to them that Ellen had
offered to go out in the morning.

She hesitated. In her anxiety to have the matter of Daisy settled, she
had forgotten Mr. Sleuth. Strange that she should have done so—strange,
and, to herself, very comfortable and pleasant.

“Oh, well, you can just go up and knock at the door and say I’ll be
back in a few minutes—that I had to go out with a message. He’s quite a
reasonable gentleman.” She went into the back room to put on her bonnet
and thick jacket for it was very cold—getting colder every minute.

As she stood, buttoning her gloves—she wouldn’t have gone out untidy
for the world—Bunting suddenly came across to her. “Give us a kiss, old
girl,” he said. And his wife turned up her face.

“One ’ud think it was catching!” she said, but there was a lilt in her
voice.

“So it is,” Bunting briefly answered. “Didn’t that old cook get married
just after us? She’d never ’a thought of it if it hadn’t been for you!”

But once she was out, walking along the damp, uneven pavement, Mr.
Sleuth revenged himself for his landlady’s temporary forgetfulness.

During the last two days the lodger had been queer, odder than usual,
unlike himself, or, rather, very much as he had been some ten days ago,
just before that double murder had taken place.

The night before, while Daisy was telling all about the dreadful place
to which Joe Chandler had taken her and her father, Mrs. Bunting had
heard Mr. Sleuth moving about overhead, restlessly walking up and down
his sitting-room. And later, when she took up his supper, she had
listened a moment outside the door, while he read aloud some of the
texts his soul delighted in—terrible texts telling of the grim joys
attendant on revenge.

Mrs. Bunting was so absorbed in her thoughts, so possessed with the
curious personality of her lodger, that she did not look where she was
going, and suddenly a young woman bumped up against her.

She started violently and looked round, dazed, as the young person
muttered a word of apology;—then she again fell into deep thought.

It was a good thing Daisy was going away for a few days; it made the
problem of Mr. Sleuth and his queer ways less disturbing. She, Ellen,
was sorry she had spoken so sharp-like to the girl, but after all it
wasn’t wonderful that she had been snappy. This last night she had
hardly slept at all. Instead, she had lain awake listening—and there is
nothing so tiring as to lie awake listening for a sound that never
comes.

The house had remained so still you could have heard a pin drop. Mr.
Sleuth, lying snug in his nice warm bed upstairs, had not stirred. Had
he stirred his landlady was bound to have heard him, for his bed was,
as we know, just above hers. No, during those long hours of darkness
Daisy’s light, regular breathing was all that had fallen on Mrs.
Bunting’s ears.

And then her mind switched off Mr. Sleuth. She made a determined effort
to expel him, to toss him, as it were, out of her thoughts.

It seemed strange that The Avenger had stayed his hand, for, as Joe had
said only last evening, it was full time that he should again turn that
awful, mysterious searchlight of his on himself. Mrs. Bunting always
visioned The Avenger as a black shadow in the centre a bright blinding
light—but the shadow had no form or definite substance. Sometimes he
looked like one thing, sometimes like another . . .

Mrs. Bunting had now come to the corner which led up the street where
there was a Post Office. But instead of turning sharp to the left she
stopped short for a minute.

There had suddenly come over her a feeling of horrible self-rebuke and
even self-loathing. It was dreadful that she, of all women, should have
longed to hear that another murder had been committed last night!

Yet such was the shameful fact. She had listened all through breakfast
hoping to hear the dread news being shouted outside; yes, and more or
less during the long discussion which had followed on the receipt of
Margaret’s letter she had been hoping—hoping against hope—that those
dreadful triumphant shouts of the newspaper-sellers still might come
echoing down the Marylebone Road. And yet hypocrite that she was, she
had reproved Bunting when he had expressed, not disappointment
exactly—but, well, surprise, that nothing had happened last night.

Now her mind switched off to Joe Chandler. Strange to think how afraid
she had been of that young man! She was no longer afraid of him, or
hardly at all. He was dotty—that’s what was the matter with him, dotty
with love for rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little Daisy. Anything might now
go on, right under Joe Chandler’s very nose—but, bless you, he’d never
see it! Last summer, when this affair, this nonsense of young Chandler
and Daisy had begun, she had had very little patience with it all. In
fact, the memory of the way Joe had gone on then, the tiresome way he
would be always dropping in, had been one reason (though not the most
important reason of all) why she had felt so terribly put about at the
idea of the girl coming again. But now? Well, now she had become quite
tolerant, quite kindly—at any rate as far as Joe Chandler was
concerned.

She wondered why.

Still, ’twouldn’t do Joe a bit of harm not to see the girl for a couple
of days. In fact ’twould be a very good thing, for then he’d think of
Daisy—think of her to the exclusion of all else. Absence does make the
heart grow fonder—at first, at any rate. Mrs. Bunting was well aware of
that. During the long course of hers and Bunting’s mild courting,
they’d been separated for about three months, and it was that three
months which had made up her mind for her. She had got so used to
Bunting that she couldn’t do without him, and she had felt—oddest fact
of all—acutely, miserably jealous. But she hadn’t let him know that—no
fear!

Of course, Joe mustn’t neglect his job—that would never do. But what a
good thing it was, after all, that he wasn’t like some of those
detective chaps that are written about in stories—the sort of chaps
that know everything, see everything, guess everything—even where there
isn’t anything to see, or know, or guess!

Why, to take only one little fact—Joe Chandler had never shown the
slightest curiosity about their lodger. . . .

Mrs. Bunting pulled herself together with a start, and hurried quickly
on. Bunting would begin to wonder what had happened to her.

She went into the Post Office and handed the form to the young woman
without a word. Margaret, a sensible woman, who was accustomed to
manage other people’s affairs, had even written out the words: “Will be
with you to tea.—DAISY.”

It was a comfort to have the thing settled once for all. If anything
horrible was going to happen in the next two or three days—it was just
as well Daisy shouldn’t be at home. Not that there was any _real_
danger that anything would happen,—Mrs. Bunting felt sure of that.

By this time she was out in the street again, and she began mentally
counting up the number of murders The Avenger had committed. Nine, or
was it ten? Surely by now The Avenger must be avenged? Surely by now,
if—as that writer in the newspaper had suggested—he was a quiet,
blameless gentleman living in the West End, whatever vengeance he had
to wreak, must be satisfied?

She began hurrying homewards; it wouldn’t do for the lodger to ring
before she had got back. Bunting would never know how to manage Mr.
Sleuth, especially if Mr. Sleuth was in one of his queer moods.

Mrs. Bunting put the key into the front door lock and passed into the
house. Then her heart stood still with fear and terror. There came the
sound of voices—of voices she thought she did not know—in the
sitting-room.

She opened the door, and then drew a long breath. It was only Joe
Chandler—Joe, Daisy, and Bunting, talking together. They stopped rather
guiltily as she came in, but not before she had heard Chandler utter
the words: “That don’t mean nothing! I’ll just run out and send another
saying you won’t come, Miss Daisy.”

And then the strangest smile came over Mrs. Bunting’s face. There had
fallen on her ear the still distant, but unmistakable, shouts which
betokened that something _had_ happened last night—something which made
it worth while for the newspaper-sellers to come crying down the
Marylebone Road.

“Well?” she said a little breathlessly. “Well, Joe? I suppose you’ve
brought us news? I suppose there’s been another?”

He looked at her, surprised. “No, that there hasn’t, Mrs. Bunting—not
as far as I know, that is. Oh, you’re thinking of those newspaper
chaps? They’ve got to cry out something,” he grinned. “You wouldn’t ’a
thought folk was so bloodthirsty. They’re just shouting out that
there’s been an arrest; but we don’t take no stock of that. It’s a
Scotchman what gave himself up last night at Dorking. He’d been
drinking, and was a-pitying of himself. Why, since this business began,
there’s been about twenty arrests, but they’ve all come to nothing.”

“Why, Ellen, you looks quite sad, quite disappointed,” said Bunting
jokingly. “Come to think of it, it’s high time The Avenger was at work
again.” He laughed as he made his grim joke. Then turned to young
Chandler: “Well, _you’ll_ be glad when its all over, my lad.”

“Glad in a way,” said Chandler unwillingly. “But one ’ud have liked to
have caught him. One doesn’t like to know such a creature’s at large,
now, does one?”

Mrs. Bunting had taken off her bonnet and jacket. “I must just go and
see about Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast,” she said in a weary, dispirited
voice, and left them there.

She felt disappointed, and very, very depressed. As to the plot which
had been hatching when she came in, that had no chance of success;
Bunting would never dare let Daisy send out another telegram
contradicting the first. Besides, Daisy’s stepmother shrewdly suspected
that by now the girl herself wouldn’t care to do such a thing. Daisy
had plenty of sense tucked away somewhere in her pretty little head. If
it ever became her fate to live as a married woman in London, it would
be best to stay on the right side of Aunt Margaret.

And when she came into her kitchen the stepmother’s heart became very
soft, for Daisy had got everything beautifully ready. In fact, there
was nothing to do but to boil Mr. Sleuth’s two eggs. Feeling suddenly
more cheerful than she had felt of late, Mrs. Bunting took the tray
upstairs.

“As it was rather late, I didn’t wait for you to ring, sir,” she said.

And the lodger looked up from the table where, as usual, he was
studying with painful, almost agonising intentness, the Book. “Quite
right, Mrs. Bunting—quite right! I have been pondering over the
command, ‘Work while it is yet light.’”

“Yes, sir?” she said, and a queer, cold feeling stole over her heart.
“Yes, sir?”

“‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh—the flesh is weak,’” said Mr.
Sleuth, with a heavy sigh.

“You studies too hard, and too long—that’s what’s ailing you, sir,”
said Mr. Sleuth’s landlady suddenly.

When Mrs. Bunting went down again she found that a great deal had been
settled in her absence; among other things, that Joe Chandler was going
to escort Miss Daisy across to Belgrave Square. He could carry Daisy’s
modest bag, and if they wanted to ride instead of walk, why, they could
take the bus from Baker Street Station to Victoria—that would land them
very near Belgrave Square.

But Daisy seemed quite willing to walk; she hadn’t had a walk, she
declared, for a long, long time—and then she blushed rosy red, and even
her stepmother had to admit to herself that Daisy was very nice
looking, not at all the sort of girl who ought to be allowed to go
about the London streets by herself.




CHAPTER XIII.


Daisy’s father and stepmother stood side by side at the front door,
watching the girl and young Chandler walk off into the darkness.

A yellow pall of fog had suddenly descended on London, and Joe had come
a full half-hour before they expected him, explaining, rather lamely,
that it was the fog which had brought him so soon.

“If we was to have waited much longer, perhaps, ’twouldn’t have been
possible to walk a yard,” he explained, and they had accepted,
silently, his explanation.

“I hope it’s quite safe sending her off like that?” Bunting looked
deprecatingly at his wife. She had already told him more than once that
he was too fussy about Daisy, that about his daughter he was like an
old hen with her last chicken.

“She’s safer than she would be, with you or me. She couldn’t have a
smarter young fellow to look after her.”

“It’ll be awful thick at Hyde Park Corner,” said Bunting. “It’s always
worse there than anywhere else. If I was Joe I’d ’a taken her by the
Underground Railway to Victoria—that ’ud been the best way, considering
the weather ’tis.”

“They don’t think anything of the weather, bless you!” said his wife.
“They’ll walk and walk as long as there’s a glimmer left for ’em to
steer by. Daisy’s just been pining to have a walk with that young chap.
I wonder you didn’t notice how disappointed they both were when you was
so set on going along with them to that horrid place.”

“D’you really mean that, Ellen?” Bunting looked upset. “I understood
Joe to say he liked my company.”

“Oh, did you?” said Mrs. Bunting dryly. “I expect he liked it just
about as much as we liked the company of that old cook who would go out
with us when we was courting. It always was a wonder to me how the
woman could force herself upon two people who didn’t want her.”

“But I’m Daisy’s father; and an old friend of Chandler,” said Bunting
remonstratingly. “I’m quite different from that cook. She was nothing
to us, and we was nothing to her.”

“She’d have liked to be something to you, I make no doubt,” observed
his Ellen, shaking her head, and her husband smiled, a little
foolishly.

By this time they were back in their nice, cosy sitting-room, and a
feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting.
It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in
some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early
betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly
curiosity concerning the lodger. “You might just let me have one peep
at him, Ellen?” she had pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had
shaken her head. “No, that I won’t! He’s a very quiet gentleman; but he
knows exactly what he likes, and he don’t like anyone but me waiting on
him. Why, even your father’s hardly seen him.”

But that, naturally, had only increased Daisy’s desire to view Mr.
Sleuth.

There was another reason why Mrs. Bunting was glad that her
stepdaughter had gone away for two days. During her absence young
Chandler was far less likely to haunt them in the way he had taken to
doing lately, the more so that, in spite of what she had said to her
husband, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that Daisy would ask Joe Chandler to
call at Belgrave Square. ’Twouldn’t be human nature—at any rate, not
girlish human nature—not to do so, even if Joe’s coming did anger Aunt
Margaret.

Yes, it was pretty safe that with Daisy away they, the Buntings, would
be rid of that young chap for a bit, and that would be a good thing.

When Daisy wasn’t there to occupy the whole of his attention, Mrs.
Bunting felt queerly afraid of Chandler. After all, he was a
detective—it was his job to be always nosing about, trying to find out
things. And, though she couldn’t fairly say to herself that he had done
much of that sort of thing in her house, he might start doing it any
minute. And then—then—where would she, and—and Mr. Sleuth, be?

She thought of the bottle of red ink—of the leather bag which must be
hidden somewhere—and her heart almost stopped beating. Those were the
sort of things which, in the stories Bunting was so fond of reading,
always led to the detection of famous criminals. . . .

Mr. Sleuth’s bell for tea rang that afternoon far earlier than usual.
The fog had probably misled him, and made him think it later than it
was.

When she went up, “I would like a cup of tea now, and just one piece of
bread-and-butter,” the lodger said wearily. “I don’t feel like having
anything else this afternoon.”

“It’s a horrible day,” Mrs. Bunting observed, in a cheerier voice than
usual. “No wonder you don’t feel hungry, sir. And then it isn’t so very
long since you had your dinner, is it?”

“No,” he said absently. “No, it isn’t, Mrs. Bunting.”

She went down, made the tea, and brought it up again. And then, as she
came into the room, she uttered an exclamation of sharp dismay.

Mr. Sleuth was dressed for going out. He was wearing his long Inverness
cloak, and his queer old high hat lay on the table, ready for him to
put on.

“You’re never going out this afternoon, sir?” she asked falteringly.
“Why, the fog’s awful; you can’t see a yard ahead of you!”

Unknown to herself, Mrs. Bunting’s voice had risen almost to a scream.
She moved back, still holding the tray, and stood between the door and
her lodger, as if she meant to bar his way—to erect between Mr. Sleuth
and the dark, foggy world outside a living barrier.

“The weather never affects me at all,” he said sullenly; and he looked
at her with so wild and pleading a look in his eyes that, slowly,
reluctantly, she moved aside. As she did so she noticed for the first
time that Mr. Sleuth held something in his right hand. It was the key
of the chiffonnier cupboard. He had been on his way there when her
coming in had disturbed him.

“It’s very kind of you to be so concerned about me,” he stammered,
“but—but, Mrs. Bunting, you must excuse me if I say that I do not
welcome such solicitude. I prefer to be left alone. I—I cannot stay in
your house if I feel that my comings and goings are watched—spied
upon.”

She pulled herself together. “No one spies upon you, sir,” she said,
with considerable dignity. “I’ve done my best to satisfy you—”

“You have—you have!” he spoke in a distressed, apologetic tone. “But
you spoke just now as if you were trying to prevent my doing what I
wish to do—indeed, what I have to do. For years I have been
misunderstood—persecuted”—he waited a moment, then in a hollow voice
added the one word, “tortured! Do not tell me that you are going to add
yourself to the number of my tormentors, Mrs. Bunting?”

She stared at him helplessly. “Don’t you be afraid I’ll ever be that,
sir. I only spoke as I did because—well, sir, because I thought it
really wasn’t safe for a gentleman to go out this afternoon. Why,
there’s hardly anyone about, though we’re so near Christmas.”

He walked across to the window and looked out. “The fog is clearing
somewhat; Mrs. Bunting,” but there was no relief in his voice, rather
was there disappointment and dread.

Plucking up courage, she followed him. Yes, Mr. Sleuth was right. The
fog was lifting—rolling off in that sudden, mysterious way in which
local fogs sometimes do lift in London.

He turned sharply from the window. “Our conversation has made me forget
an important thing, Mrs. Bunting. I should be glad if you would just
leave out a glass of milk and some bread-and-butter for me this
evening. I shall not require supper when I come in, for after my walk I
shall probably go straight upstairs to carry through a very difficult
experiment.”

“Very good, sir.” And then Mrs. Bunting left the lodger.

But when she found herself downstairs in the fog-laden hall, for it had
drifted in as she and her husband had stood at the door seeing Daisy
off, instead of going in to Bunting she did a very odd thing—a thing
she had never thought of doing in her life before. She pressed her hot
forehead against the cool bit of looking-glass let into the
hat-and-umbrella stand. “I don’t know what to do!” she moaned to
herself, and then, “I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!”

But though she felt that her secret suspense and trouble was becoming
intolerable, the one way in which she could have ended her misery never
occurred to Mrs. Bunting.

In the long history of crime it has very, very seldom happened that a
woman has betrayed one who has taken refuge with her. The timorous and
cautious woman has not infrequently hunted a human being fleeing from
his pursuer from her door, but she has not revealed the fact that he
was ever there. In fact, it may almost be said that such betrayal has
never taken place unless the betrayer has been actuated by love of
gain, or by a longing for revenge. So far, perhaps because she is
subject rather than citizen, her duty as a component part of civilised
society weighs but lightly on woman’s shoulders.

And then—and then, in a sort of way, Mrs. Bunting had become attached
to Mr. Sleuth. A wan smile would sometimes light up his sad face when
he saw her come in with one of his meals, and when this happened Mrs.
Bunting felt pleased—pleased and vaguely touched. In between
those—those dreadful events outside, which filled her with such
suspicion, such anguish and such suspense, she never felt any fear,
only pity, for Mr. Sleuth.

Often and often, when lying wide awake at night, she turned over the
strange problem in her mind. After all, the lodger must have lived
_somewhere_ during his forty-odd years of life. She did not even know
if Mr. Sleuth had any brothers or sisters; friends she knew he had
none. But, however odd and eccentric he was, he had evidently, or so
she supposed, led a quiet, undistinguished kind of life, till—till now.

What had made him alter all of a sudden—if, that is, he had altered?
That was what Mrs. Bunting was always debating fitfully with herself;
and, what was more, and very terribly, to the point, having altered,
why should he not in time go back to what he evidently had been—that
is, a blameless, quiet gentleman?

If only he would! If only he would!

As she stood in the hall, cooling her hot forehead, all these thoughts,
these hopes and fears, jostled at lightning speed through her brain.

She remembered what young Chandler had said the other day—that there
had never been, in the history of the world, so strange a murderer as
The Avenger had proved himself to be.

She and Bunting, aye, and little Daisy too, had hung, fascinated, on
Joe’s words, as he had told them of other famous series of murders
which had taken place in the past, not only in England but
abroad—especially abroad.

One woman, whom all the people round her believed to be a kind,
respectable soul, had poisoned no fewer than fifteen people in order to
get their insurance money. Then there had been the terrible tale of an
apparently respectable, contented innkeeper and his wife, who, living
at the entrance to a wood, killed all those humble travellers who took
shelter under their roof, simply for their clothes, and any valuables
they possessed. But in all those stories the murderer or murderers
always had a very strong motive, the motive being, in almost every
case, a wicked lust for gold.

At last, after having passed her handkerchief over her forehead, she
went into the room where Bunting was sitting smoking his pipe.

“The fog’s lifting a bit,” she said in an ill-assured voice. “I hope
that by this time Daisy and that Joe Chandler are right out of it.”

But the other shook his head silently. “No such luck!” he said briefly.
“You don’t know what it’s like in Hyde Park, Ellen. I expect ’twill
soon be just as heavy here as ’twas half an hour ago!”

She wandered over to the window, and pulled the curtain back. “Quite a
lot of people have come out, anyway,” she observed.

“There’s a fine Christmas show in the Edgware Road. I was thinking of
asking if you wouldn’t like to go along there with me.”

“No,” she said dully. “I’m quite content to stay at home.”

She was listening—listening for the sounds which would betoken that the
lodger was coming downstairs.

At last she heard the cautious, stuffless tread of his rubber-soled
shoes shuffling along the hall. But Bunting only woke to the fact when
the front door shut to.

“That’s never Mr. Sleuth going out?” He turned on his wife, startled.
“Why, the poor gentleman’ll come to harm—that he will! One has to be
wide awake on an evening like this. I hope he hasn’t taken any of his
money out with him.”

“’Tisn’t the first time Mr. Sleuth’s been out in a fog,” said Mrs.
Bunting sombrely.

Somehow she couldn’t help uttering these over-true words. And then she
turned, eager and half frightened, to see how Bunting had taken what
she said.

But he looked quite placid, as if he had hardly heard her. “We don’t
get the good old fogs we used to get—not what people used to call
‘London particulars.’ I expect the lodger feels like Mrs. Crowley—I’ve
often told you about her, Ellen?”

Mrs. Bunting nodded.

Mrs. Crowley had been one of Bunting’s ladies, one of those he had
liked best—a cheerful, jolly lady, who used often to give her servants
what she called a treat. It was seldom the kind of treat they would
have chosen for themselves, but still they appreciated her kind
thought.

“Mrs. Crowley used to say,” went on Bunting, in his slow, dogmatic way,
“that she never minded how bad the weather was in London, so long as it
was London and not the country. Mr. Crowley, he liked the country best,
but Mrs. Crowley always felt dull-like there. Fog never kept her from
going out—no, that it didn’t. She wasn’t a bit afraid. But—” he turned
round and looked at his wife—“I am a bit surprised at Mr. Sleuth. I
should have thought him a timid kind of gentleman—”

He waited a moment, and she felt forced to answer him.

“I wouldn’t exactly call him timid,” she said, in a low voice, “but he
is very quiet, certainly. That’s why he dislikes going out when there
are a lot of people bustling about the streets. I don’t suppose he’ll
be out long.”

She hoped with all her soul that Mr. Sleuth would be in very soon—that
he would be daunted by the now increasing gloom.

Somehow she did not feel she could sit still for very long. She got up,
and went over to the farthest window.

The fog had lifted, certainly. She could see the lamp-lights on the
other side of the Marylebone Road, glimmering redly; and shadowy
figures were hurrying past, mostly making their way towards the Edgware
Road, to see the Christmas shops.

At last to his wife’s relief, Bunting got up too. He went over to the
cupboard where he kept his little store of books, and took one out.

“I think I’ll read a bit,” he said. “Seems a long time since I’ve
looked at a book. The papers was so jolly interesting for a bit, but
now there’s nothing in ’em.”

His wife remained silent. She knew what he meant. A good many days had
gone by since the last two Avenger murders, and the papers had very
little to say about them that they hadn’t said in different language a
dozen times before.

She went into her bedroom and came back with a bit of plain sewing.

Mrs. Bunting was fond of sewing, and Bunting liked to see her so
engaged. Since Mr. Sleuth had come to be their lodger she had not had
much time for that sort of work.

It was funny how quiet the house was without either Daisy, or—or the
lodger, in it.

At last she let her needle remain idle, and the bit of cambric slipped
down on her knee, while she listened, longingly, for Mr. Sleuth’s
return home.

And as the minutes sped by she fell to wondering with a painful wonder
if she would ever see her lodger again, for, from what she knew of Mr.
Sleuth, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that if he got into any kind of—well,
trouble outside, he would never betray where he had lived during the
last few weeks.

No, in such a case the lodger would disappear in as sudden a way as he
had come. And Bunting would never suspect, would never know, until,
perhaps—God, what a horrible thought—a picture published in some
newspaper might bring a certain dreadful fact to Bunting’s knowledge.

But if that happened—if that unthinkably awful thing came to pass, she
made up her mind, here and now, never to say anything. She also would
pretend to be amazed, shocked, unutterably horrified at the astounding
revelation.




CHAPTER XIV.


“There he is at last, and I’m glad of it, Ellen. ’Tain’t a night you
would wish a dog to be out in.”

Bunting’s voice was full of relief, but he did not turn round and look
at his wife as he spoke; instead, he continued to read the evening
paper he held in his hand.

He was still close to the fire, sitting back comfortably in his nice
arm-chair. He looked very well—well and ruddy. Mrs. Bunting stared
across at him with a touch of sharp envy, nay, more, of resentment. And
this was very curious, for she was, in her own dry way, very fond of
Bunting.

“You needn’t feel so nervous about him; Mr. Sleuth can look out for
himself all right.”

Bunting laid the paper he had been reading down on his knee. “I can’t
think why he wanted to go out in such weather,” he said impatiently.

“Well, it’s none of your business, Bunting, now, is it?”

“No, that’s true enough. Still, ’twould be a very bad thing for us if
anything happened to him. This lodger’s the first bit of luck we’ve had
for a terrible long time, Ellen.”

Mrs. Bunting moved a little impatiently in her high chair. She remained
silent for a moment. What Bunting had said was too obvious to be worth
answering. Also she was listening, following in imagination her
lodger’s quick, singularly quiet progress—“stealthy” she called it to
herself—through the fog-filled, lamp-lit hall. Yes, now he was going up
the staircase. What was that Bunting was saying?

“It isn’t safe for decent folk to be out in such weather—no, that it
ain’t, not unless they have something to do that won’t wait till
to-morrow.” The speaker was looking straight into his wife’s narrow,
colourless face. Bunting was an obstinate man, and liked to prove
himself right. “I’ve a good mind to speak to him about it, that I have!
He ought to be told that it isn’t safe—not for the sort of man he is—to
be wandering about the streets at night. I read you out the accidents
in _Lloyd’s_—shocking, they were, and all brought about by the fog! And
then, that horrid monster ’ull soon be at his work again—”

“Monster?” repeated Mrs. Bunting absently.

She was trying to hear the lodger’s footsteps overhead. She was very
curious to know whether he had gone into his nice sitting-room, or
straight upstairs, to that cold experiment-room, as he now always
called it.

But her husband went on as if he had not heard her, and she gave up
trying to listen to what was going on above.

“It wouldn’t be very pleasant to run up against such a party as that in
the fog, eh, Ellen?” He spoke as if the notion had a certain pleasant
thrill in it after all.

“What stuff you do talk!” said Mrs. Bunting sharply. And then she got
up. Her husband’s remarks had disturbed her. Why couldn’t they talk of
something pleasant when they did have a quiet bit of time together?

Bunting looked down again at his paper, and she moved quietly about the
room. Very soon it would be time for supper, and to-night she was going
to cook her husband a nice piece of toasted cheese. That fortunate man,
as she was fond of telling him, with mingled contempt and envy, had the
digestion of an ostrich, and yet he was rather fanciful, as gentlemen’s
servants who have lived in good places often are.

Yes, Bunting was very lucky in the matter of his digestion. Mrs.
Bunting prided herself on having a nice mind, and she would never have
allowed an unrefined word—such a word as “stomach,” for instance, to
say nothing of an even plainer term—to pass her lips, except, of
course, to a doctor in a sick-room.

Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not go down at once into her cold kitchen;
instead, with a sudden furtive movement, she opened the door leading
into her bedroom, and then, closing the door quietly, stepped back into
the darkness, and stood motionless, listening.

At first she heard nothing, but gradually there stole on her listening
ears the sound of someone moving softly about in the room just
overhead, that is, in Mr. Sleuth’s bedroom. But, try as she might, it
was impossible for her to guess what the lodger was doing.

At last she heard him open the door leading out on the little landing.
She could hear the stairs creaking. That meant, no doubt, that Mr.
Sleuth would pass the rest of the evening in the cheerless room above.
He hadn’t spent any time up there for quite a long while—in fact, not
for nearly ten days. ’Twas odd he chose to-night, when it was so foggy,
to carry out an experiment.

She groped her way to a chair and sat down. She felt very
tired—strangely tired, as if she had gone through some great physical
exertion.

Yes, it was true that Mr. Sleuth had brought her and Bunting luck, and
it was wrong, very wrong, of her ever to forget that.

As she sat there she also reminded herself, and not for the first time,
what the lodger’s departure would mean. It would almost certainly mean
ruin; just as his staying meant all sorts of good things, of which
physical comfort was the least. If Mr. Sleuth stayed on with them, as
he showed every intention of doing, it meant respectability, and, above
all, security.

Mrs. Bunting thought of Mr. Sleuth’s money. He never received a letter,
and yet he must have some kind of income—so much was clear. She
supposed he went and drew his money, in sovereigns, out of a bank as he
required it.

Her mind swung round, consciously, deliberately, away from Mr. Sleuth.

The Avenger? What a strange name! Again she assured herself that there
would come a time when The Avenger, whoever he was, must feel satiated;
when he would feel himself to be, so to speak, avenged.

To go back to Mr. Sleuth; it was lucky that the lodger seemed so
pleased, not only with the rooms, but with his landlord and
landlady—indeed, there was no real reason why Mr. Sleuth should ever
wish to leave such nice lodgings.

Mrs. Bunting suddenly stood up. She made a strong effort, and shook off
her awful sense of apprehension and unease. Feeling for the handle of
the door giving into the passage she turned it, and then, with light,
firm steps, she went down into the kitchen.

When they had first taken the house, the basement had been made by her
care, if not into a pleasant, then, at any rate, into a very clean
place. She had had it whitewashed, and against the still white walls
the gas stove loomed up, a great square of black iron and bright steel.
It was a large gas-stove, the kind for which one pays four shillings a
quarter rent to the gas company, and here, in the kitchen, there was no
foolish shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. Mrs. Bunting was too shrewd a
woman to have anything to do with that kind of business. There was a
proper gas-meter, and she paid for what she consumed after she had
consumed it.

Putting her candle down on the well-scrubbed wooden table, she turned
up the gas-jet, and blew out the candle.

Then, lighting one of the gas-rings, she put a frying-pan on the stove,
and once more her mind reverted, as if in spite of herself, to Mr.
Sleuth. Never had there been a more confiding or trusting gentleman
than the lodger, and yet in some ways he was so secret, so—so peculiar.

She thought of the bag—that bag which had rumbled about so queerly in
the chiffonnier. Something seemed to tell her that tonight the lodger
had taken that bag out with him.

And then she thrust away the thought of the bag almost violently from
her mind, and went back to the more agreeable thought of Mr. Sleuth’s
income, and of how little trouble he gave. Of course, the lodger was
eccentric, otherwise he wouldn’t be their lodger at all—he would be
living in quite a different sort of way with some of his relations, or
with a friend in his own class.

While these thoughts galloped disconnectedly through her mind, Mrs.
Bunting went on with her cooking, preparing the cheese, cutting it up
into little shreds, carefully measuring out the butter, doing
everything, as was always her way, with a certain delicate and cleanly
precision.

And then, while in the middle of toasting the bread on which was to be
poured the melted cheese, she suddenly heard sounds which startled her,
made her feel uncomfortable.

Shuffling, hesitating steps were creaking down the house.

She looked up and listened.

Surely the lodger was not going out again into the cold and foggy
night—going out, as he had done the other evening, for a second time?
But no; the sounds she heard, the sounds of now familiar footsteps, did
not continue down the passage leading to the front door.

Instead—Why, what was this she heard now? She began to listen so
intently that the bread she was holding at the end of the toasting-fork
grew quite black. With a start she became aware that this was so, and
she frowned, vexed with herself. That came of not attending to one’s
work.

Mr. Sleuth was evidently about to do what he had never yet done. He was
coming down into the kitchen.

Nearer and nearer came the thudding sounds, treading heavily on the
kitchen stairs, and Mrs. Bunting’s heart began to beat as if in
response. She put out the flame of the gas-ring, unheedful of the fact
that the cheese would stiffen and spoil in the cold air.

Then she turned and faced the door.

There came a fumbling at the handle, and a moment later the door
opened, and revealed, as she had at once known and feared it would do,
the lodger.

Mr. Sleuth looked even odder than usual. He was clad in a plaid
dressing-gown, which she had never seen him wear before, though she
knew that he had purchased it not long after his arrival. In his hand
was a lighted candle.

When he saw the kitchen all lighted up, and the woman standing in it,
the lodger looked inexplicably taken aback, almost aghast.

“Yes, sir? What can I do for you, sir? I hope you didn’t ring, sir?”

Mrs. Bunting held her ground in front of the stove. Mr. Sleuth had no
business to come like this into her kitchen, and she intended to let
him know that such was her view.

“No, I—I didn’t ring,” he stammered awkwardly. “The truth is, I didn’t
know you were here, Mrs. Bunting. Please excuse my costume. My
gas-stove has gone wrong, or, rather, that shilling-in-the-slot
arrangement has done so. So I came down to see if you had a gas-stove.
I am going to ask you to allow me to use it to-night for an important
experiment I wish to make.”

Mrs. Bunting’s heart was beating quickly—quickly. She felt horribly
troubled, unnaturally so. Why couldn’t Mr. Sleuth’s experiment wait
till the morning? She stared at him dubiously, but there was that in
his face that made her at once afraid and pitiful. It was a wild,
eager, imploring look.

“Oh, certainly, sir; but you will find it very cold down here.”

“It seems most pleasantly warm,” he observed, his voice full of relief,
“warm and cosy, after my cold room upstairs.”

Warm and cosy? Mrs. Bunting stared at him in amazement. Nay, even that
cheerless room at the top of the house must be far warmer and more cosy
than this cold underground kitchen could possibly be.

“I’ll make you a fire, sir. We never use the grate, but it’s in perfect
order, for the first thing I did after I came into the house was to
have the chimney swept. It was terribly dirty. It might have set the
house on fire.” Mrs. Bunting’s housewifely instincts were roused. “For
the matter of that, you ought to have a fire in your bedroom this cold
night.”

“By no means—I would prefer not. I certainly do not want a fire there.
I dislike an open fire, Mrs. Bunting. I thought I had told you as
much.”

Mr. Sleuth frowned. He stood there, a strange-looking figure, his
candle still alight, just inside the kitchen door.

“I shan’t be very long, sir. Just about a quarter of an hour. You could
come down then. I’ll have everything quite tidy for you. Is there
anything I can do to help you?”

“I do not require the use of your kitchen yet—thank you all the same,
Mrs. Bunting. I shall come down later—altogether later—after you and
your husband have gone to bed. But I should be much obliged if you
would see that the gas people come to-morrow and put my stove in order.
It might be done while I am out. That the shilling-in-the-slot machine
should go wrong is very unpleasant. It has upset me greatly.”

“Perhaps Bunting could put it right for you, sir. For the matter of
that, I could ask him to go up now.”

“No, no, I don’t want anything of that sort done to-night. Besides, he
couldn’t put it right. I am something of an expert, Mrs. Bunting, and I
have done all I could. The cause of the trouble is quite simple. The
machine is choked up with shillings; a very foolish plan, so I always
felt it to be.”

Mr. Sleuth spoke pettishly, with far more heat than he was wont to
speak, but Mrs. Bunting sympathised with him in this matter. She had
always suspected that those slot machines were as dishonest as if they
were human. It was dreadful, the way they swallowed up the shillings!
She had had one once, so she knew.

And as if he were divining her thoughts, Mr. Sleuth walked forward and
stared at the stove. “Then you haven’t got a slot machine?” he said
wonderingly. “I’m very glad of that, for I expect my experiment will
take some time. But, of course, I shall pay you something for the use
of the stove, Mrs. Bunting.”

“Oh, no, sir, I wouldn’t think of charging you anything for that. We
don’t use our stove very much, you know, sir. I’m never in the kitchen
a minute longer than I can help this cold weather.”

Mrs. Bunting was beginning to feel better. When she was actually in Mr.
Sleuth’s presence her morbid fears would be lulled, perhaps because his
manner almost invariably was gentle and very quiet. But still there
came over her an eerie feeling, as, with him preceding her, they made a
slow progress to the ground floor.

Once there, the lodger courteously bade his landlady good-night, and
proceeded upstairs to his own apartments.

Mrs. Bunting returned to the kitchen. Again she lighted the stove; but
she felt unnerved, afraid of she knew not what. As she was cooking the
cheese, she tried to concentrate her mind on what she was doing, and on
the whole she succeeded. But another part of her mind seemed to be
working independently, asking her insistent questions.

The place seemed to her alive with alien presences, and once she caught
herself listening—which was absurd, for, of course, she could not hope
to hear what Mr. Sleuth was doing two, if not three, flights upstairs.
She wondered in what the lodger’s experiments consisted. It was odd
that she had never been able to discover what it was he really did with
that big gas-stove. All she knew was that he used a very high degree of
heat.




CHAPTER XV.


The Buntings went to bed early that night. But Mrs. Bunting made up her
mind to keep awake. She was set upon knowing at what hour of the night
the lodger would come down into her kitchen to carry through his
experiment, and, above all, she was anxious to know how long he would
stay there.

But she had had a long and a very anxious day, and presently she fell
asleep.

The church clock hard by struck two, and, suddenly Mrs. Bunting awoke.
She felt put out, sharply annoyed with herself. How could she have
dropped off like that? Mr. Sleuth must have been down and up again
hours ago!

Then, gradually, she became aware that there was a faint acrid odour in
the room. Elusive, intangible, it yet seemed to encompass her and the
snoring man by her side, almost as a vapour might have done.

Mrs. Bunting sat up in bed and sniffed; and then, in spite of the cold,
she quietly crept out of her nice, warm bedclothes, and crawled along
to the bottom of the bed. When there, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did a very
curious thing; she leaned over the brass rail and put her face close to
the hinge of the door giving into the hall. Yes, it was from here that
this strange, horrible odor was coming; the smell must be very strong
in the passage.

As, shivering, she crept back under the bedclothes, she longed to give
her sleeping husband a good shake, and in fancy she heard herself
saying, “Bunting, get up! There’s something strange and dreadful going
on downstairs which we ought to know about.”

But as she lay there, by her husband’s side, listening with painful
intentness for the slightest sound, she knew very well that she would
do nothing of the sort.

What if the lodger did make a certain amount of mess—a certain amount
of smell—in her nice clean kitchen? Was he not—was he not an almost
perfect lodger? If they did anything to upset him, where could they
ever hope to get another like him?

Three o’clock struck before Mrs. Bunting heard slow, heavy steps
creaking up the kitchen stairs. But Mr. Sleuth did not go straight up
to his own quarters, as she had expected him to do. Instead, he went to
the front door, and, opening it, put on the chain. Then he came past
her door, and she thought—but could not be sure—that he sat down on the
stairs.

At the end of ten minutes or so she heard him go down the passage
again. Very softly he closed the front door. By then she had divined
why the lodger had behaved in this funny fashion. He wanted to get the
strong, acrid smell of burning—was it of burning wool?—out of the
house.

But Mrs. Bunting, lying there in the darkness, listening to the lodger
creeping upstairs, felt as if she herself would never get rid of the
horrible odour.

Mrs. Bunting felt herself to be all smell.

At last the unhappy woman fell into a deep, troubled sleep; and then
she dreamed a most terrible and unnatural dream. Hoarse voices seemed
to be shouting in her ear: “The Avenger close here! The Avenger close
here!” “’Orrible murder off the Edgware Road!” “The Avenger at his work
again!”

And even in her dream Mrs. Bunting felt angered—angered and impatient.
She knew so well why she was being disturbed by this horrid nightmare!
It was because of Bunting—Bunting, who could think and talk of nothing
else than those frightful murders, in which only morbid and
vulgar-minded people took any interest.

Why, even now, in her dream, she could hear her husband speaking to her
about it:

“Ellen”—so she heard Bunting murmur in her ear—“Ellen, my dear, I’m
just going to get up to get a paper. It’s after seven o’clock.”

The shouting—nay, worse, the sound of tramping, hurrying feet smote on
her shrinking ears. Pushing back her hair off her forehead with both
hands, she sat up and listened.

It had been no nightmare, then, but something infinitely worse—reality.

Why couldn’t Bunting have lain quiet abed for awhile longer, and let
his poor wife go on dreaming? The most awful dream would have been
easier to bear than this awakening.

She heard her husband go to the front door, and, as he bought the
paper, exchange a few excited words with the newspaper-seller. Then he
came back. There was a pause, and she heard him lighting the gas-ring
in the sitting-room.

Bunting always made his wife a cup of tea in the morning. He had
promised to do this when they first married, and he had never yet
broken his word. It was a very little thing and a very usual thing, no
doubt, for a kind husband to do, but this morning the knowledge that he
was doing it brought tears to Mrs. Bunting’s pale blue eyes. This
morning he seemed to be rather longer than usual over the job.

When, at last, he came in with the little tray, Bunting found his wife
lying with her face to the wall.

“Here’s your tea, Ellen,” he said, and there was a thrill of eager, nay
happy, excitement in his voice.

She turned herself round and sat up. “Well?” she asked. “Well? Why
don’t you tell me about it?”

“I thought you was asleep,” he stammered out. “I thought, Ellen, you
never heard nothing.”

“How could I have slept through all that din? Of course I heard. Why
don’t you tell me?”

“I’ve hardly had time to glance at the paper myself,” he said slowly.

“You was reading it just now,” she said severely, “for I heard the
rustling. You begun reading it before you lit the gas-ring. Don’t tell
me! What was that they was shouting about the Edgware Road?”

“Well,” said Bunting, “as you do know, I may as well tell you. The
Avenger’s moving West—that’s what he’s doing. Last time ’twas King’s
Cross—now ’tis the Edgware Road. I said he’d come our way, and he _has_
come our way!”

“You just go and get me that paper,” she commanded. “I wants to see for
myself.”

Bunting went into the next room; then he came back and handed her
silently the odd-looking, thin little sheet.

“Why, whatever’s this?” she asked. “This ain’t our paper!”

“’Course not,” he answered, a trifle crossly. “It’s a special early
edition of the Sun, just because of The Avenger. Here’s the bit about
it”—he showed her the exact spot. But she would have found it, even by
the comparatively bad light of the gas-jet now flaring over the
dressing-table, for the news was printed in large, clear characters:—

“Once more the murder fiend who chooses to call himself The Avenger has
escaped detection. While the whole attention of the police, and of the
great army of amateur detectives who are taking an interest in this
strange series of atrocious crimes, were concentrating their attention
round the East End and King’s Cross, he moved swiftly and silently
Westward. And, choosing a time when the Edgware Road is at its busiest
and most thronged, did another human being to death with lightning-like
quickness and savagery.
    “Within fifty yards of the deserted warehouse yard where he had
    lured his victim to destruction were passing up and down scores of
    happy, busy people, intent on their Christmas shopping. Into that
    cheerful throng he must have plunged within a moment of committing
    his atrocious crime. And it was only owing to the merest accident
    that the body was discovered as soon as it was—that is, just after
    midnight.
    “Dr. Dowtray, who was called to the spot at once, is of opinion
    that the woman had been dead at least three hours, if not four. It
    was at first thought—we were going to say, hoped—that this murder
    had nothing to do with the series which is now puzzling and
    horrifying the whole of the civilised world. But no—pinned on the
    edge of the dead woman’s dress was the usual now familiar
    triangular piece of grey paper—the grimmest visiting card ever
    designed by the wit of man! And this time The Avenger has surpassed
    himself as regards his audacity and daring—so cold in its maniacal
    fanaticism and abhorrent wickedness.”


All the time that Mrs. Bunting was reading with slow, painful
intentness, her husband was looking at her, longing, yet afraid, to
burst out with a new idea which he was burning to confide even to his
Ellen’s unsympathetic ears.

At last, when she had quite finished, she looked up defiantly.

“Haven’t you anything better to do than to stare at me like that?” she
said irritably. “Murder or no murder, I’ve got to get up! Go away—do!”

And Bunting went off into the next room.

After he had gone, his wife lay back and closed her eyes. She tried to
think of nothing. Nay, more—so strong, so determined was her will that
for a few moments she actually did think of nothing. She felt terribly
tired and weak, brain and body both quiescent, as does a person who is
recovering from a long, wearing illness.

Presently detached, puerile thoughts drifted across the surface of her
mind like little clouds across a summer sky. She wondered if those
horrid newspaper men were allowed to shout in Belgrave Square; she
wondered if, in that case, Margaret, who was so unlike her
brother-in-law, would get up and buy a paper. But no. Margaret was not
one to leave her nice warm bed for such a silly reason as that.

Was it to-morrow Daisy was coming back? Yes—to-morrow, not to-day.
Well, that was a comfort, at any rate. What amusing things Daisy would
be able to tell about her visit to Margaret! The girl had an excellent
gift of mimicry. And Margaret, with her precise, funny ways, her
perpetual talk about “the family,” lent herself to the cruel gift.

And then Mrs. Bunting’s mind—her poor, weak, tired mind—wandered off to
young Chandler. A funny thing love was, when you came to think of
it—which she, Ellen Bunting, didn’t often do. There was Joe, a likely
young fellow, seeing a lot of young women, and pretty young women,
too,—quite as pretty as Daisy, and ten times more artful—and yet there!
He passed them all by, had done so ever since last summer, though you
might be sure that they, artful minxes, by no manner of means passed
him by,—without giving them a thought! As Daisy wasn’t here, he would
probably keep away to-day. There was comfort in that thought, too.

And then Mrs. Bunting sat up, and memory returned in a dreadful turgid
flood. If Joe _did_ come in, she must nerve herself to hear all
that—that talk there’d be about The Avenger between him and Bunting.

Slowly she dragged herself out of bed, feeling exactly as if she had
just recovered from an illness which had left her very weak, very, very
tired in body and soul.

She stood for a moment listening—listening, and shivering, for it was
very cold. Considering how early it still was, there seemed a lot of
coming and going in the Marylebone Road. She could hear the
unaccustomed sounds through her closed door and the tightly fastened
windows of the sitting-room. There must be a regular crowd of men and
women, on foot and in cabs, hurrying to the scene of The Avenger’s last
extraordinary crime.

She heard the sudden thud made by their usual morning paper falling
from the letter-box on to the floor of the hall, and a moment later
came the sound of Bunting quickly, quietly going out and getting it.
She visualised him coming back, and sitting down with a sigh of
satisfaction by the newly-lit fire.

Languidly she began dressing herself to the accompaniment of distant
tramping and of noise of passing traffic, which increased in volume and
in sound as the moments slipped by.

When Mrs. Bunting went down into her kitchen everything looked just as
she had left it, and there was no trace of the acrid smell she had
expected to find there. Instead, the cavernous, whitewashed room was
full of fog, but she noticed that, though the shutters were bolted and
barred as she had left them, the windows behind them had been widely
opened to the air. She had left them shut.

Making a “spill” out of a twist of newspaper—she had been taught the
art as a girl by one of her old mistresses—she stooped and flung open
the oven-door of her gas-stove. Yes, it was as she had expected, a
fierce heat had been generated there since she had last used the oven,
and through to the stone floor below had fallen a mass of black, gluey
soot.

Mrs. Bunting took the ham and eggs that she had bought the previous day
for her own and Bunting’s breakfast upstairs, and broiled them over the
gas-ring in their sitting-room. Her husband watched her in surprised
silence. She had never done such a thing before.

“I couldn’t stay down there,” she said; “it was so cold and foggy. I
thought I’d make breakfast up here, just for to-day.”

“Yes,” he said kindly; “that’s quite right, Ellen. I think you’ve done
quite right, my dear.”

But, when it came to the point, his wife could not eat any of the nice
breakfast she had got ready; she only had another cup of tea.

“I’m afraid you’re ill, Ellen?” Bunting asked solicitously.

“No,” she said shortly; “I’m not ill at all. Don’t be silly! The
thought of that horrible thing happening so close by has upset me, and
put me off my food. Just hark to them now!”

Through their closed windows penetrated the sound of scurrying feet and
loud, ribald laughter. What a crowd; nay, what a mob, must be hastening
busily to and from the spot where there was now nothing to be seen!

Mrs. Bunting made her husband lock the front gate. “I don’t want any of
those ghouls in here!” she exclaimed angrily. And then, “What a lot of
idle people there are in the world!” she said.




CHAPTER XVI.


Bunting began moving about the room restlessly. He would go to the
window; stand there awhile staring out at the people hurrying past;
then, coming back to the fireplace, sit down.

But he could not stay long quiet. After a glance at his paper, up he
would rise from his chair, and go to the window again.

“I wish you’d stay still,” his wife said at last. And then, a few
minutes later, “Hadn’t you better put your hat and coat on and go out?”
she exclaimed.

And Bunting, with a rather shamed expression, did put on his hat and
coat and go out.

As he did so he told himself that, after all, he was but human; it was
natural that he should be thrilled and excited by the dreadful,
extraordinary thing which had just happened close by. Ellen wasn’t
reasonable about such things. How queer and disagreeable she had been
that very morning—angry with him because he had gone out to hear what
all the row was about, and even more angry when he had come back and
said nothing, because he thought it would annoy her to hear about it!

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bunting forced herself to go down again into the
kitchen, and as she went through into the low, whitewashed place, a
tremor of fear, of quick terror, came over her. She turned and did what
she had never in her life done before, and what she had never heard of
anyone else doing in a kitchen. She bolted the door.

But, having done this, finding herself at last alone, shut off from
everybody, she was still beset by a strange, uncanny dread. She felt as
if she were locked in with an invisible presence, which mocked and
jeered, reproached and threatened her, by turns.

Why had she allowed, nay encouraged, Daisy to go away for two days?
Daisy, at any rate, was company—kind, young, unsuspecting company. With
Daisy she could be her old sharp self. It was such a comfort to be with
someone to whom she not only need, but ought to, say nothing. When with
Bunting she was pursued by a sick feeling of guilt, of shame. She was
the man’s wedded wife—in his stolid way he was very kind to her, and
yet she was keeping from him something he certainly had a right to
know.

Not for worlds, however, would she have told Bunting of her dreadful
suspicion—nay, of her almost certainty.

At last she went across to the door and unlocked it. Then she went
upstairs and turned out her bedroom. That made her feel a little
better.

She longed for Bunting to return, and yet in a way she was relieved by
his absence. She would have liked to feel him near by, and yet she
welcomed anything that took her husband out of the house.

And as Mrs. Bunting swept and dusted, trying to put her whole mind into
what she was doing, she was asking herself all the time what was going
on upstairs.

What a good rest the lodger was having! But there, that was only
natural. Mr. Sleuth, as she well knew, had been up a long time last
night, or rather this morning.

Suddenly, the drawing-room bell rang. But Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not
go up, as she generally did, before getting ready the simple meal which
was the lodger’s luncheon and breakfast combined. Instead, she went
downstairs again and hurriedly prepared the lodger’s food.

Then, very slowly, with her heart beating queerly, she walked up, and
just outside the sitting-room—for she felt sure that Mr. Sleuth had got
up, that he was there already, waiting for her—she rested the tray on
the top of the banisters and listened. For a few moments she heard
nothing; then through the door came the high, quavering voice with
which she had become so familiar:

“‘She saith to him, stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret
is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her
guests are in the depths of hell.’”

There was a long pause. Mrs. Bunting could hear the leaves of her Bible
being turned over, eagerly, busily; and then again Mr. Sleuth broke
out, this time in a softer voice:

“‘She hath cast down many wounded from her; yea, many strong men have
been slain by her.’” And in a softer, lower, plaintive tone came the
words: “‘I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out
wisdom and the reason of things; and to know the wickedness of folly,
even of foolishness and madness.’”

And as she stood there listening, a feeling of keen distress, of
spiritual oppression, came over Mrs. Bunting. For the first time in her
life she visioned the infinite mystery, the sadness and strangeness, of
human life.

Poor Mr. Sleuth—poor unhappy, distraught Mr. Sleuth! An overwhelming
pity blotted out for a moment the fear, aye, and the loathing, she had
been feeling for her lodger.

She knocked at the door, and then she took up her tray.

“Come in, Mrs. Bunting.” Mr. Sleuth’s voice sounded feebler, more
toneless than usual.

She turned the handle of the door and walked in. The lodger was not
sitting in his usual place; he had taken the little round table on
which his candle generally rested when he read in bed, out of his
bedroom, and placed it over by the drawing-room window. On it were
placed, open, the Bible and the Concordance. But as his landlady came
in, Mr. Sleuth hastily closed the Bible, and began staring dreamily out
of the window, down at the sordid, hurrying crowd of men and women
which now swept along the Marylebone Road.

“There seem a great many people out today,” he observed, without
looking round.

“Yes, sir, there do.”

Mrs. Bunting began busying herself with laying the cloth and putting
out the breakfast-lunch, and as she did so she was seized with a
mortal, instinctive terror of the man sitting there.

At last Mr. Sleuth got up and turned round. She forced herself to look
at him. How tired, how worn, he looked, and—how strange!

Walking towards the table on which lay his meal, he rubbed his hands
together with a nervous gesture—it was a gesture he only made when
something had pleased, nay, satisfied him. Mrs. Bunting, looking at
him, remembered that he had rubbed his hands together thus when he had
first seen the room upstairs, and realised that it contained a large
gas-stove and a convenient sink.

What Mr. Sleuth was doing now also reminded her in an odd way of a play
she had once seen—a play to which a young man had taken her when she
was a girl, unnumbered years ago, and which had thrilled and fascinated
her. “Out, out, damned spot!” that was what the tall, fierce, beautiful
lady who had played the part of a queen had said, twisting her hands
together just as the lodger was doing now.

“It’s a fine day,” said Mr. Sleuth, sitting down and unfolding his
napkin. “The fog has cleared. I do not know if you will agree with me,
Mrs. Bunting, but I always feel brighter when the sun is shining, as it
is now, at any rate, trying to shine.” He looked at her inquiringly,
but Mrs. Bunting could not speak. She only nodded. However, that did
not affect Mr. Sleuth adversely.

He had acquired a great liking and respect for this well-balanced,
taciturn woman. She was the first woman for whom he had experienced any
such feeling for many years past.

He looked down at the still covered dish, and shook his head. “I don’t
feel as if I could eat very much to-day,” he said plaintively. And then
he suddenly took a half-sovereign out of his waistcoat pocket.

Already Mrs. Bunting had noticed that it was not the same waistcoat Mr.
Sleuth had been wearing the day before.

“Mrs. Bunting, may I ask you to come here?”

And after a moment of hesitation his landlady obeyed him.

“Will you please accept this little gift for the use you kindly allowed
me to make of your kitchen last night?” he said quietly. “I tried to
make as little mess as I could, Mrs. Bunting, but—well, the truth is I
was carrying out a very elaborate experiment.”

Mrs. Bunting held out her hand, she hesitated, and then she took the
coin. The fingers which for a moment brushed lightly against her palm
were icy cold—cold and clammy. Mr. Sleuth was evidently not well.

As she walked down the stairs, the winter sun, a scarlet ball hanging
in the smoky sky, glinted in on Mr. Sleuth’s landlady, and threw
blood-red gleams, or so it seemed to her, on to the piece of gold she
was holding in her hand.

The day went by, as other days had gone by in that quiet household,
but, of course, there was far greater animation outside the little
house than was usually the case.

Perhaps because the sun was shining for the first time for some days,
the whole of London seemed to be making holiday in that part of the
town.

When Bunting at last came back, his wife listened silently while he
told her of the extraordinary excitement reigning everywhere. And then,
after he had been talking a long while, she suddenly shot a strange
look at him.

“I suppose you went to see the place?” she said.

And guiltily he acknowledged that he had done so.

“Well?”

“Well, there wasn’t anything much to see—not now. But, oh, Ellen, the
daring of him! Why, Ellen, if the poor soul had had time to cry
out—which they don’t believe she had—it’s impossible someone wouldn’t
’a heard her. They say that if he goes on doing it like that—in the
afternoon, like—he never _will_ be caught. He must have just got mixed
up with all the other people within ten seconds of what he’d done!”

During the afternoon Bunting bought papers recklessly—in fact, he must
have spent the best part of six-pence. But in spite of all the supposed
and suggested clues, there was nothing—nothing at all new to read,
less, in fact than ever before.

The police, it was clear, were quite at a loss, and Mrs. Bunting began
to feel curiously better, less tired, less ill, less—less terrified
than she had felt through the morning.

And then something happened which broke with dramatic suddenness the
quietude of the day.

They had had their tea, and Bunting was reading the last of the papers
he had run out to buy, when suddenly there came a loud, thundering,
double knock at the door.

Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. “Why, whoever can that be?” she said.

But as Bunting got up she added quickly, “You just sit down again. I’ll
go myself. Sounds like someone after lodgings. I’ll soon send them to
the right-about!”

And then she left the room, but not before there had come another loud
double knock.

Mrs. Bunting opened the front door. In a moment she saw that the person
who stood there was a stranger to her. He was a big, dark man, with
fierce, black moustaches. And somehow—she could not have told you
why—he suggested a policeman to Mrs. Bunting’s mind.

This notion of hers was confirmed by the very first words he uttered.
For, “I’m here to execute a warrant!” he exclaimed in a theatrical,
hollow tone.

With a weak cry of protest Mrs. Bunting suddenly threw out her arms as
if to bar the way; she turned deadly white—but then, in an instant the
supposed stranger’s laugh rang out, with loud, jovial, familiar sound!

“There now, Mrs. Bunting! I never thought I’d take you in as well as
all that!”

It was Joe Chandler—Joe Chandler dressed up, as she knew he sometimes,
not very often, did dress up in the course of his work.

Mrs. Bunting began laughing—laughing helplessly, hysterically, just as
she had done on the morning of Daisy’s arrival, when the
newspaper-sellers had come shouting down the Marylebone Road.

“What’s all this about?” Bunting came out

Young Chandler ruefully shut the front door. “I didn’t mean to upset
her like this,” he said, looking foolish; “’twas just my silly
nonsense, Mr. Bunting.” And together they helped her into the
sitting-room.

But, once there, poor Mrs. Bunting went on worse than ever; she threw
her black apron over her face, and began to sob hysterically.

“I made sure she’d know who I was when I spoke,” went on the young
fellow apologetically. “But, there now, I _have_ upset her. I _am_
sorry!”

“It don’t matter!” she exclaimed, throwing the apron off her face, but
the tears were still streaming from her eyes as she sobbed and laughed
by turns. “Don’t matter one little bit, Joe! ’Twas stupid of me to be
so taken aback. But, there, that murder that’s happened close by, it’s
just upset me—upset me altogether to-day.”

“Enough to upset anyone—that was,” acknowledged the young man ruefully.
“I’ve only come in for a minute, like. I haven’t no right to come when
I’m on duty like this—”

Joe Chandler was looking longingly at what remains of the meal were
still on the table.

“You can take a minute just to have a bite and a sup,” said Bunting
hospitably; “and then you can tell us any news there is, Joe. We’re
right in the middle of everything now, ain’t we?” He spoke with evident
enjoyment, almost pride, in the gruesome fact.

Joe nodded. Already his mouth was full of bread-and-butter. He waited a
moment, and then: “Well I have got one piece of news—not that I suppose
it’ll interest _you_ very much.”

They both looked at him—Mrs. Bunting suddenly calm, though her breast
still heaved from time to time.

“Our Boss has resigned!” said Joe Chandler slowly, impressively.

“No! Not the Commissioner o’ Police?” exclaimed Bunting.

“Yes, he has. He just can’t bear what’s said about us any longer—and I
don’t wonder! He done his best, and so’s we all. The public have just
gone daft—in the West End, that is, to-day. As for the papers, well,
they’re something cruel—that’s what they are. And the ridiculous ideas
they print! You’d never believe the things they asks us to do—and quite
serious-like.”

“What d’you mean?” questioned Mrs. Bunting. She really wanted to know.

“Well, the _Courier_ declares that there ought to be a house-to-house
investigation—all over London. Just think of it! Everybody to let the
police go all over their house, from garret to kitchen, just to see if
The Avenger isn’t concealed there. Dotty, I calls it! Why, ’twould take
us months and months just to do that one job in a town like London.”

“I’d like to see them dare come into my house!” said Mrs. Bunting
angrily.

“It’s all along of them blarsted papers that The Avenger went to work a
different way this time,” said Chandler slowly.

Bunting had pushed a tin of sardines towards his guest, and was eagerly
listening. “How d’you mean?” he asked. “I don’t take your meaning,
Joe.”

“Well, you see, it’s this way. The newspapers was always saying how
extraordinary it was that The Avenger chose such a peculiar time to do
his deeds—I mean, the time when no one’s about the streets. Now,
doesn’t it stand to reason that the fellow, reading all that, and
seeing the sense of it, said to himself, ‘I’ll go on another tack this
time’? Just listen to this!” He pulled a strip of paper, part of a
column cut from a newspaper, out of his pocket:

“‘AN EX-LORD MAYOR OF LONDON ON THE AVENGER


“‘Will the murderer be caught? Yes,’ replied Sir John, ‘he will
certainly be caught—probably when he commits his next crime. A whole
army of bloodhounds, metaphorical and literal, will be on his track the
moment he draws blood again. With the whole community against him, he
cannot escape, _especially when it be remembered that he chooses the
quietest hour in the twenty-four to commit his crimes_.
    “‘Londoners are now in such a state of nerves—if I may use the
    expression, in such a state of funk—that every passer-by, however
    innocent, is looked at with suspicion by his neighbour if his
    avocation happens to take him abroad between the hours of one and
    three in the morning.’


“I’d like to gag that ex-Lord Mayor!” concluded Joe Chandler
wrathfully.

Just then the lodger’s bell rang.

“Let me go up, my dear,” said Bunting.

His wife still looked pale and shaken by the fright she had had.

“No, no,” she said hastily. “You stop down here, and talk to Joe. I’ll
look after Mr. Sleuth. He may be wanting his supper just a bit earlier
than usual to-day.”

Slowly, painfully, again feeling as if her legs were made of cotton
wool, she dragged herself up to the first floor, knocked at the door,
and then went in.

“You did ring, sir?” she said, in her quiet, respectful way.

And Mr. Sleuth looked up.

She thought—but, as she reminded herself afterwards, it might have been
just her idea, and nothing else—that for the first time the lodger
looked frightened—frightened and cowed.

“I heard a noise downstairs,” he said fretfully, “and I wanted to know
what it was all about. As I told you, Mrs. Bunting, when I first took
these rooms, quiet is essential to me.”

“It was just a friend of ours, sir. I’m sorry you were disturbed. Would
you like the knocker taken off to-morrow? Bunting’ll be pleased to do
it if you don’t like to hear the sound of the knocks.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t put you to such trouble as that.” Mr. Sleuth looked
quite relieved. “Just a friend of yours, was it, Mrs. Bunting? He made
a great deal of noise.”

“Just a young fellow,” she said apologetically. “The son of one of
Bunting’s old friends. He often comes here, sir; but he never did give
such a great big double knock as that before. I’ll speak to him about
it.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Bunting. I would really prefer you did nothing of the
kind. It was just a passing annoyance—nothing more!”

She waited a moment. How strange that Mr. Sleuth said nothing of the
hoarse cries which had made of the road outside a perfect Bedlam every
hour or two throughout that day. But no, Mr. Sleuth made no allusion to
what might well have disturbed any quiet gentleman at his reading.

“I thought maybe you’d like to have supper a little earlier to-night,
sir?”

“Just when you like, Mrs. Bunting—just when it’s convenient. I do not
wish to put you out in any way.”

She felt herself dismissed, and going out quietly, closed the door.

As she did so, she heard the front door banging to. She sighed—Joe
Chandler was really a very noisy young fellow.




CHAPTER XVII.


Mrs. Bunting slept well the night following that during which the
lodger had been engaged in making his mysterious experiments in her
kitchen. She was so tired, so utterly exhausted, that sleep came to her
the moment she laid her head upon her pillow.

Perhaps that was why she rose so early the next morning. Hardly giving
herself time to swallow the tea Bunting had made and brought her, she
got up and dressed.

She had suddenly come to the conclusion that the hall and staircase
required a thorough “doing down,” and she did not even wait till they
had eaten their breakfast before beginning her labours. It made Bunting
feel quite uncomfortable. As he sat by the fire reading his morning
paper—the paper which was again of such absorbing interest—he called
out, “There’s no need for so much hurry, Ellen. Daisy’ll be back
to-day. Why don’t you wait till she’s come home to help you?”

But from the hall where she was busy dusting, sweeping, polishing, his
wife’s voice came back: “Girls ain’t no good at this sort of work.
Don’t you worry about me. I feel as if I’d enjoy doing an extra bit of
cleaning to-day. I don’t like to feel as anyone could come in and see
my place dirty.”

“No fear of that!” Bunting chuckled. And then a new thought struck him.
“Ain’t you afraid of waking the lodger?” he called out.

“Mr. Sleuth slept most of yesterday, and all last night,” she answered
quickly. “As it is, I study him over-much; it’s a long, long time since
I’ve done this staircase down.”

All the time she was engaged in doing the hall, Mrs. Bunting left the
sitting-room door wide open.

That was a queer thing of her to do, but Bunting didn’t like to get up
and shut her out, as it were. Still, try as he would, he couldn’t read
with any comfort while all that noise was going on. He had never known
Ellen make such a lot of noise before. Once or twice he looked up and
frowned rather crossly.

There came a sudden silence, and he was startled to see that Ellen was
standing in the doorway, staring at him, doing nothing.

“Come in,” he said, “do! Ain’t you finished yet?”

“I was only resting a minute,” she said. “You don’t tell me nothing.
I’d like to know if there’s anything—I mean anything new—in the paper
this morning.”

She spoke in a muffled voice, almost as if she were ashamed of her
unusual curiosity; and her look of fatigue, of pallor, made Bunting
suddenly uneasy. “Come in—do!” he repeated sharply. “You’ve done quite
enough—and before breakfast, too. ’Tain’t necessary. Come in and shut
that door.”

He spoke authoritatively, and his wife, for a wonder, obeyed him.

She came in, and did what she had never done before—brought the broom
with her, and put it up against the wall in the corner.

Then she sat down.

“I think I’ll make breakfast up here,” she said. “I—I feel cold,
Bunting.” And her husband stared at her surprised, for drops of
perspiration were glistening on her forehead.

He got up. “All right. I’ll go down and bring the eggs up. Don’t you
worry. For the matter of that, I can cook them downstairs if you like.”

“No,” she said obstinately. “I’d rather do my own work. You just bring
them up here—that’ll be all right. To-morrow morning we’ll have Daisy
to help see to things.”

“Come over here and sit down comfortable in my chair,” he suggested
kindly. “You never do take any bit of rest, Ellen. I never see’d such a
woman!”

And again she got up and meekly obeyed him, walking across the room
with languid steps.

He watched her, anxiously, uncomfortably.

She took up the newspaper he had just laid down, and Bunting took two
steps towards her.

“I’ll show you the most interesting bit” he said eagerly. “It’s the
piece headed, ‘Our Special Investigator.’ You see, they’ve started a
special investigator of their own, and he’s got hold of a lot of little
facts the police seem to have overlooked. The man who writes all that—I
mean the Special Investigator—was a famous ’tec in his time, and he’s
just come back out of his retirement o’ purpose to do this bit of work
for the paper. You read what he says—I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if
he ends by getting that reward! One can see he just loves the work of
tracking people down.”

“There’s nothing to be proud of in such a job,” said his wife
listlessly.

“He’ll have something to be proud of if he catches The Avenger!” cried
Bunting. He was too keen about this affair to be put off by Ellen’s
contradictory remarks. “You just notice that bit about the rubber
soles. Now, no one’s thought o’ that. I’ll just tell Chandler—he don’t
seem to me to be half awake, that young man don’t.”

“He’s quite wide awake enough without you saying things to him! How
about those eggs, Bunting? I feel quite ready for my breakfast even if
you don’t—”

Mrs. Bunting now spoke in what her husband sometimes secretly described
to himself as “Ellen’s snarling voice.”

He turned away and left the room, feeling oddly troubled. There was
something queer about her, and he couldn’t make it out. He didn’t mind
it when she spoke sharply and nastily to him. He was used to that. But
now she was so up and down; so different from what she used to be! In
old days she had always been the same, but now a man never knew where
to have her.

And as he went downstairs he pondered uneasily over his wife’s changed
ways and manner.

Take the question of his easy chair. A very small matter, no doubt, but
he had never known Ellen sit in that chair—no, not even once, for a
minute, since it had been purchased by her as a present for him.

They had been so happy, so happy, and so—so restful, during that first
week after Mr. Sleuth had come to them. Perhaps it was the sudden,
dramatic change from agonising anxiety to peace and security which had
been too much for Ellen—yes, that was what was the matter with her,
that and the universal excitement about these Avenger murders, which
were shaking the nerves of all London. Even Bunting, unobservant as he
was, had come to realise that his wife took a morbid interest in these
terrible happenings. And it was the more queer of her to do so that at
first she refused to discuss them, and said openly that she was utterly
uninterested in murder or crime of any sort.

He, Bunting, had always had a mild pleasure in such things. In his time
he had been a great reader of detective tales, and even now he thought
there was no pleasanter reading. It was that which had first drawn him
to Joe Chandler, and made him welcome the young chap as cordially as he
had done when they first came to London.

But though Ellen had tolerated, she had never encouraged, that sort of
talk between the two men. More than once she had exclaimed
reproachfully: “To hear you two, one would think there was no nice,
respectable, quiet people left in the world!”

But now all that was changed. She was as keen as anyone could be to
hear the latest details of an Avenger crime. True, she took her own
view of any theory suggested. But there! Ellen always had had her own
notions about everything under the sun. Ellen was a woman who thought
for herself—a clever woman, not an everyday woman by any manner of
means.

While these thoughts were going disconnectedly through his mind,
Bunting was breaking four eggs into a basin. He was going to give Ellen
a nice little surprise—to cook an omelette as a French chef had once
taught him to do, years and years ago. He didn’t know how she would
take his doing such a thing after what she had said; but never mind,
she would enjoy the omelette when done. Ellen hadn’t been eating her
food properly of late.

And when he went up again, his wife, to his relief, and, it must be
admitted, to his surprise, took it very well. She had not even noticed
how long he had been downstairs, for she had been reading with intense,
painful care the column that the great daily paper they took in had
allotted to the one-time famous detective.

According to this Special Investigator’s own account he had discovered
all sorts of things that had escaped the eye of the police and of the
official detectives. For instance, owing, he admitted, to a fortunate
chance, he had been at the place where the two last murders had been
committed very soon after the double crime had been discovered—in fact
within half an hour, and he had found, or so he felt sure, on the
slippery, wet pavement imprints of the murderer’s right foot.

The paper reproduced the impression of a half-worn rubber sole. At the
same time, he also admitted—for the Special Investigator was very
honest, and he had a good bit of space to fill in the enterprising
paper which had engaged him to probe the awful mystery—that there were
thousands of rubber soles being worn in London. . . .

And when she came to that statement Mrs. Bunting looked up, and there
came a wan smile over her thin, closely-shut lips. It was quite
true—that about rubber soles; there were thousands of rubber soles
being worn just now. She felt grateful to the Special Investigator for
having stated the fact so clearly.

The column ended up with the words:

“And to-day will take place the inquest on the double crime of ten days
ago. To my mind it would be well if a preliminary public inquiry could
be held at once. Say, on the very day the discovery of a fresh murder
is made. In that way alone would it be possible to weigh and sift the
evidence offered by members of the general public. For when a week or
more has elapsed, and these same people have been examined and
cross-examined in private by the police, their impressions have had
time to become blurred and hopelessly confused. On that last occasion
but one there seems no doubt that several people, at any rate two women
and one man, actually saw the murderer hurrying from the scene of his
atrocious double crime—this being so, to-day’s investigation may be of
the highest value and importance. To-morrow I hope to give an account
of the impression made on me by the inquest, and by any statements made
during its course.”


Even when her husband had come in with the tray Mrs. Bunting had gone
on reading, only lifting up her eyes for a moment. At last he said
rather crossly, “Put down that paper, Ellen, this minute! The omelette
I’ve cooked for you will be just like leather if you don’t eat it.”

But once his wife had eaten her breakfast—and, to Bunting’s
mortification, she left more than half the nice omelette untouched—she
took the paper up again. She turned over the big sheets, until she
found, at the foot of one of the ten columns devoted to The Avenger and
his crimes, the information she wanted, and then uttered an exclamation
under her breath.

What Mrs. Bunting had been looking for—what at last she had found—was
the time and place of the inquest which was to be held that day. The
hour named was a rather odd time—two o’clock in the afternoon, but,
from Mrs. Bunting’s point of view, it was most convenient.

By two o’clock, nay, by half-past one, the lodger would have had his
lunch; by hurrying matters a little she and Bunting would have had
their dinner, and—and Daisy wasn’t coming home till tea-time.

She got up out of her husband’s chair. “I think you’re right,” she
said, in a quick, hoarse tone. “I mean about me seeing a doctor,
Bunting. I think I will go and see a doctor this very afternoon.”

“Wouldn’t you like me to go with you?” he asked.

“No, that I wouldn’t. In fact I wouldn’t go at all you was to go with
me.”

“All right,” he said vexedly. “Please yourself, my dear; you know
best.”

“I should think I did know best where my own health is concerned.”

Even Bunting was incensed by this lack of gratitude. “’Twas I said,
long ago, you ought to go and see the doctor; ’twas you said you
wouldn’t!” he exclaimed pugnaciously.

“Well, I’ve never said you was never right, have I? At any rate, I’m
going.”

“Have you a pain anywhere?” He stared at her with a look of real
solicitude on his fat, phlegmatic face.

Somehow Ellen didn’t look right, standing there opposite him. Her
shoulders seemed to have shrunk; even her cheeks had fallen in a
little. She had never looked so bad—not even when they had been half
starving, and dreadfully, dreadfully worked.

“Yes,” she said briefly, “I’ve a pain in my head, at the back of my
neck. It doesn’t often leave me; it gets worse when anything upsets me,
like I was upset last night by Joe Chandler.”

“He was a silly ass to come and do a thing like that!” said Bunting
crossly. “I’d a good mind to tell him so, too. But I must say, Ellen, I
wonder he took you in—he didn’t me!”

“Well, you had no chance he should—you knew who it was,” she said
slowly.

And Bunting remained silent, for Ellen was right. Joe Chandler had
already spoken when he, Bunting, came out into the hall, and saw their
cleverly disguised visitor.

“Those big black moustaches,” he went on complainingly, “and that black
wig—why, ’twas too ridic’lous—that’s what I call it!”

“Not to anyone who didn’t know Joe,” she said sharply.

“Well, I don’t know. He didn’t look like a real man—nohow. If he’s a
wise lad, he won’t let our Daisy ever see him looking like that!” and
Bunting laughed, a comfortable laugh.

He had thought a good deal about Daisy and young Chandler the last two
days, and, on the whole, he was well pleased. It was a dull, unnatural
life the girl was leading with Old Aunt. And Joe was earning good
money. They wouldn’t have long to wait, these two young people, as a
beau and his girl often have to wait, as he, Bunting, and Daisy’s
mother had had to do, for ever so long before they could be married.
No, there was no reason why they shouldn’t be spliced quite soon—if so
the fancy took them. And Bunting had very little doubt that so the
fancy would take Joe, at any rate.

But there was plenty of time. Daisy wouldn’t be eighteen till the week
after next. They might wait till she was twenty. By that time Old Aunt
might be dead, and Daisy might have come into quite a tidy little bit
of money.

“What are you smiling at?” said his wife sharply.

And he shook himself. “I—smiling? At nothing that I knows of.” Then he
waited a moment. “Well, if you will know, Ellen, I was just thinking of
Daisy and that young chap Joe Chandler. He is gone on her, ain’t he?”

“Gone?” And then Mrs. Bunting laughed, a queer, odd, not unkindly
laugh. “Gone, Bunting?” she repeated. “Why, he’s out o’ sight—right,
out of sight!”

Then hesitatingly, and looking narrowly at her husband, she went on,
twisting a bit of her black apron with her fingers as she spoke:—“I
suppose he’ll be going over this afternoon to fetch her? Or—or d’you
think he’ll have to be at that inquest, Bunting?”

“Inquest? What inquest?” He looked at her puzzled.

“Why, the inquest on them bodies found in the passage near by King’s
Cross.”

“Oh, no; he’d have no call to be at the inquest. For the matter o’
that, I know he’s going over to fetch Daisy. He said so last night—just
when you went up to the lodger.”

“That’s just as well.” Mrs. Bunting spoke with considerable
satisfaction. “Otherwise I suppose you’d ha’ had to go. I wouldn’t like
the house left—not with us out of it. Mr. Sleuth _would_ be upset if
there came a ring at the door.”

“Oh, I won’t leave the house, don’t you be afraid, Ellen—not while
you’re out.”

“Not even if I’m out a good while, Bunting.”

“No fear. Of course, you’ll be a long time if it’s your idea to see
that doctor at Ealing?”

He looked at her questioningly, and Mrs. Bunting nodded. Somehow
nodding didn’t seem as bad as speaking a lie.




CHAPTER XVIII.


Any ordeal is far less terrifying, far easier to meet with courage,
when it is repeated, than is even a milder experience which is entirely
novel.

Mrs. Bunting had already attended an inquest, in the character of a
witness, and it was one of the few happenings of her life which was
sharply etched against the somewhat blurred screen of her memory.

In a country house where the then Ellen Green had been staying for a
fortnight with her elderly mistress, there had occurred one of those
sudden, pitiful tragedies which occasionally destroy the serenity, the
apparent decorum, of a large, respectable household.

The under-housemaid, a pretty, happy-natured girl, had drowned herself
for love of the footman, who had given his sweetheart cause for bitter
jealousy. The girl had chosen to speak of her troubles to the strange
lady’s maid rather than to her own fellow-servants, and it was during
the conversation the two women had had together that the girl had
threatened to take her own life.

As Mrs. Bunting put on her outdoor clothes, preparatory to going out,
she recalled very clearly all the details of that dreadful affair, and
of the part she herself had unwillingly played in it.

She visualised the country inn where the inquest on that poor,
unfortunate creature had been held.

The butler had escorted her from the Hall, for he also was to give
evidence, and as they came up there had been a look of cheerful
animation about the inn yard; people coming and going, many women as
well as men, village folk, among whom the dead girl’s fate had aroused
a great deal of interest, and the kind of horror which those who live
on a dull countryside welcome rather than avoid.

Everyone there had been particularly nice and polite to her, to Ellen
Green; there had been a time of waiting in a room upstairs in the old
inn, and the witnesses had been accommodated, not only with chairs, but
with cake and wine.

She remembered how she had dreaded being a witness, how she had felt as
if she would like to run away from her nice, easy place, rather than
have to get up and tell the little that she knew of the sad business.

But it had not been so very dreadful after all. The coroner had been a
kindly-spoken gentleman; in fact he had complimented her on the clear,
sensible way she had given her evidence concerning the exact words the
unhappy girl had used.

One thing Ellen Green had said, in answer to a question put by an
inquisitive juryman, had raised a laugh in the crowded, low-ceilinged
room. “Ought not Miss Ellen Green,” so the man had asked, “to have told
someone of the girl’s threat? If she had done so, might not the girl
have been prevented from throwing herself into the lake?” And she, the
witness, had answered, with some asperity—for by that time the
coroner’s kind manner had put her at her ease—that she had not attached
any importance to what the girl had threatened to do, never believing
that any young woman could be so silly as to drown herself for love!

Vaguely Mrs. Bunting supposed that the inquest at which she was going
to be present this afternoon would be like that country inquest of long
ago.

It had been no mere perfunctory inquiry; she remembered very well how
little by little that pleasant-spoken gentleman, the coroner, had got
the whole truth out—the story, that is, of how that horrid footman,
whom she, Ellen Green, had disliked from the first minute she had set
eyes on him, had taken up with another young woman. It had been
supposed that this fact would not be elicited by the coroner; but it
had been, quietly, remorselessly; more, the dead girl’s letters had
been read out—piteous, queerly expressed letters, full of wild love and
bitter, threatening jealousy. And the jury had censured the young man
most severely; she remembered the look on his face when the people,
shrinking back, had made a passage for him to slink out of the crowded
room.

Come to think of it now, it was strange she had never told Bunting that
long-ago tale. It had occurred years before she knew him, and somehow
nothing had ever happened to make her tell him about it.

She wondered whether Bunting had ever been to an inquest. She longed to
ask him. But if she asked him now, this minute, he might guess where
she was thinking of going.

And then, while still moving about her bedroom, she shook her head—no,
no, Bunting would never guess such a thing; he would never, never
suspect her of telling him a lie.

Stop—had she told a lie? She did mean to go to the doctor after the
inquest was finished—if there was time, that is. She wondered uneasily
how long such an inquiry was likely to last. In this case, as so very
little had been discovered, the proceedings would surely be very
formal—formal and therefore short.

She herself had one quite definite object—that of hearing the evidence
of those who believed they had seen the murderer leaving the spot where
his victims lay weltering in their still flowing blood. She was filled
with a painful, secret, and, yes, eager curiosity to hear how those who
were so positive about the matter would describe the appearance of The
Avenger. After all, a lot of people must have seen him, for, as Bunting
had said only the day before to young Chandler, The Avenger was not a
ghost; he was a living man with some kind of hiding-place where he was
known, and where he spent his time between his awful crimes.

As she came back to the sitting-room, her extreme pallor struck her
husband.

“Why, Ellen,” he said, “it is time you went to the doctor. You looks
just as if you was going to a funeral. I’ll come along with you as far
as the station. You’re going by train, ain’t you? Not by bus, eh? It’s
a very long way to Ealing, you know.”

“There you go! Breaking your solemn promise to me the very first
minute!” But somehow she did not speak unkindly, only fretfully and
sadly.

And Bunting hung his head. “Why, to be sure I’d gone and clean forgot
the lodger! But will you be all right, Ellen? Why not wait till
to-morrow, and take Daisy with you?”

“I like doing my own business in my own way, and not in someone else’s
way!” she snapped out; and then more gently, for Bunting really looked
concerned, and she did feel very far from well, “I’ll be all right, old
man. Don’t you worry about me!”

As she turned to go across to the door, she drew the black shawl she
had put over her long jacket more closely round her.

She felt ashamed, deeply ashamed, of deceiving so kind a husband. And
yet, what could she do? How could she share her dreadful burden with
poor Bunting? Why, ’twould be enough to make a man go daft. Even she
often felt as if she could stand it no longer—as if she would give the
world to tell someone—anyone—what it was that she suspected, what deep
in her heart she so feared to be the truth.

But, unknown to herself, the fresh outside air, fog-laden though it
was, soon began to do her good. She had gone out far too little the
last few days, for she had had a nervous terror of leaving the house
unprotected, as also a great unwillingness to allow Bunting to come
into contact with the lodger.

When she reached the Underground station she stopped short. There were
two ways of getting to St. Pancras—she could go by bus, or she could go
by train. She decided on the latter. But before turning into the
station her eyes strayed over the bills of the early afternoon papers
lying on the ground.

Two words,

THE AVENGER,


stared up at her in varying type.

Drawing her black shawl yet a little closer about her shoulders, Mrs.
Bunting looked down at the placards. She did not feel inclined to buy a
paper, as many of the people round her were doing. Her eyes were
smarting, even now, from their unaccustomed following of the close
print in the paper Bunting took in.

Slowly she turned, at last, into the Underground station.

And now a piece of extraordinary good fortune befell Mrs. Bunting.

The third-class carriage in which she took her place happened to be
empty, save for the presence of a police inspector. And once they were
well away she summoned up courage, and asked him the question she knew
she would have to ask of someone within the next few minutes.

“Can you tell me,” she said, in a low voice, “where death inquests are
held”—she moistened her lips, waited a moment, and then concluded—“in
the neighbourhood of King’s Cross?”

The man turned and, looked at her attentively. She did not look at all
the sort of Londoner who goes to an inquest—there are many such—just
for the fun of the thing. Approvingly, for he was a widower, he noted
her neat black coat and skirt; and the plain Princess bonnet which
framed her pale, refined face.

“I’m going to the Coroner’s Court myself.” he said good-naturedly. “So
you can come along of me. You see there’s that big Avenger inquest
going on to-day, so I think they’ll have had to make other arrangements
for—hum, hum—ordinary cases.” And as she looked at him dumbly, he went
on, “There’ll be a mighty crowd of people at The Avenger inquest—a lot
of ticket folk to be accommodated, to say nothing of the public.”

“That’s the inquest I’m going to,” faltered Mrs. Bunting. She could
scarcely get the words out. She realised with acute discomfort, yes,
and shame, how strange, how untoward, was that which she was going to
do. Fancy a respectable woman wanting to attend a murder inquest!

During the last few days all her perceptions had become sharpened by
suspense and fear. She realised now, as she looked into the stolid face
of her unknown friend, how she herself would have regarded any woman
who wanted to attend such an inquiry from a simple, morbid feeling of
curiosity. And yet—and yet that was just what she was about to do
herself.

“I’ve got a reason for wanting to go there,” she murmured. It was a
comfort to unburden herself this little way even to a stranger.

“Ah!” he said reflectively. “A—a relative connected with one of the two
victims’ husbands, I presume?”

And Mrs. Bunting bent her head.

“Going to give evidence?” he asked casually, and then he turned and
looked at Mrs. Bunting with far more attention than he had yet done.

“Oh, no!” There was a world of horror, of fear in the speaker’s voice.

And the inspector felt concerned and sorry. “Hadn’t seen her for quite
a long time, I suppose?”

“Never had, seen her. I’m from the country.” Something impelled Mrs.
Bunting to say these words. But she hastily corrected herself, “At
least, I was.”

“Will he be there?”

She looked at him dumbly; not in the least knowing to whom he was
alluding.

“I mean the husband,” went on the inspector hastily. “I felt sorry for
the last poor chap—I mean the husband of the last one—he seemed so
awfully miserable. You see, she’d been a good wife and a good mother
till she took to the drink.”

“It always is so,” breathed out Mrs. Bunting.

“Aye.” He waited a moment. “D’you know anyone about the court?” he
asked.

She shook her head.

“Well, don’t you worry. I’ll take you in along o’ me. You’d never get
in by yourself.”

They got out; and oh, the comfort of being in some one’s charge, of
having a determined man in uniform to look after one! And yet even now
there was to Mrs. Bunting something dream-like, unsubstantial about the
whole business.

“If he knew—if he only knew what I know!” she kept saying over and over
again to herself as she walked lightly by the big, burly form of the
police inspector.

“’Tisn’t far—not three minutes,” he said suddenly. “Am I walking too
quick for you, ma’am?”

“No, not at all. I’m a quick walker.”

And then suddenly they turned a corner and came on a mass of people, a
densely packed crowd of men and women, staring at a mean-looking little
door sunk into a high wall.

“Better take my arm,” the inspector suggested. “Make way there! Make
way!” he cried authoritatively; and he swept her through the serried
ranks which parted at the sound of his voice, at the sight of his
uniform.

“Lucky you met me,” he said, smiling. “You’d never have got through
alone. And ’tain’t a nice crowd, not by any manner of means.”

The small door opened just a little way, and they found themselves on a
narrow stone-flagged path, leading into a square yard. A few men were
out there, smoking.

Before preceding her into the building which rose at the back of the
yard, Mrs. Bunting’s kind new friend took out his watch. “There’s
another twenty minutes before they’ll begin,” he said. “There’s the
mortuary”—he pointed with his thumb to a low room built out to the
right of the court. “Would you like to go in and see them?” he
whispered.

“Oh, no!” she cried, in a tone of extreme horror. And he looked down at
her with sympathy, and with increased respect. She was a nice,
respectable woman, she was. She had not come here imbued with any
morbid, horrible curiosity, but because she thought it her duty to do
so. He suspected her of being sister-in-law to one of The Avenger’s
victims.

They walked through into a big room or hall, now full of men talking in
subdued yet eager, animated tones.

“I think you’d better sit down here,” he said considerately, and,
leading her to one of the benches that stood out from the whitewashed
walls—“unless you’d rather be with the witnesses, that is.”

But again she said, “Oh, no!” And then, with an effort, “Oughtn’t I to
go into the court now, if it’s likely to be so full?”

“Don’t you worry,” he said kindly. “I’ll see you get a proper place. I
must leave you now for a minute, but I’ll come back in good time and
look after you.”

She raised the thick veil she had pulled down over her face while they
were going through that sinister, wolfish-looking crowd outside, and
looked about her.

Many of the gentlemen—they mostly wore tall hats and good
overcoats—standing round and about her looked vaguely familiar. She
picked out one at once. He was a famous journalist, whose shrewd,
animated face was familiar to her owing to the fact that it was widely
advertised in connection with a preparation for the hair—the
preparation which in happier, more prosperous days Bunting had had
great faith in, and used, or so he always said, with great benefit to
himself. This gentleman was the centre of an eager circle; half a dozen
men were talking to him, listening deferentially when he spoke, and
each of these men, so Mrs. Bunting realised, was a Somebody.

How strange, how amazing, to reflect that from all parts of London,
from their doubtless important avocations, one unseen, mysterious
beckoner had brought all these men here together, to this sordid place,
on this bitterly cold, dreary day. Here they were, all thinking of,
talking of, evoking one unknown, mysterious personality—that of the
shadowy and yet terribly real human being who chose to call himself The
Avenger. And somewhere, not so very far away from them all The Avenger
was keeping these clever, astute, highly trained minds—aye, and bodies,
too—at bay.

Even Mrs. Bunting, sitting here unnoticed, realised the irony of her
presence among them.




CHAPTER XIX.


It seemed to Mrs. Bunting that she had been sitting there a long
time—it was really about a quarter of an hour—when her official friend
came back.

“Better come along now,” he whispered; “it’ll begin soon.”

She followed him out into a passage, up a row of steep stone steps, and
so into the Coroner’s Court.

The court was big, well-lighted room, in some ways not unlike a chapel,
the more so that a kind of gallery ran half-way round, a gallery
evidently set aside for the general public, for it was now crammed to
its utmost capacity.

Mrs. Bunting glanced timidly towards the serried row of faces. Had it
not been for her good fortune in meeting the man she was now following,
it was there that she would have had to try and make her way. And she
would have failed. Those people had rushed in the moment the doors were
opened, pushing, fighting their way in a way she could never have
pushed or fought.

There were just a few women among them, set, determined-looking women,
belonging to every class, but made one by their love of sensation and
their power of forcing their way in where they wanted to be. But the
women were few; the great majority of those standing there were men—men
who were also representative of every class of Londoner.

The centre of the court was like an arena; it was sunk two or three
steps below the surrounding gallery. Just now it was comparatively
clear of people, save for the benches on which sat the men who were to
compose the jury. Some way from these men, huddled together in a kind
of big pew, stood seven people—three women and four men.

“D’you see the witnesses?” whispered the inspector, pointing these out
to her. He supposed her to know one of them with familiar knowledge,
but, if that were so, she made no sign.

Between the windows, facing the whole room, was a kind of little
platform, on which stood a desk and an arm-chair. Mrs. Bunting guessed
rightly that it was there the coroner would sit. And to the left of the
platform was the witness-stand, also raised considerably above the
jury.

Amazingly different, and far, far more grim and awe-inspiring than the
scene of the inquest which had taken place so long ago, on that bright
April day, in the village inn. There the coroner had sat on the same
level as the jury, and the witnesses had simply stepped forward one by
one, and taken their place before him.

Looking round her fearfully, Mrs. Bunting thought she would surely die
if ever she were exposed to the ordeal of standing in that curious
box-like stand, and she stared across at the bench where sat the seven
witnesses with a feeling of sincere pity in her heart.

But even she soon realised that her pity was wasted. Each woman witness
looked eager, excited, and animated; well pleased to be the centre of
attention and attraction to the general public. It was plain each was
enjoying her part of important, if humble, actress in the thrilling
drama which was now absorbing the attention of all London—it might
almost be said of the whole world.

Looking at these women, Mrs. Bunting wondered vaguely which was which.
Was it that rather draggle-tailed-looking young person who had
certainly, or almost certainly, seen The Avenger within ten seconds of
the double crime being committed? The woman who, aroused by one of his
victims’ cry of terror, had rushed to her window and seen the
murderer’s shadowy form pass swiftly by in the fog?

Yet another woman, so Mrs. Bunting now remembered, had given a most
circumstantial account of what The Avenger looked like, for he, it was
supposed, had actually brushed by her as he passed.

Those two women now before her had been interrogated and cross-examined
again and again, not only by the police, but by representatives of
every newspaper in London. It was from what they had both
said—unluckily their accounts materially differed—that that official
description of The Avenger had been worked up—that which described him
as being a good-looking, respectable young fellow of twenty-eight,
carrying a newspaper parcel.

As for the third woman, she was doubtless an acquaintance, a boon
companion of the dead.

Mrs. Bunting looked away from the witnesses, and focused her gaze on
another unfamiliar sight. Specially prominent, running indeed through
the whole length of the shut-in space, that is, from the coroner’s high
dais right across to the opening in the wooden barrier, was an
ink-splashed table at which, when she had first taken her place, there
had been sitting three men busily sketching; but now every seat at the
table was occupied by tired, intelligent-looking men, each with a
notebook, or with some loose sheets of paper, before him.

“Them’s the reporters,” whispered her friend. “They don’t like coming
till the last minute, for they has to be the last to go. At an ordinary
inquest there are only two—maybe three—attending, but now every paper
in the kingdom has pretty well applied for a pass to that reporters’
table.”

He looked consideringly down into the well of the court. “Now let me
see what I can do for you—”

Then he beckoned to the coroner’s officer: “Perhaps you could put this
lady just over there, in a corner by herself? Related to a relation of
the deceased, but doesn’t want to be—” He whispered a word or two, and
the other nodded sympathetically, and looked at Mrs. Bunting with
interest. “I’ll put her just here,” he muttered. “There’s no one coming
there to-day. You see, there are only seven witnesses—sometimes we have
a lot more than that.”

And he kindly put her on a now empty bench opposite to where the seven
witnesses stood and sat with their eager, set faces, ready—aye, more
than ready—to play their part.

For a moment every eye in the court was focused on Mrs. Bunting, but
soon those who had stared so hungrily, so intently, at her, realised
that she had nothing to do with the case. She was evidently there as a
spectator, and, more fortunate than most, she had a “friend at court,”
and so was able to sit comfortably, instead of having to stand in the
crowd.

But she was not long left in isolation. Very soon some of the
important-looking gentlemen she had seen downstairs came into the
court, and were ushered over to her seat while two or three among them,
including the famous writer whose face was so familiar that it almost
seemed to Mrs. Bunting like that of a kindly acquaintance, were
accommodated at the reporters’ table.

“Gentlemen, the Coroner.”

The jury stood up, shuffling their feet, and then sat down again; over
the spectators there fell a sudden silence.

And then what immediately followed recalled to Mrs. Bunting, for the
first time, that informal little country inquest of long ago.

First came the “Oyez! Oyez!” the old Norman-French summons to all whose
business it is to attend a solemn inquiry into the death—sudden,
unexplained, terrible—of a fellow-being.

The jury—there were fourteen of them—all stood up again. They raised
their hands and solemnly chanted together the curious words of their
oath.

Then came a quick, informal exchange of sentences ’twixt the coroner
and his officer.

Yes, everything was in order. The jury had viewed the bodies—he quickly
corrected himself—the body, for, technically speaking, the inquest just
about to be held only concerned one body.

And then, amid a silence so absolute that the slightest rustle could be
heard through the court, the coroner—a clever-looking gentleman, though
not so old as Mrs. Bunting thought he ought to have been to occupy so
important a position on so important a day—gave a little history, as it
were, of the terrible and mysterious Avenger crimes.

He spoke very clearly, warming to his work as he went on.

He told them that he had been present at the inquest held on one of The
Avenger’s former victims. “I only went through professional curiosity,”
he threw in by way of parenthesis, “little thinking, gentlemen, that
the inquest on one of these unhappy creatures would ever be held in my
court.”

On and on, he went, though he had, in truth, but little to say, and
though that little was known to every one of his listeners.

Mrs. Bunting heard one of the older gentlemen sitting near her whisper
to another: “Drawing it out all he can; that’s what he’s doing. Having
the time of his life, evidently!” And then the other whispered back, so
low that she could only just catch the words, “Aye, aye. But he’s a
good chap—I knew his father; we were at school together. Takes his job
very seriously, you know—he does to-day, at any rate.”

She was listening intently, waiting for a word, a sentence, which would
relieve her hidden terrors, or, on the other hand, confirm them. But
the word, the sentence, was never uttered.

And yet, at the very end of his long peroration, the coroner did throw
out a hint which might mean anything—or nothing.

“I am glad to say that we hope to obtain such evidence to-day as will
in time lead to the apprehension of the miscreant who has committed,
and is still committing, these terrible crimes.”

Mrs. Bunting stared uneasily up into the coroner’s firm,
determined-looking face. What did he mean by that? Was there any new
evidence—evidence of which Joe Chandler, for instance, was ignorant?
And, as if in answer to the unspoken question, her heart gave a sudden
leap, for a big, burly man had taken his place in the witness-box—a
policeman who had not been sitting with the other witnesses.

But soon her uneasy terror became stilled. This witness was simply the
constable who had found the first body. In quick, business-like tones
he described exactly what had happened to him on that cold, foggy
morning ten days ago. He was shown a plan, and he marked it slowly,
carefully, with a thick finger. That was the exact place—no, he was
making a mistake—that was the place where the other body had lain. He
explained apologetically that he had got rather mixed up between the
two bodies—that of Johanna Cobbett and Sophy Hurtle.

And then the coroner intervened authoritatively: “For the purpose of
this inquiry,” he said, “we must, I think, for a moment consider the
two murders together.”

After that, the witness went on far more comfortably; and as he
proceeded, in a quick monotone, the full and deadly horror of The
Avenger’s acts came over Mrs. Bunting in a great seething flood of sick
fear and—and, yes, remorse.

Up to now she had given very little thought—if, indeed, any thought—to
the drink-sodden victims of The Avenger. It was he who had filled her
thoughts,—he and those who were trying to track him down. But now? Now
she felt sick and sorry she had come here to-day. She wondered if she
would ever be able to get the vision the policeman’s words had conjured
up out of her mind—out of her memory.

And then there came an eager stir of excitement and of attention
throughout the whole court, for the policeman had stepped down out of
the witness-box, and one of the women witnesses was being conducted to
his place.

Mrs. Bunting looked with interest and sympathy at the woman,
remembering how she herself had trembled with fear, trembled as that
poor, bedraggled, common-looking person was trembling now. The woman
had looked so cheerful, so—so well pleased with herself till a minute
ago, but now she had become very pale, and she looked round her as a
hunted animal might have done.

But the coroner was very kind, very soothing and gentle in his manner,
just as that other coroner had been when dealing with Ellen Green at
the inquest on that poor drowned girl.

After the witness had repeated in a toneless voice the solemn words of
the oath, she began to be taken, step by step, though her story. At
once Mrs. Bunting realised that this was the woman who claimed to have
seen The Avenger from her bedroom window. Gaining confidence, as she
went on, the witness described how she had heard a long-drawn, stifled
screech, and, aroused from deep sleep, had instinctively jumped out of
bed and rushed to her window.

The coroner looked down at something lying on his desk. “Let me see!
Here is the plan. Yes—I think I understand that the house in which you
are lodging exactly faces the alley where the two crimes were
committed?”

And there arose a quick, futile discussion. The house did not face the
alley, but the window of the witness’s bedroom faced the alley.

“A distinction without a difference,” said the coroner testily. “And
now tell us as clearly and quickly as you can what you saw when you
looked out.”

There fell a dead silence on the crowded court. And then the woman
broke out, speaking more volubly and firmly than she had yet done. “I
saw ’im!” she cried. “I shall never forget it—no, not till my dying
day!” And she looked round defiantly.

Mrs. Bunting suddenly remembered a chat one of the newspaper men had
had with a person who slept under this woman’s room. That person had
unkindly said she felt sure that Lizzie Cole had not got up that
night—that she had made up the whole story. She, the speaker, slept
lightly, and that night had been tending a sick child. Accordingly, she
would have heard if there had been either the scream described by
Lizzie Cole, or the sound of Lizzie Cole jumping out of bed.

“We quite understand that you think you saw the”—the coroner
hesitated—“the individual who had just perpetrated these terrible
crimes. But what we want to have from you is a description of him. In
spite of the foggy atmosphere about which all are agreed, you say you
saw him distinctly, walking along for some yards below your window.
Now, please, try and tell us what he was like.”

The woman began twisting and untwisting the corner of a coloured
handkerchief she held in her hand.

“Let us begin at the beginning,” said the coroner patiently. “What sort
of a hat was this man wearing when you saw him hurrying from the
passage?”

“It was just a black ’at” said the witness at last, in a husky, rather
anxious tone.

“Yes—just a black hat. And a coat—were you able to see what sort of a
coat he was wearing?”

“’E ’adn’t got no coat” she said decidedly. “No coat at all! I
remembers that very perticulerly. I thought it queer, as it was so
cold—everybody as can wears some sort o’ coat this weather!”

A juryman who had been looking at a strip of newspaper, and apparently
not attending at all to what the witness was saying, here jumped up and
put out his hand.

“Yes?” the coroner turned to him.

“I just want to say that this ’ere witness—if her name is Lizzie Cole,
began by saying The Avenger was wearing a coat—a big, heavy coat. I’ve
got it here, in this bit of paper.”

“I never said so!” cried the woman passionately. “I was made to say all
those things by the young man what came to me from the _Evening Sun_.
Just put in what ’e liked in ’is paper, ’e did—not what I said at all!”

At this there was some laughter, quickly suppressed.

“In future,” said the coroner severely, addressing the juryman, who had
now sat down again, “you must ask any question you wish to ask through
your foreman, and please wait till I have concluded my examination of
the witness.”

But this interruption, this—this accusation, had utterly upset the
witness. She began contradicting herself hopelessly. The man she had
seen hurrying by in the semi-darkness below was tall—no, he was short.
He was thin—no, he was a stoutish young man. And as to whether he was
carrying anything, there was quite an acrimonious discussion.

Most positively, most confidently, the witness declared that she had
seen a newspaper parcel under his arm; it had bulged out at the back—so
she declared. But it was proved, very gently and firmly, that she had
said nothing of the kind to the gentleman from Scotland Yard who had
taken down her first account—in fact, to him she had declared
confidently that the man had carried nothing—nothing at all; that she
had seen his arms swinging up and down.

One fact—if fact it could be called—the coroner did elicit. Lizzie Cole
suddenly volunteered the statement that as he had passed her window he
had looked up at her. This was quite a new statement.

“He looked up at you?” repeated the coroner. “You said nothing of that
in your examination.”

“I said nothink because I was scared—nigh scared to death!”

“If you could really see his countenance, for we know the night was
dark and foggy, will you please tell me what he was like?”

But the coroner was speaking casually, his hand straying over his desk;
not a creature in that court now believed the woman’s story.

“Dark!” she answered dramatically. “Dark, almost black! If you can take
my meaning, with a sort of nigger look.”

And then there was a titter. Even the jury smiled. And sharply the
coroner bade Lizzie Cole stand down.

Far more credence was given to the evidence of the next witness.

This was an older, quieter-looking woman, decently dressed in black.
Being the wife of a night watchman whose work lay in a big warehouse
situated about a hundred yards from the alley or passage where the
crimes had taken place, she had gone out to take her husband some food
he always had at one in the morning. And a man had passed her,
breathing hard and walking very quickly. Her attention had been drawn
to him because she very seldom met anyone at that hour, and because he
had such an odd, peculiar look and manner.

Mrs. Bunting, listening attentively, realised that it was very much
from what this witness had said that the official description of The
Avenger had been composed—that description which had brought such
comfort to her, Ellen Bunting’s, soul.

This witness spoke quietly, confidently, and her account of the
newspaper parcel the man was carrying was perfectly clear and positive.

“It was a neat parcel,” she said, “done up with string.”

She had thought it an odd thing for a respectably dressed young man to
carry such a parcel—that was what had made her notice it. But when
pressed, she had to admit that it had been a very foggy night—so foggy
that she herself had been afraid of losing her way, though every step
was familiar.

When the third woman went into the box, and with sighs and tears told
of her acquaintance with one of the deceased, with Johanna Cobbett,
there was a stir of sympathetic attention. But she had nothing to say
throwing any light on the investigation, save that she admitted
reluctantly that “Anny” would have been such a nice, respectable young
woman if it hadn’t been for the drink.

Her examination was shortened as much as possible; and so was that of
the next witness, the husband of Johanna Cobbett. He was a very
respectable-looking man, a foreman in a big business house at Croydon.
He seemed to feel his position most acutely. He hadn’t seen his wife
for two years; he hadn’t had news of her for six months. Before she
took to drink she had been an admirable wife, and—and yes, mother.

Yet another painful few minutes, to anyone who had a heart, or
imagination to understand, was spent when the father of the murdered
woman was in the box. He had had later news of his unfortunate daughter
than her husband had had, but of course he could throw no light at all
on her murder or murderer.

A barman, who had served both the women with drink just before the
public-house closed for the night, was handled rather roughly. He had
stepped with a jaunty air into the box, and came out of it looking cast
down, uneasy.

And then there took place a very dramatic, because an utterly
unexpected, incident. It was one of which the evening papers made the
utmost much to Mrs. Bunting’s indignation. But neither coroner nor
jury—and they, after all, were the people who mattered—thought a great
deal of it.

There had come a pause in the proceedings. All seven witnesses had been
heard, and a gentleman near Mrs. Bunting whispered, “They are now going
to call Dr. Gaunt. He’s been in every big murder case for the last
thirty years. He’s sure to have something interesting to say. It was
really to hear him _I_ came.”

But before Dr. Gaunt had time even to get up from the seat with which
he had been accommodated close to the coroner, there came a stir among
the general public, or, rather, among those spectators who stood near
the low wooden door which separated the official part of the court from
the gallery.

The coroner’s officer, with an apologetic air, approached the coroner,
and handed him up an envelope. And again in an instant, there fell
absolute silence on the court.

Looking rather annoyed, the coroner opened the envelope. He glanced
down the sheet of notepaper it contained. Then he looked up.

“Mr.—” then he glanced down again. “Mr.—ah—Mr.—is it Cannot?” he said
doubtfully, “may come forward.”

There ran a titter though the spectators, and the coroner frowned.

A neat, jaunty-looking old gentleman, in a nice fur-lined overcoat,
with a fresh, red face and white side-whiskers, was conducted from the
place where he had been standing among the general public, to the
witness-box.

“This is somewhat out of order, Mr.—er—Cannot,” said the coroner
severely. “You should have sent me this note before the proceedings
began. This gentleman,” he said, addressing the jury, “informs me that
he has something of the utmost importance to reveal in connection with
our investigation.”

“I have remained silent—I have locked what I knew within my own
breast”—began Mr. Cannot in a quavering voice, “because I am so afraid
of the Press! I knew if I said anything, even to the police, that my
house would be besieged by reporters and newspaper men. . . . I have a
delicate wife, Mr. Coroner. Such a state of things—the state of things
I imagine—might cause her death—indeed, I hope she will never read a
report of these proceedings. Fortunately, she has an excellent trained
nurse—”

“You will now take the oath,” said the coroner sharply. He already
regretted having allowed this absurd person to have his say.

Mr. Cannot took the oath with a gravity and decorum which had been
lacking in most of those who had preceded him.

“I will address myself to the jury,” he began.

“You will do nothing of the sort,” broke in the coroner. “Now, please
attend to me. You assert in your letter that you know who is the—the—”

“The Avenger,” put in Mr. Cannot promptly.

“The perpetrator of these crimes. You further declare that you met him
on the very night he committed the murder we are now investigating?”

“I do so declare,” said Mr. Cannot confidently. “Though in the best of
health myself,”—he beamed round the court, a now amused, attentive
court—“it is my fate to be surrounded by sick people, to have only
ailing friends. I have to trouble you with my private affairs, Mr.
Coroner, in order to explain why I happened to be out at so undue an
hour as one o’clock in the morning—”

Again a titter ran through the court. Even the jury broke into broad
smiles.

“Yes,” went on the witness solemnly, “I was with a sick friend—in fact,
I may say a dying friend, for since then he has passed away. I will not
reveal my exact dwelling-place; you, sir, have it on my notepaper. It
is not necessary to reveal it, but you will understand me when I say
that in order to come home I had to pass through a portion of the
Regent’s Park; and it was there—to be exact, about the middle of
Prince’s Terrace—when a very peculiar-looking individual stopped and
accosted me.”

Mrs. Bunting’s hand shot up to her breast. A feeling of deadly fear
took possession of her.

“I mustn’t faint,” she said to herself hurriedly. “I mustn’t faint!
Whatever’s the matter with me?” She took out her bottle of
smelling-salts, and gave it a good, long sniff.

“He was a grim, gaunt man, was this stranger, Mr. Coroner, with a very
odd-looking face. I should say an educated man—in common parlance, a
gentleman. What drew my special attention to him was that he was
talking aloud to himself—in fact, he seemed to be repeating poetry. I
give you my word, I had no thought of The Avenger, no thought at all.
To tell you the truth, I thought this gentleman was a poor escaped
lunatic, a man who’d got away from his keeper. The Regent’s Park, sir,
as I need hardly tell you, is a most quiet and soothing neighbourhood—”

And then a member of the general public gave a loud guffaw.

“I appeal to you; sir,” the old gentleman suddenly cried out “to
protect me from this unseemly levity! I have not come here with any
other object than that of doing my duty as a citizen!”

“I must ask you to keep to what is strictly relevant,” said the coroner
stiffly. “Time is going on, and I have another important witness to
call—a medical witness. Kindly tell me, as shortly as possible, what
made you suppose that this stranger could possibly be—” with an effort
he brought out for the first time since the proceedings began, the
words, “The Avenger?”

“I am coming to that!” said Mr. Cannot hastily. “I am coming to that!
Bear with me a little longer, Mr. Coroner. It was a foggy night, but
not as foggy as it became later. And just when we were passing one
another, I and this man, who was talking aloud to himself—he, instead
of going on, stopped and turned towards me. That made me feel queer and
uncomfortable, the more so that there was a very wild, mad look on his
face. I said to him, as soothingly as possible, ‘A very foggy night,
sir.’ And he said, ‘Yes—yes, it is a foggy night, a night fit for the
commission of dark and salutary deeds.’ A very strange phrase, sir,
that—‘dark and salutary deeds.’” He looked at the coroner expectantly—

“Well? Well, Mr. Cannot? Was that all? Did you see this person go off
in the direction of—of King’s Cross, for instance?”

“No.” Mr. Cannot reluctantly shook his head. “No, I must honestly say I
did not. He walked along a certain way by my side, and then he crossed
the road and was lost in the fog.”

“That will do,” said the coroner. He spoke more kindly. “I thank you,
Mr. Cannot, for coming here and giving us what you evidently consider
important information.”

Mr. Cannot bowed, a funny, little, old-fashioned bow, and again some of
those present tittered rather foolishly.

As he was stepping down from the witness-box, he turned and looked up
at the coroner, opening his lips as he did so. There was a murmur of
talking going on, but Mrs. Bunting, at any rate, heard quite distinctly
what it was that he said:

“One thing I have forgotten, sir, which may be of importance. The man
carried a bag—a rather light-coloured leather bag, in his left hand. It
was such a bag, sir, as might well contain a long-handled knife.”

Mrs. Bunting looked at the reporters’ table. She remembered suddenly
that she had told Bunting about the disappearance of Mr. Sleuth’s bag.
And then a feeling of intense thankfulness came over her; not a single
reporter at the long, ink-stained table had put down that last remark
of Mr. Cannot. In fact, not one of them had heard it.

Again the last witness put up his hand to command attention. And then
silence did fall on the court.

“One word more,” he said in a quavering voice. “May I ask to be
accommodated with a seat for the rest of the proceedings? I see there
is some room left on the witnesses’ bench.” And, without waiting for
permission, he nimbly stepped across and sat down.

Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. Her friend, the inspector, was
bending over her.

“Perhaps you’d like to come along now,” he said urgently.—“I don’t
suppose you want to hear the medical evidence. It’s always painful for
a female to hear that. And there’ll be an awful rush when the inquest’s
over. I could get you away quietly now.”

She rose, and, pulling her veil down over her pale face, followed him
obediently.

Down the stone staircase they went, and through the big, now empty,
room downstairs.

“I’ll let you out the back way,” he said. “I expect you’re tired,
ma’am, and will like to get home to a cup o’ tea.”

“I don’t know how to thank you!” There were tears in her eyes. She was
trembling with excitement and emotion. “You _have_ been good to me.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said a little awkwardly. “I expect you went
though a pretty bad time, didn’t you?”

“Will they be having that old gentleman again?” she spoke in a whisper,
and looked up at him with a pleading, agonised look.

“Good Lord, no! Crazy old fool! We’re troubled with a lot of those sort
of people, you know, ma’am, and they often do have funny names, too.
You see, that sort is busy all their lives in the City, or what not;
then they retires when they gets about sixty, and they’re fit to hang
themselves with dulness. Why, there’s hundreds of lunies of the sort to
be met in London. You can’t go about at night and not meet ’em. Plenty
of ’em!”

“Then you don’t think there was anything in what he said?” she
ventured.

“In what that old gent said? Goodness—no!” he laughed good-naturedly.
“But I’ll tell you what I _do_ think. If it wasn’t for the time that
had gone by, I should believe that the second witness _had_ seen that
crafty devil—” he lowered his voice. “But, there, Dr. Gaunt declares
most positively—so did two other medical gentlemen—that the poor
creatures had been dead hours when they was found. Medical gentlemen
are always very positive about their evidence. They have to
be—otherwise who’d believe ’em? If we’d time I could tell you of a case
in which—well, ’twas all because of Dr. Gaunt that the murderer
escaped. We all knew perfectly well the man we caught did it, but he
was able to prove an alibi as to the time Dr. Gaunt _said_ the poor
soul was killed.”




CHAPTER XX.


It was not late even now, for the inquest had begun very punctually,
but Mrs. Bunting felt that no power on earth should force her to go to
Ealing. She felt quite tired out and as if she could think of nothing.

Pacing along very slowly, as if she were an old, old woman, she began
listlessly turning her steps towards home. Somehow she felt that it
would do her more good to stay out in the air than take the train. Also
she would thus put off the moment—the moment to which she looked
forward with dread and dislike—when she would have to invent a
circumstantial story as to what she had said to the doctor, and what
the doctor had said to her.

Like most men and women of his class, Bunting took a great interest in
other people’s ailments, the more interest that he was himself so
remarkably healthy. He would feel quite injured if Ellen didn’t tell
him everything that had happened; everything, that is, that the doctor
had told her.

As she walked swiftly along, at every corner, or so it seemed to her,
and outside every public-house, stood eager boys selling the latest
edition of the afternoon papers to equally eager buyers. “Avenger
Inquest?” they shouted exultantly. “All the latest evidence!” At one
place, where there were a row of contents-bills pinned to the pavement
by stones, she stopped and looked down. “Opening of the Avenger
Inquest. What is he really like? Full description.” On yet another ran
the ironic query: “Avenger Inquest. Do you know him?”

And as that facetious question stared up at her in huge print, Mrs.
Bunting turned sick—so sick and faint that she did what she had never
done before in her life—she pushed her way into a public-house, and,
putting two pennies down on the counter, asked for, and received, a
glass of cold water.

As she walked along the now gas-lit streets, she found her mind
dwelling persistently—not on the inquest at which she had been present,
not even on The Avenger, but on his victims.

Shudderingly, she visualised the two cold bodies lying in the mortuary.
She seemed also to see that third body, which, though cold, must yet be
warmer than the other two, for at this time yesterday The Avenger’s
last victim had been alive, poor soul—alive and, according to a
companion of hers whom the papers had already interviewed, particularly
merry and bright.

Hitherto Mrs. Bunting had been spared in any real sense a vision of The
Avenger’s victims. Now they haunted her, and she wondered wearily if
this fresh horror was to be added to the terrible fear which
encompassed her night and day.

As she came within sight of home, her spirit suddenly lightened. The
narrow, drab-coloured little house, flanked each side by others exactly
like it in every single particular, save that their front yards were
not so well kept, looked as if it could, aye, and would, keep any
secret closely hidden.

For a moment, at any rate, The Avenger’s victims receded from her mind.
She thought of them no more. All her thoughts were concentrated on
Bunting—Bunting and Mr. Sleuth. She wondered what had happened during
her absence—whether the lodger had rung his bell, and, if so, how he
had got on with Bunting, and Bunting with him?

She walked up the little flagged path wearily, and yet with a pleasant
feeling of home-coming. And then she saw that Bunting must have been
watching for her behind the now closely drawn curtains, for before she
could either knock or ring he had opened the door.

“I was getting quite anxious about you,” he exclaimed. “Come in, Ellen,
quick! You must be fair perished a day like now—and you out so little
as you are. Well? I hope you found the doctor all right?” He looked at
her with affectionate anxiety.

And then there came a sudden, happy thought to Mrs. Bunting. “No,” she
said slowly, “Doctor Evans wasn’t in. I waited, and waited, and waited,
but he never came in at all. ’Twas my own fault,” she added quickly.
Even at such a moment as this she told herself that though she had, in
a sort of way, a kind of right to lie to her husband, she had no sight
to slander the doctor who had been so kind to her years ago. “I ought
to have sent him a card yesterday night,” she said. “Of course, I was a
fool to go all that way, just on chance of finding a doctor in. It
stands to reason they’ve got to go out to people at all times of day.”

“I hope they gave you a cup of tea?” he said.

And again she hesitated, debating a point with herself: if the doctor
had a decent sort of servant, of course, she, Ellen Bunting, would have
been offered a cup of tea, especially if she explained she’d known him
a long time.

She compromised. “I was offered some,” she said, in a weak, tired
voice. “But there, Bunting, I didn’t feel as if I wanted it. I’d be
very grateful for a cup now—if you’d just make it for me over the
ring.”

“’Course I will,” he said eagerly. “You just come in and sit down, my
dear. Don’t trouble to take your things off now—wait till you’ve had
tea.”

And she obeyed him. “Where’s Daisy?” she asked suddenly. “I thought the
girl would be back by the time I got home.”

“She ain’t coming home to-day”—there was an odd, sly, smiling look on
Bunting’s face.

“Did she send a telegram?” asked Mrs. Bunting.

“No. Young Chandler’s just come in and told me. He’s been over there
and,—would you believe it, Ellen?—he’s managed to make friends with
Margaret. Wonderful what love will do, ain’t it? He went over there
just to help Daisy carry her bag back, you know, and then Margaret told
him that her lady had sent her some money to go to the play, and she
actually asked Joe to go with them this evening—she and Daisy—to the
pantomime. Did you ever hear o’ such a thing?”

“Very nice for them, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Bunting absently. But she was
pleased—pleased to have her mind taken off herself. “Then when is that
girl coming home?” she asked patiently.

“Well, it appears that Chandler’s got to-morrow morning off too—this
evening and to-morrow morning. He’ll be on duty all night, but he
proposes to go over and bring Daisy back in time for early dinner. Will
that suit you, Ellen?”

“Yes. That’ll be all right,” she said. “I don’t grudge the girl her bit
of pleasure. One’s only young once. By the way, did the lodger ring
while I was out?”

Bunting turned round from the gas-ring, which he was watching to see
the kettle boil. “No,” he said. “Come to think of it, it’s rather a
funny thing, but the truth is, Ellen, I never gave Mr. Sleuth a
thought. You see, Chandler came in and was telling me all about
Margaret, laughing-like, and then something else happened while you was
out, Ellen.”

“Something else happened?” she said in a startled voice. Getting up
from her chair she came towards her husband: “What happened? Who came?”

“Just a message for me, asking if I could go to-night to wait at a
young lady’s birthday party. In Hanover Terrace it is. A waiter—one of
them nasty Swiss fellows as works for nothing—fell out just at the last
minute and so they had to send for me.”

His honest face shone with triumph. The man who had taken over his old
friend’s business in Baker Street had hitherto behaved very badly to
Bunting, and that though Bunting had been on the books for ever so
long, and had always given every satisfaction. But this new man had
never employed him—no, not once.

“I hope you didn’t make yourself too cheap?” said his wife jealously.

“No, that I didn’t! I hum’d and haw’d a lot; and I could see the fellow
was quite worried—in fact, at the end he offered me half-a-crown more.
So I graciously consented!”

Husband and wife laughed more merrily than they had done for a long
time.

“You won’t mind being alone, here? I don’t count the lodger—he’s no
good—” Bunting looked at her anxiously. He was only prompted to ask the
question because lately Ellen had been so queer, so unlike herself.
Otherwise it never would have occurred to him that she could be afraid
of being alone in the house. She had often been so in the days when he
got more jobs.

She stared at him, a little suspiciously. “I be afraid?” she echoed.
“Certainly not. Why should I be? I’ve never been afraid before. What
d’you exactly mean by that, Bunting?”

“Oh, nothing. I only thought you might feel funny-like, all alone on
this ground floor. You was so upset yesterday when that young fool
Chandler came, dressed up, to the door.”

“I shouldn’t have been frightened if he’d just been an ordinary
stranger,” she said shortly. “He said something silly to me—just in
keeping with his character-like, and it upset me. Besides, I feel
better now.”

As she was sipping gratefully her cup of tea, there came a noise
outside, the shouts of newspaper-sellers.

“I’ll just run out,” said Bunting apologetically, “and see what
happened at that inquest to-day. Besides, they may have a clue about
the horrible affair last night. Chandler was full of it—when he wasn’t
talking about Daisy and Margaret, that is. He’s on to-night, luckily
not till twelve o’clock; plenty of time to escort the two of ’em back
after the play. Besides, he said he’ll put them into a cab and blow the
expense, if the panto’ goes on too long for him to take ’em home.”

“On to-night?” repeated Mrs. Bunting. “Whatever for?”

“Well, you see, The Avenger’s always done ’em in couples, so to speak.
They’ve got an idea that he’ll have a try again to-night. However, even
so, Joe’s only on from midnight till five o’clock. Then he’ll go and
turn in a bit before going off to fetch Daisy, Fine thing to be young,
ain’t it, Ellen?”

“I can’t believe that he’d go out on such a night as this!”

“What _do_ you mean?” said Bunting, staring at her. Ellen had spoken so
oddly, as if to herself, and in so fierce and passionate a tone.

“What do I mean?” she repeated—and a great fear clutched at her heart.
What had she said? She had been thinking aloud.

“Why, by saying he won’t go out. Of course, he has to go out. Besides,
he’ll have been to the play as it is. ’Twould be a pretty thing if the
police didn’t go out, just because it was cold!”

“I—I was thinking of The Avenger,” said Mrs. Bunting. She looked at her
husband fixedly. Somehow she had felt impelled to utter those true
words.

“He don’t take no heed of heat nor cold,” said Bunting sombrely. “I
take it the man’s dead to all human feeling—saving, of course,
revenge.”

“So that’s your idea about him, is it?” She looked across at her
husband. Somehow this dangerous, this perilous conversation between
them attracted her strangely. She felt as if she must go on with it.
“D’you think he was the man that woman said she saw? That young man
what passed her with a newspaper parcel?”

“Let me see,” he said slowly. “I thought that ’twas from the bedroom
window a woman saw him?”

“No, no. I mean the _other_ woman, what was taking her husband’s
breakfast to him in the warehouse. She was far the most
respectable-looking woman of the two,” said Mrs. Bunting impatiently.

And then, seeing her husband’s look of utter, blank astonishment, she
felt a thrill of unreasoning terror. She must have gone suddenly mad to
have said what she did! Hurriedly she got up from her chair. “There,
now,” she said; “here I am gossiping all about nothing when I ought to
be seeing about the lodger’s supper. It was someone in the train talked
to me about that person as thinks she saw The Avenger.”

Without waiting for an answer, she went into her bedroom, lit the gas,
and shut the door. A moment later she heard Bunting go out to buy the
paper they had both forgotten during their dangerous discussion.

As she slowly, languidly took off her nice, warm coat and shawl, Mrs.
Bunting found herself shivering. It was dreadfully cold, quite
unnaturally cold even for the time of year.

She looked longingly towards the fireplace. It was now concealed by the
washhand-stand, but how pleasant it would be to drag that stand aside
and light a bit of fire, especially as Bunting was going to be out
to-night. He would have to put on his dress clothes, and she didn’t
like his dressing in the sitting-room. It didn’t suit her ideas that he
should do so. How if she did light the fire here, in their bedroom? It
would be nice for her to have bit of fire to cheer her up after he had
gone.

Mrs. Bunting knew only too well that she would have very little sleep
the coming night. She looked over, with shuddering distaste, at her
nice, soft bed. There she would lie, on that couch of little ease,
listening—listening. . . .

She went down to the kitchen. Everything was ready for Mr. Sleuth’s
supper, for she had made all her preparations before going out so as
not to have to hurry back before it suited her to do so.

Leaning the tray for a moment on the top of the banisters, she
listened. Even in that nice warm drawing-room, and with a good fire,
how cold the lodger must feel sitting studying at the table! But
unwonted sounds were coming through the door. Mr. Sleuth was moving
restlessly about the room, not sitting reading, as was his wont at this
time of the evening.

She knocked, and then waited a moment.

There came the sound of a sharp click, that of the key turning in the
lock of the chiffonnier cupboard—or so Mr. Sleuth’s landlady could have
sworn.

There was a pause—she knocked again.

“Come in,” said Mr. Sleuth loudly, and she opened the door and carried
in the tray.

“You are a little earlier than usual, are you not Mrs. Bunting?” he
said, with a touch of irritation in his voice.

“I don’t think so, sir, but I’ve been out. Perhaps I lost count of the
time. I thought you’d like your breakfast early, as you had dinner
rather sooner than usual.”

“Breakfast? Did you say breakfast, Mrs. Bunting?”

“I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure! I meant supper.” He looked at her
fixedly. It seemed to Mrs. Bunting that there was a terrible
questioning look in his dark, sunken eyes.

“Aren’t you well?” he said slowly. “You don’t look well, Mrs. Bunting.”

“No, sir,” she said. “I’m not well. I went over to see a doctor this
afternoon, to Ealing, sir.”

“I hope he did you good, Mrs. Bunting”—the lodger’s voice had become
softer, kinder in quality.

“It always does me good to see the doctor,” said Mrs. Bunting
evasively.

And then a very odd smile lit up Mr. Sleuth’s face. “Doctors are a
maligned body of men,” he said. “I’m glad to hear you speak well of
them. They do their best, Mrs. Bunting. Being human they are liable to
err, but I assure you they do their best.”

“That I’m sure they do, sir”—she spoke heartily, sincerely. Doctors had
always treated her most kindly, and even generously.

And then, having laid the cloth, and put the lodger’s one hot dish upon
it, she went towards the door. “Wouldn’t you like me to bring up
another scuttleful of coals, sir? it’s bitterly cold—getting colder
every minute. A fearful night to have to go out in—” she looked at him
deprecatingly.

And then Mr. Sleuth did something which startled her very much. Pushing
his chair back, he jumped up and drew himself to his full height.

“What d’you mean?” he stammered. “Why did you say that, Mrs. Bunting?”

She stared at him, fascinated, affrighted. Again there came an awful
questioning look over his face.

“I was thinking of Bunting, sir. He’s got a job to-night. He’s going to
act as waiter at a young lady’s birthday party. I was thinking it’s a
pity he has to turn out, and in his thin clothes, too”—she brought out
her words jerkily.

Mr. Sleuth seemed somewhat reassured, and again he sat down. “Ah!” he
said. “Dear me—I’m sorry to hear that! I hope your husband will not
catch cold, Mrs. Bunting.”

And then she shut the door, and went downstairs.

Without telling Bunting what she meant to do, she dragged the heavy
washhand-stand away from the chimneypiece, and lighted the fire.

Then in some triumph she called Bunting in.

“Time for you to dress,” she cried out cheerfully, “and I’ve got a
little bit of fire for you to dress by.”

As he exclaimed at her extravagance, “Well, ’twill be pleasant for me,
too; keep me company-like while you’re out; and make the room nice and
warm when you come in. You’ll be fair perished, even walking that short
way,” she said.

And then, while her husband was dressing, Mrs. Bunting went upstairs
and cleared away Mr. Sleuth’s supper.

The lodger said no word while she was so engaged—no word at all.

He was sitting away from the table, rather an unusual thing for him to
do, and staring into the fire, his hands on his knees.

Mr. Sleuth looked lonely, very, very lonely and forlorn. Somehow, a
great rush of pity, as well as of horror, came over Mrs. Bunting’s
heart. He was such a—a—she searched for a word in her mind, but could
only find the word “gentle”—he was such a nice, gentle gentleman, was
Mr. Sleuth. Lately he had again taken to leaving his money about, as he
had done the first day or two, and with some concern his landlady had
seen that the store had diminished a good deal. A very simple
calculation had made her realise that almost the whole of that missing
money had come her way, or, at any rate, had passed through her hands.

Mr. Sleuth never stinted himself as to food, or stinted them, his
landlord and his landlady, as to what he had said he would pay. And
Mrs. Bunting’s conscience pricked her a little, for he hardly ever used
that room upstairs—that room for which he had paid extra so generously.
If Bunting got another job or two through that nasty man in Baker
Street,—and now that the ice had been broken between them it was very
probable that he would do so, for he was a very well-trained,
experienced waiter—then she thought she would tell Mr. Sleuth that she
no longer wanted him to pay as much as he was now doing.

She looked anxiously, deprecatingly, at his long, bent back.

“Good-night, sir,” she said at last.

Mr. Sleuth turned round. His face looked sad and worn.

“I hope you’ll sleep well, sir.”

“Yes, I’m sure I shall sleep well. But perhaps I shall take a little
turn first. Such is my way, Mrs. Bunting; after I have been studying
all day I require a little exercise.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go out to-night,” she said deprecatingly. “’Tisn’t fit
for anyone to be out in the bitter cold.”

“And yet—and yet”—he looked at her attentively—“there will probably be
many people out in the streets to-night.”

“A many more than usual, I fear, sir.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Sleuth quickly. “Is it not a strange thing, Mrs.
Bunting, that people who have all day in which to amuse themselves
should carry their revels far into the night?”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of revellers, sir; I was thinking”—she
hesitated, then, with a gasping effort Mrs. Bunting brought out the
words, “of the police.”

“The police?” He put up his right hand and stroked his chin two or
three times with a nervous gesture. “But what is man—what is man’s puny
power or strength against that of God, or even of those over whose feet
God has set a guard?”

Mr. Sleuth looked at his landlady with a kind of triumph lighting up
his face, and Mrs. Bunting felt a shuddering sense of relief. Then she
had not offended her lodger? She had not made him angry by that,
that—was it a hint she had meant to convey to him?

“Very true, sir,” she said respectfully. “But Providence means us to
take care o’ ourselves too.” And then she closed the door behind her
and went downstairs.

But Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did not go on, down to the kitchen. She came
into her sitting-room, and, careless of what Bunting would think the
next morning, put the tray with the remains of the lodger’s meal on her
table. Having done that, and having turned out the gas in the passage
and the sitting-room, she went into her bedroom and closed the door.

The fire was burning brightly and clearly. She told herself that she
did not need any other light to undress by.

What was it made the flames of the fire shoot up, shoot down, in that
queer way? But watching it for awhile, she did at last doze off a bit.

And then—and then Mrs. Bunting woke with a sudden thumping of her
heart. Woke to see that the fire was almost out—woke to hear a quarter
to twelve chime out—woke at last to the sound she had been listening
for before she fell asleep—the sound of Mr. Sleuth, wearing his
rubber-soled shoes, creeping downstairs, along the passage, and so out,
very, very quietly by the front door.

But once she was in bed Mrs. Bunting turned restless. She tossed this
way and that, full of discomfort and unease. Perhaps it was the
unaccustomed firelight dancing on the walls, making queer shadows all
round her, which kept her so wide awake.

She lay thinking and listening—listening and thinking. It even occurred
to her to do the one thing that might have quieted her excited brain—to
get a book, one of those detective stories of which Bunting had a
slender store in the next room, and then, lighting the gas, to sit up
and read.

No, Mrs. Bunting had always been told it was very wrong to read in bed,
and she was not in a mood just now to begin doing anything that she had
been told was wrong. . . .




CHAPTER XXI.


It was a very cold night—so cold, so windy, so snow-laden was the
atmosphere, that everyone who could do so stayed indoors.

Bunting, however, was now on his way home from what had proved a really
pleasant job. A remarkable piece of luck had come his way this evening,
all the more welcome because it was quite unexpected! The young lady at
whose birthday party he had been present in capacity of waiter had come
into a fortune that day, and she had had the gracious, the surprising
thought of presenting each of the hired waiters with a sovereign!

This gift, which had been accompanied by a few kind words, had gone to
Bunting’s heart. It had confirmed him in his Conservative principles;
only gentlefolk ever behaved in that way; quiet, old-fashioned,
respectable, gentlefolk, the sort of people of whom those nasty
Radicals know nothing and care less!

But the ex-butler was not as happy as he should have been. Slackening
his footsteps, he began to think with puzzled concern of how queer his
wife had seemed lately. Ellen had become so nervous, so “jumpy,” that
he didn’t know what to make of her sometimes. She had never been really
good-tempered—your capable, self-respecting woman seldom is—but she had
never been like what she was now. And she didn’t get better as the days
went on; in fact she got worse. Of late she had been quite hysterical,
and for no reason at all! Take that little practical joke of young Joe
Chandler. Ellen knew quite well he often had to go about in some kind
of disguise, and yet how she had gone on, quite foolish-like—not at all
as one would have expected her to do.

There was another queer thing about her which disturbed him in more
senses than one. During the last three weeks or so Ellen had taken to
talking in her sleep. “No, no, no!” she had cried out, only the night
before. “It isn’t true—I won’t have it said—it’s a lie!” And there had
been a wail of horrible fear and revolt in her usually quiet, mincing
voice.

Whew! it was cold; and he had stupidly forgotten his gloves.

He put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and began walking
more quickly.

As he tramped steadily along, the ex-butler suddenly caught sight of
his lodger walking along the opposite side of the solitary street—one
of those short streets leading off the broad road which encircles
Regent’s Park.

Well! This was a funny time o’ night to be taking a stroll for
pleasure, like!

Glancing across, Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth’s tall, thin figure
was rather bowed, and that his head was bent toward the ground. His
left arm was thrust into his long Inverness cape, and so was quite
hidden, but the other side of the cape bulged out, as if the lodger
were carrying a bag or parcel in the hand which hung down straight.

Mr. Sleuth was walking rather quickly, and as he walked he talked
aloud, which, as Bunting knew, is not unusual with gentlemen who live
much alone. It was clear that he had not yet become aware of the
proximity of his landlord.

Bunting told himself that Ellen was right. Their lodger was certainly a
most eccentric, peculiar person. Strange, was it not, that that odd,
luny-like gentleman should have made all the difference to his,
Bunting’s, and Mrs. Bunting’s happiness and comfort in life?

Again glancing across at Mr. Sleuth, he reminded himself, not for the
first time, of this perfect lodger’s one fault—his odd dislike to meat,
and to what Bunting vaguely called to himself, sensible food.

But there, you can’t have everything! The more so that the lodger was
not one of those crazy vegetarians who won’t eat eggs and cheese. No,
he was reasonable in this, as in everything else connected with his
dealings with the Buntings.

As we know, Bunting saw far less of the lodger than did his wife.
Indeed, he had been upstairs only three or four times since Mr. Sleuth
had been with them, and when his landlord had had occasion to wait on
him the lodger had remained silent. Indeed, their gentleman had made it
very clear that he did not like either the husband or wife to come up
to his rooms without being definitely asked to do so.

Now, surely, would be a good opportunity for a little genial
conversation? Bunting felt pleased to see his lodger; it increased his
general comfortable sense of satisfaction.

So it was that the butler, still an active man for his years, crossed
over the road, and, stepping briskly forward, began trying to overtake
Mr. Sleuth. But the more he hurried along, the more the other hastened,
and that without ever turning round to see whose steps he could hear
echoing behind him on the now freezing pavement.

Mr. Sleuth’s own footsteps were quite inaudible—an odd circumstance,
when you came to think of it—as Bunting did think of it later, lying
awake by Mrs. Bunting’s side in the pitch darkness. What it meant of
course, was that the lodger had rubber soles on his shoes. Now Bunting
had never had a pair of rubber-soled shoes sent down to him to clean.
He had always supposed the lodger had only one pair of outdoor boots.

The two men—the pursued and the pursuer—at last turned into the
Marylebone Road; they were now within a few hundred yards of home.
Plucking up courage, Bunting called out, his voice echoing freshly on
the still air:

“Mr. Sleuth, sir? Mr. Sleuth!”

The lodger stopped and turned round.

He had been walking so quickly, and he was in so poor a physical
condition, that the sweat was pouring down his face.

“Ah! So it’s you, Mr. Bunting? I heard footsteps behind me, and I
hurried on. I wish I’d known that it was you; there are so many queer
characters about at night in London.”

“Not on a night like this, sir. Only honest folk who have business out
of doors would be out such a night as this. It _is_ cold, sir!”

And then into Bunting’s slow and honest mind there suddenly crept the
query as to what on earth Mr. Sleuth’s own business out could be on
this bitter night.

“Cold?” the lodger repeated; he was panting a little, and his words
came out sharp and quick through his thin lips. “I can’t say that I
find it cold, Mr. Bunting. When the snow falls, the air always becomes
milder.”

“Yes, sir; but to-night there’s such a sharp east wind. Why, it freezes
the very marrow in one’s bones! Still, there’s nothing like walking in
cold weather to make one warm, as you seem to have found, sir.”

Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth kept his distance in a rather strange
way; he walked at the edge of the pavement, leaving the rest of it, on
the wall side, to his landlord.

“I lost my way,” he said abruptly. “I’ve been over Primrose Hill to see
a friend of mine, a man with whom I studied when I was a lad, and then,
coming back, I lost my way.”

Now they had come right up to the little gate which opened on the
shabby, paved court in front of the house—that gate which now was never
locked.

Mr. Sleuth, pushing suddenly forward, began walking up the flagged
path, when, with a “By your leave, sir,” the ex-butler, stepping aside,
slipped in front of his lodger, in order to open the front door for
him.

As he passed by Mr. Sleuth, the back of Bunting’s bare left hand
brushed lightly against the long Inverness cape the lodger was wearing,
and, to Bunting’s surprise, the stretch of cloth against which his hand
lay for a moment was not only damp, damp maybe from stray flakes of
snow which had settled upon it, but wet—wet and gluey.

Bunting thrust his left hand into his pocket; it was with the other
that he placed the key in the lock of the door.

The two men passed into the hall together.

The house seemed blackly dark in comparison with the lighted-up road
outside, and as he groped forward, closely followed by the lodger,
there came over Bunting a sudden, reeling sensation of mortal terror,
an instinctive, assailing knowledge of frightful immediate danger.

A stuffless voice—the voice of his first wife, the long-dead girl to
whom his mind so seldom reverted nowadays—uttered into his ear the
words, “Take care!”

And then the lodger spoke. His voice was harsh and grating, though not
loud.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Bunting, that you must have felt something dirty,
foul, on my coat? It’s too long a story to tell you now, but I brushed
up against a dead animal, a creature to whose misery some thoughtful
soul had put an end, lying across a bench on Primrose Hill.”

“No, sir, no. I didn’t notice nothing. I scarcely touched you, sir.”

It seemed as if a power outside himself compelled Bunting to utter
these lying words. “And now, sir, I’ll be saying good-night to you,” he
said.

Stepping back he pressed with all the strength that was in him against
the wall, and let the other pass him. There was a pause, and
then—“Good-night,” returned Mr. Sleuth, in a hollow voice. Bunting
waited until the lodger had gone upstairs, and then, lighting the gas,
he sat down there, in the hall. Mr. Sleuth’s landlord felt very
queer—queer and sick.

He did not draw his left hand out of his pocket till he heard Mr.
Sleuth shut the bedroom door upstairs. Then he held up his left hand
and looked at it curiously; it was flecked, streaked with pale reddish
blood.

Taking off his boots, he crept into the room where his wife lay asleep.
Stealthily he walked across to the wash-hand-stand, and dipped a hand
into the water-jug.

“Whatever are you doing? What on earth are you doing?” came a voice
from the bed, and Bunting started guiltily.

“I’m just washing my hands.”

“Indeed, you’re doing nothing of the sort! I never heard of such a
thing—putting your hand into the water in which I was going to wash my
face to-morrow morning!”

“I’m very sorry, Ellen,” he said meekly; “I meant to throw it away. You
don’t suppose I would have let you wash in dirty water, do you?”

She said no more, but, as he began undressing himself, Mrs. Bunting lay
staring at him in a way that made her husband feel even more
uncomfortable than he was already.

At last he got into bed. He wanted to break the oppressive silence by
telling Ellen about the sovereign the young lady had given him, but
that sovereign now seemed to Bunting of no more account than if it had
been a farthing he had picked up in the road outside.

Once more his wife spoke, and he gave so great a start that it shook
the bed.

“I suppose that you don’t know that you’ve left the light burning in
the hall, wasting our good money?” she observed tartly.

He got up painfully and opened the door into the passage. It was as she
had said; the gas was flaring away, wasting their good money—or,
rather, Mr. Sleuth’s good money. Since he had come to be their lodger
they had not had to touch their rent money.

Bunting turned out the light and groped his way back to the room, and
so to bed. Without speaking again to each other, both husband and wife
lay awake till dawn.

The next morning Mr. Sleuth’s landlord awoke with a start; he felt
curiously heavy about the limbs, and tired about the eyes.

Drawing his watch from under his pillow, he saw that it was seven
o’clock. Without waking his wife, he got out of bed and pulled the
blind a little to one side. It was snowing heavily, and, as is the way
when it snows, even in London, everything was strangely, curiously
still. After he had dressed he went out into the passage. As he had at
once dreaded and hoped, their newspaper was already lying on the mat.
It was probably the sound of its being pushed through the letter-box
which had waked him from his unrestful sleep.

He picked the paper up and went into the sitting-room then, shutting
the door behind him carefully, he spread the newspaper wide open on the
table, and bent over it.

As Bunting at last looked up and straightened himself, an expression of
intense relief shone upon his stolid face. The item of news he had felt
certain would be printed in big type on the middle sheet was not there.




CHAPTER XXII.


Feeling amazingly light-hearted, almost light-headed, Bunting lit the
gas-ring to make his wife her morning cup of tea.

While he was doing it, he suddenly heard her call out:

“Bunting!” she cried weakly. “Bunting!” Quickly he hurried in response
to her call. “Yes,” he said. “What is it, my dear? I won’t be a minute
with your tea.” And he smiled broadly, rather foolishly.

She sat up and looked at him, a dazed expression on her face.

“What are you grinning at?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’ve had a wonderful piece of luck,” he explained. “But you was so
cross last night that I simply didn’t dare tell you about it.”

“Well, tell me now,” she said in a low voice.

“I had a sovereign given me by the young lady. You see, it was her
birthday party, Ellen, and she’d come into a nice bit of money, and she
gave each of us waiters a sovereign.”

Mrs. Bunting made no comment. Instead, she lay back and closed her
eyes.

“What time d’you expect Daisy?” she asked languidly. “You didn’t say
what time Joe was going to fetch her, when we was talking about it
yesterday.”

“Didn’t I? Well, I expect they’ll be in to dinner.”

“I wonder, how long that old aunt of hers expects us to keep her?” said
Mrs. Bunting thoughtfully. All the cheer died out of Bunting’s round
face. He became sullen and angry. It would be a pretty thing if he
couldn’t have his own daughter for a bit—especially now that they were
doing so well!

“Daisy’ll stay here just as long as she can,” he said shortly. “It’s
too bad of you, Ellen, to talk like that! She helps you all she can;
and she brisks us both up ever so much. Besides, ’twould be cruel—cruel
to take the girl away just now, just as she and that young chap are
making friends-like. One would suppose that even you would see the
justice o’ that!”

But Mrs. Bunting made no answer.

Bunting went off, back into the sitting-room. The water was boiling
now, so he made the tea; and then, as he brought the little tray in,
his heart softened. Ellen did look really ill—ill and wizened. He
wondered if she had a pain about which she wasn’t saying anything. She
had never been one to grouse about herself.

“The lodger and me came in together last night,” he observed genially.
“He’s certainly a funny kind of gentleman. It wasn’t the sort of night
one would have chosen to go out for a walk, now was it? And yet he must
’a been out a long time if what he said was true.”

“I don’t wonder a quiet gentleman like Mr. Sleuth hates the crowded
streets,” she said slowly. “They gets worse every day—that they do! But
go along now; I want to get up.”

He went back into their sitting-room, and, having laid the fire and put
a match to it, he sat down comfortably with his newspaper.

Deep down in his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a
feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible
thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his
head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt
Mr. Sleuth’s nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to
think of it, he _had_ mentioned brushing up against a dead animal.

Perhaps Ellen was right after all. It didn’t do for one to be always
thinking of dreadful subjects, of murders and such-like. It made one go
dotty—that’s what it did.

And just as he was telling himself that, there came to the door a loud
knock, the peculiar rat-tat-tat of a telegraph boy. But before he had
time to get across the room, let alone to the front door, Ellen had
rushed through the room, clad only in a petticoat and shawl.

“I’ll go,” she cried breathlessly. “I’ll go, Bunting; don’t you
trouble.”

He stared at her, surprised, and followed her into the hall.

She put out a hand, and hiding herself behind the door, took the
telegram from the invisible boy. “You needn’t wait,” she said. “If
there’s an answer we’ll send it out ourselves.” Then she tore the
envelope open—“Oh!” she said with a gasp of relief. “It’s only from Joe
Chandler, to say he can’t go over to fetch Daisy this morning. Then
you’ll have to go.”

She walked back into their sitting-room. “There!” she said. “There it
is, Bunting. You just read it.”

“Am on duty this morning. Cannot fetch Miss Daisy as
arranged.—CHANDLER.”


“I wonder why he’s on duty?” said Bunting slowly, uncomfortably. “I
thought Joe’s hours was as regular as clockwork—that nothing could make
any difference to them. However, there it is. I suppose it’ll do all
right if I start about eleven o’clock? It may have left off snowing by
then. I don’t feel like going out again just now. I’m pretty tired this
morning.”

“You start about twelve,” said his wife quickly.

“That’ll give plenty of time.”

The morning went on quietly, uneventfully. Bunting received a letter
from Old Aunt saying Daisy must come back next Monday, a little under a
week from now. Mr. Sleuth slept soundly, or, at any rate, he made no
sign of being awake; and though Mrs. Bunting often, stopped to listen,
while she was doing her room, there came no sounds at all from
overhead.

Scarcely aware that it was so, both Bunting and his wife felt more
cheerful than they had done for a long time. They had quite a pleasant
little chat when Mrs. Bunting came and sat down for a bit, before going
down to prepare Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast.

“Daisy will be surprised to see you—not to say disappointed!” she
observed, and she could not help laughing a little to herself at the
thought. And when, at eleven, Bunting got up to go, she made him stay
on a little longer. “There’s no such great hurry as that,” she said
good-temperedly. “It’ll do quite well if you’re there by half-past
twelve. I’ll get dinner ready myself. Daisy needn’t help with that. I
expect Margaret has worked her pretty hard.”

But at last there came the moment when Bunting had to start, and his
wife went with him to the front door. It was still snowing, less
heavily, but still snowing. There were very few people coming and
going, and only just a few cabs and carts dragging cautiously along
through the slush.

Mrs. Bunting was still in the kitchen when there came a ring and a
knock at the door—a now very familiar ring and knock. “Joe thinks
Daisy’s home again by now!” she said, smiling to herself.

Before the door was well open, she heard Chandler’s voice. “Don’t be
scared this time, Mrs. Bunting!” But though not exactly scared, she did
give a gasp of surprise. For there stood Joe, made up to represent a
public-house loafer; and he looked the part to perfection, with his
hair combed down raggedly over his forehead, his seedy-looking,
ill-fitting, dirty clothes, and greenish-black pot hat.

“I haven’t a minute,” he said a little breathlessly. “But I thought I’d
just run in to know if Miss Daisy was safe home again. You got my
telegram all right? I couldn’t send no other kind of message.”

“She’s not back yet. Her father hasn’t been gone long after her.” Then,
struck by a look in his eyes, “Joe, what’s the matter?” she asked
quickly.

There came a thrill of suspense in her voice, her face grew drawn,
while what little colour there was in it receded, leaving it very pale.

“Well,” he said. “Well, Mrs. Bunting, I’ve no business to say anything
about it—but I _will_ tell _you!_”

He walked in and shut the door of the sitting-room carefully behind
him. “There’s been another of ’em!” he whispered. “But this time no one
is to know anything about it—not for the present, I mean,” he corrected
himself hastily. “The Yard thinks we’ve got a clue—and a good clue,
too, this time.”

“But where—and how?” faltered Mrs. Bunting.

“Well, ’twas just a bit of luck being able to keep it dark for the
present”—he still spoke in that stifled, hoarse whisper. “The poor soul
was found dead on a bench on Primrose Hill. And just by chance ’twas
one of our fellows saw the body first. He was on his way home, over
Hampstead way. He knew where he’d be able to get an ambulance quick,
and he made a very clever, secret job of it. I ’spect he’ll get
promotion for that!”

“What about the clue?” asked Mrs. Bunting, with dry lips. “You said
there was a clue?”

“Well, I don’t rightly understand about the clue myself. All I knows is
it’s got something to do with a public-house, ‘The Hammer and Tongs,’
which isn’t far off there. They feels sure The Avenger was in the bar
just on closing-time.”

And then Mrs. Bunting sat down. She felt better now. It was natural the
police should suspect a public-house loafer. “Then that’s why you
wasn’t able to go and fetch Daisy, I suppose?”

He nodded. “Mum’s the word, Mrs. Bunting! It’ll all be in the last
editions of the evening newspapers—it can’t be kep’ out. There’d be too
much of a row if ’twas!”

“Are you going off to that public-house now?” she asked.

“Yes, I am. I’ve got a awk’ard job—to try and worm something out of the
barmaid.”

“Something out of the barmaid?” repeated Mrs. Bunting nervously. “Why,
whatever for?”

He came and stood close to her. “They think ’twas a gentleman,” he
whispered.

“A gentleman?”

Mrs. Bunting stared at Chandler with a scared expression. “Whatever
makes them think such a silly thing as that?”

“Well, just before closing-time a very peculiar-looking gent, with a
leather bag in his hand, went into the bar and asked for a glass of
milk. And what d’you think he did? Paid for it with a sovereign! He
wouldn’t take no change—just made the girl a present of it! That’s why
the young woman what served him seems quite unwilling to give him away.
She won’t tell now what he was like. She doesn’t know what he’s wanted
for, and we don’t want her to know just yet. That’s one reason why
nothing’s being said public about it. But there! I really must be going
now. My time’ll be up at three o’clock. I thought of coming in on the
way back, and asking you for a cup o’ tea, Mrs. Bunting.”

“Do,” she said. “Do, Joe. You’ll be welcome,” but there was no welcome
in her tired voice.

She let him go alone to the door, and then she went down to her
kitchen, and began cooking Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast.

The lodger would be sure to ring soon; and then any minute Bunting and
Daisy might be home, and they’d want something, too. Margaret always
had breakfast even when “the family” were away, unnaturally early.

As she bustled about Mrs. Bunting tried to empty her mind of all
thought. But it is very difficult to do that when one is in a state of
torturing uncertainty. She had not dared to ask Chandler what they
supposed that man who had gone into the public-house was really like.
It was fortunate, indeed, that the lodger and that inquisitive young
chap had never met face to face.

At last Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang—a quiet little tinkle. But when she went
up with his breakfast the lodger was not in his sitting-room.

Supposing him to be still in his bedroom, Mrs. Bunting put the cloth on
the table, and then she heard the sound of his footsteps coming down
the stairs, and her quick ears detected the slight whirring sound which
showed that the gas-stove was alight. Mr. Sleuth had already lit the
stove; that meant that he would carry out some elaborate experiment
this afternoon.

“Still snowing?” he said doubtfully. “How very, very quiet and still
London is when under snow, Mrs. Bunting. I have never known it quite as
quiet as this morning. Not a sound, outside or in. A very pleasant
change from the shouting which sometimes goes on in the Marylebone
Road.”

“Yes,” she said dully. “It’s awful quiet to-day—too quiet to my
thinking. ’Tain’t natural-like.”

The outside gate swung to, making a noisy clatter in the still air.

“Is that someone coming in here?” asked Mr. Sleuth, drawing a quick,
hissing breath. “Perhaps you will oblige me by going to the window and
telling me who it is, Mrs. Bunting?”

And his landlady obeyed him.

“It’s only Bunting, sir—Bunting and his daughter.”

“Oh! Is that all?”

Mr. Sleuth hurried after her, and she shrank back a little. She had
never been quite so near to the lodger before, save on that first day
when she had been showing him her rooms.

Side by side they stood, looking out of the window. And, as if aware
that someone was standing there, Daisy turned her bright face up
towards the window and smiled at her stepmother, and at the lodger,
whose face she could only dimly discern.

“A very sweet-looking young girl,” said Mr. Sleuth thoughtfully. And
then he quoted a little bit of poetry, and this took Mrs. Bunting very
much aback.

“Wordsworth,” he murmured dreamily. “A poet too little read nowadays,
Mrs. Bunting; but one with a beautiful feeling for nature, for youth,
for innocence.”

“Indeed, sir?” Mrs. Bunting stepped back a little. “Your breakfast will
be getting cold, sir, if you don’t have it now.”

He went back to the table, obediently, and sat down as a child rebuked
might have done.

And then his landlady left him.

“Well?” said Bunting cheerily. “Everything went off quite all right.
And Daisy’s a lucky girl—that she is! Her Aunt Margaret gave her five
shillings.”

But Daisy did not look as pleased as her father thought she ought to
do.

“I hope nothing’s happened to Mr. Chandler,” she said a little
disconsolately. “The very last words he said to me last night was that
he’d be there at ten o’clock. I got quite fidgety as the time went on
and he didn’t come.”

“He’s been here,” said Mrs. Bunting slowly.

“Been here?” cried her husband. “Then why on earth didn’t he go and
fetch Daisy, if he’d time to come here?”

“He was on the way to his job,” his wife answered. “You run along,
child, downstairs. Now that you are here you can make yourself useful.”

And Daisy reluctantly obeyed. She wondered what it was her stepmother
didn’t want her to hear.

“I’ve something to tell you, Bunting.”

“Yes?” He looked across uneasily. “Yes, Ellen?”

“There’s been another o’ those murders. But the police don’t want
anyone to know about it—not yet. That’s why Joe couldn’t go over and
fetch Daisy. They’re all on duty again.”

Bunting put out his hand and clutched hold of the edge of the
mantelpiece. He had gone very red, but his wife was far too much
concerned with her own feelings and sensations to notice it.

There was a long silence between them. Then he spoke, making a great
effort to appear unconcerned.

“And where did it happen?” he asked. “Close to the other one?”

She hesitated, then: “I don’t know. He didn’t say. But hush!” she added
quickly. “Here’s Daisy! Don’t let’s talk of that horror in front of
her-like. Besides, I promised Chandler I’d be mum.”

And he acquiesced.

“You can be laying the cloth, child, while I go up and clear away the
lodger’s breakfast.” Without waiting for an answer, she hurried
upstairs.

Mr. Sleuth had left the greater part of the nice lemon sole untouched.
“I don’t feel well to-day,” he said fretfully. “And, Mrs. Bunting? I
should be much obliged if your husband would lend me that paper I saw
in his hand. I do not often care to look at the public prints, but I
should like to do so now.”

She flew downstairs. “Bunting,” she said a little breathlessly, “the
lodger would like you just to lend him the Sun.”

Bunting handed it over to her. “I’ve read it through,” he observed.
“You can tell him that I don’t want it back again.”

On her way up she glanced down at the pink sheet. Occupying a third of
the space was an irregular drawing, and under it was written, in rather
large characters:

“We are glad to be able to present our readers with an authentic
reproduction of the footprint of the half-worn rubber sole which was
almost certainly worn by The Avenger when he committed his double
murder ten days ago.”


She went into the sitting-room. To her relief it was empty.

“Kindly put the paper down on the table,” came Mr. Sleuth’s muffled
voice from the upper landing.

She did so. “Yes, sir. And Bunting don’t want the paper back again,
sir. He says he’s read it.” And then she hurried out of the room.




CHAPTER XXIII.


All afternoon it went on snowing; and the three of them sat there,
listening and waiting—Bunting and his wife hardly knew for what; Daisy
for the knock which would herald Joe Chandler.

And about four there came the now familiar sound.

Mrs. Bunting hurried out into the passage, and as she opened the front
door she whispered, “We haven’t said anything to Daisy yet. Young girls
can’t keep secrets.”

Chandler nodded comprehendingly. He now looked the low character he had
assumed to the life, for he was blue with cold, disheartened, and tired
out.

Daisy gave a little cry of shocked surprise, of amusement, of welcome,
when she saw how cleverly he was disguised.

“I never!” she exclaimed. “What a difference it do make, to be sure!
Why, you looks quite horrid, Mr. Chandler.”

And, somehow, that little speech of hers amused her father so much that
he quite cheered up. Bunting had been very dull and quiet all that
afternoon.

“It won’t take me ten minutes to make myself respectable again,” said
the young man rather ruefully.

His host and hostess, looking at him eagerly, furtively, both came to
the conclusion that he had been unsuccessful—that he had failed, that
is, in getting any information worth having. And though, in a sense,
they all had a pleasant tea together, there was an air of constraint,
even of discomfort, over the little party.

Bunting felt it hard that he couldn’t ask the questions that were
trembling on his lips; he would have felt it hard any time during the
last month to refrain from knowing anything Joe could tell him, but now
it seemed almost intolerable to be in this queer kind of half suspense.
There was one important fact he longed to know, and at last came his
opportunity of doing so, for Joe Chandler rose to leave, and this time
it was Bunting who followed him out into the hall.

“Where did it happen?” he whispered. “Just tell me that, Joe?”

“Primrose Hill,” said the other briefly. “You’ll know all about it in a
minute or two, for it’ll be all in the last editions of the evening
papers. That’s what’s been arranged.”

“No arrest I suppose?”

Chandler shook his head despondently. “No,” he said, “I’m inclined to
think the Yard was on a wrong tack altogether this time. But one can
only do one’s best. I don’t know if Mrs. Bunting told you I’d got to
question a barmaid about a man who was in her place just before
closing-time. Well, she’s said all she knew, and it’s as clear as
daylight to me that the eccentric old gent she talks about was only a
harmless luny. He gave her a sovereign just because she told him she
was a teetotaller!” He laughed ruefully.

Even Bunting was diverted at the notion. “Well, that’s a queer thing
for a barmaid to be!” he exclaimed. “She’s niece to the people what
keeps the public,” explained Chandler; and then he went out of the
front door with a cheerful “So long!”

When Bunting went back into the sitting-room Daisy had disappeared. She
had gone downstairs with the tray. “Where’s my girl?” he said
irritably.

“She’s just taken the tray downstairs.”

He went out to the top of the kitchen stairs, and called out sharply,
“Daisy! Daisy, child! Are you down there?”

“Yes, father,” came her eager, happy voice.

“Better come up out of that cold kitchen.”

He turned and came back to his wife. “Ellen, is the lodger in? I
haven’t heard him moving about. Now mind what I says, please! I don’t
want Daisy to be mixed up with him.”

“Mr. Sleuth don’t seem very well to-day,” answered Mrs. Bunting
quietly. “’Tain’t likely I should let Daisy have anything to do with
him. Why, she’s never even seen him. ’Tain’t likely I should allow her
to begin waiting on him now.”

But though she was surprised and a little irritated by the tone in
which Bunting had spoken, no glimmer of the truth illumined her mind.
So accustomed had she become to bearing alone the burden of her awful
secret, that it would have required far more than a cross word or two,
far more than the fact that Bunting looked ill and tired, for her to
have come to suspect that her secret was now shared by another, and
that other her husband.

Again and again the poor soul had agonised and trembled at the thought
of her house being invaded by the police, but that was only because she
had always credited the police with supernatural powers of detection.
That they should come to know the awful fact she kept hidden in her
breast would have seemed to her, on the whole, a natural thing, but
that Bunting should even dimly suspect it appeared beyond the range of
possibility.

And yet even Daisy noticed a change in her father. He sat cowering over
the fire—saying nothing, doing nothing.

“Why, father, ain’t you well?” the girl asked more than once.

And, looking up, he would answer, “Yes, I’m well enough, my girl, but I
feels cold. It’s awful cold. I never did feel anything like the cold
we’ve got just now.”

At eight the now familiar shouts and cries began again outside.

“The Avenger again!” “Another horrible crime!” “Extra speshul
edition!”—such were the shouts, the exultant yells, hurled through the
clear, cold air. They fell, like bombs into the quiet room.

Both Bunting and his wife remained silent, but Daisy’s cheeks grew pink
with excitement, and her eye sparkled.

“Hark, father! Hark, Ellen! D’you hear that?” she exclaimed childishly,
and even clapped her hands. “I do wish Mr. Chandler had been here. He
_would_ ’a been startled!”

“Don’t, Daisy!” and Bunting frowned.

Then, getting up, he stretched himself. “It’s fair getting on my mind,”
he said, “these horrible things happening. I’d like to get right away
from London, just as far as I could—that I would!”

“Up to John-o’-Groat’s?” said Daisy, laughing. And then, “Why, father,
ain’t you going out to get a paper?”

“Yes, I suppose I must.”

Slowly he went out of the room, and, lingering a moment in the hall, he
put on his greatcoat and hat. Then he opened the front door, and walked
down the flagged path. Opening the iron gate, he stepped out on the
pavement, then crossed the road to where the newspaper-boys now stood.

The boy nearest to him only had the _Sun_—a late edition of the paper
he had already read. It annoyed Bunting to give a penny for a ha’penny
rag of which he already knew the main contents. But there was nothing
else to do.

Standing under a lamp-post, he opened out the newspaper. It was
bitingly cold; that, perhaps, was why his hand shook as he looked down
at the big headlines. For Bunting had been very unfair to the
enterprise of the editor of his favourite evening paper. This special
edition was full of new matter—new matter concerning The Avenger.

First, in huge type right across the page, was the brief statement that
The Avenger had now committed his ninth crime, and that he had chosen
quite a new locality, namely, the lonely stretch of rising ground known
to Londoners as Primrose Hill.

“The police,” so Bunting read, “are very reserved as to the
circumstances which led to the finding of the body of The Avenger’s
latest victim. But we have reason to believe that they possess several
really important clues, and that one of them is concerned with the
half-worn rubber sole of which we are the first to reproduce an outline
to-day. (See over page.)”


And Bunting, turning the sheet round about, saw the irregular outline
he had already seen in the early edition of the Sun, that purporting to
be a facsimile of the imprint left by The Avenger’s rubber sole.

He stared down at the rough outline which took up so much of the space
which should have been devoted to reading matter with a queer, sinking
feeling of terrified alarm. Again and again criminals had been tracked
by the marks their boots or shoes had made at or near the scenes of
their misdoings.

Practically the only job Bunting did in his own house of a menial kind
was the cleaning of the boots and shoes. He had already visualised
early this very afternoon the little row with which he dealt each
morning—first came his wife’s strong, serviceable boots, then his own
two pairs, a good deal patched and mended, and next to his own Mr.
Sleuth’s strong, hardly worn, and expensive buttoned boots. Of late a
dear little coquettish high-heeled pair of outdoor shoes with thin,
paperlike soles, bought by Daisy for her trip to London, had ended the
row. The girl had worn these thin shoes persistently, in defiance of
Ellen’s reproof and advice, and he, Bunting, had only once had to clean
her more sensible country pair, and that only because the others had
become wet through the day he and she had accompanied young Chandler to
Scotland Yard.

Slowly he returned across the road. Somehow the thought of going in
again, of hearing his wife’s sarcastic comments, of parrying Daisy’s
eager questions, had become intolerable. So he walked slowly, trying to
put off the evil moment when he would have to tell them what was in his
paper.

The lamp under which he had stood reading was not exactly opposite the
house. It was rather to the right of it. And when, having crossed over
the roadway, he walked along the pavement towards his own gate, he
heard odd, shuffling sounds coming from the inner side of the low wall
which shut off his little courtyard from the pavement.

Now, under ordinary circumstances Bunting would have rushed forward to
drive out whoever was there. He and his wife had often had trouble,
before the cold weather began, with vagrants seeking shelter there. But
to-night he stayed outside, listening intently, sick with suspense and
fear.

Was it possible that their place was being watched—already? He thought
it only too likely. Bunting, like Mrs. Bunting, credited the police
with almost supernatural powers, especially since he had paid that
visit to Scotland Yard.

But to Bunting’s amazement, and, yes, relief, it was his lodger who
suddenly loomed up in the dim light.

Mr. Sleuth must have been stooping down, for his tall, lank form had
been quite concealed till he stepped forward from behind the low wall
on to the flagged path leading to the front door.

The lodger was carrying a brown paper parcel, and, as he walked along,
the new boots he was wearing creaked, and the tap-tap of hard
nail-studded heels rang out on the flat-stones of the narrow path.

Bunting, still standing outside the gate, suddenly knew what it was his
lodger had been doing on the other side of the low wall. Mr. Sleuth had
evidently been out to buy himself another pair of new boots, and then
he had gone inside the gate and had put them on, placing his old
footgear in the paper in which the new pair had been wrapped.

The ex-butler waited—waited quite a long time, not only until Mr.
Sleuth had let himself into the house, but till the lodger had had time
to get well away, upstairs.

Then he also walked up the flagged pathway, and put his latchkey in the
door. He lingered as long over the job of hanging his hat and coat up
in the hall as he dared, in fact till his wife called out to him. Then
he went in, and throwing the paper down on the table, he said sullenly:
“There it is! You can see it all for yourself—not that there’s very
much to see,” and groped his way to the fire.

His wife looked at him in sharp alarm. “Whatever have you done to
yourself?” she exclaimed. “You’re ill—that’s what it is, Bunting. You
got a chill last night!”

“I told you I’d got a chill,” he muttered. “’Twasn’t last night,
though; ’twas going out this morning, coming back in the bus. Margaret
keeps that housekeeper’s room o’ hers like a hothouse—that’s what she
does. ’Twas going out from there into the biting wind, that’s what did
for me. It must be awful to stand about in such weather; ’tis a wonder
to me how that young fellow, Joe Chandler, can stand the life—being out
in all weathers like he is.”

Bunting spoke at random, his one anxiety being to get away from what
was in the paper, which now lay, neglected, on the table.

“Those that keep out o’ doors all day never do come to no harm,” said
his wife testily. “But if you felt so bad, whatever was you out so long
for, Bunting? I thought you’d gone away somewhere! D’you mean you only
went to get the paper?”

“I just stopped for a second to look at it under the lamp,” he muttered
apologetically.

“That was a silly thing to do!”

“Perhaps it was,” he admitted meekly.

Daisy had taken up the paper. “Well, they don’t say much,” she said
disappointedly. “Hardly anything at all! But perhaps Mr. Chandler ’ll
be in soon again. If so, he’ll tell us more about it.”

“A young girl like you oughtn’t to want to know anything about
murders,” said her stepmother severely. “Joe won’t think any the better
of you for your inquisitiveness about such things. If I was you, Daisy,
I shouldn’t say nothing about it if he does come in—which I fair tell
you I hope he won’t. I’ve seen enough of that young chap to-day.”

“He didn’t come in for long—not to-day,” said Daisy, her lip trembling.

“I can tell you one thing that’ll surprise you, my dear”—Mrs. Bunting
looked significantly at her stepdaughter. She also wanted to get away
from that dread news—which yet was no news.

“Yes?” said Daisy, rather defiantly. “What is it, Ellen?”

“Maybe you’ll be surprised to hear that Joe did come in this morning.
He knew all about that affair then, but he particular asked that you
shouldn’t be told anything about it.”

“Never!” cried Daisy, much mortified.

“Yes,” went on her stepmother ruthlessly. “You just ask your father
over there if it isn’t true.”

“’Tain’t a healthy thing to speak overmuch about such happenings,” said
Bunting heavily.

“If I was Joe,” went on Mrs. Bunting, quickly pursuing her advantage,
“I shouldn’t want to talk about such horrid things when I comes in to
have a quiet chat with friends. But the minute he comes in that poor
young chap is set upon—mostly, I admit, by your father,” she looked at
her husband severely. “But you does your share, too, Daisy! You asks
him this, you asks him that—he’s fair puzzled sometimes. It don’t do to
be so inquisitive.”

And perhaps because of this little sermon on Mrs. Bunting’s part when
young Chandler did come in again that evening, very little was said of
the new Avenger murder.

Bunting made no reference to it at all, and though Daisy said a word,
it was but a word. And Joe Chandler thought he had never spent a
pleasanter evening in his life—for it was he and Daisy who talked all
the time, their elders remaining for the most part silent.

Daisy told of all that she had done with Aunt Margaret. She described
the long, dull hours and the queer jobs her aunt set her to do—the
washing up of all the fine drawing-room china in a big basin lined with
flannel, and how terrified she (Daisy) had been lest there should come
even one teeny little chip to any of it. Then she went on to relate
some of the funny things Aunt Margaret had told her about “the family.”

There came a really comic tale, which hugely interested and delighted
Chandler. This was of how Aunt Margaret’s lady had been taken in by an
impostor—an impostor who had come up, just as she was stepping out of
her carriage, and pretended to have a fit on the doorstep. Aunt
Margaret’s lady, being a soft one, had insisted on the man coming into
the hall, where he had been given all kinds of restoratives. When the
man had at last gone off, it was found that he had “wolfed” young
master’s best walking-stick, one with a fine tortoise-shell top to it.
Thus had Aunt Margaret proved to her lady that the man had been
shamming, and her lady had been very angry—near had a fit herself!

“There’s a lot of that about,” said Chandler, laughing. “Incorrigible
rogues and vagabonds—that’s what those sort of people are!”

And then he, in his turn, told an elaborate tale of an exceptionally
clever swindler whom he himself had brought to book. He was very proud
of that job, it had formed a white stone in his career as a detective.
And even Mrs. Bunting was quite interested to hear about it.

Chandler was still sitting there when Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang. For
awhile no one stirred; then Bunting looked questioningly at his wife.

“Did you hear that?” he said. “I think, Ellen, that was the lodger’s
bell.”

She got up, without alacrity, and went upstairs.

“I rang,” said Mr. Sleuth weakly, “to tell you I don’t require any
supper to-night, Mrs. Bunting. Only a glass of milk, with a lump of
sugar in it. That is all I require—nothing more. I feel very very far
from well”—and he had a hunted, plaintive expression on his face. “And
then I thought your husband would like his paper back again, Mrs.
Bunting.”

Mrs. Bunting, looking at him fixedly, with a sad intensity of gaze of
which she was quite unconscious, answered, “Oh, no, sir! Bunting don’t
require that paper now. He read it all through.” Something impelled her
to add, ruthlessly, “He’s got another paper by now, sir. You may have
heard them come shouting outside. Would you like me to bring you up
that other paper, sir?”

And Mr. Sleuth shook his head. “No,” he said querulously. “I much
regret now having asked for the one paper I did read, for it disturbed
me, Mrs. Bunting. There was nothing of any value in it—there never is
in any public print. I gave up reading newspapers years ago, and I much
regret that I broke through my rule to-day.”

As if to indicate to her that he did not wish for any more
conversation, the lodger then did what he had never done before in his
landlady’s presence. He went over to the fireplace and deliberately
turned his back on her.

She went down and brought up the glass of milk and the lump of sugar he
had asked for.

Now he was in his usual place, sitting at the table, studying the Book.

When Mrs. Bunting went back to the others they were chatting merrily.
She did not notice that the merriment was confined to the two young
people.

“Well?” said Daisy pertly. “How about the lodger, Ellen? Is he all
right?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “Of course he is!”

“He must feel pretty dull sitting up there all by himself—awful
lonely-like, I call it,” said the girl.

But her stepmother remained silent.

“Whatever does he do with himself all day?” persisted Daisy.

“Just now he’s reading the Bible,” Mrs. Bunting answered, shortly and
dryly.

“Well, I never! That’s a funny thing for a gentleman to do!”

And Joe, alone of her three listeners, laughed—a long hearty peal of
amusement.

“There’s nothing to laugh at,” said Mrs. Bunting sharply. “I should
feel ashamed of being caught laughing at anything connected with the
Bible.”

And poor Joe became suddenly quite serious. This was the first time
that Mrs. Bunting had ever spoken really nastily to him, and he
answered very humbly, “I beg pardon. I know I oughtn’t to have laughed
at anything to do with the Bible, but you see, Miss Daisy said it so
funny-like, and, by all accounts, your lodger must be a queer card,
Mrs. Bunting.”

“He’s no queerer than many people I could mention,” she said quickly;
and with these enigmatic words she got up, and left the room.




CHAPTER XXIV.


Each hour of the days that followed held for Bunting its full meed of
aching fear and suspense.

The unhappy man was ever debating within himself what course he should
pursue, and, according to his mood and to the state of his mind at any
particular moment, he would waver between various widely-differing
lines of action.

He told himself again and again, and with fretful unease, that the most
awful thing about it all was that _he wasn’t sure_. If only he could
have been _sure_, he might have made up his mind exactly what it was he
ought to do.

But when telling himself this he was deceiving himself, and he was
vaguely conscious of the fact; for, from Bunting’s point of view,
almost any alternative would have been preferable to that which to
some, nay, perhaps to most, householders would have seemed the only
thing to do, namely, to go to the police. But Londoners of Bunting’s
class have an uneasy fear of the law. To his mind it would be ruin for
him and for his Ellen to be mixed up publicly in such a terrible
affair. No one concerned in the business would give them and their
future a thought, but it would track them to their dying day, and,
above all, it would make it quite impossible for them ever to get again
into a good joint situation. It was that for which Bunting, in his
secret soul, now longed with all his heart.

No, some other way than going to the police must be found—and he racked
his slow brain to find it.

The worst of it was that every hour that went by made his future course
more difficult and more delicate, and increased the awful weight on his
conscience.

If only he really knew! If only he could feel quite sure! And then he
would tell himself that, after all, he had very little to go upon; only
suspicion—suspicion, and a secret, horrible certainty that his
suspicion was justified.

And so at last Bunting began to long for a solution which he knew to be
indefensible from every point of view; he began to hope, that is, in
the depths of his heart, that the lodger would again go out one evening
on his horrible business and be caught—red-handed.

But far from going out on any business, horrible or other, Mr. Sleuth
now never went out at all. He kept upstairs, and often spent quite a
considerable part of his day in bed. He still felt, so he assured Mrs.
Bunting, very far from well. He had never thrown off the chill he had
caught on that bitter night he and his landlord had met on their
several ways home.

Joe Chandler, too, had become a terrible complication to Daisy’s
father. The detective spent every waking hour that he was not on duty
with the Buntings; and Bunting, who at one time had liked him so well
and so cordially, now became mortally afraid of him.

But though the young man talked of little else than The Avenger, and
though on one evening he described at immense length the
eccentric-looking gent who had given the barmaid a sovereign, picturing
Mr. Sleuth with such awful accuracy that both Bunting and Mrs. Bunting
secretly and separately turned sick when they listened to him, he never
showed the slightest interest in their lodger.

At last there came a morning when Bunting and Chandler held a strange
conversation about The Avenger. The young fellow had come in earlier
than usual, and just as he arrived Mrs. Bunting and Daisy were starting
out to do some shopping. The girl would fain have stopped behind, but
her stepmother had given her a very peculiar, disagreeable look, daring
her, so to speak, to be so forward, and Daisy had gone on with a
flushed, angry look on her pretty face.

And then, as young Chandler stepped through into the sitting-room, it
suddenly struck Bunting that the young man looked unlike
himself—indeed, to the ex-butler’s apprehension there was something
almost threatening in Chandler’s attitude.

“I want a word with you, Mr. Bunting,” he began abruptly, falteringly.
“And I’m glad to have the chance now that Mrs. Bunting and Miss Daisy
are out.”

Bunting braced himself to hear the awful words—the accusation of having
sheltered a murderer, the monster whom all the world was seeking, under
his roof. And then he remembered a phrase, a horrible legal
phrase—“Accessory after the fact.” Yes, he had been that, there wasn’t
any doubt about it!

“Yes?” he said. “What is it, Joe?” and then the unfortunate man sat
down in his chair. “Yes?” he said again uncertainly; for young Chandler
had now advanced to the table, he was looking at Bunting fixedly—the
other thought threateningly. “Well, out with it, Joe! Don’t keep me in
suspense.”

And then a slight smile broke over the young man’s face. “I don’t think
what I’ve got to say can take you by surprise, Mr. Bunting.”

And Bunting wagged his head in a way that might mean anything—yes or
no, as the case might be.

The two men looked at one another for what seemed a very, very long
time to the elder of them. And then, making a great effort, Joe
Chandler brought out the words, “Well, I suppose you know what it is I
want to talk about. I’m sure Mrs. Bunting would, from a look or two
she’s lately cast on me. It’s your daughter—it’s Miss Daisy.”

And then Bunting gave a kind of cry, ’twixt a sob and a laugh. “My
girl?” he cried. “Good Lord, Joe! Is that all you wants to talk about?
Why, you fair frightened me—that you did!”

And, indeed, the relief was so great that the room swam round as he
stared across it at his daughter’s lover, that lover who was also the
embodiment of that now awful thing to him, the law. He smiled, rather
foolishly, at his visitor; and Chandler felt a sharp wave of
irritation, of impatience sweep over his good-natured soul. Daisy’s
father was an old stupid—that’s what he was.

And then Bunting grew serious. The room ceased to go round. “As far as
I’m concerned,” he said, with a good deal of solemnity, even a little
dignity, “you have my blessing, Joe. You’re a very likely young chap,
and I had a true respect for your father.”

“Yes,” said Chandler, “that’s very kind of you, Mr. Bunting. But how
about her—her herself?”

Bunting stared at him. It pleased him to think that Daisy hadn’t given
herself away, as Ellen was always hinting the girl was doing.

“I can’t answer for Daisy,” he said heavily. “You’ll have to ask her
yourself—that’s not a job any other man can do for you, my lad.”

“I never gets a chance. I never sees her, not by our two selves,” said
Chandler, with some heat. “You don’t seem to understand, Mr. Bunting,
that I never do see Miss Daisy alone,” he repeated. “I hear now that
she’s going away Monday, and I’ve only once had the chance of a walk
with her. Mrs. Bunting’s very particular, not to say pernickety in her
ideas, Mr. Bunting—”

“That’s a fault on the right side, that is—with a young girl,” said
Bunting thoughtfully.

And Chandler nodded. He quite agreed that as regarded other young chaps
Mrs. Bunting could not be too particular.

“She’s been brought up like a lady, my Daisy has,” went on Bunting,
with some pride. “That Old Aunt of hers hardly lets her out of her
sight.”

“I was coming to the old aunt,” said Chandler heavily. “Mrs. Bunting
she talks as if your daughter was going to stay with that old woman the
whole of her natural life—now is that right? That’s what I wants to ask
you, Mr. Bunting,—is that right?”

“I’ll say a word to Ellen, don’t you fear,” said Bunting abstractedly.

His mind had wandered off, away from Daisy and this nice young chap, to
his now constant anxious preoccupation. “You come along to-morrow,” he
said, “and I’ll see you gets your walk with Daisy. It’s only right you
and she should have a chance of seeing one another without old folk
being by; else how’s the girl to tell whether she likes you or not! For
the matter of that, you hardly knows her, Joe—” He looked at the young
man consideringly.

Chandler shook his head impatiently. “I knows her quite as well as I
wants to know her,” he said. “I made up my mind the very first time I
see’d her, Mr. Bunting.”

“No! Did you really?” said Bunting. “Well, come to think of it, I did
so with her mother; aye, and years after, with Ellen, too. But I hope
_you’ll_ never want no second, Chandler.”

“God forbid!” said the young man under his breath. And then he asked,
rather longingly, “D’you think they’ll be out long now, Mr. Bunting?”

And Bunting woke up to a due sense of hospitality. “Sit down, sit down;
do!” he said hastily. “I don’t believe they’ll be very long. They’ve
only got a little bit of shopping to do.”

And then, in a changed, in a ringing, nervous tone, he asked, “And how
about your job, Joe? Nothing new, I take it? I suppose you’re all just
waiting for _the next time?_”

“Aye—that’s about the figure of it.” Chandler’s voice had also changed;
it was now sombre, menacing. “We’re fair tired of it—beginning to
wonder when it’ll end, that we are!”

“Do you ever try and make to yourself a picture of what the master’s
like?” asked Bunting. Somehow, he felt he must ask that.

“Yes,” said Joe slowly. “I’ve a sort of notion—a savage, fierce-looking
devil, the chap must be. It’s that description that was circulated put
us wrong. I don’t believe it was the man that knocked up against that
woman in the fog—no, not one bit I don’t. But I wavers, I can’t quite
make up my mind. Sometimes I think it’s a sailor—the foreigner they
talks about, that goes away for eight or nine days in between, to
Holland maybe, or to France. Then, again, I says to myself that it’s a
butcher, a man from the Central Market. Whoever it is, it’s someone
used to killing, that’s flat.”

“Then it don’t seem to you possible—?” (Bunting got up and walked over
to the window.) “You don’t take any stock, I suppose, in that idea some
of the papers put out, that the man is”—then he hesitated and brought
out, with a gasp—“a gentleman?”

Chandler looked at him, surprised. “No,” he said deliberately. “I’ve
made up my mind that’s quite a wrong tack, though I knows that some of
our fellows—big pots, too—are quite sure that the fellow what gave the
girl the sovereign is the man we’re looking for. You see, Mr. Bunting,
if that’s the fact—well, it stands to reason the fellow’s an escaped
lunatic; and if he’s an escaped lunatic he’s got a keeper, and they’d
be raising a hue and cry after him; now, wouldn’t they?”

“You don’t think,” went on Bunting, lowering his voice, “that he could
be just staying somewhere, lodging like?”

“D’you mean that The Avenger may be a toff, staying in some West-end
hotel, Mr. Bunting? Well, things almost as funny as that ’ud be have
come to pass.” He smiled as if the notion was a funny one.

“Yes, something o’ that sort,” muttered Bunting.

“Well, if your idea’s correct, Mr. Bunting—”

“I never said ’twas my idea,” said Bunting, all in a hurry.

“Well, if that idea’s correct then, ’twill make our task more difficult
than ever. Why, ’twould be looking for a needle in a field of hay, Mr.
Bunting! But there! I don’t think it’s anything quite so unlikely as
that—not myself I don’t.” He hesitated. “There’s some of us”—he lowered
his voice—“that hopes he’ll betake himself off—The Avenger, I mean—to
another big city, to Manchester or to Edinburgh. There’d be plenty of
work for him to do there,” and Chandler chuckled at his own grim joke.

And then, to both men’s secret relief, for Bunting was now mortally
afraid of this discussion concerning The Avenger and his doings, they
heard Mrs. Bunting’s key in the lock.

Daisy blushed rosy-red with pleasure when she saw that young Chandler
was still there. She had feared that when they got home he would be
gone, the more so that Ellen, just as if she was doing it on purpose,
had lingered aggravatingly long over each small purchase.

“Here’s Joe come to ask if he can take Daisy out for a walk,” blurted
out Bunting.

“My mother says as how she’d like you to come to tea, over at
Richmond,” said Chandler awkwardly, “I just come in to see whether we
could fix it up, Miss Daisy.” And Daisy looked imploringly at her
stepmother.

“D’you mean now—this minute?” asked Mrs. Bunting tartly.

“No, o’ course not”—Bunting broke in hastily. “How you do go on,
Ellen!”

“What day did your mother mention would be convenient to her?” asked
Mrs. Bunting, looking at the young man satirically.

Chandler hesitated. His mother had not mentioned any special day—in
fact, his mother had shown a surprising lack of anxiety to see Daisy at
all. But he had talked her round.

“How about Saturday?” suggested Bunting. “That’s Daisy’s birthday.
’Twould be a birthday treat for her to go to Richmond, and she’s going
back to Old Aunt on Monday.”

“I can’t go Saturday,” said Chandler disconsolately. “I’m on duty
Saturday.”

“Well, then, let it be Sunday,” said Bunting firmly. And his wife
looked at him surprised; he seldom asserted himself so much in her
presence.

“What do you say, Miss Daisy?” said Chandler.

“Sunday would be very nice,” said Daisy demurely. And then, as the
young man took up his hat, and as her stepmother did not stir, Daisy
ventured to go out into the hall with him for a minute.

Chandler shut the door behind them, and so was spared the hearing of
Mrs. Bunting’s whispered remark: “When I was a young woman folk didn’t
gallivant about on Sunday; those who was courting used to go to church
together, decent-like—”




CHAPTER XXV.


Daisy’s eighteenth birthday dawned uneventfully. Her father gave her
what he had always promised she should have on her eighteenth
birthday—a watch. It was a pretty little silver watch, which Bunting
had bought secondhand on the last day he had been happy—it seemed a
long, long time ago now.

Mrs. Bunting thought a silver watch a very extravagant present but she
was far too wretched, far too absorbed in her own thoughts, to trouble
much about it. Besides, in such matters she had generally had the good
sense not to interfere between her husband and his child.

In the middle of the birthday morning Bunting went out to buy himself
some more tobacco. He had never smoked so much as in the last four
days, excepting, perhaps, the week that had followed on his leaving
service. Smoking a pipe had then held all the exquisite pleasure which
we are told attaches itself to the eating of forbidden fruit.

His tobacco had now become his only relaxation; it acted on his nerves
as an opiate, soothing his fears and helping him to think. But he had
been overdoing it, and it was that which now made him feel so “jumpy,”
so he assured himself, when he found himself starting at any casual
sound outside, or even when his wife spoke to him suddenly.

Just now Ellen and Daisy were down in the kitchen, and Bunting didn’t
quite like the sensation of knowing that there was only one pair of
stairs between Mr. Sleuth and himself. So he quietly slipped out of the
house without telling Ellen that he was going out.

In the last four days Bunting had avoided his usual haunts; above all,
he had avoided even passing the time of day to his acquaintances and
neighbours. He feared, with a great fear, that they would talk to him
of a subject which, because it filled his mind to the exclusion of all
else, might make him betray the knowledge—no, not knowledge, rather
the—the suspicion—that dwelt within him.

But to-day the unfortunate man had a curious, instinctive longing for
human companionship—companionship, that is, other than that of his wife
and of his daughter.

This longing for a change of company finally led him into a small,
populous thoroughfare hard by the Edgware Road. There were more people
there than usual just now, for the housewives of the neighbourhood were
doing their Saturday marketing for Sunday. The ex-butler turned into a
small old-fashioned shop where he generally bought his tobacco.

Bunting passed the time of day with the tobacconist, and the two fell
into desultory talk, but to his customer’s relief and surprise the man
made no allusion to the subject of which all the neighbourhood must
still be talking.

And then, quite suddenly, while still standing by the counter, and
before he had paid for the packet of tobacco he held in his hand,
Bunting, through the open door, saw with horrified surprise that Ellen,
his wife, was standing, alone, outside a greengrocer’s shop just
opposite.

Muttering a word of apology, he rushed out of the shop and across the
road.

“Ellen!” he gasped hoarsely, “you’ve never gone and left my little girl
alone in the house with the lodger?”

Mrs. Bunting’s face went yellow with fear. “I thought you was indoors,”
she cried. “You _was_ indoors! Whatever made you come out for, without
first making sure I’d stay in?”

Bunting made no answer; but, as they stared at each other in
exasperated silence, each now knew that the other knew.

They turned and scurried down the crowded street. “Don’t run,” he said
suddenly; “we shall get there just as quickly if we walk fast. People
are noticing you, Ellen. Don’t run.”

He spoke breathlessly, but it was breathlessness induced by fear and by
excitement, not by the quick pace at which they were walking.

At last they reached their own gate, and Bunting pushed past in front
of his wife.

After all, Daisy was his child; Ellen couldn’t know how he was feeling.

He seemed to take the path in one leap, then fumbled for a moment with
his latchkey.

Opening wide the door, “Daisy!” he called out, in a wailing voice,
“Daisy, my dear! where are you?”

“Here I am, father. What is it?”

“She’s all right.” Bunting turned a grey face to his wife. “She’s all
right, Ellen.”

He waited a moment, leaning against the wall of the passage. “It did
give me a turn,” he said, and then, warningly, “Don’t frighten the
girl, Ellen.”

Daisy was standing before the fire in their sitting room, admiring
herself in the glass.

“Oh, father,” she exclaimed, without turning round, “I’ve seen the
lodger! He’s quite a nice gentleman, though, to be sure, he does look a
cure. He rang his bell, but I didn’t like to go up; and so he came down
to ask Ellen for something. We had quite a nice little chat—that we
had. I told him it was my birthday, and he asked me and Ellen to go to
Madame Tussaud’s with him this afternoon.” She laughed, a little
self-consciously. “Of course, I could see he was ’centric, and then at
first he spoke so funnily. ‘And who be you?’ he says, threatening-like.
And I says to him, ‘I’m Mr. Bunting’s daughter, sir.’ ‘Then you’re a
very fortunate girl’—that’s what he says, Ellen—‘to ’ave such a nice
stepmother as you’ve got. That’s why,’ he says, ‘you look such a good,
innocent girl.’ And then he quoted a bit of the Prayer Book. ‘Keep
innocency,’ he says, wagging his head at me. Lor’! It made me feel as
if I was with Old Aunt again.”

“I won’t have you going out with the lodger—that’s flat.”

Bunting spoke in a muffled, angry tone. He was wiping his forehead with
one hand, while with the other he mechanically squeezed the little
packet of tobacco, for which, as he now remembered, he had forgotten to
pay.

Daisy pouted. “Oh, father, I think you might let me have a treat on my
birthday! I told him that Saturday wasn’t a very good day—at least, so
I’d heard—for Madame Tussaud’s. Then he said we could go early, while
the fine folk are still having their dinners.” She turned to her
stepmother, then giggled happily. “He particularly said you was to
come, too. The lodger has a wonderful fancy for you, Ellen; if I was
father, I’d feel quite jealous!”

Her last words were cut across by a tap-tap on the door.

Bunting and his wife looked at each other apprehensively. Was it
possible that, in their agitation, they had left the front door open,
and that _someone_, some merciless myrmidon of the law, had crept in
behind them?

Both felt a curious thrill of satisfaction when they saw that it was
only Mr. Sleuth—Mr. Sleuth dressed for going out; the tall hat he had
worn when he had first come to them was in his hand, but he was wearing
a coat instead of his Inverness cape.

“I heard you come in”—he addressed Mrs. Bunting in his high, whistling,
hesitating voice—“and so I’ve come down to ask you if you and Miss
Bunting will come to Madame Tussaud’s now. I have never seen those
famous waxworks, though I’ve heard of the place all my life.”

As Bunting forced himself to look fixedly at his lodger, a sudden doubt
bringing with it a sense of immeasurable relief, came to Mr. Sleuth’s
landlord.

Surely it was inconceivable that this gentle, mild-mannered gentleman
could be the monster of cruelty and cunning that Bunting had now for
the terrible space of four days believed him to be!

He tried to catch his wife’s eye, but Mrs. Bunting was looking away,
staring into vacancy. She still, of course, wore the bonnet and cloak
in which she had just been out to do her marketing. Daisy was already
putting on her hat and coat.

“Well?” said Mr. Sleuth. Then Mrs. Bunting turned, and it seemed to his
landlady that he was looking at her threateningly. “Well?”

“Yes, sir. We’ll come in a minute,” she said dully.




CHAPTER XXVI.


Madame Tussaud’s had hitherto held pleasant memories for Mrs. Bunting.
In the days when she and Bunting were courting they often spent there
part of their afternoon-out.

The butler had an acquaintance, a man named Hopkins, who was one of the
waxworks staff, and this man had sometimes given him passes for “self
and lady.” But this was the first time Mrs. Bunting had been inside the
place since she had come to live almost next door, as it were, to the
big building.

They walked in silence to the familiar entrance, and then, after the
ill-assorted trio had gone up the great staircase and into the first
gallery, Mr. Sleuth suddenly stopped short. The presence of those
curious, still, waxen figures which suggest so strangely death in life,
seemed to surprise and affright him.

Daisy took quick advantage of the lodger’s hesitation and unease.

“Oh, Ellen,” she cried, “do let us begin by going into the Chamber of
Horrors! I’ve never been in there. Old Aunt made father promise he
wouldn’t take me the only time I’ve ever been here. But now that I’m
eighteen I can do just as I like; besides, Old Aunt will never know.”

Mr. Sleuth looked down at her, and a smile passed for a moment over his
worn, gaunt face.

“Yes,” he said, “let us go into the Chamber of Horrors; that’s a good
idea, Miss Bunting. I’ve always wanted to see the Chamber of Horrors.”

They turned into the great room in which the Napoleonic relics were
then kept, and which led into the curious, vault-like chamber where
waxen effigies of dead criminals stand grouped in wooden docks.

Mrs. Bunting was at once disturbed and relieved to see her husband’s
old acquaintance, Mr. Hopkins, in charge of the turnstile admitting the
public to the Chamber of Horrors.

“Well, you _are_ a stranger,” the man observed genially. “I do believe
that this is the very first time I’ve seen you in here, Mrs. Bunting,
since you was married!”

“Yes,” she said, “that is so. And this is my husband’s daughter, Daisy;
I expect you’ve heard of her, Mr. Hopkins. And this”—she hesitated a
moment—“is our lodger, Mr. Sleuth.”

But Mr. Sleuth frowned and shuffled away. Daisy, leaving her
stepmother’s side, joined him.

Two, as all the world knows, is company, three is none. Mrs. Bunting
put down three sixpences.

“Wait a minute,” said Hopkins; “you can’t go into the Chamber of
Horrors just yet. But you won’t have to wait more than four or five
minutes, Mrs. Bunting. It’s this way, you see; our boss is in there,
showing a party round.” He lowered his voice. “It’s Sir John Burney—I
suppose you know who Sir John Burney is?”

“No,” she answered indifferently, “I don’t know that I ever heard of
him.”

She felt slightly—oh, very sightly—uneasy about Daisy. She would have
liked her stepdaughter to keep well within sight and sound, but Mr.
Sleuth was now taking the girl down to the other end of the room.

“Well, I hope you never _will_ know him—not in any personal sense, Mrs.
Bunting.” The man chuckled. “He’s the Commissioner of Police—the new
one—that’s what Sir John Burney is. One of the gentlemen he’s showing
round our place is the Paris Police boss—whose job is on all fours, so
to speak, with Sir John’s. The Frenchy has brought his daughter with
him, and there are several other ladies. Ladies always likes horrors,
Mrs. Bunting; that’s our experience here. ‘Oh, take me to the Chamber
of Horrors’—that’s what they say the minute they gets into this here
building!”

Mrs. Bunting looked at him thoughtfully. It occurred to Mr. Hopkins
that she was very wan and tired; she used to look better in the old
days, when she was still in service, before Bunting married her.

“Yes,” she said; “that’s just what my stepdaughter said just now. ‘Oh,
take me to the Chamber of Horrors’—that’s exactly what she did say when
we got upstairs.”

A group of people, all talking and laughing together; were advancing,
from within the wooden barrier, toward the turnstile.

Mrs. Bunting stared at them nervously. She wondered which of them was
the gentleman with whom Mr. Hopkins had hoped she would never be
brought into personal contact; she thought she could pick him out among
the others. He was a tall, powerful, handsome gentleman, with a
military appearance.

Just now he was smiling down into the face of a young lady. “Monsieur
Barberoux is quite right,” he was saying in a loud, cheerful voice,
“our English law is too kind to the criminal, especially to the
murderer. If we conducted our trials in the French fashion, the place
we have just left would be very much fuller than it is to-day. A man of
whose guilt we are absolutely assured is oftener than not acquitted,
and then the public taunt us with ‘another undiscovered crime!’”

“D’you mean, Sir John, that murderers sometimes escape scot-free? Take
the man who has been committing all these awful murders this last
month? I suppose there’s no doubt _he’ll_ be hanged—if he’s ever
caught, that is!”

Her girlish voice rang out, and Mrs. Bunting could hear every word that
was said.

The whole party gathered round, listening eagerly. “Well, no.” He spoke
very deliberately. “I doubt if that particular murderer ever will be
hanged.”

“You mean that you’ll never catch him?” the girl spoke with a touch of
airy impertinence in her clear voice.

“I think we shall end by catching him—because”—he waited a moment, then
added in a lower voice—“now don’t give me away to a newspaper fellow,
Miss Rose—because now I think we do know who the murderer in question
is—”

Several of those standing near by uttered expressions of surprise and
incredulity.

“Then why don’t you catch him?” cried the girl indignantly.

“I didn’t say we knew _where_ he was; I only said we knew who he was,
or, rather, perhaps I ought to say that I personally have a very strong
suspicion of his identity.”

Sir John’s French colleague looked up quickly. “De Leipsic and
Liverpool man?” he said interrogatively.

The other nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’ve had the case turned up?”

Then, speaking very quickly, as if he wished to dismiss the subject
from his own mind, and from that of his auditors, he went on:

“Four murders of the kind were committed eight years ago—two in
Leipsic, the others, just afterwards, in Liverpool,—and there were
certain peculiarities connected with the crimes which made it clear
they were committed by the same hand. The perpetrator was caught,
fortunately for us, red-handed, just as he was leaving the house of his
last victim, for in Liverpool the murder was committed in a house. I
myself saw the unhappy man—I say unhappy, for there is no doubt at all
that he was mad”—he hesitated, and added in a lower tone—“suffering
from an acute form of religious mania. I myself saw him, as I say, at
some length. But now comes the really interesting point. I have just
been informed that a month ago this criminal lunatic, as we must of
course regard him, made his escape from the asylum where he was
confined. He arranged the whole thing with extraordinary cunning and
intelligence, and we should probably have caught him long ago, were it
not that he managed, when on his way out of the place, to annex a
considerable sum of money in gold, with which the wages of the asylum
staff were about to be paid. It is owing to that fact that his escape
was, very wrongly, concealed—”

He stopped abruptly, as if sorry he had said so much, and a moment
later the party were walking in Indian file through the turnstile, Sir
John Burney leading the way.

Mrs. Bunting looked straight before her. She felt—so she expressed it
to her husband later—as if she had been turned to stone.

Even had she wished to do so, she had neither the time nor the power to
warn her lodger of his danger, for Daisy and her companion were now
coming down the room, bearing straight for the Commissioner of Police.
In another moment Mrs. Bunting’s lodger and Sir John Burney were face
to face.

Mr. Sleuth swerved to one side; there came a terrible change over his
pale, narrow face; it became discomposed, livid with rage and terror.

But, to Mrs. Bunting’s relief—yes, to her inexpressible relief—Sir John
Burney and his friends swept on. They passed Mr. Sleuth and the girl by
his side, unaware, or so it seemed to her, that there was anyone else
in the room but themselves.

“Hurry up, Mrs. Bunting,” said the turnstile-keeper; “you and your
friends will have the place all to yourselves for a bit.” From an
official he had become a man, and it was the man in Mr. Hopkins that
gallantly addressed pretty Daisy Bunting: “It seems strange that a
young lady like you should want to go in and see all those ’orrible
frights,” he said jestingly.

“Mrs. Bunting, may I trouble you to come over here for a moment?”

The words were hissed rather than spoken by Mr. Sleuth’s lips.

His landlady took a doubtful step towards him.

“A last word with you, Mrs. Bunting.” The lodger’s face was still
distorted with fear and passion. “Do not think to escape the
consequences of your hideous treachery. I trusted you, Mrs. Bunting,
and you betrayed me! But I am protected by a higher power, for I still
have much to do.” Then, his voice sinking to a whisper, he hissed out
“Your end will be bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.
Your feet shall go down to death, and your steps take hold on hell.”

Even while Mr. Sleuth was muttering these strange, dreadful words, he
was looking round, glancing this way and that, seeking a way of escape.

At last his eyes became fixed on a small placard placed above a
curtain. “Emergency Exit” was written there. Mrs. Bunting thought he
was going to make a dash for the place; but Mr. Sleuth did something
very different. Leaving his landlady’s side, he walked over to the
turnstile, he fumbled in his pocket for a moment, and then touched the
man on the arm. “I feel ill,” he said, speaking very rapidly; “very ill
indeed! It is the atmosphere of this place. I want you to let me out by
the quickest way. It would be a pity for me to faint here—especially
with ladies about.”

His left hand shot out and placed what he had been fumbling for in his
pocket on the other’s bare palm. “I see there’s an emergency exit over
there. Would it be possible for me to get out that way?”

“Well, yes, sir; I think so.”

The man hesitated; he felt a slight, a very sight, feeling of
misgiving. He looked at Daisy, flushed and smiling, happy and
unconcerned, and then at Mrs. Bunting. She was very pale; but surely
her lodger’s sudden seizure was enough to make her feel worried.
Hopkins felt the half-sovereign pleasantly tickling his palm. The Paris
Prefect of Police had given him only half-a-crown—mean, shabby
foreigner!

“Yes, sir; I can let you out that way,” he said at last, “and p’raps
when you’re standing out in the air, on the iron balcony, you’ll feel
better. But then, you know, sir, you’ll have to come round to the front
if you wants to come in again, for those emergency doors only open
outward.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Sleuth hurriedly. “I quite understand! If I feel
better I’ll come in by the front way, and pay another shilling—that’s
only fair.”

“You needn’t do that if you’ll just explain what happened here.”

The man went and pulled the curtain aside, and put his shoulder against
the door. It burst open, and the light, for a moment, blinded Mr.
Sleuth.

He passed his hand over his eyes. “Thank you,” he muttered, “thank you.
I shall get all right out there.”

An iron stairway led down into a small stable yard, of which the door
opened into a side street.

Mr. Sleuth looked round once more; he really did feel very ill—ill and
dazed. How pleasant it would be to take a flying leap over the balcony
railing and find rest, eternal rest, below.

But no—he thrust the thought, the temptation, from him. Again a
convulsive look of rage came over his face. He had remembered his
landlady. How could the woman whom he had treated so generously have
betrayed him to his arch-enemy?—to the official, that is, who had
entered into a conspiracy years ago to have him confined—him, an
absolutely sane man with a great avenging work to do in the world—in a
lunatic asylum.

He stepped out into the open air, and the curtain, falling-to behind
him, blotted out the tall, thin figure from the little group of people
who had watched him disappear.

Even Daisy felt a little scared. “He did look bad, didn’t he, now?” she
turned appealingly to Mr. Hopkins.

“Yes, that he did, poor gentleman—your lodger, too?” he looked
sympathetically at Mrs. Bunting.

She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Yes,” she repeated dully, “my
lodger.”




CHAPTER XXVII.


In vain Mr. Hopkins invited Mrs. Bunting and her pretty stepdaughter to
step through into the Chamber of Horrors. “I think we ought to go
straight home,” said Mr. Sleuth’s landlady decidedly. And Daisy meekly
assented. Somehow the girl felt confused, a little scared by the
lodger’s sudden disappearance. Perhaps this unwonted feeling of hers
was induced by the look of stunned surprise and, yes, pain, on her
stepmother’s face.

Slowly they made their way out of the building, and when they got home
it was Daisy who described the strange way Mr. Sleuth had been taken.

“I don’t suppose he’ll be long before he comes home,” said Bunting
heavily, and he cast an anxious, furtive look at his wife. She looked
as if stricken in a vital part; he saw from her face that there was
something wrong—very wrong indeed.

The hours dragged on. All three felt moody and ill at ease. Daisy knew
there was no chance that young Chandler would come in to-day.

About six o’clock Mrs. Bunting went upstairs. She lit the gas in Mr.
Sleuth’s sitting-room and looked about her with a fearful glance.
Somehow everything seemed to speak to her of the lodger, there lay her
Bible and his Concordance, side by side on the table, exactly as he had
left them, when he had come downstairs and suggested that ill-starred
expedition to his landlord’s daughter. She took a few steps forward,
listening the while anxiously for the familiar sound of the click in
the door which would tell her that the lodger had come back, and then
she went over to the window and looked out.

What a cold night for a man to be wandering about, homeless,
friendless, and, as she suspected with a pang, with but very little
money on him!

Turning abruptly, she went into the lodger’s bedroom and opened the
drawer of the looking-glass.

Yes, there lay the much-diminished heap of sovereigns. If only he had
taken his money out with him! She wondered painfully whether he had
enough on his person to secure a good night’s lodging, and then
suddenly she remembered that which brought relief to her mind. The
lodger had given something to that Hopkins fellow—either a sovereign or
half a sovereign, she wasn’t sure which.

The memory of Mr. Sleuth’s cruel words to her, of his threat, did not
disturb her overmuch. It had been a mistake—all a mistake. Far from
betraying Mr. Sleuth, she had sheltered him—kept his awful secret as
she could not have kept it had she known, or even dimly suspected, the
horrible fact with which Sir John Burney’s words had made her
acquainted; namely, that Mr. Sleuth was victim of no temporary
aberration, but that he was, and had been for years, a madman, a
homicidal maniac.

In her ears there still rang the Frenchman’s half careless yet
confident question, “De Leipsic and Liverpool man?”

Following a sudden impulse, she went back into the sitting-room, and
taking a black-headed pin out of her bodice stuck it amid the leaves of
the Bible. Then she opened the Book, and looked at the page the pin had
marked:—

“My tabernacle is spoiled and all my cords are broken . . . There is
none to stretch forth my tent any more and to set up my curtains.”

At last leaving the Bible open, Mrs. Bunting went downstairs, and as
she opened the door of her sitting-room Daisy came towards her
stepmother.

“I’ll go down and start getting the lodger’s supper ready for you,”
said the girl good-naturedly. “He’s certain to come in when he gets
hungry. But he did look upset, didn’t he, Ellen? Right down bad—that he
did!”

Mrs. Bunting made no answer; she simply stepped aside to allow Daisy to
go down.

“Mr. Sleuth won’t never come back no more,” she said sombrely, and then
she felt both glad and angry at the extraordinary change which came
over her husband’s face. Yet, perversely, that look of relief, of
right-down joy, chiefly angered her, and tempted her to add, “That’s to
say, I don’t suppose he will.”

And Bunting’s face altered again; the old, anxious, depressed look, the
look it had worn the last few days, returned.

“What makes you think he mayn’t come back?” he muttered.

“Too long to tell you now,” she said. “Wait till the child’s gone to
bed.”

And Bunting had to restrain his curiosity.

And then, when at last Daisy had gone off to the back room where she
now slept with her stepmother, Mrs. Bunting beckoned to her husband to
follow her upstairs.

Before doing so he went down the passage and put the chain on the door.
And about this they had a few sharp whispered words.

“You’re never going to shut him out?” she expostulated angrily, beneath
her breath.

“I’m not going to leave Daisy down here with that man perhaps walking
in any minute.”

“Mr. Sleuth won’t hurt Daisy, bless you! Much more likely to hurt me,”
and she gave a half sob.

Bunting stared at her. “What do you mean?” he said roughly. “Come
upstairs and tell me what you mean.”

And then, in what had been the lodger’s sitting-room, Mrs. Bunting told
her husband exactly what it was that had happened.

He listened in heavy silence.

“So you see,” she said at last, “you see, Bunting, that ’twas me that
was right after all. The lodger was never responsible for his actions.
I never thought he was, for my part.”

And Bunting stared at her ruminatingly. “Depends on what you call
responsible—” he began argumentatively.

But she would have none of that. “I heard the gentleman say myself that
he was a lunatic,” she said fiercely. And then, dropping her voice, “A
religious maniac—that’s what he called him.”

“Well, he never seemed so to me,” said Bunting stoutly. “He simply
seemed to me ’centric—that’s all he did. Not a bit madder than many I
could tell you of.” He was walking round the room restlessly, but he
stopped short at last. “And what d’you think we ought to do now?”

Mrs. Bunting shook her head impatiently. “I don’t think we ought to do
nothing,” she said. “Why should we?”

And then again he began walking round the room in an aimless fashion
that irritated her.

“If only I could put out a bit of supper for him somewhere where he
would get it! And his money, too? I hate to feel it’s in there.”

“Don’t you make any mistake—he’ll come back for that,” said Bunting,
with decision.

But Mrs. Bunting shook her head. She knew better. “Now,” she said, “you
go off up to bed. It’s no use us sitting up any longer.”

And Bunting acquiesced.

She ran down and got him a bedroom candle—there was no gas in the
little back bedroom upstairs. And then she watched him go slowly up.

Suddenly he turned and came down again. “Ellen,” he said, in an urgent
whisper, “if I was you I’d take the chain off the door, and I’d lock
myself in—that’s what I’m going to do. Then he can sneak in and take
his dirty money away.”

Mrs. Bunting neither nodded nor shook her head. Slowly she went
downstairs, and there she carried out half of Bunting’s advice. She
took, that is, the chain off the front door. But she did not go to bed,
neither did she lock herself in. She sat up all night, waiting. At
half-past seven she made herself a cup of tea, and then she went into
her bedroom.

Daisy opened her eyes.

“Why, Ellen,” she said, “I suppose I was that tired, and slept so
sound, that I never heard you come to bed or get up—funny, wasn’t it?”

“Young people don’t sleep as light as do old folks,” Mrs. Bunting said
sententiously.

“Did the lodger come in after all? I suppose he’s upstairs now?”

Mrs. Bunting shook her head. “It looks as if ’twould be a fine day for
you down at Richmond,” she observed in a kindly tone.

And Daisy smiled, a very happy, confident little smile.

That evening Mrs. Bunting forced herself to tell young Chandler that
their lodger had, so to speak, disappeared. She and Bunting had thought
carefully over what they would say, and so well did they carry out
their programme, or, what is more likely, so full was young Chandler of
the long happy day he and Daisy had spent together, that he took their
news very calmly.

“Gone away, has he?” he observed casually. “Well, I hope he paid up all
right?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” said Mrs. Bunting hastily. “No trouble of that sort.”

And Bunting said shamefacedly, “Aye, aye, the lodger was quite an
honest gentleman, Joe. But I feel worried, about him. He was such a
poor, gentle chap—not the sort o’ man one likes to think of as
wandering about by himself.”

“You always said he was ’centric,” said Joe thoughtfully.

“Yes, he was that,” said Bunting slowly. “Regular right-down queer.
Leetle touched, you know, under the thatch,” and, as he tapped his head
significantly, both young people burst out laughing.

“Would you like a description of him circulated?” asked Joe
good-naturedly.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looked at one another.

“No, I don’t think so. Not yet awhile at any rate. ’Twould upset him
awfully, you see.”

And Joe acquiesced. “You’d be surprised at the number o’ people who
disappears and are never heard of again,” he said cheerfully. And then
he got up, very reluctantly.

Daisy, making no bones about it this time, followed him out into the
passage, and shut the sitting-room door behind her.

When she came back she walked over to where her father was sitting in
his easy chair, and standing behind him she put her arms round his
neck.

Then she bent down her head. “Father,” she said, “I’ve a bit of news
for you!”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Father, I’m engaged! Aren’t you surprised?”

“Well, what do _you_ think?” said Bunting fondly. Then he turned round
and, catching hold of her head, gave her a good, hearty kiss.

“What’ll Old Aunt say, I wonder?” he whispered.

“Don’t you worry about Old Aunt,” exclaimed his wife suddenly. “I’ll
manage Old Aunt! I’ll go down and see her. She and I have always got on
pretty comfortable together, as you knows well, Daisy.”

“Yes,” said Daisy a little wonderingly. “I know you have, Ellen.”

Mr. Sleuth never came back, and at last after many days and many nights
had gone by, Mrs. Bunting left off listening for the click of the lock
which she at once hoped and feared would herald her lodger’s return.

As suddenly and as mysteriously as they had begun the “Avenger” murders
stopped, but there came a morning in the early spring when a gardener,
working in the Regent’s Park, found a newspaper in which was wrapped,
together with a half-worn pair of rubber-soled shoes, a long,
peculiarly shaped knife. The fact, though of considerable interest to
the police, was not chronicled in any newspaper, but about the same
time a picturesque little paragraph went the round of the press
concerning a small boxful of sovereigns which had been anonymously
forwarded to the Governors of the Foundling Hospital.

Meanwhile Mrs. Bunting had been as good as her word about “Old Aunt,”
and that lady had received the wonderful news concerning Daisy in a
more philosophical spirit than her great-niece had expected her to do.
She only observed that it was odd to reflect that if gentlefolks leave
a house in charge of the police a burglary is pretty sure to follow—a
remark which Daisy resented much more than did her Joe.

Mr. Bunting and his Ellen are now in the service of an old lady, by
whom they are feared as well as respected, and whom they make very
comfortable.




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