The Lodger (13 page)

  "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.

  
B
y 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 o4ften 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 sovereigus 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.
Buntlng'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.
Buntlng 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. £215s0d."

  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."