The Lodger (21 page)

  
B
unting began
moving about the room restlessly. He would go to the window; stand
there awhile staring out at the people hurrying past; then, coming
back to the fireplace, sit down.

  But he could not stay long quiet. After a glance at
his paper, up he would rise from his chair, and go to the window
again.

  "I wish you'd stay still," his wife said at last.
And then, a few minutes later, "Hadn't you better put your hat and
coat on and go out?" she exclaimed.

  And Bunting, with a rather shamed expression, did
put on his hat and coat and go out.

  As he did so be told himself that, after all, he was
but human; it was natural that he should be thrilled and excited by
the dreadful, extraordinary thing which had just happened close by.
Ellen wasn't reasonable about such things. How queer and
disagreeable she had been that very morning - angry with him
because he had gone out to hear what all the row was about, and
even more angry when he had come back and said nothing, because he
thought it would annoy her to hear about it!

  Meanwhile, Mrs. Bunting forced herself to go down
again into the kitchen, and as she went through into the low,
whitewashed place, a tremor of fear, of quick terror, came over
her. She turned and did what she had never in her life done before,
and what she had never heard of anyone else doing in a kitchen. She
bolted the door.

  But, having done this, finding herself at last
alone, shut off from everybody, she was still beset by a strange,
uncanny dread. She felt as if she were locked in with an invisible
presence, which mocked and jeered, reproached and threatened her,
by turns.

  Why had she allowed, nay encouraged, Daisy to go
away for two days? Daisy, at any rate, was company - kind, young,
unsuspecting company. With Daisy she could be her old sharp self.
It was such a comfort to be with someone to whom she not only need,
but ought to, say nothing. When with Bunting she was pursued by a
sick feeling of guilt, of shame. She was the man's wedded wife - in
his stolid way he was very kind to her, and yet she was keeping
from him something he certainly had a right to know.

  Not for worlds, however, would she have told Bunting
of her dreadful suspicion - nay, of her almost certainty.

  At last she went across to the door and unlocked it.
Then she went upstairs and turned out her bedroom. That made her
feel a little better.

  She longed for Bunting to return, and yet in a way
she was relieved by his absence. She would have liked to feel him
near by, and yet she welcomed anything that took her husband out of
the house.

  And as Mrs. Bunting swept and dusted, trying to put
her whole mind into what she was doing, she was asking herself all
the time what was going on upstairs.

  What a good rest the lodger was having! But there,
that was only natural. Mr. Sleuth, as she well knew, had been up a
long time last night, or rather this morning.

***

  Suddenly, the drawing-room bell rang. But Mr.
Sleuth's landlady did not go up, as she generally did, before
getting ready the simple meal which was the lodger's luncheon and
breakfast combined. Instead, she went downstairs again and
hurriedly prepared the lodger's food.

  Then, very slowly, with her heart beating queerly,
she walked up, and just outside the sitting-room - for she felt
sure that Mr. Sleuth had got up, that he was there already, waiting
for her - she rested the tray on the top of the banisters and
listened. For a few moments she heard nothing; then through the
door came the high, quavering voice with which she had become so
familiar:

  "'She saith to him, stolen waters are sweet, and
bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead
are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.'"

  There was a long pause. Mrs. Bunting could hear the
leaves of her Bible being turned over, eagerly, busily; and then
again Mr. Sleuth broke out, this time in a softer voice:

  "'She hath cast down many wounded from her; yea,
many strong men have been slain by her.'" And in a softer, lower,
plaintive tone came the words: "'I applied my heart to know, and to
search, and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things; and to
know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and
madness.'"

  And as she stood there listening, a feeling of keen
distress, of spiritual oppression, came over Mrs. Bunting. For the
first time in her life she visioned the infinite mystery, the
sadness and strangeness, of human life.

  Poor Mr. Sleuth - poor unhappy, distraught Mr.
Sleuth! An overwhelming pity blotted out for a moment the fear,
aye, and the loathing, she had been feeling for her lodger.

  She knocked at the door, and then she took up her
tray.

  "Come in, Mrs. Bunting." Mr. Sleuth's voice sounded
feebler, more toneless than usual.

  She turned the handle of the door and walked in. The
lodger was not sitting in his usual place; he had taken the little
round table on which his candle generally rested when he read in
bed, out of his bedroom, and placed it over by the drawing-room
window. On it were placed, open, the Bible and the Concordance. But
as his landlady came in, Mr. Sleuth hastily closed the Bible, and
began staring dreamily out of the window, down at the sordid,
hurrying crowd of men and women which now swept along the
Marylebone Road.

  "There seem a great many people out today," he
observed, without looking round.

  "Yes, sir, there do."

  Mrs. Bunting began busying herself with laying the
cloth and putting out the breakfast-lunch, and as she did so she
was seized with a mortal, instinctive terror of the man sitting
there.

  At last Mr. Sleuth got up and turned round. She
forced herself to look at him. How tired, how worn, he looked, and
- how strange!

  Walking towards the table on which lay his meal, he
rubbed his hands together with a nervous gesture - it was a gesture
he only made when something had pleased, nay, satisfied him. Mrs.
Bunting, looking at him, remembered that he had rubbed his hands
together thus when he had first seen the room upstairs, and
realised that it contained a large gas-stove and a convenient
sink.

  What Mr. Sleuth was doing now also reminded her in
an odd way of a play she had once seen - a play to which a young
man bad taken her when she was a girl, unnumbered years ago, and
which had thrilled and fascinated her. "Out, out, damned spot!"
that was what the tall, fierce, beautiful lady who had played the
part of a queen had said, twisting her hands together just as the
lodger was doing now.

  "It's a fine day," said Mr. Sleuth, sitting down and
unfolding his napkin. "The fog has cleared. I do not know if you
will agree with me, Mrs. Bunting, but I always feel brighter when
the sun is shining, as it is now, at any rate, trying to shine." He
looked at her inquiringly, but Mrs. Bunting could not speak. She
only nodded. However, that did not affect Mr. Sleuth adversely.

  He had acquired a great liking and respect for this
well-balanced, taciturn woman. She was the first woman for whom he
had experienced any such feeling for many years past.

  He looked down at the still covered dish, and shook
his head. "I don't feel as if I could eat very much to-day," he
said plaintively. And then he suddenly took a half-sovereign out of
his waistcoat pocket.

  Already Mrs. Bunting had noticed that it was not the
same waistcoat Mr. Sleuth had been wearing the day before.

  "Mrs. Bunting, may I ask you to come here?"

  And after a moment of hesitation his landlady obeyed
him.

  "Will you please accept this little gift for the use
you kindly allowed me to make of your kitchen last night?" he said
quietly. "I tried to make as little mess as I could, Mrs. Bunting,
but - well, the truth is I was carrying out a very elaborate
experiment "

  Mrs. Bunting held out her hand, she hesitated, and
then she took the coin. The fingers which for a moment brushed
lightly against her palm were icy cold - cold and clammy. Mr.
Sleuth was evidently not well.

  As she walked down the stairs, the winter sun, a
scarlet ball hanging in the smoky sky, glinted in on Mr. Sleuth's
landlady, and threw blood-red gleams, or so it seemed to her, on to
the piece of gold she was holding in her hand.

***

  The day went by, as other days had gone by in that
quiet household, but, of course, there was far greater animation
outside the little house than was usually the case.

  Perhaps because the sun was shining for the first
time for some days, the whole of London seemed to be making holiday
in that part of the town.

  When Bunting at 1ast 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.