The Lodger (23 page)

  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 wile 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 worded.

  "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 - lf 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.

  
A
ny 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!