The Lodger (32 page)

  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 be 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 step-daughter. 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 though
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.

  
E
ach 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.