The Lodger (7 page)

  But long before twelve a loud ring suddenly clanged
through the quiet l1ouse. 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.

  
M
r. 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 hells 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
wile 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.