The Lodger (17 page)

***

  Mrs. Bunting put the key into the front door lock
and passed into the house. Then her heart stood still with fear and
terror. There came the sound of voices - of voices she thought she
did not know - in the sitting-room.

  She opened the door, and' then drew a long breath.
It was only Joe Chandler - Joe, Daisy, and Bunting, talking
together. They stopped rather guiltily as she came in, but not
before she had heard Chandler utter the words: "That don't mean
nothing! I'll just run out and send another saying you won't come,
Miss Daisy."

  And then the strangest smile came over Mrs.
Bunting's face. There had fallen on her ear the still distant, but
unmistakable, shouts which betokened that something had happened
last night - something which made it worth while for the
newspaper-sellers to come crying down the Maryleb6ne Road.

  "Well?" she said a little breathlessly. "Well, Joe?
I suppose you've brought us news? I suppose there's been
another?"

  He looked at her, surprised. "No, that there hasn't,
Mrs. Bunting - not as far as I know, that is. Oh, you're thinking
of those newspaper chaps? They've got to cry out something," he
grinned. "You wouldn't 'a thought folk was so bloodthirsty. They're
just shouting out that there's been an arrest; but we don't take no
stock of that. It's a Scotchman what gave himself up last night at
Dorking. He'd been drinking, and was apitying of himself. Why,
since this business began, there's been about twenty arrests, but
they've all come to nothing."

  "Why, Ellen, you looks quite sad, quite
disappointed," said Bunting jokingly. "Come to think of it, it's
high time The Avenger was at work again." He laughed as he made his
grim joke. Then turned to young Chandler: "Well, you'll be glad
when its all over, my lad."

  "Glad in a way," said Chandler unwillingly. "But one
'ud have liked to have caught him. One doesn't like to know such a
creature's at large, now, does one?"

  Mrs. Bunting had taken off her bonnet and jacket. "I
must just go and see about Mr. Sleuth's breakfast," she said in a
weary, dispirited voice, and left them there.

  She felt disappointed, and very, very depressed. As
to the plot which had been hatching when she came in, that had no
chance of success; Bunting would never dare let Daisy send out
another telegram contradicting the first. Besides, Daisy's
stepmother shrewdly suspected that by now the girl herself wouldn't
care to do such a thing. Daisy had plenty of sense tucked away
somewhere in her pretty little head. If it ever became her fate to
live as a married woman in London, it would be best to stay on the
right side of Aunt Margaret.

  And when she came into her kitchen the stepmother's
heart became very soft, for Daisy had got everything beautifully
ready. In fact, there was nothing to do but to boil Mr. Sleuth's
two eggs. Feeling suddenly more cheerful than she had felt of late,
Mrs. Bunting took the tray upstairs.

  "As it was rather late, I didn't wait for you to
ring, sir," she said.

  And the lodger looked up from the table where, as
usual, he was studying with painful, almost agonising intentness,
the Book. "Quite right, Mrs. Bunting - quite right! I have been
pondering over the command, 'Work while it is yet light.'"

  "Yes, sir?" she said, and a queer; cold feeling
stole over her heart. "Yes, sir?"

  "'The spirit is willing, but the flesh - the flesh
is weak,'" said Mr. Sleuth, with a heavy, sigh.

  "You studies too hard, and too long - that's what's
ailing you, sir," said Mr. Sleuth's landlady suddenly.

***

  When Mrs. Bunting went down again she found that a
great deal had been settled in her absence; among other things,
that Joe Chandler was going to escort Miss Daisy across to Belgrave
Square. He could carry Daisy's modest bag, and if they wanted to
ride instead of walk, why, they could take the bus from Baker
Street Station to Victoria - that would land them very near
Belgrave Square.

  But Daisy seemed quite willing to walk; she hadn't
had a walk, she declared, for a long, long time - and then she
blushed rosy red, and even her stepmother had to admit to herself
that Daisy was very nice looking, not at all the sort of girl who
ought to be allowed to go about the London streets by herself.

  
D
aisy's father
and stepmother stood side by side at the front door, watching the
girl and young Chandler walk off into the darkness.

  A yellow pall of fog had suddenly descended on
London, and Joe had come a full half-hour before they expected him,
explaining, rather lamely, that it was the fog which had brought
him so soon.

  "If we was to have waited much longer, perhaps,
'twouldn't have been possible to walk a yard," he explained, and
they had accepted, silently, his explanation.

  "I hope it's quite safe sending her off like that?"
Bunting looked deprecatingly at his wife. She had already told him
more than once that he was too fussy about Daisy, that about his
daughter he was like an old hen with her last chicken.

  "She's safer than she would be, with you or me. She
couldn't have a smarter young fellow to look after her."

  "It'll be awful thick at Hyde Park Corner," said
Bunting. "It's always worse there than anywhere else. If I was Joe
I'd 'a taken her by the Underground Railway to Victoria - that 'ud
been the best way, considering the weather 'tis."

  "They don't think anything of the weather, bless
you!" said his wife. "They'll walk and walk as long as there's a
glimmer left for 'em to steer by. Daisy's just been pining to have
a walk with that young chap. I wonder you didn't notice how
disappointed they both were when you was so set on going along with
them to that horrid place."

  "D'you really mean that, Ellen?" Bunting looked
upset. "I understood Joe to say he liked my company."

  "Oh, did you?" said Mrs. Bunting dryly. "I expect he
liked it just about as much as we liked the company of that old
cook who would go out with us when we was courting. It always was a
wonder to me how the woman could force herself upon two people who
didn't want her."

  "But I'm Daisy's father; and an old friend of
Chandler," said Bunting remonstratingly. "I'm quite different from
that cook. She was nothing to us, and we was nothing to her."

  "She'd have liked to be something to you, I make no
doubt," observed his Ellen, shaking her head, and her husband
smiled, a little foolishly.

  By this time they were back in their nice, cosy
sitting-room, and a feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude
stole over Mrs. Bunting. It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her
way for a bit. The girl, in some ways, was very wide awake and
inquisitive, and she had early betrayed what her stepmother thought
to be a very unseemly and silly curiosity concerning the lodger.
"You might just let me have one peep at him, Ellen?" she had
pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had shaken her head. "No,
that I won't! He's a very quiet gentleman; but he knows exactly
what he likes, and he don't like anyone but me waiting on him. Why,
even your father's hardly seen him."

  But that, naturally, had only increased Daisy's
desire to view Mr. Sleuth.

  There was another reason why Mrs. Bunting was glad
that her stepdaughter had gone away for two days. During her
absence young Chandler was far less likely to haunt them in the way
he had taken to doing lately, the more so that, in spite of what
she had said to her husband, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that Daisy
would ask Joe Chandler to call at Belgrave Square. 'Twouldn't be
human nature - at any rate, not girlish human nature - not to do
so, even if Joe's coming did anger Aunt Margaret.

  Yes, it was pretty safe that with Daisy away they,
the Buntings, would be rid of that young chap for a bit, and that
would be a good thing.

  When Daisy wasn't there to occupy the whole of his
attention, Mrs. Bunting felt queerly afraid of Chandler. After all,
he was a detective - it was his job to be always nosing about,
trying to find out things. And, though she couldn't fairly say to
herself that he had done much of that sort of thing in her house,
he might start doing it any minute. And then - then - where would
she, and - and Mr. Sleuth, be?

  She thought of the bottle of red ink - of the
leather bag which must be hidden somewhere - and her heart almost
stopped beating. Those were the sort of things which, in the
stories Bunting was so fond of reading, always led to the detection
of famous criminals.. ..

  Mr. Sleuth's bell for tea rang that afternoon far
earlier than usual. The fog had probably misled him, and made him
think it later than it was.

  When she went up, "I would like a cup of tea now,
and just one piece of bread-and-butter," the lodger said wearily.
"I don't feel like having anything else this afternoon."

  "It's a horrible day," Mrs. Bunting observed, in a
cheerier voice than usual. "No wonder you don't feel hungry, sir.
And then it isn't so very long since you had your dinner, is
it?"

  "No," he said absently. "No, it isn't, Mrs.
Bunting."

  She went down, made the tea, and brought it up
again. And then, as she came into the room, she uttered an
exclamation of sharp dismay.

  Mr. Sleuth was dressed for going out. He was wearing
his long Inverness cloak, and his queer old high hat lay on the
table, ready for him to put on.

  "You're never going out this afternoon, sir?" she
asked falteringly. "Why, the fog's awful; you can't see a yard
ahead of you!"

  Unknown to herself, Mrs. Bunting's voice had risen
almost to a scream. She moved back, still holding the tray, and
stood between the door and her lodger, as if she meant to bar his
way - to erect between Mr. Sleuth and the dark, foggy world outside
a living barrier.

  "The weather never affects me at all," he said
sullenly; and he looked at her with so wild and pleading a look in
his eyes that, slowly, reluctantly, she moved aside. As she did so
she noticed for the first time that Mr. Sleuth held something in
his right hand. It was the key of the chiffonnier cupboard. He had
been on his way there when her coming in had disturbed him.

  It's very kind of you to be so concerned about me,"
he stammered, "but - but, Mrs. Bunting, you must excuse me if I say
that I do not welcome such solicitude. I prefer to be left alone. I
- I cannot stay in your house if I feel that my comings and goings
are watched - spied upon."

  She pulled herself together. "No one spies upon you,
sir," she said, with considerable dignity. "I've done my best to
satisfy you - "

  "You have - you have!" he spoke in a distressed,
apologetic tone. "But you spoke just now as if you were trying to
prevent my doing what I wish to do - indeed, what I have to do. For
years I have been misunderstood - persecuted" - he waited a moment,
then in a hollow voice added the one word, "tortured! Do not tell
me that you are going to add yourself to the number of my
tormentors, Mrs. Bunting?"

  She stared at him helplessly. "Don't you be afraid
I'll ever be that, sir. I only spoke as I did because - well, sir,
because I thought it really wasn't safe for a gentleman to go out
this afternoon. Why, there's hardly anyone about, though we're so
near Christmas."

  He walked across to the window and looked out. "The
fog is clearing somewhat; Mrs. Bunting," but there was no relief in
his voice, rather was there disappointment and dread.

  Plucking up courage, she followed him. Yes, Mr.
Sleuth was right. The fog was lifting - rolling off in that sudden,
mysterious way in which local fogs sometimes do lift in London.

  He turned sharply from the window. "Our conversation
has made me forget an important thing, Mrs. Bunting. I should be
glad if you would just leave out a glass of milk and some
bread-and-butter for me this evening. I shall not require supper
when I come in, for after my walk I shall probably go straight
upstairs to carry through a very difficult experiment."