The Lodger (29 page)

  
I
t was a very
cold night - so cold, so windy, so snow-laden was the atmosphere,
that everyone who could do so stayed indoors.

  Bunting, however, was now on his way home from what
had proved a really pleasant job. A remarkable piece of luck had
come his way this evening, all the more welcome because it was
quite unexpected! The young lady at whose birthday party he had
been present in capacity of waiter had come into a fortune that
day, and she had had the gracious, the surprising thought of
presenting each of the hired waiters with a sovereign!

  This gift, which had been accompanied by a few kind
words, had gone to Bunting's heart. It had confirmed him in his
Conservative principles; only gentlefolk ever behaved in that way;
quiet, old-fashioned, respectable, gentlefolk, the sort of people
of whom those nasty Radicals know nothing and care less!

  But the ex-butler was not as happy as he should have
been. Slackening his footsteps, he began to think with puzzled
concern of how queer his wife had seemed lately. Ellen had become
so nervous, so "jumpy," that he didn't know what to make of her
sometimes. She had never been really good-tempered - your capable,
self -respecting woman seldom is - but she had never been like what
she was now. And she didn't get better as the days went on; in fact
she got worse. Of late she had been quite hysterical, and for no
reason at all! Take that little practical joke of young Joe
Chandler. Ellen knew quite well he often had to go about in some
kind of disguise, and yet how she had gone on, quite foolish-like -
not at all as one would have expected her to do.

  There was another queer thing about her which
disturbed him in more senses than one. During the last three weeks
or so Ellen had taken to talking in her sleep. "No, no, no!" she
had cried out, only the night before. "It isn't true - I won't have
it said - it's a lie!" And there had been a wail of horrible fear
and revolt in her usually quiet, mincing voice.

***

  Whew! it was cold; and he had stupidly forgotten his
gloves.

  He put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm,
and began walking more quickly.

  As h& tramped steadily along, the ex-butler
suddenly caught sight of his lodger walking along the opposite side
of the solitary street - one of those short streets leading off the
broad road which encircles Regent's Park.

  Well! This was a funny time o' night to be taking a
stroll for pleasure, like!

  Glancing across, Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth's
tall, thin figure was rather bowed, and that his head was bent
toward the ground. His left arm was thrust into his long Inverness
tape, and so was quite hidden, but the other side of the cape
bulged out, as if the lodger were carrying a bag or parcel in the
hand which hung down straight.

  Mr. Sleuth was walking rather quickly, and as he
walked he talked aloud, which, as Bunting knew, is not unusual with
gentlemen who live much alone. It was clear that he had not yet
become aware of the proximity of his landlord.

  Bunting told himself that Ellen was right. Their
lodger was certainly a most eccentric, peculiar person. Strange,
was it not, that that odd, luny-like gentleman should have made all
the difference to his, Bunting's, and Mrs. Bunting's happiness and
comfort in life?

  Again glancing across at Mr. Sleuth, he reminded
himself, not for the first time, of this perfect lodger's one fault
- his odd dislike to meat, and to what Bunting vaguely called to
himself, sensible food.

  But there, you can't have everything! The more so
that the lodger was not one of those crazy vegetarians who won't
eat eggs and cheese. No, he was reasonable in this, as in
everything else connected with his dealings with the Buntings.

  As we know, Bunting saw far less of the lodger than
did his wife. Indeed, he had been upstairs only three or four times
since Mr. Sleuth had been with them, and when his landlord had had
occasion to wait on him the lodger had remained silent. Indeed,
their gentleman had made it very clear that he did not like either
the husband or wife to come up to his rooms without being
definitely asked to do so.

  Now, surely, would be a good opportunity for a
little genial conversation? Bunting felt pleased to see his lodger;
it increased his general comfortable sense of satisfaction.

  So it was that the a-butler, still an active man for
his years, crossed over the road, and, stepping briskly forward,
began trying to overtake Mr. Sleuth. But the more he hurried along,
the more the other hastened, and that without ever turning round to
see whose steps he could hear echoing behind him on the now
freezing pavement.

  Mr. Sleuth's own footsteps were quite inaudible - an
odd circumstance, when you came to think of it - as Bunting did
think of it later, lying awake by Mrs. Bunting's side in the pitch
darkness. What it meant of course, was that the lodger had rubber
soles on his shoes. Now Bunting had never had a pair of
rubber-soled shoes sent down to him to dean. He had always supposed
the lodger had only one pair of outdoor boots.

  The two men - the pursued and the pursuer - at last
turned into the Marylebone Road; they were now within a few hundred
yards of home. Plucking up courage, Bunting called out, his voice
echoing freshly on the still air:

  "Mr Sleuth, sir? Mr. Sleuth!"

  The lodger stopped and turned round.

  He had been walking so quickly, and he was in so
poor a physical condition, that the sweat was pouring down his
face.

  "Ah! So it's you, Mr. Bunting? I heard footsteps
behind me, and I hurried on. I wish I'd known that it was you;
there are so many queer characters about at night in London."

  "Not on a night like this, sir. Only honest folk who
have business out of doors would be out such a night as this. It is
cold, sir!"

  And then into Bunting's slow and honest mind there
suddenly crept the query as to what on earth Mr. Sleuth's own
business out could be on this bitter night.

  "Cold?" the lodger repeated; he was panting a
little, and his words came out sharp and quick through his thin
lips. "I can't say that I find it cold, Mr. Bunting. When the snow
falls, the air always becomes milder."

  "Yes, sir; but to-night there's such a sharp east
wind. Why, it freezes the very marrow in one's bones! Still,
there's nothing like walking in cold weather to make one warm, as
you seem to have found, sir."

  Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth kept his distance in
a rather strange way; he walked at the edge of the pavement,
leaving the rest of it, on the wall side, to his landlord.

  "I lost my way," he said abruptly. "I've been over
Primrose Hill to see a friend of mine, a man with whom I studied
when I was a lad, and then, coming back, I lost my way.

  Now they had come right up to the little gate which
opened on the shabby, paved court in front of the house - that gate
which now was never locked.

  Mr. Sleuth, pushing suddenly forward, began walking
up the flagged path, when, with a "By your leave, sir," the
ex-butler, stepping aside, slipped in front of his lodger, in order
to open the front door for him.

  As he passed by Mr. Sleuth, the back of Bunting's
bare left hand brushed lightly against the long Inverness cape the
lodger was wearing, and, to Bunting's surprise, the stretch of
cloth against which his hand lay for a moment was not only damp,
damp maybe from stray flakes of snow which had settled upon it, but
wet - wet and gluey.

  Bunting thrust his left hand into his pocket; it was
with the other that he placed the key in the lock of the door.

  The two men passed into the hail together.

  The house seemed blackly dark in comparison with the
lighted-up road outside, and as he groped forward, closely followed
by the lodger, there came over Bunting a sudden, reeling sensation
of mortal terror, an instinctive, assailing knowledge of frightful
immediate danger.

  A stuffless voice - the voice of his first wife, the
long-dead girl to whom his mind so seldom reverted nowadays -
uttered into his ear the words, "Take care!"

  And then the lodger spoke. His voice was harsh and
grating, though not loud.

  "I'm afraid, Mr. Bunting, that you must have felt
something dirty, foul, on my coat? It's too long a story to tell
you now, but I brushed up against a dead animal, a creature to
whose misery some thoughtful soul had put an end, lying across a
bench on Primrose Hill."

  "No, sir, no. I didn't notice nothing. I scarcely
touched you, sir."

  It seemed as if a power outside himself compelled
Bunting to utter these lying words. "And now, sir, I'll be saying
good-night to you," he said.

  Stepping back he pressed with all the strength that
was in him against the wall, and let the other pass him. There was
a pause, and then - "Good-night," returned Mr. Sleuth, in a hollow
voice. Bunting waited until the lodger had gone upstairs, and then,
lighting the gas, he sat down there, in the hall. Mr. Sleuth's
landlord felt very queer - queer and sick.

  He did not draw his left hand out of his pocket till
he heard Mr. Sleuth shut the bedroom door upstairs. Then he held up
his left hand and looked at it curiously; it was flecked, streaked
with pale reddish blood.

  Taking off his boots, he crept into the room where
his wife lay asleep. Stealthily he walked across to the
wash-hand-stand, and dipped a hand into the water-jug.

  "Whatever are you doing? What on earth are you
doing?" came a voice from the bed, and Bunting started
guiltily.

  "I'm just washing my hands."

  "Indeed, you're doing nothing of the sort! I never
heard of such a thing - putting your hand into the water in which I
was going to wash my face to-morrow morning!"

  "I'm very sorry, Ellen," he said meekly; "I meant to
throw it away. You don't suppose I would have let you wash in dirty
water, do you?"

  She said no more, but, as he began undressing
himself, Mrs. Bunting lay staring at him in a way that made her
husband feel even more uncomfortable than he was already.

  At last he got into bed. He wanted to break the
oppressive silence by telling Ellen about the sovereign the young
lady had given him, but that sovereign now seemed to Bunting of no
more account than if it had been a farthing he had picked up in the
road outside.

  Once more his wife spoke, and he gave so great a
start that it shook the bed.

  "I suppose that you don't know that you've left the
light burning in the hall, wasting our good money?" she observed
tartly.

  He got up painfully and opened the door into the
passage. It was as she had said; the gas was flaring away, wasting
their good money - or, rather, Mr. Sleuth's good money. Since he
had come to be their lodger they had not had to touch their rent
money.

  Bunting turned out the light and groped his way back
to the room, and so to bed. Without speaking again to each other,
both husband and wife lay awake till dawn.

  The next morning Mr. Sleuth's landlord awoke with a
start; he felt curiously heavy about the limbs, and tired about the
eyes.

  Drawing his watch from under his pillow, he saw that
it was seven o'clock. Without waking his wife, he got out of bed
and pulled the blind a little to one side. It was snowing heavily,
and, as is the way when it snows, even in London, everything was
strangely, curiously still. After he had dressed he went out into
the passage. As he had at once dreaded and hoped, their newspaper
was already lying on the mat. It was probably the sound of its
being pushed through the letter-box which had waked him from his
unrestful sleep.

  He picked the paper up and went into the
sitting-room then, shutting the door behind him carefully, he
spread the newspaper wide open on the table, and bent over it.

  As Bunting at last looked up and straightened
himself, an expression of intense relief shone upon his stolid
face. The item of news he had felt certain would be printed in big
type on the middle sheet was not there.