The Lodger (22 page)

  Joe nodded. Already his mouth was full of
bread-and-butter. He waited a moment, and then: "Well I have got
one piece of news - not that I suppose it'll interest you very
much."

  They both looked at him - Mrs. Bunting suddenly
calm, though her breast still heaved from time to time.

  "Our Boss has resigned!" said Joe Chandler slowly,
impressively.

  "No! Not the Commissioner o' Police?" exclaimed
Bunting.

  "Yes, he has. He just can't bear what's said about
us any longer - and I don't wonder! He done his best, and so's we
all. The public have just gone daft - in the West End, that is,
to-day. As for the papers, well, they're something cruel - that's
what they are. And the ridiculous ideas they print! You'd never
believe the things they asks us to do - and quite
serious-like."

  "What d'you mean?" questioned Mrs. Bunting. She
really wanted to know.

  "Well, the Courier declares that there ought to be a
house-to-house investigation - all over London. Just think of it!
Everybody to let the police go all over their house, from garret to
kitchen, just to see if The Avenger isn't concealed there. Dotty, I
calls it! Why, 'twould take us months and months just to do that
one job in a town like London."

  "I'd like to see them dare come into my house!" said
Mrs. Bunting angrily.

  "It's all along of them blarsted papers that The
Avenger went to work a different way this time," said Chandler
slowly.

  Bunting had pushed a tin of sardines towards his
guest, and was eagerly listening. "How d'you mean?" he asked. "I
don't take your meaning, Joe."

  "Well, you see, it's this way. The newspapers was
always saying how extraordinary it was that The Avenger chose such
a peculiar time to do his deeds - I mean, the time when no one's
about the streets. Now, doesn't it stand to reason that the fellow,
reading all that, and seeing the sense of it, said to himself,
'I'll go on another tack this time'? Just listen to this!" He
pulled a strip of paper, part of a column cut from a newspaper, out
of his pocket:

  "'AN EX-LORD MAYOR OF LONDON ON THE AVENGER

  "'Will the murderer be caught? Yes,' replied Sir
John, 'he will certainly be caught - probably when he commits his
next crime. A whole army of bloodhounds, metaphorical and literal,
will be on his track the moment he draws blood again. With the
whole community against him, he cannot escape, especially when it
be remembered that he chooses the quietest hour in the twenty-four
to commit his crimes.

  "'Londoners are now in such a state of nerves - if I
may use the expression, in such a state of funk - that every
passer-by, however innocent, is looked at with suspicion by his
neighbour if his avocation happens to take him abroad between the
hours of one and three in the morning.'

  "I'd like to gag that ex-Lord Mayor!" concluded Joe
Chandler wrathfully.

  Just then the lodger's bell rang.

  "Let me go up, my dear," said Bunting.

  His wife still looked pale and shaken by the fright
she had had.

  "No, no," she said hastily. "You stop down here, and
talk to Joe. I'll look after Mr. Sleuth. He may be wanting his
supper just a bit earlier than usual to-day."

  Slowly, painfully, again feeling as if her legs were
made of cotton wool, she dragged herself up to the first floor,
knocked at the door, and then went in.

  "You did ring, sir?" she said, in her quiet,
respectful way.

  And Mr. Sleuth looked up.

  She thought - but, as she reminded herself
afterwards, it might have been just her idea, and nothing else -
that for the first time the lodger looked frightened - frightened
and cowed.

  "I heard a noise downstairs," he said fretfully,
"and I wanted to know what it was all about. As I told you, Mrs.
Bunting, when I first took these rooms, quiet is essential to
me.".

  "It was just a friend of ours, sir. I'm sorry you
were disturbed. Would you like the knocker taken off to-morrow?
Bunting'll be pleased to do it if you don't like to hear the sound
of the knocks."

  "Oh, no, I wouldn't put you to such trouble as
that." Mr. Sleuth looked quite relieved. "Just a friend of yours,
was it, Mrs. Bunting? He made a great deal of noise."

  "Just a young fellow," she said apologetically. "The
son of one of Bunting's old friends. He often comes here, sir; but
he never did give such a great big double knock as that before.
I'll speak to him about it"

  "Oh, no, Mrs. Bunting. I would really prefer you did
nothing of the kind. It was just a passing annoyance - nothing
more!"

  She waited a moment. How strange that Mr. Sleuth
said nothing of the hoarse cries which had made of the road outside
a perfect Bedlam every hour or two throughout that day, But no, Mr.
Sleuth made no allusion to what might well have disturbed any quiet
gentleman at his reading.

  "I thought maybe you'd like to have supper a little
earlier to-night, sir?"

  "Just when you like, Mrs. Bunting - just when it's
convenient. I do not wish to put you out in any way."

  She felt herself dismissed, and going out quietly,
closed the door.

  As she did 'so, she heard the front door banging to.
She sighed - Joe Chandler was really a very noisy young fellow.

  
M
rs. Bunting
slept well the night following that during which the lodger had
been engaged in making his mysterious experiments in her kitchen.
She was so tired, so utterly exhausted, that sleep came to her the
moment she laid her head upon her pillow.

  Perhaps that was why she rose so early the next
morning. Hardly giving herself time to swallow the tea Bunting had
made and brought her, she got up and dressed.

  She had suddenly come to the conclusion that the
hall and staircase required a thorough "doing down," and she did
not even wait till they had eaten their breakfast before beginning
her labours. It made Bunting feel quite uncomfortable. As he sat by
the fire reading his morning paper - the paper which was again of
such absorbing interest - he called out, "There's no need for so
much hurry, Ellen. Daisy'll be back to-day. Why don't you wait till
she's come home to help you?"

  But from the hall where she was busy dusting,
sweeping, polishing, his wife's voice came back: "Girls ain't no
good at this sort of work. Don't you worry about me. I feel as if
I'd enjoy doing an extra bit of cleaning to-day. I don't like to
feel as anyone could come in and see my place dirty."

  "No fear of that!" Bunting chuckled. And then a new
thought struck him. "Ain't you afraid of waking the lodger?" he
called out.

  "Mr. Sleuth slept most of yesterday, and all last
night," she answered quickly. "As it is, I study him over-much;
it's a long, long time since I've done this staircase down."

  All the time she was engaged in doing the hall, Mrs.
Bunting left the sitting-room door wide open.

  That was a queer thing of her to do, but Bunting
didn't like to get up and shut her out, as it were. Still, try as
he would, he couldn't read with any comfort while all that noise
was going on. He had never known Ellen make such a lot of noise
before. Once or twice he looked up and frowned rather crossly.

  There came a sudden silence, and he was startled to
see that. Ellen was standing in the doorway, staring at him, doing
nothing.

  "Come in," he said, "do! Ain't you finished
yet?"

  "I was only resting a minute," she said. "You don't
tell me nothing. I'd like to know if there's anything - I mean
anything new - in the paper this morning."

  She spoke in a muffled voice, almost as if she were
ashamed of her unusual curiosity; and her look of fatigue, of
pallor, made Bunting suddenly uneasy. "Come in - do!" he repeated
sharply. "You've done quite enough - and before breakfast, too.
'Tain't necessary. Come in and shut that door."

  He spoke authoritatively, and his wife, for a
wonder, obeyed him.

  She came in, and did what she had never done before
- brought the broom with her, and put it up against the wall in the
corner.

  Then she sat down.

  "I think I'll make breakfast up here," she said. "I
- I feel cold, Bunting." And her husband stared at her surprised,
for drops of perspiration were glistening on her forehead.

  He got up. "All right. I'll go down and bring the
eggs up. Don't you worry. For the matter of that, I can cook them
downstairs if you like."

  "No," she said obstinately. "I'd rather do my own
work. You just bring them up here - that'll be all right. To-morrow
morning we'll have Daisy to help see to things."

  "Come over here and sit down comfortable in my
chair," he suggested kindly. "You never do take any bit of rest,
Ellen. I never see'd such a woman!"

  And again she got up and meekly obeyed him, walking
across the room with languid steps.

  He watched her, anxiously, uncomfortably.

  She took up the newspaper he had just laid down, and
Bunting took two steps towards her.

  "I'll show you the most interesting bit" he said
eagerly. "It's the piece headed, 'Our Special Investigator.' You
see, they've started a special investigator of their own, and he's
got hold of a lot of little facts the police seem to have
overlooked. The man who writes all that - I mean the Special
Investigator - was a famous 'tec in his time, and he's just come
back out of his retirement o' purpose to do this bit of work for
the paper. You read what he says - I shouldn't be a bit surprised
if he ends by getting that reward! One can see he just loves the
work of tracking people down."

  "There's nothing to be proud of in such a job," said
his wife listlessly.

  "He'll have something to be proud of if he catches
The Avenger!" cried Bunting. He was too keen about this affair to
be put off by Ellen's contradictory remarks. "You just notice that
bit about the rubber soles. Now, no one's thought o' that. I'll
just tell Chandler - he don't seem to me to be half awake, that
young man don't."

  "He's quite wide awake enough without you saying
things to him! How about those eggs, Bunting? I feel quite ready
for my breakfast even if you don't - "

  Mrs. Bunting now spoke in what her husband sometimes
secretly described to himself as "Ellen's snarling voice.

  He turned away and left the room, feeling oddly
troubled. There was something queer about her, and he couldn't make
it out. He didn't mind it when she spoke sharply and nastily to
him. He was used to that. But now she was so up and down; so
different from what she used to be! In old days she had always been
the same, but now a man never knew where to have her.

  And as he went downstairs he pondered uneasily over
his wife's changed ways and manner.

  Take the question of his easy chair. A very small
matter, no doubt, but he had never known Ellen sit in that chair -
no, not even once, for a minute, since it had been purchased by her
as a present for him.

  They had been so happy, so happy, and so - so
restful, during that first week after Mr. Sleuth had come to them.
Perhaps it was the sudden, dramatic change from agonising anxiety
to peace and security which had been too much for Ellen - yes, that
was what was the matter with her, that and the universal excitement
about these Avenger murders, which were shaking the nerves of all
London. Even Bunting, unobservant as he was, had come to realise
that his wife took a morbid interest in these terrible happenings.
And it was the more queer of her to do so that at first she refused
to discuss them, and said openly that she was utterly uninterested
in murder or crime of any sort.

  He, Bunting, had always had a mild pleasure in such
things. In his time he had been a great reader of detective tales,
and even now he thought there was no pleasanter reading. It was
that which had first drawn him to Joe Chandler, and made him
welcome the young chap as cordially as he had done when they first
came to London.