The Lodger

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

  CHAPTER IV

  Mrs. Bunting woke up the next morning feeling happier than she hadfelt for a very, very long time.

  For just one moment she could not think why she felt so different--and then she suddenly remembered.

  How comfortable it was to know that upstairs, just over her head,lay, in the well-found bed she had bought with such satisfaction atan auction held in a Baker Street house, a lodger who was paying twoguineas a week! Something seemed to tell her that Mr. Sleuth wouldbe "a permanency." In any case, it wouldn't be her fault if hewasn't. As to his--his queerness, well, there's always somethingfunny in everybody. But after she had got up, and as the morningwore itself away, Mrs. Bunting grew a little anxious, for therecame no sound at all from the new lodger's rooms. At twelve,however, the drawing-room bell rang. Mrs. Bunting hurried upstairs.She was painfully anxious to please and satisfy Mr. Sleuth. Hiscoming had only been in the nick of time to save them from terribledisaster.

  She found her lodger up, and fully dressed. He was sitting at theround table which occupied the middle of the sitting-room, and hislandlady's large Bible lay open before him.

  As Mrs. Bunting came in, he looked up, and she was troubled to seehow tired and worn he seemed.

  "You did not happen," he asked, "to have a Concordance, Mrs.Bunting?"

  She shook her head; she had no idea what a Concordance could be,but she was quite sure that she had nothing of the sort about.

  And then her new lodger proceeded to tell her what it was hedesired her to buy for him. She had supposed the bag he hadbrought with him to contain certain little necessaries ofcivilised life--such articles, for instance, as a comb and brush,a set of razors, a toothbrush, to say nothing of a couple ofnightshirts--but no, that was evidently not so, for Mr. Sleuthrequired all these things to be bought now.

  After having cooked him a nice breakfast Mrs. Bunting hurriedout to purchase the things of which he was in urgent need.

  How pleasant it was to feel that there was money in her purseagain--not only someone else's money, but money she was now inthe very act of earning so agreeably.

  Mrs. Bunting first made her way to a little barber's shop close by.It was there she purchased the brush and comb and the razors. Itwas a funny, rather smelly little place, and she hurried as much asshe could, the more so that the foreigner who served her insistedon telling her some of the strange, peculiar details of thisAvenger murder which had taken place forty-eight hours before, andin which Bunting took such a morbid interest.

  The conversation upset Mrs. Bunting. She didn't want to think ofanything painful or disagreeable on such a day as this.

  Then she came back and showed the lodger her various purchases. Mr.Sleuth was pleased with everything, and thanked her most courteously.But when she suggested doing his bedroom he frowned, and lookedquite put out.

  "Please wait till this evening," he said hastily. "It is my customto stay at home all day. I only care to walk about the streets whenthe lights are lit. You must bear with me, Mrs. Bunting, if I seema little, just a little, unlike the lodgers you have been accustomedto. And I must ask you to understand that I must not be disturbedwhen thinking out my problems--" He broke off short, sighed, thenadded solemnly, "for mine are the great problems of life and death."

  And Mrs. Bunting willingly fell in with his wishes. In spite of herprim manner and love of order, Mr. Sleuth's landlady was a true woman--she had, that is, an infinite patience with masculine vagariesand oddities.

  When she was downstairs again, Mr. Sleuth's landlady met with asurprise; but it was quite a pleasant surprise. While she hadbeen upstairs, talking to the lodger, Bunting's young friend, JoeChandler, the detective, had come in, and as she walked into thesitting-room she saw that her husband was pushing half a sovereignacross the table towards Joe.

  Joe Chandler's fair, good-natured face was full of satisfaction:not at seeing his money again, mark you, but at the news Buntinghad evidently been telling him--that news of the sudden wonderfulchange in their fortunes, the coming of an ideal lodger.

  "Mr. Sleuth don't want me to do his bedroom till he's gone out!"she exclaimed. And then she sat down for a bit of a rest.

  It was a comfort to know that the lodger was eating his goodbreakfast, and there was no need to think of him for the present.In a few minutes she would be going down to make her own andBunting's dinner, and she told Joe Chandler that he might as wellstop and have a bite with them.

  Her heart warmed to the young man, for Mrs. Bunting was in a moodwhich seldom surprised her--a mood to be pleased with anythingand everything. Nay, more. When Bunting began to ask Joe Chandlerabout the last of those awful Avenger murders, she even listenedwith a certain languid interest to all he had to say.

  In the morning paper which Bunting had begun taking again thatvery day three columns were devoted to the extraordinary mysterywhich was now beginning to be the one topic of talk all over London,West and East, North and South. Bunting had read out little bitsabout it while they ate their breakfast, and in spite of herselfMrs. Bunting had felt thrilled and excited.

  "They do say," observed Bunting cautiously, "They do say, Joe, thatthe police have a clue they won't say nothing about?" He lookedexpectantly at his visitor. To Bunting the fact that Chandler wasattached to the detective section of the Metropolitan Policeinvested the young man with a kind of sinister glory--especiallyjust now, when these awful and mysterious crimes were amazing andterrifying the town.

  "Them who says that says wrong," answered Chandler slowly, and alook of unease, of resentment came over his fair, stolid face."'Twould make a good bit of difference to me if the Yard had a clue."

  And then Mrs. Bunting interposed. "Why that, Joe?" she said,smiling indulgently; the young man's keenness about his work pleasedher. And in his slow, sure way Joe Chandler was very keen, and tookhis job very seriously. He put his whole heart and mind into it.

  "Well, 'tis this way," he explained. "From to-day I'm on thisbusiness myself. You see, Mrs. Bunting, the Yard's nettled--that'swhat it is, and we're all on our mettle--that we are. I was rightdown sorry for the poor chap who was on point duty in the streetwhere the last one happened--"

  "No!" said Bunting incredulously. "You don't mean there was apoliceman there, within a few yards?"

  That fact hadn't been recorded in his newspaper.

  Chandler nodded. "That's exactly what I do mean, Mr. Bunting! Theman is near off his head, so I'm told. He did hear a yell, so hesays, but he took no notice--there are a good few yells in thatpart o' London, as you can guess. People always quarrelling androwing at one another in such low parts."

  "Have you seen the bits of grey paper on which the monster writeshis name?" inquired Bunting eagerly.

  Public imagination had been much stirred by the account of thosethree-cornered pieces of grey paper, pinned to the victims' skirts,on which was roughly written in red ink and in printed charactersthe words "The Avenger."

  His round, fat face was full of questioning eagerness. He put hiselbows on the table, and stared across expectantly at the young man.

  "Yes, I have," said Joe briefly.

  "A funny kind of visiting card, eh!" Bunting laughed; the notionstruck him as downright comic.

  But Mrs. Bunting coloured. "It isn't a thing to make a joke about,"she said reprovingly.

  And Chandler backed her up. "No, indeed," he said feelingly. "I'llnever forget what I've been made to see over this job. And as forthat grey bit of paper, Mr. Bunting--or, rather, those grey bits ofpaper"--he corrected himself hastily--"you know they've three ofthem now at the Yard--well, they gives me the horrors!"

  And then he jumped up. "That reminds me that I oughtn't to bewasting my time in pleasant company--"

  "Won't you stay and have a bit of dinner?" said Mrs. Buntingsolicitously.

  But the detective shook his head. "No," he said, "I had a bitebefore I came out. Our job's a queer kind of job, as you know. Alot's left to our discretion, so to speak, but it don't leave usmuch time for lazing about,
I can tell you."

  When he reached the door he turned round, and with elaboratecarelessness he inquired, "Any chance of Miss Daisy coming to Londonagain soon?"

  Bunting shook his head, but his face brightened. He was very, veryfond of his only child; the pity was he saw her so seldom. "No,"he said, "I'm afraid not Joe. Old Aunt, as we calls the old lady,keeps Daisy pretty tightly tied to her apron-string. She was quiteput about that week the child was up with us last June."

  "Indeed? Well, so long!"

  After his wife had let their friend out, Bunting said cheerfully,"Joe seems to like our Daisy, eh, Ellen?"

  But Mrs. Bunting shook her head scornfully. She did not exactlydislike the girl, though she did not hold with the way Bunting'sdaughter was being managed by that old aunt of hers--an idle,good-for-nothing way, very different from the fashion in whichshe herself had been trained at the Foundling, for Mrs. Buntingas a little child had known no other home, no other family thanthose provided by good Captain Coram.

  "Joe Chandler's too sensible a young chap to be thinking of girlsyet awhile," she said tartly.

  "No doubt you're right," Bunting agreed. "Times be changed. In myyoung days chaps always had time for that. 'Twas just a notion thatcame into my head, hearing him asking, anxious-like, after her."

  ******

  About five o'clock, after the street lamps were well alight, Mr.Sleuth went out, and that same evening there came two parcelsaddressed to his landlady. These parcels contained clothes. Butit was quite clear to Mrs. Bunting's eyes that they were not newclothes. In fact, they had evidently been bought in some goodsecond-hand clothes-shop. A funny thing for a real gentleman likeMr. Sleuth to do! It proved that he had given up all hope ofgetting back his lost luggage.

  When the lodger had gone out he had not taken his bag with him, ofthat Mrs. Bunting was positive. And yet, though she searched highand low for it, she could not find the place where Mr. Sleuth keptit. And at last, had it not been that she was a very clear-headedwoman, with a good memory, she would have been disposed to thinkthat the bag had never existed, save in her imagination.

  But no, she could not tell herself that! She remembered exactlyhow it had looked when Mr. Sleuth had first stood, a strange,queer-looking figure of a man, on her doorstep.

  She further remembered how he had put the bag down on the floor ofthe top front room, and then, forgetting what he had done, how hehad asked her eagerly, in a tone of angry fear, where the bag was--only to find it safely lodged at his feet!

  As time went on Mrs. Bunting thought a great deal about that bag,for, strange and amazing fact, she never saw Mr. Sleuth's bag again.But, of course, she soon formed a theory as to its whereabouts.The brown leather bag which had formed Mr. Sleuth's only luggagethe afternoon of his arrival was almost certainly locked up in thelower part of the drawing-room chiffonnier. Mr. Sleuth evidentlyalways carried the key of the little corner cupboard about hisperson; Mrs. Bunting had also had a good hunt for that key, but,as was the case with the bag, the key disappeared, and she neversaw either the one or the other again.