The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.”

      “Very good, sir.” And then Mrs. Bunting left the lodger.

      But when she found herself downstairs in the fog-laden hall, for it had drifted in as she and her husband had stood at the door seeing Daisy off, instead of going in to Bunting she did a very odd thing —a thing she had never thought of doing in her life before. She pressed her hot forehead against the cool bit of looking-glass let into the hat-and-umbrella stand. “I don’t know what to do!” she moaned to herself, and then, “I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!”

      But though she felt that her secret suspense and trouble was becoming intolerable, the one way in which she could have ended her misery never occurred to Mrs. Bunting.

      In the long history of crime it has very, very seldom happened that a woman has betrayed one who has taken refuge with her. The timorous and cautious woman has not infrequently hunted a human being fleeing from his pursuer from her door, but she has not revealed the fact that he was ever there. In fact, it may almost be said that such betrayal has never taken place unless the betrayer has been actuated by love of gain, or by a longing for revenge. So far, perhaps because she is subject rather than citizen, her duty as a component part of civilised society weighs but lightly on woman’s shoulders.

      And then—and then, in a sort of way, Mrs. Bunting had become attached to Mr. Sleuth. A wan smile would sometimes light up his sad face when he saw her come in with one of his meals, and when this happened Mrs. Bunting felt pleased—pleased and vaguely touched. In between those—those dreadful events outside, which filled her with such suspicion, such anguish and such suspense, she never felt any fear, only pity, for Mr. Sleuth.

      Often and often, when lying wide awake at night, she turned over the strange problem in her mind. After all, the lodger must have lived somewhere during his forty-odd years of life. She did not even know if Mr. Sleuth had any brothers or sisters; friends she knew he had none. But, however odd and eccentric he was, he had evidently, or so she supposed, led a quiet, undistinguished kind of life, till—till now.

      What had made him alter all of a sudden—if, that is, he had altered? That was what Mrs. Bunting was always debating fitfully with herself; and, what was more, and very terribly, to the point, having altered, why should he not in time go back to what he evidently had been—that is, a blameless, quiet gentleman?

      If only he would! If only he would!

      As she stood in the hall, cooling her hot forehead, all these thoughts, these hopes and fears, jostled at lightning speed through her brain.

      She remembered what young Chandler had said the other day—that there had never been, in the history of the world, so strange a murderer as The Avenger had proved himself to be.

      She and Bunting, aye, and little Daisy too, had hung, fascinated, on Joe’s words, as he had told them of other famous series of murders which had taken place in the past, not only in England but abroad—especially abroad.

      One woman, whom all the people round her believed to be a kind, respectable soul, had poisoned no fewer than fifteen people in order to get their insurance money. Then there had been the terrible tale of an apparently respectable, contented innkeeper and his wife, who, living at the entrance to a wood, killed all those humble travellers who took shelter under their roof, simply for their clothes, and any valuables they possessed. But in all those stories the murderer or murderers always had a very strong motive, the motive being, in almost every case, a wicked lust for gold.

      At last, after having passed her handkerchief over her forehead, she went into the room where Bunting was sitting smoking his pipe.

      “The fog’s lifting a bit,” she said in an ill-assured voice. “I hope that by this time Daisy and that Joe Chandler are right out of it.”

      But the other shook his head silently. “No such luck!” he said briefly. “You don’t know what it’s like in Hyde Park, Ellen. I expect ’twill soon be just as heavy here as ’twas half an hour ago!”

      She wandered over to the window, and pulled the curtain back. “Quite a lot of people have come out, anyway,” she observed.

      “There’s a fine Christmas show in the Edgware Road. I was thinking of asking if you wouldn’t like to go along there with me.”

      “No,” she said dully. “I’m quite content to stay at home.”

      She was listening—listening for the sounds which would betoken that the lodger was coming downstairs.

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