The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ just before closing-time a very peculiar-looking gent, with a leather bag in his hand, went into the bar and asked for a glass of milk. And what d’you think he did? Paid for it with a sovereign! He wouldn’t take no change—just made the girl a present of it! That’s why the young woman what served him seems quite unwilling to give him away. She won’t tell now what he was like. She doesn’t know what he’s wanted for, and we don’t want her to know just yet. That’s one reason why nothing’s being said public about it. But there! I really must be going now. My time’ll be up at three o’clock. I thought of coming in on the way back, and asking you for a cup o’ tea, Mrs. Bunting.”

      “Do,” she said. “Do, Joe. You’ll be welcome,” but there was no welcome in her tired voice.

      She let him go alone to the door, and then she went down to her kitchen, and began cooking Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast.

      The lodger would be sure to ring soon; and then any minute Bunting and Daisy might be home, and they’d want something, too. Margaret always had breakfast even when “the family” were away, unnaturally early.

      As she bustled about Mrs. Bunting tried to empty her mind of all thought. But it is very difficult to do that when one is in a state of torturing uncertainty. She had not dared to ask Chandler what they supposed that man who had gone into the public-house was really like. It was fortunate, indeed, that the lodger and that inquisitive young chap had never met face to face.

      At last Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang—a quiet little tinkle. But when she went up with his breakfast the lodger was not in his sitting-room.

      Supposing him to be still in his bedroom, Mrs. Bunting put the cloth on the table, and then she heard the sound of his footsteps coming down the stairs, and her quick ears detected the slight whirring sound which showed that the gas-stove was alight. Mr. Sleuth had already lit the stove; that meant that he would carry out some elaborate experiment this afternoon.

      “Still snowing?” he said doubtfully. “How very, very quiet and still London is when under snow, Mrs. Bunting. I have never known it quite as quiet as this morning. Not a sound, outside or in. A very pleasant change from the shouting which sometimes goes on in the Marylebone Road.”

      “Yes,” she said dully. “It’s awful quiet today—too quiet to my thinking. ‘Tain’t natural-like.”

      The outside gate swung to, making a noisy clatter in the still air.

      “Is that someone coming in here?” asked Mr. Sleuth, drawing a quick, hissing breath. “Perhaps you will oblige me by going to the window and telling me who it is, Mrs. Bunting?”

      And his landlady obeyed him.

      “It’s only Bunting, sir—Bunting and his daughter.”

      “Oh! Is that all?”

      Mr. Sleuth hurried after her, and she shrank back a little. She had never been quite so near to the lodger before, save on that first day when she had been showing him her rooms.

      Side by side they stood, looking out of the window. And, as if aware that someone was standing there, Daisy turned her bright face up towards the window and smiled at her stepmother, and at the lodger, whose face she could only dimly discern.

      “A very sweet-looking young girl,” said Mr. Sleuth thoughtfully. And then he quoted a little bit of poetry, and this took Mrs. Bunting very much aback.

      “Wordsworth,” he murmured dreamily. “A poet too little read nowadays, Mrs. Bunting; but one with a beautiful feeling for nature, for youth, for innocence.”

      “Indeed, sir?” Mrs. Bunting stepped back a little. “Your breakfast will be getting cold, sir, if you don’t have it now.”

      He went back to the table, obediently, and sat down as a child rebuked might have done.

      And then his landlady left him.

      “Well?” said Bunting cheerily. “Everything went off quite all right. And Daisy’s a lucky girl—that she is! Her Aunt Margaret gave her five shillings.”

      But Daisy did not look as pleased as her father thought she ought to do.

      “I hope nothing’s happened to Mr. Chandler,” she said a little disconsolately. “The very last words he said to me last night was that he’d be there at ten o’clock. I got quite fidgety as the time went on and he didn’t come.”

      “He’s been here,” said Mrs. Bunting slowly.

      “Been here?” cried her husband. “Then why on earth didn’t he go and fetch Daisy, if he’d time to come here?”

      “He was on the way to his job,” his wife answered. “You run along, child, downstairs. Now that you are here you can make yourself useful.”

      And Daisy reluctantly obeyed. She wondered what it was her stepmother didn’t want her to hear.

      “I’ve something to tell you, Bunting.”

      “Yes?” He looked across uneasily. “Yes, Ellen?”

      “There’s been another o’ those murders. But the police don’t want anyone to know about it—not yet. That’s why Joe couldn’t go over and fetch Daisy. They’re all on duty again.”

      Bunting put out his hand and clutched hold of the edge of the mantelpiece. He had gone very red, but his wife was far too much concerned with her own feelings and sensations to notice it.

      There was a long silence between them. Then he spoke, making a great effort to appear unconcerned.

      “And where did it happen?” he asked. “Close to the other one?”

      She hesitated, then: “I don’t know. He didn’t say. But hush!” she added quickly. “Here’s Daisy! Don’t let’s talk of that horror in front of her-like. Besides, I promised Chandler I’d be mum.”

      And he acquiesced.

      “You can be laying the cloth, child, while I go up and clear away the lodger’s breakfast.” Without waiting for an answer, she hurried upstairs.

      Mr. Sleuth had left the greater part of the nice lemon sole untouched. “I don’t feel well today,” he said fretfully. “And, Mrs. Bunting? I should be much obliged if your husband would lend me that paper I saw in his hand. I do not often care to look at the public prints, but I should like to do so now.”

      She flew downstairs. “Bunting,” she said a little breathlessly, “the lodger would like you just to lend him the Sun.”

      Bunting handed it over to her. “I’ve read it through,” he observed. “You can tell him that I don’t want it back again.”

      On her way up she glanced down at the pink sheet. Occupying a third of the space was an irregular drawing, and under it was written, in rather large characters:

      “We are glad to be able to present our readers with an authentic reproduction of the footprint of the half-worn rubber sole which was almost certainly worn by The Avenger when he committed his double murder ten days ago.”

      She went into the sitting-room. To her relief it was empty.

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