LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 6

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      Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang again.

      Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast was quite ready, but for the first time since he had been her lodger Mrs. Bunting did not answer the summons at once. But when there came the second imperative tinkle—for electric bells had not been fitted into that old-fashioned house— she made up her mind to go upstairs.

      As she emerged into the hall from the kitchen stairway, Bunting, sitting comfortably in their parlour, heard his wife stepping heavily under the load of the well-laden tray.

      “Wait a minute!” he called out. “I’ll help you, Ellen,” and he came out and took the tray from her.

      She said nothing, and together they proceeded up to the drawing-room floor landing.

      There she stopped him. “Here,” she whispered quickly, “you give me that, Bunting. The lodger won’t like your going in to him.” And then, as he obeyed her, and was about to turn downstairs again, she added in a rather acid tone, “You might open the door for me, at any rate! How can I manage to do it with this here heavy tray on my hands?”

      She spoke in a queer, jerky way, and Bunting felt surprised—rather put out. Ellen wasn’t exactly what you’d call a lively, jolly woman, but when things were going well—as now—she was generally equable enough. He supposed she was still resentful of the way he had spoken to her about young Chandler and the new Avenger murder.

      However, he was always for peace, so he opened the drawing-room door, and as soon as he had started going downstairs Mrs. Bunting walked into the room.

      And then at once there came over her the queerest feeling of relief, of lightness of heart.

      As usual, the lodger was sitting at his old place, reading the Bible.

      Somehow—she could not have told you why, she would not willingly have told herself—she had expected to see Mr. Sleuth looking different. But no, he appeared to be exactly the same—in fact, as he glanced up at her a pleasanter smile than usual lighted up his thin, pallid face.

      “Well, Mrs. Bunting,” he said genially, “I overslept myself this morning, but I feel all the better for the rest.”

      “I’m glad of that, sir,” she answered, in a low voice. “One of the ladies I once lived with used to say, ‘Rest is an old-fashioned remedy, but it’s the best remedy of all.’”

      Mr. Sleuth himself removed the Bible and Cruden’s Concordance off the table out of her way, and then he stood watching his landlady laying the cloth.

      Suddenly he spoke again. He was not often so talkative in the morning. “I think, Mrs. Bunting, that there was someone with you outside the door just now?”

      “Yes, sir. Bunting helped me up with the tray.”

      “I’m afraid I give you a good deal of trouble,” he said hesitatingly.

      But she answered quickly, “Oh, no, sir! Not at all, sir! I was only saying yesterday that we’ve never had a lodger that gave us as little trouble as you do, sir.”

      “I’m glad of that. I am aware that my habits are somewhat peculiar.”

      He looked at her fixedly, as if expecting her to give some sort of denial to this observation. But Mrs. Bunting was an honest and truthful woman. It never occurred to her to question his statement. Mr. Sleuth’s habits were somewhat peculiar. Take that going out at night, or rather in the early morning, for instance? So she remained silent.

      After she had laid the lodger’s breakfast on the table she prepared to leave the room. “I suppose I’m not to do your room till you goes out, sir?”

      And Mr. Sleuth looked up sharply. “No, no!” he said. “I never want my room done when I am engaged in studying the Scriptures, Mrs. Bunting. But I am not going out today. I shall be carrying out a somewhat elaborate experiment—upstairs. If I go out at all” he waited a moment, and again he looked at her fixedly “—I shall wait till night-time to do so.” And then, coming back to the matter in hand, he added hastily, “Perhaps you could do my room when I go upstairs, about five o’clock—if that time is convenient to you, that is?”

      “Oh, yes, sir! That’ll do nicely!”

      Mrs. Bunting went downstairs, and as she did so she took herself wordlessly, ruthlessly to task, but she did not face—even in her inmost heart—the strange tenors and tremors which had so shaken her. She only repeated to herself again and again, “I’ve got upset —that’s what I’ve done,” and then she spoke aloud, “I must get myself a dose at the chemist’s next time I’m out. That’s what I must do.”

      And just as she murmured the word “do,” there came a loud double knock on the front door.

      It was only the postman’s knock, but the postman was an unfamiliar visitor in that house, and Mrs. Bunting started violently. She was nervous, that’s what was the matter with her,—so she told herself angrily. No doubt this was a letter for Mr. Sleuth; the lodger must have relations and acquaintances somewhere in the world. All gentlefolk have. But when she picked the small envelope off the hall floor, she saw it was a letter from Daisy, her husband’s daughter.

      “Bunting!” she called out sharply. “Here’s a letter for you.”

      She opened the door of their sitting-room and looked in. Yes, there was her husband, sitting back comfortably in his easy chair, reading a paper. And as she saw his broad, rather rounded back, Mrs. Bunting felt a sudden thrill of sharp irritation. There he was, doing nothing—in fact, doing worse than nothing—wasting his time reading all about those horrid crimes.

      She sighed—a long, unconscious sigh. Bunting was getting into idle ways, bad ways for a man of his years. But how could she prevent it? He had been such an active, conscientious sort of man when they had first made acquaintance. . .

      She also could remember, even more clearly than Bunting did himself, that first meeting of theirs in the dining-room of No. 90 Cumberland Terrace. As she had stood there, pouring out her mistress’s glass of port wine, she had not been too much absorbed in her task to have a good out-of-her-eye look at the spruce, nice, respectable-looking fellow who was standing over by the window. How superior he had appeared even then to the man she already hoped he would succeed as butler!

      To-day, perhaps because she was not feeling quite herself, the past rose before her very vividly, and a lump came into her throat.

      Putting the letter addressed to her husband on the table, she closed the door softly, and went down into the kitchen; there were various little things to put away and clean up, as well as their dinner to cook. And all the time she was down there she fixed her mind obstinately, determinedly on Bunting and on the problem of Bunting. She wondered what she’d better do to get him into good ways again.

      Thanks to Mr. Sleuth, their outlook was now moderately bright. A week ago everything had

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