The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes - Marie Belloc Lowndes

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some thoughtful soul had put an end, lying across a bench on Primrose Hill.”

      “No, sir, no. I didn’t notice nothing. I scarcely touched you, sir.”

      It seemed as if a power outside himself compelled Bunting to utter these lying words. “And now, sir, I’ll be saying good-night to you,” he said.

      Stepping back he pressed with all the strength that was in him against the wall, and let the other pass him. There was a pause, and then—“Good-night,” returned Mr. Sleuth, in a hollow voice. Bunting waited until the lodger had gone upstairs, and then, lighting the gas, he sat down there, in the hall. Mr. Sleuth’s landlord felt very queer—queer and sick.

      He did not draw his left hand out of his pocket till he heard Mr. Sleuth shut the bedroom door upstairs. Then he held up his left hand and looked at it curiously; it was flecked, streaked with pale reddish blood.

      Taking off his boots, he crept into the room where his wife lay asleep. Stealthily he walked across to the wash-hand-stand, and dipped a hand into the water-jug.

      “Whatever are you doing? What on earth are you doing?” came a voice from the bed, and Bunting started guiltily.

      “I’m just washing my hands.”

      “Indeed, you’re doing nothing of the sort! I never heard of such a thing—putting your hand into the water in which I was going to wash my face tomorrow morning!”

      “I’m very sorry, Ellen,” he said meekly; “I meant to throw it away. You don’t suppose I would have let you wash in dirty water, do you?”

      She said no more, but, as he began undressing himself, Mrs. Bunting lay staring at him in a way that made her husband feel even more uncomfortable than he was already.

      At last he got into bed. He wanted to break the oppressive silence by telling Ellen about the sovereign the young lady had given him, but that sovereign now seemed to Bunting of no more account than if it had been a farthing he had picked up in the road outside.

      Once more his wife spoke, and he gave so great a start that it shook the bed.

      “I suppose that you don’t know that you’ve left the light burning in the hall, wasting our good money?” she observed tartly.

      He got up painfully and opened the door into the passage. It was as she had said; the gas was flaring away, wasting their good money—or, rather, Mr. Sleuth’s good money. Since he had come to be their lodger they had not had to touch their rent money.

      Bunting turned out the light and groped his way back to the room, and so to bed. Without speaking again to each other, both husband and wife lay awake till dawn.

      The next morning Mr. Sleuth’s landlord awoke with a start; he felt curiously heavy about the limbs, and tired about the eyes.

      Drawing his watch from under his pillow, he saw that it was seven o’clock. Without waking his wife, he got out of bed and pulled the blind a little to one side. It was snowing heavily, and, as is the way when it snows, even in London, everything was strangely, curiously still. After he had dressed he went out into the passage. As he had at once dreaded and hoped, their newspaper was already lying on the mat. It was probably the sound of its being pushed through the letter-box which had waked him from his unrestful sleep.

      He picked the paper up and went into the sitting-room then, shutting the door behind him carefully, he spread the newspaper wide open on the table, and bent over it.

      As Bunting at last looked up and straightened himself, an expression of intense relief shone upon his stolid face. The item of news he had felt certain would be printed in big type on the middle sheet was not there.

      Chapter 22

       Table of Contents

      Feeling amazingly light-hearted, almost light-headed, Bunting lit the gas-ring to make his wife her morning cup of tea.

      While he was doing it, he suddenly heard her call out:

      “Bunting!” she cried weakly. “Bunting!” Quickly he hurried in response to her call. “Yes,” he said. “What is it, my dear? I won’t be a minute with your tea.” And he smiled broadly, rather foolishly.

      She sat up and looked at him, a dazed expression on her face.

      “What are you grinning at?” she asked suspiciously.

      “I’ve had a wonderful piece of luck,” he explained. “But you was so cross last night that I simply didn’t dare tell you about it.”

      “Well, tell me now,” she said in a low voice.

      “I had a sovereign given me by the young lady. You see, it was her birthday party, Ellen, and she’d come into a nice bit of money, and she gave each of us waiters a sovereign.”

      Mrs. Bunting made no comment. Instead, she lay back and closed her eyes.

      “What time d’you expect Daisy?” she asked languidly. “You didn’t say what time Joe was going to fetch her, when we was talking about it yesterday.”

      “Didn’t I? Well, I expect they’ll be in to dinner.”

      “I wonder, how long that old aunt of hers expects us to keep her?” said Mrs. Bunting thoughtfully. All the cheer died out of Bunting’s round face. He became sullen and angry. It would be a pretty thing if he couldn’t have his own daughter for a bit—especially now that they were doing so well!

      “Daisy’ll stay here just as long as she can,” he said shortly. “It’s too bad of you, Ellen, to talk like that! She helps you all she can; and she brisks us both up ever so much. Besides, ’twould be cruel—cruel to take the girl away just now, just as she and that young chap are making friends-like. One would suppose that even you would see the justice o’ that!”

      But Mrs. Bunting made no answer.

      Bunting went off, back into the sitting-room. The water was boiling now, so he made the tea; and then, as he brought the little tray in, his heart softened. Ellen did look really ill—ill and wizened. He wondered if she had a pain about which she wasn’t saying anything. She had never been one to grouse about herself.

      “The lodger and me came in together last night,” he observed genially. “He’s certainly a funny kind of gentleman. It wasn’t the sort of night one would have chosen to go out for a walk, now was it? And yet he must ‘a been out a long time if what he said was true.”

      “I don’t wonder a quiet gentleman like Mr. Sleuth hates the crowded streets,” she said slowly. “They gets worse every day— that they do! But go along now; I want to get up.”

      He went back into their sitting-room, and, having laid the fire and put a match to it, he sat down comfortably with his newspaper.

      Deep down in his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a feeling of shame and self-rebuke. Whatever had made such horrible thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his head? And just because of a trifling thing like that blood. No doubt Mr. Sleuth’s nose had bled—that was what had happened; though, come to think of it, he had mentioned brushing up against a dead animal.

      Perhaps Ellen was right after all. It didn’t do for one to be always thinking of dreadful subjects, of murders and such-like. It made one go dotty—that’s what it did.

      And just as he was telling himself that, there came to the door a loud knock, the peculiar rat-tat-tat of a telegraph boy. But before he had time to get across the room, let alone to the front door, Ellen had rushed through the room, clad only in a petticoat and shawl.

      “I’ll go,” she cried breathlessly. “I’ll go, Bunting; don’t you trouble.”

      He stared at her, surprised, and followed her into the hall.

      She

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