CHAPTER XV
The Buntings went to bed early that night. But Mrs. Bunting madeup her mind to keep awake. She was set upon knowing at what hourof the night the lodger would come down into her kitchen to carrythrough his experiment, and, above all, she was anxious to knowhow long he would stay there.
But she had had a long and a very anxious day, and presently shefell asleep.
The church clock hard by struck two, and, suddenly Mrs. Buntingawoke. She felt put out, sharply annoyed with herself. How couldshe have dropped off like that? Mr. Sleuth must have been downand up again hours ago!
Then, gradually, she became aware that there was a faint acridodour in the room. Elusive, intangible, it yet seemed to encompassher and the snoring man by her side, almost as a vapour might havedone.
Mrs. Bunting sat up in bed and sniffed; and then, in spite of thecold, she quietly crept out of her nice, warm bedclothes, andcrawled along to the bottom of the bed. When there, Mr. Sleuth'slandlady did a very curious thing; she leaned over the brass railand put her face close to the hinge of the door giving into thehall. Yes, it was from here that this strange, horrible odor wascoming; the smell must be very strong in the passage.
As, shivering, she crept back under the bedclothes, she longed togive her sleeping husband a good shake, and in fancy she heardherself saying, "Bunting, get up! There's something strange anddreadful going on downstairs which we ought to know about."
But as she lay there, by her husband's side, listening with painfulintentness for the slightest sound, she knew very well that shewould do nothing of the sort.
What if the lodger did make a certain amount of mess--a certainamount of smell--in her nice clean kitchen? Was he not--was henot an almost perfect lodger? If they did anything to upset him,where could they ever hope to get another like him?
Three o'clock struck before Mrs. Bunting heard slow, heavy stepscreaking up the kitchen stairs. But Mr. Sleuth did not go straightup to his own quarters, as she had expected him to do. Instead, hewent to the front door, and, opening it, put on the chain. Then hecame past her door, and she thought--but could not be sure--thathe sat down on the stairs.
At the end of ten minutes or so she heard him go down the passageagain. Very softly he closed the front door. By then she haddivined why the lodger had behaved in this funny fashion. He wantedto get the strong, acrid smell of burning--was it of burning wool?--out of the house.
But Mrs. Bunting, lying there in the darkness, listening to thelodger creeping upstairs, felt as if she herself would never getrid of the horrible odour.
Mrs. Bunting felt herself to be all smell.
At last the unhappy woman fell into a deep, troubled sleep; andthen she dreamed a most terrible and unnatural dream. Hoarsevoices seemed to be shouting in her ear: "The Avenger close here!The Avenger close here!" "'Orrible murder off the Edgware Road!""The Avenger at his work again!"
And even in her dream Mrs. Bunting felt angered--angered andimpatient. She knew so well why she was being disturbed by thishorrid nightmare! It was because of Bunting--Bunting, who couldthink and talk of nothing else than those frightful murders, inwhich only morbid and vulgar-minded people took any interest.
Why, even now, in her dream, she could hear her husband speakingto her about it:
"Ellen"--so she heard Bunting murmur in her ear--"Ellen, my dear,I'm just going to get up to get a paper. It's after seven o'clock."
The shouting--nay, worse, the sound of tramping, hurrying feetsmote on her shrinking ears. Pushing back her hair off her foreheadwith both hands, she sat up and listened.
It had been no nightmare, then, but something infinitely worse--reality.
Why couldn't Bunting have lain quiet abed for awhile longer, andlet his poor wife go on dreaming? The most awful dream would havebeen easier to bear than this awakening.
She heard her husband go to the front door, and, as he bought thepaper, exchange a few excited words with the newspaper-seller. Thenhe came back. There was a pause, and she heard him lighting thegas-ring in the sitting-room.
Bunting always made his wife a cup of tea in the morning. He hadpromised to do this when they first married, and he had never yetbroken his word. It was a very little thing and a very usual thing,no doubt, for a kind husband to do, but this morning the knowledgethat he was doing it brought tears to Mrs. Bunting's pale blue eyes.This morning he seemed to be rather longer than usual over the job.
When, at last, he came in with the little tray, Bunting found hiswife lying with her face to the wall.
"Here's your tea, Ellen," he said, and there was a thrill of eager,nay happy, excitement in his voice.
She turned herself round and sat up. "Well?" she asked. "Well?Why don't you tell me about it?"
"I thought you was asleep," he stammered out. "I thought, Ellen,you never heard nothing."
"How could I have slept through all that din? Of course I heard.Why don't you tell me?"
"I've hardly had time to glance at the paper myself," he said slowly.
"You was reading it just now," she said severely, "for I heard therustling. You begun reading it before you lit the gas-ring. Don'ttell me! What was that they was shouting about the Edgware Road?"
"Well," said Bunting, "as you do know, I may as well tell you. TheAvenger's moving West--that's what he's doing. Last time 'twasKing's Cross--now 'tis the Edgware Road. I said he'd come our way,and he has come our way!"
"You just go and get me that paper," she commanded. "I wants tosee for myself."
Bunting went into the next room; then he came back and handed hersilently the odd-looking, thin little sheet.
"Why, whatever's this?" she asked. "This ain't our paper!"
"'Course not," he answered, a trifle crossly. "It's a special earlyedition of the Sun, just because of The Avenger. Here's the bitabout it"--he showed her the exact spot. But she would have foundit, even by the comparatively bad light of the gas-jet now flaringover the dressing-table, for the news was printed in large, clearcharacters:--
"Once more the murder fiend who chooses to call himself The Avengerhas escaped detection. While the whole attention of the police,and of the great army of amateur detectives who are taking aninterest in this strange series of atrocious crimes, wereconcentrating their attention round the East End and King's Cross,he moved swiftly and silently Westward. And, choosing a time whenthe Edgware Road is at its busiest and most thronged, did anotherhuman being to death with lightning-like quickness and savagery.
"Within fifty yards of the deserted warehouse yard where he hadlured his victim to destruction were passing up and down scores ofhappy, busy people, intent on their Christmas shopping. Into thatcheerful throng he must have plunged within a moment of committinghis atrocious crime. And it was only owing to the merest accidentthat the body was discovered as soon as it was--that is, justafter midnight.
"Dr. Dowtray, who was called to the spot at once, is of opinion thatthe woman had been dead at least three hours, if not four. It was atfirst thought--we were going to say, hoped--that this murder hadnothing to do with the series which is now puzzling and horrifyingthe whole of the civilised world. But no--pinned on the edge of thedead woman's dress was the usual now familiar triangular piece ofgrey paper--the grimmest visiting card ever designed by the wit ofman! And this time The Avenger has surpassed himself as regards hisaudacity and daring--so cold in its maniacal fanaticism and abhorrentwickedness."
All the time that Mrs. Bunting was reading with slow, painfulintentness, her husband was looking at her, longing, yet afraid, toburst out with a new idea which he was burning to confide even to hisEllen's unsympathetic ears.
At last, when she had quite finished, she looked up defiantly.
"Haven't you anything better to do than to stare at me like that?"she said irritably. "Murder or no murder, I've got to get up! Goaway--do!"
And Bunting went off into the next room.
After he had gone, his wife lay back and closed her eyes. She triedto think of nothing. Nay, more--so s
trong, so determined was herwill that for a few moments she actually did think of nothing. Shefelt terribly tired and weak, brain and body both quiescent, as doesa person who is recovering from a long, wearing illness.
Presently detached, puerile thoughts drifted across the surface ofher mind like little clouds across a summer sky. She wondered ifthose horrid newspaper men were allowed to shout in Belgrave Square;she wondered if, in that case, Margaret, who was so unlike herbrother-in-law, would get up and buy a paper. But no. Margaretwas not one to leave her nice warm bed for such a silly reason asthat.
Was it to-morrow Daisy was coming back? Yes--to-morrow, notto-day. Well, that was a comfort, at any rate. What amusing thingsDaisy would be able to tell about her visit to Margaret! The girlhad an excellent gift of mimicry. And Margaret, with her precise,funny ways, her perpetual talk about "the family," lent herself tothe cruel gift.
And then Mrs. Bunting's mind--her poor, weak, tired mind--wanderedoff to young Chandler. A funny thing love was, when you came tothink of it--which she, Ellen Bunting, didn't often do. There wasJoe, a likely young fellow, seeing a lot of young women, and prettyyoung women, too,--quite as pretty as Daisy, and ten times moreartful--and yet there! He passed them all by, had done so eversince last summer, though you might be sure that they, artful minxes,by no manner of means passed him by,--without giving them a thought!As Daisy wasn't here, he would probably keep away to-day. Therewas comfort in that thought, too.
And then Mrs. Bunting sat up, and memory returned in a dreadfulturgid flood. If Joe did come in, she must nerve herself to hearall that--that talk there'd be about The Avenger between him andBunting.
Slowly she dragged herself out of bed, feeling exactly as if shehad just recovered from an illness which had left her very weak,very, very tired in body and soul.
She stood for a moment listening--listening, and shivering, forit was very cold. Considering how early it still was, thereseemed a lot of coming and going in the Marylebone Road. She couldhear the unaccustomed sounds through her closed door and the tightlyfastened windows of the sitting-room. There must be a regularcrowd of men and women, on foot and in cabs, hurrying to the sceneof The Avenger's last extraordinary crime.
She heard the sudden thud made by their usual morning paper fallingfrom the letter-box on to the floor of the hall, and a moment latercame the sound of Bunting quickly, quietly going out and getting it.She visualised him coming back, and sitting down with a sigh ofsatisfaction by the newly-lit fire.
Languidly she began dressing herself to the accompaniment of distanttramping and of noise of passing traffic, which increased in volumeand in sound as the moments slipped by.
******
When Mrs. Bunting went down into her kitchen everything looked justas she had left it, and there was no trace of the acrid smell shehad expected to find there. Instead, the cavernous, whitewashedroom was full of fog, but she noticed that, though the shutters werebolted and barred as she had left them, the windows behind them hadbeen widely opened to the air. She had left them shut.
Making a "spill" out of a twist of newspaper--she had been taughtthe art as a girl by one of her old mistresses--she stooped andflung open the oven-door of her gas-stove. Yes, it was as she hadexpected, a fierce heat had been generated there since she had lastused the oven, and through to the stone floor below had fallen amass of black, gluey soot.
Mrs. Bunting took the ham and eggs that she had bought the previousday for her own and Bunting's breakfast upstairs, and broiled themover the gas-ring in their sitting-room. Her husband watched her insurprised silence. She had never done such a thing before.
"I couldn't stay down there," she said; "it was so cold and foggy.I thought I'd make breakfast up here, just for to-day."
"Yes," he said kindly; "that's quite right, Ellen. I think you'vedone quite right, my dear."
But, when it came to the point, his wife could not eat any of thenice breakfast she had got ready; she only had another cup of tea.
"I'm afraid you're ill, Ellen?" Bunting asked solicitously.
"No," she said shortly; "I'm not ill at all. Don't be silly! Thethought of that horrible thing happening so close by has upset me,and put me off my food. Just hark to them now!"
Through their closed windows penetrated the sound of scurrying feetand loud, ribald laughter. What a crowd; nay, what a mob, must behastening busily to and from the spot where there was now nothingto be seen!
Mrs. Bunting made her husband lock the front gate. "I don't wantany of those ghouls in here!" she exclaimed angrily. And then,"What a lot of idle people there are in the world!" she said.