CHAPTER XXIII
All afternoon it went on snowing; and the three of them sat there,listening and waiting--Bunting and his wife hardly knew for what;Daisy for the knock which would herald Joe Chandler.
And about four there came the now familiar sound.
Mrs. Bunting hurried out into the passage, and as she opened thefront door she whispered, "We haven't said anything to Daisy yet.Young girls can't keep secrets."
Chandler nodded comprehendingly. He now looked the low characterhe had assumed to the life, for he was blue with cold, disheartened,and tired out.
Daisy gave a little cry of shocked surprise, of amusement, ofwelcome, when she saw how cleverly he was disguised.
"I never!" she exclaimed. "What a difference it do make, to besure! Why, you looks quite horrid, Mr. Chandler."
And, somehow, that little speech of hers amused her father so muchthat he quite cheered up. Bunting had been very dull and quietall that afternoon.
"It won't take me ten minutes to make myself respectable again,"said the young man rather ruefully.
His host and hostess, looking at him eagerly, furtively, both cameto the conclusion that he had been unsuccessful--that he had failed,that is, in getting any information worth having. And though, in asense, they all had a pleasant tea together, there was an air ofconstraint, even of discomfort, over the little party.
Bunting felt it hard that he couldn't ask the questions that weretrembling on his lips; he would have felt it hard any time duringthe last month to refrain from knowing anything Joe could tell him,but now it seemed almost intolerable to be in this queer kind ofhalf suspense. There was one important fact he longed to know,and at last came his opportunity of doing so, for Joe Chandler roseto leave, and this time it was Bunting who followed him out intothe hall.
"Where did it happen?" he whispered. "Just tell me that, Joe?"
"Primrose Hill," said the other briefly. "You'll know all about itin a minute or two, for it'll be all in the last editions of theevening papers. That's what's been arranged."
"No arrest I suppose?"
Chandler shook his head despondently. "No," he said, "I'm inclinedto think the Yard was on a wrong tack altogether this time. But onecan only do one's best. I don't know if Mrs. Bunting told you I'dgot to question a barmaid about a man who was in her place justbefore closing-time. Well, she's said all she knew, and it's asclear as daylight to me that the eccentric old gent she talks aboutwas only a harmless luny. He gave her a sovereign just because shetold him she was a teetotaller!" He laughed ruefully.
Even Bunting was diverted at the notion. "Well, that's a queerthing for a barmaid to be!" he exclaimed. "She's niece to the peoplewhat keeps the public," explained Chandler; and then he went out ofthe front door with a cheerful "So long!"
When Bunting went back into the sitting-room Daisy had disappeared.She had gone downstairs with the tray. "Where's my girl?" he saidirritably.
"She's just taken the tray downstairs."
He went out to the top of the kitchen stairs, and called out sharply,"Daisy! Daisy, child! Are you down there?"
"Yes, father," came her eager, happy voice.
"Better come up out of that cold kitchen."
He turned and came back to his wife. "Ellen, is the lodger in? Ihaven't heard him moving about. Now mind what I says, please! Idon't want Daisy to be mixed up with him."
"Mr. Sleuth don't seem very well to-day," answered Mrs. Buntingquietly. "'Tain't likely I should let Daisy have anything to dowith him. Why, she's never even seen him. 'Tain't likely I shouldallow her to begin waiting on him now."
But though she was surprised and a little irritated by the tone inwhich Bunting had spoken, no glimmer of the truth illumined her mind.So accustomed had she become to bearing alone the burden of her awfulsecret, that it would have required far more than a cross word ortwo, far more than the fact that Bunting looked ill and tired, forher to have come to suspect that her secret was now shared by another,and that other her husband.
Again and again the poor soul had agonised and trembled at thethought of her house being invaded by the police, but that was onlybecause she had always credited the police with supernatural powersof detection. That they should come to know the awful fact she kepthidden in her breast would have seemed to her, on the whole, anatural thing, but that Bunting should even dimly suspect it appearedbeyond the range of possibility.
And yet even Daisy noticed a change in her father. He sat coweringover the fire--saying nothing, doing nothing.
"Why, father, ain't you well?" the girl asked more than once.
And, looking up, he would answer, "Yes, I'm well enough, my girl,but I feels cold. It's awful cold. I never did feel anything likethe cold we've got just now."
* * *
At eight the now familiar shouts and cries began again outside.
"The Avenger again!" "Another horrible crime!" "Extra speshuledition!"--such were the shouts, the exultant yells, hurled throughthe clear, cold air. They fell, like bombs into the quiet room.
Both Bunting and his wife remained silent, but Daisy's cheeks grewpink with excitement, and her eye sparkled.
"Hark, father! Hark, Ellen! D'you hear that?" she exclaimedchildishly, and even clapped her hands. "I do wish Mr. Chandlerhad been here. He would 'a been startled!"
"Don't, Daisy!" and Bunting frowned.
Then, getting up, he stretched himself. "It's fair getting on mymind," he said, "these horrible things happening. I'd like to getright away from London, just as far as I could--that I would!"
"Up to John-o'-Groat's?" said Daisy, laughing. And then, "Why,father, ain't you going out to get a paper?"
"Yes, I suppose I must."
Slowly he went out of the room, and, lingering a moment in the hall,he put on his greatcoat and hat. Then he opened the front door,and walked down the flagged path. Opening the iron gate, he steppedout on the pavement, then crossed the road to where the newspaper-boysnow stood.
The boy nearest to him only had the Sun--a late edition of the paperhe had already read. It annoyed Bunting to give a penny for aha'penny rag of which he already knew the main contents. But therewas nothing else to do.
Standing under a lamp-post, he opened out the newspaper. It wasbitingly cold; that, perhaps, was why his hand shook as he lookeddown at the big headlines. For Bunting had been very unfair to theenterprise of the editor of his favourite evening paper. Thisspecial edition was full of new matter--new matter concerningThe Avenger.
First, in huge type right across the page, was the brief statementthat The Avenger had now committed his ninth crime, and that he hadchosen quite a new locality, namely, the lonely stretch of risingground known to Londoners as Primrose Hill.
"The police," so Bunting read, "are very reserved as to thecircumstances which led to the finding of the body of The Avenger'slatest victim. But we have reason to believe that they possessseveral really important clues, and that one of them is concernedwith the half-worn rubber sole of which we are the first to reproducean outline to-day. (See over page.)"
And Bunting, turning the sheet round about, saw the irregular outlinehe had already seen in the early edition of the Sun, that purportingto be a facsimile of the imprint left by The Avenger's rubber sole.
He stared down at the rough outline which took up so much of thespace which should have been devoted to reading matter with a queer,sinking feeling of terrified alarm. Again and again criminals hadbeen tracked by the marks their boots or shoes had made at or nearthe scenes of their misdoings.
Practically the only job Bunting did in his own house of a menialkind was the cleaning of the boots and shoes. He had alreadyvisualised early this very afternoon the little row with which hedealt each morning--first came his wife's strong, serviceableboots, then his own two pairs, a good deal patched and mended, andnext to his own Mr. Sleuth's strong, hardly worn, and expensivebuttoned boots. Of late a dear little coquettish high-heeled pairof outdoor shoes with thin, paperlike soles, bought by Daisy
forher trip to London, had ended the row. The girl had worn thesethin shoes persistently, in defiance of Ellen's reproof and advice,and he, Bunting, had only once had to clean her more sensiblecountry pair, and that only because the others had become wet thoughthe day he and she had accompanied young Chandler to Scotland Yard.
Slowly he returned across the road. Somehow the thought of goingin again, of hearing his wife's sarcastic comments, of parryingDaisy's eager questions, had become intolerable. So he walkedslowly, trying to put off the evil moment when he would have to tellthem what was in his paper.
The lamp under which he had stood reading was not exactly oppositethe house. It was rather to the right of it. And when, havingcrossed over the roadway, he walked along the pavement towards hisown gate, he heard odd, shuffling sounds coming from the inner sideof the low wall which shut off his little courtyard from the pavement.
Now, under ordinary circumstances Bunting would have rushed forwardto drive out whoever was there. He and his wife had often hadtrouble, before the cold weather began, with vagrants seeking shelterthere. But to-night he stayed outside, listening intently, sickwith suspense and fear.
Was it possible that their place was being watched--already? Hethought it only too likely. Bunting, like Mrs. Bunting, creditedthe police with almost supernatural powers, especially since hehad paid that visit to Scotland Yard.
But to Bunting's amazement, and, yes, relief, it was his lodger whosuddenly loomed up in the dim light.
Mr. Sleuth must have been stooping down, for his tall, lank formhad been quite concealed till he stepped forward from behind thelow wall on to the flagged path leading to the front door.
The lodger was carrying a brown paper parcel, and, as he walkedalong, the new boots he was wearing creaked, and the tap-tap ofhard nail-studded heels rang out on the flat-stones of the narrowpath.
Bunting, still standing outside the gate, suddenly knew what it washis lodger had been doing on the other side of the low wall. Mr.Sleuth had evidently been out to buy himself another pair of newboots, and then he had gone inside the gate and had put them on,placing his old footgear in the paper in which the new pair hadbeen wrapped.
The ex-butler waited--waited quite a long time, not only until Mr.Sleuth had let himself into the house, but till the lodger had hadtime to get well away, upstairs.
Then he also walked up the flagged pathway, and put his latchkey inthe door. He lingered as long over the job of hanging his hat andcoat up in the hall as he dared, in fact till his wife called outto him. Then he went in, and throwing the paper down on the table,he said sullenly: "There it is! You can see it all for yourself--not that there's very much to see," and groped his way to the fire.
His wife looked at him in sharp alarm. "Whatever have you done toyourself?" she exclaimed. "You're ill--that's what it is, Bunting.You got a chill last night!"
"I told you I'd got a chill," he muttered. "'Twasn't last night,though; 'twas going out this morning, coming back in the bus.Margaret keeps that housekeeper's room o' hers like a hothouse--that's what she does. 'Twas going out from there into the bitingwind, that's what did for me. It must be awful to stand about insuch weather; 'tis a wonder to me how that young fellow, Joe Chandler,can stand the life--being out in all weathers like he is."
Bunting spoke at random, his one anxiety being to get away from whatwas in the paper, which now lay, neglected, on the table.
"Those that keep out o' doors all day never do come to no harm,"said his wife testily. "But if you felt so bad, whatever was youout so long for, Bunting? I thought you'd gone away somewhere!D'you mean you only went to get the paper?"
"I just stopped for a second to look at it under the lamp," hemuttered apologetically.
"That was a silly thing to do!"
"Perhaps it was," he admitted meekly.
Daisy had taken up the paper. "Well, they don't say much," shesaid disappointedly. "Hardly anything at all! But perhaps Mr.Chandler 'll be in soon again. If so, he'll tell us more about it."
"A young girl like you oughtn't to want to know anything aboutmurders," said her stepmother severely. "Joe won't think any thebetter of you for your inquisitiveness about such things. If Iwas you, Daisy, I shouldn't say nothing about it if he does come in--which I fair tell you I hope he won't. I've seen enough of thatyoung chap to-day."
"He didn't come in for long--not to-day," said Daisy, her liptrembling.
"I can tell you one thing that'll surprise you, my dear"--Mrs.Bunting looked significantly at her stepdaughter. She also wantedto get away from that dread news--which yet was no news.
"Yes?" said Daisy, rather defiantly. "What is it, Ellen?"
"Maybe you'll be surprised to hear that Joe did come in this morning.He knew all about that affair then, but he particular asked thatyou shouldn't be told anything about it."
"Never!" cried Daisy, much mortified.
"Yes," went on her stepmother ruthlessly. "You just ask your fatherover there if it isn't true."
"'Tain't a healthy thing to speak overmuch about such happenings,"said Bunting heavily.
"If I was Joe," went on Mrs. Bunting, quickly pursuing her advantage,"I shouldn't want to talk about such horrid things when I comes into have a quiet chat with friends. But the minute he comes in thatpoor young chap is set upon--mostly, I admit, by your father," shelooked at her husband severely. "But you does your share, too,Daisy! You asks him this, you asks him that--he's fair puzzledsometimes. It don't do to be so inquisitive."
******
And perhaps because of this little sermon on Mrs. Bunting's partwhen young Chandler did come in again that evening, very little wassaid of the new Avenger murder.
Bunting made no reference to it at all, and though Daisy said aword, it was but a word. And Joe Chandler thought he had neverspent a pleasanter evening in his life--for it was he and Daisywho talked all the time, their elders remaining for the most partsilent.
Daisy told of all that she had done with Aunt Margaret. Shedescribed the long, dull hours and the queer jobs her aunt set herto do--the washing up of all the fine drawing-room china in a bigbasin lined with flannel, and how terrified she (Daisy) had beenlest there should come even one teeny little chip to any of it.Then she went on to relate some of the funny things Aunt Margarethad told her about "the family."
There came a really comic tale, which hugely interested and delightedChandler. This was of how Aunt Margaret's lady had been taken in byan impostor--an impostor who had come up, just as she was steppingout of her carriage, and pretended to have a fit on the doorstep.Aunt Margaret's lady, being a soft one, had insisted on the mancoming into the hall, where he had been given all kinds ofrestoratives. When the man had at last gone off, it was found thathe had "wolfed" young master's best walking-stick, one with a finetortoise-shell top to it. Thus had Aunt Margaret proved to her ladythat the man had been shamming, and her lady had been very angry--near had a fit herself!
"There's a lot of that about," said Chandler, laughing."Incorrigible rogues and vagabonds--that's what those sort of peopleare!"
And then he, in his turn, told an elaborate tale of an exceptionallyclever swindler whom he himself had brought to book. He was veryproud of that job, it had formed a white stone in his career as adetective. And even Mrs. Bunting was quite interested to hear aboutit.
Chandler was still sitting there when Mr. Sleuth's bell rang. Forawhile no one stirred; then Bunting looked questioningly at his wife.
"Did you hear that?" he said. "I think, Ellen, that was the lodger'sbell."
She got up, without alacrity, and went upstairs.
"I rang," said Mr. Sleuth weakly, "to tell you I don't require anysupper to-night, Mrs. Bunting. Only a glass of milk, with a lumpof sugar in it. That is all I require--nothing more. I feel veryvery far from well"--and he had a hunted, plaintive expression onhis face. "And then I thought your husband would like his paperback again, Mrs. Bunting."
Mrs. Bunting, looking at him fixedly, with a sad intensity of gazeof which she was quit
e unconscious, answered, "Oh, no, sir!Bunting don't require that paper now. He read it all through."Something impelled her to add, ruthlessly, "He's got another paperby now, sir. You may have heard them come shouting outside. Wouldyou like me to bring you up that other paper, sir?"
And Mr. Sleuth shook his head. "No," he said querulously. "I muchregret now having asked for the one paper I did read, for itdisturbed me, Mrs. Bunting. There was nothing of any value in it--there never is in any public print. I gave up reading newspapersyears ago, and I much regret that I broke though my rule to-day."
As if to indicate to her that he did not wish for any moreconversation, the lodger then did what he had never done before inhis landlady's presence. He went over to the fireplace anddeliberately turned his back on her.
She went down and brought up the glass of milk and the lump ofsugar he had asked for.
Now he was in his usual place, sitting at the table, studying theBook.
When Mrs. Bunting went back to the others they were chattingmerrily. She did not notice that the merriment was confined to thetwo young people.
"Well?" said Daisy pertly. "How about the lodger, Ellen? Is heall right?"
"Yes," she said stiffly. "Of course he is!"
"He must feel pretty dull sitting up there all by himself--awfullonely-like, I call it," said the girl.
But her, stepmother remained silent.
"Whatever does he do with himself all day?" persisted Daisy.
"Just now he's reading the Bible," Mrs. Bunting answered, shortlyand dryly.
"Well, I never! That's a funny thing for a gentleman to do!"
And Joe, alone of her three listeners, laughed--a long hearty pealof amusement.
"There's nothing to laugh at," said Mrs. Bunting sharply. "I shouldfeel ashamed of being caught laughing at anything connected with theBible."
And poor Joe became suddenly quite serious. This was the first timethat Mrs. Bunting had ever spoken really nastily to him, and heanswered very humbly, "I beg pardon. I know I oughtn't to havelaughed at anything to do with the Bible, but you see, Miss Daisysaid it so funny-like, and, by all accounts, your lodger must be aqueer card, Mrs. Bunting."
"He's no queerer than many people I could mention," she said quickly;and with these enigmatic words she got up, and left the room.