The Lodger (27 page)

  Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. Her friend, the
inspector, was bending over her.

  "Perhaps you'd like to come along now," he said
urgently. - "I don't suppose you want to hear the medical evidence.
It's always painful for a female to hear that. And there'll be an
awful rush when the inquest's over. I could get you away quietly
now."

  She rose, and, pulling her veil down over her pale
face, followed him obediently.

  Down the stone staircase they went, and through the
big, now empty, room downstairs.

  "I'll let you out the back way," he said. "I expect
you're tired, ma'am, and will like to get home to a cup o'
tea."

  "I don't know how to thank you!" There were tears in
her eyes. She was trembling with excitement and emotion. "You have
been good to me."

  "Oh, that's nothing," he said a little awkwardly. "I
expect you went though a pretty bad time, didn't you?"

  "Will they be having that old gentleman again?" she
spoke in a whisper, and looked up at him with a pleading, agonised
look.

  "Good Lord,' no! Crazy old fool! We're troubled with
a lot of those sort of people, you know, ma'am, and they often do
have funny names, too. You see, that sort is busy all their lives
in the City, or what not; then they retires when they gets about
sixty, and they're fit to hang themselves with dulness. Why,
there's hundreds of lunies of the sort to be met in London. You
can't go about at night and not meet 'em. Plenty of 'em!"

  "Then you don't think there was anything in what he
said?" she ventured.

  "In what that old gent said? Goodness - no!" he
laughed good-naturedly. "But I'll tell you what I do think. If it
wasn't for the time that had gone by, I should believe that the
second witness had seen that crafty devil - " he lowered his voice.
"But, there, Dr. Gaunt declares most positively - so did two other
medical gentlemen - that the poor creatures had been dead hours
when they was found. Medical gentlemen are always very positive
about their evidence. They have to be - otherwise who'd believe
'em? If we'd time I could tell you of a case in which - well, 'twas
all because of Dr. Gaunt that the murderer escaped. We all knew
perfectly well the man we caught did it, but he was able to prove
an alibi as to the time Dr. Gaunt said the poor soul was
killed.

  
I
t was not late
even now, for the inquest had begun very punctually, but Mrs.
Bunting felt that no power on earth should force her to go to
Ealing. She felt quite tired out and as if she could think of
nothing.

  Pacing along very slowly, as if she were an old, old
woman, she began listlessly turning her steps towards home. Somehow
she felt that it would do her more good to stay out in the air than
take the train. Also she would thus put off the moment - the moment
to which she looked forward with dread and dislike - when she would
have to invent a circumstantial story as to what she had said to
the doctor, and what the doctor had said to her.

  Like most men and women of his class, Bunting took a
great interest in other people's ailments, the more interest that
he was himself so remarkably healthy. He would feel quite injured
if Ellen didn't tell him everything that had happened; everything,
that is, that the doctor had told her.

  As she walked swiftly along, at every corner, or so
it seemed to her, and outside every public-house, stood eager boys
selling the latest edition of the afternoon papers to equally eager
buyers. "Avenger Inquest?" they shouted exultantly. "All the latest
evidence!" At one place, where there were a row of contents-bills
pinned to the pavement by stones, she stopped and looked down.
"Opening of the Avenger Inquest. What is he really like? Full
description." On yet another ran the ironic query: "Avenger
Inquest. Do you know him?"

  And as that facetious question stared up at her in
huge print, Mrs. Bunting turned sick - so sick and faint that she
did what she had never done before in her life - she pushed her way
into a public-house, and, putting two pennies down on the counter,
asked for, and received, a glass of cold water.

  As she walked along the now gas-lit streets, she
found her mind dwelling persistently - not on the inquest at which
she had been present, not even on The Avenger, but on his
victims.

  Shudderingly, she visualised the two cold bodies
lying in the mortuary. She seemed also to see that third body,
which, though cold, must yet be warmer than the other two, for at
this time yesterday The Avenger's last victim had been alive, poor
soul - alive and, according to a companion of hers whom the papers
had already interviewed, particularly merry and bright.

  Hitherto Mrs. Bunting had been spared in any real
sense a vision of The Avenger's victims. Now they haunted her, and
she wondered wearily if this fresh horror was to be added to the
terrible fear which encompassed her night and day.

  As she came within sight of home, her spirit
suddenly lightened. The narrow, drab-coloured little house, flanked
each side by others exactly like it in every single particular,
save that their front yards were not so well kept, looked as if it
could, aye, and would, keep any secret closely hidden.

  For a moment, at any rate, The Avenger's victims
receded from her mind. She thought of them no more. All her
thoughts were concentrated on Bunting - Bunting and Mr. Sleuth. She
wondered what had happened during her absence - whether the lodger
had rung his bell, and, if so, how he had got on with Bunting, and
Bunting with him?

  She walked up the little flagged path wearily, and
yet with a pleasant feeling of home-coming. And then she saw that
Bunting must have been watching for her behind the now closely
drawn curtains, for before she could either knock or ring he had
opened the door.

  "I was getting quite anxious about you," he
exclaimed. "Come in, Ellen, quick! You must be fair perished a day
like now - and you out so little as you are. Well? I hope you found
the doctor all right?" He looked at her with affectionate
anxiety.

  And then there came a sudden, happy thought to Mrs.
Bunting. "No," she said slowly, "Doctor Evans wasn't in. I waited,
and waited, and waited, but he never came in at all. "Twas my own
fault" she added quickly. Even at such a moment as this she told
herself that though she had, in a sort of way, a kind of right to
lie to her husband, she had no sight to slander the doctor who had
been so kind to her years ago. "I ought to have sent him a card
yesterday night," she said. "Of course, I was a fool to go all that
way, just on chance of finding a doctor in. It stands to reason
they've got to go out to people at all times of day."

  "I hope they gave you a cup of tea?" he said.

  And again she hesitated, debating a point with
herself: if the doctor had a decent sort of servant, of course,
she, Ellen Bunting, would have been offered a cup of tea,
especially if she explained she'd known him a long time.

  She compromised. "I was offered some," she said, in
a weak, tired voice. "But there, Bunting, I didn't feel as if I
wanted it. I'd be very grateful for a cup now - if you'd just make
it for me over the ring."

  "'Course I will," he said eagerly. "You just come in
and sit down, my dear. Don't trouble to take your things off now -
wait till you've had tea."

  And she obeyed him. "Where's Daisy?" she asked
suddenly. "I thought the girl would be back by the time I got
home."

  "She ain't coming home to-day" - there was an odd,
sly, smiling look on Bunting's face.

  "Did she send a telegram?" asked Mrs. Bunting.

  "No. Young Chandler's just come in and told me. He's
been over there and, - would you believe it, Ellen? - he's managed
to make friends with Margaret. Wonderful what love will do, ain't
it? He went over there just to help Daisy carry her bag back, you
know, and then Margaret told him that her lady had sent her some
money to go to the play, and she actually asked Joe to go with them
this evening - she and Daisy - to the pantomime. Did you ever hear
o' such a thing?"

  "Very nice for them, I'm sure," said Mrs. Bunting
absently. But she was pleased - pleased to have her mind taken off
herself. "Then when is that girl coming home?" she asked
patiently.

  "Well, it appears that Chandler's got to-morrow
morning off too - this evening and to-morrow morning. He'll be on
duty all night, but he proposes to go over and bring Daisy back in
time for early dinner. Will that suit you, Ellen?"

  "Yes. That'll be all right," she said. "I don't
grudge the girl her bit of pleasure. One's only young once. By the
way, did the lodger ring while I was out?"

  Bunting turned round from the gas-ring, which he was
watching to see the kettle boil. "No," he said. "Come to think of
it, it's rather a funny thing, but the truth is, Ellen, I never
gave Mr. Sleuth a thought. You see, Chandler came in and was
telling me all about Margaret, laughing-like, and then something
else happened while you was out, Ellen."

  "Something else happened?" she said in a startled
voice. Getting up from her chair she came towards her husband:
"What happened? Who came?"

  "Just a message for me, asking if I could go
to-night to wait at a young lady's birthday party. In Hanover
Terrace it is. A waiter - one of them nasty Swiss fellows as works
for nothing - fell out just at the last minute and so they had to
send for me."

  His honest face shone with triumph. The man who had
taken over his old friend's business in Baker Street had hitherto
behaved very badly to Bunting, and that though Bunting had been on
the books for ever so long, and had always given every
satisfaction. But this new man had never employed him - no, not
once.

  "I hope you didn't make yourself too cheap?" said
his wife jealously.

  "No, that I didn't! I hum'd and haw'd a lot; and I
could see the fellow was quite worried - in fact, at the end he
offered me half-a-crown more. So I graciously consented!"

  Husband and wife laughed more merrily than they had
done for a long time.

  "You won't mind being alone, here? I don't count the
lodger - he's no good - " Bunting looked at her anxiously. He was
only prompted to ask the question because lately Ellen had been so
queer, so unlike herself. Otherwise it never would have occurred to
him that she could be afraid of being alone in the house. She had
often been so in the days when he got more jobs.

  She stared at him, a little suspiciously. "I be
afraid?" she echoed. "Certainly not. Why should I be? I've never
been afraid before. What d'you exactly mean by that, Bunting?"

  "Oh, nothing. I only thought you might feel
funny-like, all alone on this ground floor. You was so upset
yesterday when that young fool Chandler came, dressed up, to the
door."

  "I shouldn't have been frightened if he'd just been
an ordinary stranger," she said shortly. "He said something silly
to me - just in keeping with his character-like, and it upset me.
Besides, I feel better now."

  As she was sipping gratefully her cup of tea, there
came a noise outside, the shouts of newspaper-sellers.

  "I'll just run out," said Bunting apologetically,
"and see what happened at that inquest to-day. Besides, they may
have a clue about the horrible affair last night. Chandler was full
of it - when he wasn't talking about Daisy and Margaret, that is.
He's on to-night, luckily not till twelve o'clock; plenty of time
to escort the two of 'em back after the play. Besides, he said
he'll put them into a cab and blow the expense, if the panto' goes
on too long for him to take 'em home."

  "On to-night?". repeated Mrs. Bunting. "Whatever
for?"

  "Well, you see, The Avenger's always done 'em in
couples, so to speak. They've got an idea that he'll have a try
again to-night. However, even so, Joe's only on from midnight till
five o'clock. Then he'll go and turn in a bit before going off to
fetch Daisy, Fine thing to be young, ain't it, Ellen?"