The Lodger (28 page)

  "I can't believe that he'd go out on such a night as
this!"

  "What do you mean?" said Bunting, staring at her.
Ellen had spoken so oddly, as if to herself, and in so fierce and
passionate a tone.

  "What do I mean?" she repeated - and a great fear
clutched at her heart. What had she said? She had been thinking
aloud.

  "Why, by saying he won't go out. Of course, he has
to go out. Besides, he'll have been to the play as it is. 'Twould
be a pretty thing if the police didn't go out, just because it was
cold!"

  "I - I was thinking of The Avenger," said Mrs.
Bunting. She looked at her husband fixedly. Somehow she had felt
impelled to utter those true words.

  "He don't take no heed of heat nor cold," said
Bunting sombrely. "I take it the man's dead to all human feeling -
-saving, of course, revenge.

  "So that's your idea about him, is it?" She looked
across at her husband. Somehow this dangerous, this perilous
conversation between them attracted her strangely. She felt as if
she must go on with it. "D'you think he was the man that woman said
she saw? That young man what passed her with a newspaper
parcel?"

  "Let me see," he said slowly. "I thought that 'twas
from the bedroom window a woman saw him?"

  "No, no. I mean the other woman, what was taking her
husband's breakfast to him in the warehouse. She was far the most
respectable-looking woman of the two," said Mrs. Bunting
impatiently.

  And then, seeing her husband's look of utter, blank
astonishment, she felt a thrill of unreasoning terror. She must
have gone suddenly mad to have said what she did! Hurriedly she got
up from her chair. "There, now," she said; "here I am gossiping all
about nothing when I ought to be seeing about the lodger's supper.
It was someone in the train talked to me about that person as
thinks she saw The Avenger."

  Without waiting for an answer, she went into her
bedroom, lit the gas, and shut the door. A moment later she heard
Bunting go out to buy the paper they had both forgotten during
their dangerous discussion.

  As she slowly, languidly took off her nice, warm
coat and shawl, Mrs. Bunting found herself shivering. It was
dreadfully cold, quite unnaturally cold even for the time of
year.

  She looked longingly towards the fireplace. It was
now concealed by the washhand-stand, but how pleasant it would be
to drag that stand aside and light a bit of fire, especially as
Bunting was going to be out to-night. He would have to put on his
dress clothes, and she didn't like his dressing in the
sitting-room. It didn't suit her ideas that he should do so. How if
she did light the fire here, in their bedroom? It would be nice for
her to have bit of fire to cheer her up after he had gone.

  Mrs. Bunting knew only too well that she would have
very little sleep the coming night. She looked over, with
shuddering distaste, at her nice, soft bed. There she would lie, on
that couch of little ease, listening - listening.. ..

  She went down to the kitchen. Everything was ready
for Mr. Sleuth's supper, for she had made all her preparations
before going out so as not to have to hurry back before it suited
her to do so.

  Leaning the tray for a moment on the top of the
banisters, she listened. Even in that nice warm drawing-room, and
with a good fire, how cold the lodger must feel sitting studying at
the table! But unwonted sounds were coming through the door. Mr.
Sleuth was moving restlessly about the room, not sitting reading,
as was his wont at this time of the evening.

  She knocked, and then waited a moment.

  There came the sound of a sharp click, that of the
key turning in the lock of the chiffonnier cupboard - or so Mr.
Sleuth's landlady could have sworn.

  There was a pause - she knocked again.

  "Come in," said Mr. Sleuth loudly, and she opened
the door and carried in the tray.

  "You are a little earlier than usual, are you not
Mrs. Bunting?" he said, with a touch of irritation in his
voice.

  "I don't think so, sir, but I've been out. Perhaps I
lost count of the time. I thought you'd like your breakfast early,
as you had dinner rather sooner than usual."

  "Breakfast? Did you say breakfast, Mrs.
Bunting?"

  "I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure! I meant supper."
He looked at her fixedly. It seemed to Mrs. Bunting that there was
a terrible questioning look in his dark, sunken eyes.

  "Aren't you well?" he said slowly. "You don't look
well, Mrs. Bunting."

  "No, sir," she said. "I'm not well. I went over to
see a doctor this afternoon, to Ealing, sir."

  "I hope he did you good, Mrs. Bunting" - the
lodger's voice had become softer, kinder in quality.

  "It always does me good to see the doctor," said
Mrs. Bunting evasively.

  And then a very odd smile lit up Mr. Sleuth's face.
"Doctors are a maligned body of men," he said. "I'm glad to hear
you speak well of them. They do their best, Mrs. Bunting. Being
human they are liable to err, but I assure you they do their
best."

  "That I'm sure they do, sir " - she spoke heartily,
sincerely. Doctors had always treated her most kindly, and even
generously.

  And then, having laid the cloth, and put the
lodger's one hot dish upon it, she went towards the door. "Wouldn't
you like me to bring up another scuttleful of coals, sir? it's
bitterly cold - getting colder every minute. A fearful night to
have to go out in - " she looked at him deprecatingly.

  And then Mr. Sleuth did something which startled her
very much. Pushing his chair back, he jumped up and drew himself to
his full height.

  "What d'you mean?" he stammered. "Why did you say
that, Mrs. Bunting?"

  She stared at him, fascinated, affrighted. Again
there came an awful questioning look over his face.

  "I was thinking of Bunting, sir. He's got a job
to-night. He's going to act as waiter at a young lady's birthday
party. I was thinking it's a pity he has to turn out, and in his
thin clothes, too" - she brought out her words jerkily.

  Mr. Sleuth seemed somewhat reassured, and again he
sat down. "Ah!" he said. "Dear me - I'm sorry to hear that! I hope
your husband will not catch cold, Mrs. Bunting."

  And then she shut the door, and went downstairs.

***

  Without telling Bunting what she meant to do, she
dragged the heavy washhand-stand away from the chimneypiece, and
lighted the fire.

  Then in some triumph she called Bunting in.

  "Time for you to dress," she cried out cheerfully,
"and I've got a little bit of fire for you to dress by."

  As he exclaimed at her extravagance, "Well, 'twill
be pleasant for me, too; keep me company-like while you're out; and
make the room nice and warm when you come in. You'll be fair
perished, even walking that short way," she said.

  And then, while her husband was dressing, Mrs.
Bunting went upstairs and cleared away Mr. Sleuth's supper.

  The lodger said no word while she was so engaged -
no word at all.

  He was sitting away from the table, rather an
unusual thing for him to do, and staring into the fire, his hands
on his knees.

  Mr. Sleuth looked lonely, very, very lonely and
forlorn. Somehow, a great rush of pity, as well as of horror, came
over Mrs. Bunting's heart. He was such a - a - she searched for a
word in her mind, but could only find the word "gentle " - he was
such a nice, gentle gentleman, was Mr. Sleuth. Lately he had again
taken to leaving his money about, as he had done the first day or
two, and with some concern his landlady had seen that the store had
diminished a good deal. A very simple calculation had made her
realise that almost the whole of that missing money had come her
way, or, at any rate, had passed through her hands.

  Mr. Sleuth never stinted himself as to food, or
stinted them, his landlord and his landlady, as to what he had said
he would pay. And Mrs. Bunting's conscience pricked her a little,
for he hardly ever used that room upstairs - that room for which he
had paid extra so generously. If Bunting got another job or two
through that nasty man in Baker Street, - and now that the ice had
been broken between them it was very probable that he would do so,
for he was a very well-trained, experienced waiter - then she
thought she would tell Mr. Sleuth that she no longer wanted him to
pay as much as he was now doing.

  She looked anxiously, deprecatingly, at his long,
bent back.

  "Good-night, sir," she said at last.

  Mr. Sleuth turned round. His face looked sad and
worn.

  "I hope you'll sleep well, sir."

  "Yes, I'm sure I shall sleep well. But perhaps I
shall take a little turn first. Such is my way, Mrs. Bunting; after
I have been studying all day I require a little exercise."

  "Oh, I wouldn't go out to-night," she said
deprecatingly. "'Tisn't fit for anyone to be out in the bitter
cold."

  "And yet - and yet" - he looked at her attentively -
"there will probably be many people out in the streets
to-night."

  "A many more than usual, I fear, sir."

  "Indeed?" said Mr. Sleuth quickly. "Is it not a
strange thing, Mrs. Bunting, that people who have all day in which
to amuse themselves should carry their revels far into the
night?"

  "Oh, I wasn't thinking of revellers, sir; I was
thinking" - she hesitated, then, with a gasping effort Mrs. Bunting
brought out the words, "of the police."

  "The police?" He put up his right hand and stroked
his chin two or three times with a nervous gesture. "But what is
man - what is man's puny power or strength against that of God, or
even of those over whose feet God has set a guard?"

  Mr. Sleuth looked at his landlady with a kind of
triumph lighting up his face, and Mrs. Bunting felt a shuddering
sense of relief. Then she had not offended her lodger? She had not
made him angry by that, that - was it a hint she had meant to
convey to him?

  "Very true, sir," she said respectfully. "But
Providence means us to take care o' ourselves too." And then she
closed the door behind her and went downstairs.

  But Mr. Sleuth's landlady did not go on, down to the
kitchen. She came into her sitting-room, and, careless of what
Bunting would think the next morning, put the tray with the remains
of the lodger's meal on her table. Having done that, and having
turned out the gas in the passage and the sitting-room, she went
into her bedroom and closed the door.

  The fire was burning brightly and clearly. She told
herself that she did not need any other light to undress by.

  What was it made the flames of the fire shoot up,
shoot down, in that queer way? But watching it for awhile, she did
at last doze off a bit.

  And then - and then Mrs. Bunting woke with a sudden
thumping of her heart. Woke to see that the fire was almost out -
woke to hear a quarter to twelve chime out - woke at last to the
sound she had been listening for before she fell asleep - the sound
of Mr. Sleuth, wearing his rubber-soled shoes, creeping downstairs,
along the passage, and so out, very, very quietly by the front
door.

  But once she was in bed Mrs. Bunting turned
restless. She tossed this way and that, full of discomfort and
unease. Perhaps it was the unaccustomed firelight dancing on the
walls, making queer shadows all round her, which kept her so wide
awake.

  She lay thinking and listening - listening and
thinking. It even occurred to her to do the one thing that might
have quieted her excited brain - to get a book, one of those
detective stories of which Bunting had a slender store in the next
room, and then, lighting the gas, to sit up and read.

  No, Mrs. Bunting had always been told it was very
wrong to read in bed, and she was not in a mood just now to begin
doing anything that she had been told was wrong.. ..