The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (color ebook reader txt) 📕

and his wife had often had trouble, before the cold weather began, with vagrants seeking shelter there. But tonight he stayed outside, listening intently, sick with suspense and fear.

Was it possible that their place was being watched—already? He thought it only too likely. Bunting, like Mrs. Bunting, credited the police with almost supernatural powers, especially since he had paid that visit to Scotland Yard.

But to Bunting’s amazement, and, yes, relief, it was his lodger who suddenly loomed up in the dim light.

Mr. Sleuth must have been stooping down, for his tall, lank form had been quite concealed till he stepped forward from behind the low wall on to the flagged path leading to the front door.

The lodger was carrying a brown paper parcel, and, as he walked along, the new boots he was wearing creaked, and the tap-tap of hard nail-studded heels rang out on the flat-stones of the narrow path.

Bunting, still standing outside the gate, suddenly knew what it was his lodger had been doing on the other side of the low wall. Mr. Sleuth had evidently been out to buy himself another pair of new boots, 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 had been 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 had time to get well away, upstairs.

Then he also walked up the flagged pathway, and put his latchkey in the door. He lingered as long over the job of hanging his hat and coat up in the hall as he dared, in fact till his wife called out to 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 to yourself?” 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 biting wind, that’s what did for me. It must be awful to stand about in such 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 what was 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 you out 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,” he muttered 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,” she said 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 about murders,” said her stepmother severely. “Joe won’t think any the better of you for your inquisitiveness about such things. If I was 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 that young chap to-day.”

“He didn’t come in for long—not to-day,” said Daisy, her lip trembling.

“I can tell you one thing that’ll surprise you, my dear”—Mrs. Bunting looked significantly at her stepdaughter. She also wanted to 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 that you shouldn’t be told anything about it.”

“Never!” cried Daisy, much mortified.

“Yes,” went on her stepmother ruthlessly. “You just ask your father over 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 in to have a quiet chat with friends. But the minute he comes in that poor young chap is set upon—mostly, I admit, by your father,” she looked at her husband severely. “But you does your share, too, Daisy! You asks him this, you asks him that—he’s fair puzzled sometimes. It don’t do to be so inquisitive.”

******

And perhaps because of this little sermon on Mrs. Bunting’s part when young Chandler did come in again that evening, very little was said of the new Avenger murder.

Bunting made no reference to it at all, and though Daisy said a word, it was but a word. And Joe Chandler thought he had never spent a pleasanter evening in his life—for it was he and Daisy who talked all the time, their elders remaining for the most part silent.

Daisy told of all that she had done with Aunt Margaret. She described the long, dull hours and the queer jobs her aunt set her to do—the washing up of all the fine drawing-room china in a big basin lined with flannel, and how terrified she (Daisy) had been lest there should come even one teeny little chip to any of it. Then she went on to relate some of the funny things Aunt Margaret had told her about “the family.”

There came a really comic tale, which hugely interested and delighted Chandler. This was of how Aunt Margaret’s lady had been taken in by an impostor—an impostor who had come up, just as she was stepping out of her carriage, and pretended to have a fit on the doorstep. Aunt Margaret’s lady, being a soft one, had insisted on the man coming into the hall, where he had been given all kinds of restoratives. When the man had at last gone off, it was found that he had “wolfed” young master’s best walking-stick, one with a fine tortoise-shell top to it. Thus had Aunt Margaret proved to her lady that 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 people are!”

And then he, in his turn, told an elaborate tale of an exceptionally clever swindler whom he himself had brought to book. He was very proud of that job, it had formed a white stone in his career as a detective. And even Mrs. Bunting was quite interested to hear about it.

Chandler was still sitting there when Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang. For awhile no one stirred; then Bunting looked questioningly at his wife.

“Did you hear that?” he said. “I think, Ellen, that was the lodger’s bell.”

She got up, without alacrity, and went upstairs.

“I rang,” said Mr. Sleuth weakly, “to tell you I don’t require any supper tonight, Mrs. Bunting. Only a glass of milk, with a lump of sugar in it. That is all I require—nothing more. I feel very very far from well”—and he had a hunted, plaintive expression on his face. “And then I thought your husband would like his paper back again, Mrs. Bunting.”

Mrs. Bunting, looking at him fixedly, with a sad intensity of gaze of which she was quite 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 paper by now, sir. You may have heard them come shouting outside. Would you like me to bring you up that other paper, sir?”

And Mr. Sleuth shook his head. “No,” he said querulously. “I much regret now having asked for the one paper I did read, for it disturbed me, Mrs. Bunting. There was nothing of any value in it— there never is in any public print. I gave up reading newspapers years 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 more conversation, the lodger then did what he had never done before in his landlady’s presence. He went over to the fireplace and deliberately turned his back on her.

She went down and brought up the glass of milk and the lump of sugar he had asked for.

Now he was in his usual place, sitting at the table, studying the Book.

When Mrs. Bunting went back to the others they were chatting merrily. She did not notice that the merriment was confined to the two young people.

“Well?” said Daisy pertly. “How about the lodger, Ellen? Is he all right?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “Of course he is!”

“He must feel pretty dull sitting up there all by himself—awful lonely-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, shortly and 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 peal of amusement.

“There’s nothing to laugh at,” said Mrs. Bunting sharply. “I should feel ashamed of being caught laughing at anything connected with the Bible.”

And poor Joe became suddenly quite serious. This was the first time that Mrs. Bunting had ever spoken really nastily to him, and he answered very humbly, “I beg pardon. I know I oughtn’t to have laughed at anything to do with the Bible, but you see, Miss Daisy said it so funny-like, and, by all accounts, your lodger must be a queer 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.