"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-sh.e.l.l 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 to-night, Mrs. Bunting. Only a gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"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.

CHAPTER XXIV

Each hour of the days that followed held for Bunting its full meed of aching fear and suspense.

The unhappy man was ever debating within himself what course he should pursue, and, according to his mood and to the state of his mind at any particular moment, he would waver between various widely-differing lines of action.

He told himself again and again, and with fretful unease, that the most awful thing about it all was that he wasn't sure. If only he could have been sure, he might have made up his mind exactly what it was he ought to do.

But when telling himself this he was deceiving himself, and he was vaguely conscious of the fact; for, from Bunting's point of view, almost any alternative would have been preferable to that which to some, nay, perhaps to most, householders would have seemed the only thing to do, namely, to go to the police. But Londoners of Bunting's cla.s.s have an uneasy fear of the law. To his mind it would be ruin for him and for his Ellen to be mixed up publicly in such a terrible affair. No one concerned in the business would give them and their future a thought, but it would track them to their dying day, and, above all, it would make it quite impossible for them ever to get again into a good joint situation. It was that for which Bunting, in his secret soul, now longed with all his heart.

No, some other way than going to the police must be found--and he racked his slow brain to find it.

The worst of it was that every hour that went by made his future course more difficult and more delicate, and increased the awful weight on his conscience.

If only he really knew! If only he could feel quite sure! And then he would tell himself that, after all, he had very little to go upon; only suspicion--suspicion, and a secret, horrible certainty that his suspicion was justified.

And so at last Bunting began to long for a solution which he knew to be indefensible from every point of view; he began to hope, that is, in the depths of his heart, that the lodger would again go out one evening on his horrible business and be caught--red-handed.

But far from going out on any business, horrible or other, Mr.

Sleuth now never went out at all. He kept upstairs, and often spent quite a considerable part of his day in bed. He still felt, so he a.s.sured Mrs. Bunting, very far from well. He had never thrown off the chill he had caught on that bitter night he and his landlord had met on their several ways home.