Mr. Bunting jumped nervously to her feet. She stood for a moment
listening in the darkness, a darkness made the blacker by the line of
light under the door behind which sat Bunting reading his paper.
And then it came again, that loud, tremulous, uncertain double knock;
not a knock, so the listener told herself, that boded any good.
Would-be lodgers gave sharp, quick, bold, confident raps. No; this must
be some kind of beggar. The queerest people came at all hours, and
asked—whining or threatening—for money.
Mrs. Bunting had had some sinister experiences with men and
women—especially women—drawn from that nameless, mysterious class made
up of the human flotsam and jetsam which drifts about every great city.
But since she had taken to leaving the gas in the passage unlit at
night she had been very little troubled with that kind of visitors,
those human bats which are attracted by any kind of light but leave
alone those who live in darkness.
She opened the door of the sitting-room. It was Bunting’s place to go
to the front door, but she knew far better than he did how to deal with
difficult or obtrusive callers. Still, somehow, she would have liked
him to go to-night. But Bunting sat on, absorbed in his newspaper; all
he did at the sound of the bedroom door opening was to look up and say,
“Didn’t you hear a knock?”
Without answering his question she went out into the hall.
Slowly she opened the front door.
On the top of the three steps which led up to the door, there stood the
long, lanky figure of a man, clad in an Inverness cape and an
old-fashioned top hat. He waited for a few seconds blinking at her,
perhaps dazzled by the light of the gas in the passage. Mrs. Bunting’s
trained perception told her at once that this man, odd as he looked,
was a gentleman, belonging by birth to the class with whom her former
employment had brought her in contact.
“Is it not a fact that you let lodgings?” he asked, and there was
something shrill, unbalanced, hesitating, in his voice.
“Yes, sir,” she said uncertainly—it was a long, long time since anyone
had come after their lodgings, anyone, that is, that they could think
of taking into their respectable house.
Instinctively she stepped a little to one side, and the stranger walked
past her, and so into the hall.
And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting noticed that he held a
narrow bag in his left hand. It was quite a new bag, made of strong
brown leather.
“I am looking for some quiet rooms,” he said; then he repeated the
words, “quiet rooms,” in a dreamy, absent way, and as he uttered them
he looked nervously round him.
Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully
furnished, and was very clean.
There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger’s weary feet
fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in
colour the flock-paper on the walls.
A very superior lodging-house this, and evidently a superior
lodging-house keeper.
“You’d find my rooms quite quiet, sir,” she said gently. “And just now
I have four to let. The house is empty, save for my husband and me,
sir.”
Mrs. Bunting spoke in a civil, passionless voice. It seemed too good to
be true, this sudden coming of a possible lodger, and of a lodger who
spoke in the pleasant, courteous way and voice which recalled to the
poor woman her happy, far-off days of youth and of security.
“That sounds very suitable,” he said. “Four rooms? Well, perhaps I
ought only to take two rooms, but, still, I should like to see all four
before I make my choice.”
How fortunate, how very fortunate it was that Bunting had lit the gas!
But for that circumstance this gentleman would have passed them by.
She turned towards the staircase, quite forgetting in her agitation
that the front door was still open; and it was the stranger whom she
already in her mind described as “the lodger,” who turned and rather
quickly walked down the passage and shut it.
“Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry you should have had the
trouble.”
For a moment their eyes met. “It’s not safe to leave a front door open
in London,” he said, rather sharply. “I hope you do not often do that.
It would be so easy for anyone to slip in.”
Mrs. Bunting felt rather upset. The stranger had still spoken
courteously, but he was evidently very much put out.
“I assure you, sir, I never leave my front door open,” she answered
hastily. “You needn’t be at all afraid of that!”
And then, through the closed door of the sitting-room, came the sound
of Bunting coughing—it was just a little, hard cough, but Mrs.
Bunting’s future lodger started violently.
“Who’s that?” he said, putting out a hand and clutching her arm.
“Whatever was that?”
“Only my husband, sir. He went out to buy a paper a few minutes ago,
and the cold just caught him, I suppose.”
“Your husband—?” he looked at her intently, suspiciously. “What—what,
may I ask, is your husband’s occupation?”
Mrs. Bunting drew herself up. The question as to Bunting’s occupation
was no one’s business but theirs. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to show
offence. “He goes out waiting,” she said stiffly. “He was a gentleman’s
servant, sir. He could, of course, valet you should you require him to
do so.”
And then she turned and led the way up the steep, narrow staircase.
At the top of the first flight of stairs was what Mrs. Bunting, to
herself, called the drawing-room floor. It consisted of a sitting-room
in front, and a bedroom behind. She opened the door of the sitting-room
and quickly lit the chandelier.
This front room was pleasant enough, though perhaps a little
over-encumbered with furniture. Covering the floor was a green carpet
simulating moss; four chairs were placed round the table which occupied
the exact middle of the apartment, and in the corner, opposite the door
giving on to the landing, was a roomy, old-fashioned chiffonnier.
On the dark-green walls hung a series of eight engravings, portraits of
early Victorian belles, clad in lace and tarletan ball dresses, clipped
from an old Book of Beauty. Mrs. Bunting was very fond of these
pictures; she thought they gave the drawing-room a note of elegance and
refinement.
As she hurriedly turned up the gas she was glad, glad indeed, that she
had summoned up sufficient energy, two days ago, to give the room a
thorough turn-out.
It had remained for a long time in the state in which it had been left
by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when they had been scared into
going away by Bunting’s rough threats of the police. But now it was in
apple-pie order, with one paramount exception, of which Mrs. Bunting
was painfully aware. There were no white curtains to the windows, but
that omission could soon be remedied if this gentleman really took the
lodgings.
But what was this—? The stranger was looking round him rather
dubiously. “This is rather—rather too grand for me,” he said at last “I
should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er—”
“—Bunting,” she said softly. “Bunting, sir.”
And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again came down and
settled on her sad, burdened heart. Perhaps she had been mistaken,
after all—or rather, she had not been mistaken in one sense, but
perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman—too poor, that is, to
afford the rent of more than one room, say eight or ten shillings a
week; eight or ten shillings a week would be very little use to her and
Bunting, though better than nothing at all.
“Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?”
“No,” he said, “no. I think I should like to see what you have farther
up the house, Mrs.—,” and then, as if making a prodigious mental
effort, he brought out her name, “Bunting,” with a kind of gasp.
The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the drawing-room
floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact that they were
bare of any kind of ornament. Very little trouble had been taken over
their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same
condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.
For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel
sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a
sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was
fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. It had been the
property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over the lease
of the house, who, knowing it to be of no monetary value, had thrown it
in among the humble fittings they had left behind.
What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as
everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a
bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry that
she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.
To her surprise, however, her companion’s dark, sensitive,
hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction. “Capital!
Capital!” he exclaimed, for the first time putting down the bag he held
at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands together with a quick,
nervous movement.
“This is just what I have been looking for.” He walked with long, eager
strides towards the gas stove. “First-rate—quite first-rate! Exactly
what I wanted to find! You must understand, Mrs.—er—Bunting, that I am
a man of science. I make, that is, all sorts of experiments, and I
often require the—ah, well, the presence of great heat.”
He shot out a hand, which she noticed shook a little, towards the
stove. “This, too, will be useful—exceedingly useful, to me,” and he
touched the edge of the stone sink with a lingering, caressing touch.
He threw his head back and passed his hand over his high, bare
forehead; then, moving towards a chair, he sat down—wearily. “I’m
tired,” he muttered in a low voice, “tired—tired! I’ve been walking
about all day, Mrs. Bunting, and I could find nothing to sit down upon.
They do not put benches for tired men in the London streets. They do so
on the Continent. In some ways they are far more humane on the
Continent than they are in England, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Indeed, sir,” she said civilly; and then, after a nervous glance, she
asked the question of which the answer would mean so much to her, “Then
you mean to take my rooms, sir?”
“This room, certainly,” he said, looking round. “This room is exactly
what I have been looking for, and longing for, the last few days;” and
then hastily he added, “I mean this kind of place is what I have always
wanted to possess, Mrs. Bunting. You would be surprised if you knew how
difficult it is to get anything of the sort. But now my weary search
has ended, and that is a relief—a very, very great relief to me!”
He stood up and looked round him with a dreamy, abstracted air. And
then, “Where’s my bag?” he asked suddenly, and there came a note of
sharp, angry fear in his voice. He glared at the quiet woman standing
before him, and for a moment Mrs. Bunting felt a tremor of fright shoot
through her. It seemed a pity that Bunting was so far away, right down
the house.
But Mrs. Bunting was aware that eccentricity has always been a
perquisite, as it were the special luxury, of the well-born and of the
well-educated. Scholars, as she well knew, are never quite like other
people, and her new lodger was undoubtedly a scholar. “Surely I had a
bag when I came in?” he said in a scared, troubled voice.
“Here it is, sir,” she said soothingly, and, stooping, picked it up and
handed it to him. And as she did so she noticed that the bag was not at
all heavy; it was evidently by no means full.
He took it eagerly from her. “I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “But
there is something in that bag which is very precious to me—something I
procured with infinite difficulty, and which I could never get again
without running into great danger, Mrs. Bunting. That must be the
excuse for my late agitation.”
“About terms, sir?” she said a little timidly, returning to the subject
which meant so much, so very much to her.
“About terms?” he echoed. And then there came a pause. “My name is
Sleuth,” he said suddenly,—“S-l-e-u-t-h. Think of a hound, Mrs.
Bunting, and you’ll never forget my name. I could provide you with a
reference—” (he gave her what she described to herself as a funny,
sideways look), “but I should prefer you to dispense with that, if you
don’t mind. I am quite willing to pay you—well, shall we say a month in
advance?”
A spot of red shot into Mrs. Bunting’s cheeks. She felt sick with
relief—nay, with a joy which was almost pain. She had not known till
that moment how hungry she was—how eager for—a good meal. “That would
be all right, sir,” she murmured.
“And what are you going to charge me?” There had come a kindly, almost
a friendly note into his voice. “With attendance, mind! I shall expect
you to give me attendance, and I need hardly ask if you can cook, Mrs.
Bunting?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” she said. “I am a plain cook. What would you say to
twenty-five shillings a week, sir?” She looked at him deprecatingly,
and as he did not answer she went on falteringly, “You see, sir, it may
seem a good deal, but you would have the best of attendance and careful
cooking—and my husband, sir—he would be pleased to valet you.”
“I shouldn’t want anything of that sort done for me,” said Mr. Sleuth
hastily. “I prefer looking after my own clothes. I am used to waiting
on myself. But, Mrs. Bunting, I have a great dislike to sharing
lodgings—”
She interrupted eagerly, “I could let you have the use of the two
floors for the same price—that is, until we get another lodger. I
shouldn’t like you to sleep in the back room up here, sir. It’s such a
poor little room. You could do as you say, sir—do your work and your
experiments up here, and then have your meals in the drawing-room.”
“Yes,” he said hesitatingly, “that sounds a good plan. And if I offered
you two pounds, or two guineas? Might I then rely on your not taking
another lodger?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d be very glad only to have you to wait on,
sir.”
“I suppose you have a key to the door of this room, Mrs. Bunting? I
don’t like to be disturbed while I’m working.”
He waited a moment, and then said again, rather urgently, “I suppose
you have a key to this door, Mrs. Bunting?”
“Oh, yes, sir, there’s a key—a very nice little key. The people who
lived here before had a new kind of lock put on to the door.” She went
over, and throwing the door open, showed him that a round disk had been
fitted above the old keyhole.
He nodded his head, and then, after standing silent a little, as if
absorbed in thought, “Forty-two shillings a week? Yes, that will suit
me perfectly. And I’ll begin now by paying my first month’s rent in
advance. Now, four times forty-two shillings is”—he jerked his head
back and stared at his new landlady; for the first time he smiled, a
queer, wry smile—“why, just eight pounds eight shillings, Mrs.
Bunting!”
He thrust his hand through into an inner pocket of his long cape-like
coat and took out a handful of sovereigns. Then he began putting these
down in a row on the bare wooden table which stood in the centre of the
room. “Here’s five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten pounds. You’d better keep
the odd change, Mrs. Bunting, for I shall want you to do some shopping
for me to-morrow morning. I met with a misfortune to-day.” But the new
lodger did not speak as if his misfortune, whatever it was, weighed on
his spirits.
“Indeed, sir. I’m sorry to hear that.” Mrs. Bunting’s heart was going
thump—thump—thump. She felt extraordinarily moved, dizzy with relief
and joy.
“Yes, a very great misfortune! I lost my luggage, the few things I
managed to bring away with me.” His voice dropped suddenly. “I
shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered. “I was a fool to say that!”
Then, more loudly, “Someone said to me, ‘You can’t go into a
lodging-house without any luggage. They wouldn’t take you in.’ But
_you_ have taken me in, Mrs. Bunting, and I’m grateful for—for the kind
way you have met me—” He looked at her feelingly, appealingly, and Mrs.
Bunting was touched. She was beginning to feel very kindly towards her
new lodger.
“I hope I know a gentleman when I see one,” she said, with a break in
her staid voice.
“I shall have to see about getting some clothes to-morrow, Mrs.
Bunting.” Again he looked at her appealingly.
“I expect you’d like to wash your hands now, sir. And would you tell me
what you’d like for supper? We haven’t much in the house.”
“Oh, anything’ll do,” he said hastily. “I don’t want you to go out for
me. It’s a cold, foggy, wet night, Mrs. Bunting. If you have a little
bread-and-butter and a cup of milk I shall be quite satisfied.”
“I have a nice sausage,” she said hesitatingly.
It was a very nice sausage, and she had bought it that same morning for
Bunting’s supper; as to herself, she had been going to content herself
with a little bread and cheese. But now—wonderful, almost, intoxicating
thought—she could send Bunting out to get anything they both liked. The
ten sovereigns lay in her hand full of comfort and good cheer.
“A sausage? No, I fear that will hardly do. I never touch flesh meat,”
he said; “it is a long, long time since I tasted a sausage, Mrs.
Bunting.”
“Is it indeed, sir?” She hesitated a moment, then asked stiffly, “And
will you be requiring any beer, or wine, sir?”
A strange, wild look of lowering wrath suddenly filled Mr. Sleuth’s
pale face.
“Certainly not. I thought I had made that quite clear, Mrs. Bunting. I
had hoped to hear that you were an abstainer—”
“So I am, sir, lifelong. And so’s Bunting been since we married.” She
might have said, had she been a woman given to make such confidences,
that she had made Bunting abstain very early in their acquaintance.
That he had given in about that had been the thing that first made her
believe, that he was sincere in all the nonsense that he talked to her,
in those far-away days of his courting. Glad she was now that he had
taken the pledge as a younger man; but for that nothing would have kept
him from the drink during the bad times they had gone through.
And then, going downstairs, she showed Mr. Sleuth the nice bedroom
which opened out of the drawing-room. It was a replica of Mrs.
Bunting’s own room just underneath, excepting that everything up here
had cost just a little more, and was therefore rather better in
quality.
The new lodger looked round him with such a strange expression of
content and peace stealing over his worn face. “A haven of rest,” he
muttered; and then, “‘He bringeth them to their desired haven.’
Beautiful words, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mrs. Bunting felt a little startled. It was the first time anyone had
quoted the Bible to her for many a long day. But it seemed to set the
seal, as it were, on Mr. Sleuth’s respectability.
What a comfort it was, too, that she had to deal with only one lodger,
and that a gentleman, instead of with a married couple! Very peculiar
married couples had drifted in and out of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s
lodgings, not only here, in London, but at the seaside.
How unlucky they had been, to be sure! Since they had come to London
not a single pair of lodgers had been even moderately respectable and
kindly. The last lot had belonged to that horrible underworld of men
and women who, having, as the phrase goes, seen better days, now only
keep their heads above water with the help of petty fraud.
“I’ll bring you up some hot water in a minute, sir, and some clean
towels,” she said, going to the door.
And then Mr. Sleuth turned quickly round. “Mrs. Bunting”—and as he
spoke he stammered a little—“I—I don’t want you to interpret the word
attendance too liberally. You need not run yourself off your feet for
me. I’m accustomed to look after myself.”
And, queerly, uncomfortably, she felt herself dismissed—even a little
snubbed. “All right, sir,” she said. “I’ll only just let you know when
I’ve your supper ready.”