Just as twelve was striking a four-wheeler drew up to the gate.
It brought Daisy—pink-cheeked, excited, laughing-eyed Daisy—a sight to
gladden any father’s heart.
“Old Aunt said I was to have a cab if the weather was bad,” she cried
out joyously.
There was a bit of a wrangle over the fare. King’s Cross, as all the
world knows, is nothing like two miles from the Marylebone Road, but
the man clamoured for one and sixpence, and hinted darkly that he had
done the young lady a favour in bringing her at all.
While he and Bunting were having words, Daisy, leaving them to it,
walked up the flagged path to the door where her stepmother was
awaiting her.
As they were exchanging a rather frigid kiss, indeed, ’twas a mere peck
on Mrs. Bunting’s part, there fell, with startling suddenness, loud
cries on the still, cold air. Long-drawn and wailing, they sounded
strangely sad as they rose and fell across the distant roar of traffic
in the Edgware Road.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Bunting wonderingly. “Why, whatever’s that?”
The cabman lowered his voice. “Them’s ’a-crying out that ’orrible
affair at King’s Cross. He’s done for two of ’em this time! That’s what
I meant when I said I might ’a got a better fare. I wouldn’t say
nothink before little missy there, but folk ’ave been coming from all
over London the last five or six hours; plenty of toffs, too—but there,
there’s nothing to see now!”
“What? Another woman murdered last night?”
Bunting felt tremendously thrilled. What had the five thousand
constables been about to let such a dreadful thing happen?
The cabman stared at him, surprised. “Two of ’em, I tell yer—within a
few yards of one another. He ’ave—got a nerve—But, of course, they was
drunk. He are got a down on the drink!”
“Have they caught him?” asked Bunting perfunctorily.
“Lord, no! They’ll never catch ’im! It must ’ave happened hours and
hours ago—they was both stone cold. One each end of a little passage
what ain’t used no more. That’s why they didn’t find ’em before.”
The hoarse cries were coming nearer and nearer—two news vendors trying
to outshout each other.
“’Orrible discovery near King’s Cross!” they yelled exultingly. “The
Avenger again!”
And Bunting, with his daughter’s large straw hold-all in his hand, ran
forward into the roadway and recklessly gave a boy a penny for a
halfpenny paper.
He felt very much moved and excited. Somehow his acquaintance with
young Joe Chandler made these murders seem a personal affair. He hoped
that Chandler would come in soon and tell them all about it, as he had
done yesterday morning when he, Bunting, had unluckily been out.
As he walked back into the little hall, he heard Daisy’s voice—high,
voluble, excited—giving her stepmother a long account of the scarlet
fever case, and how at first Old Aunt’s neighbours had thought it was
not scarlet fever at all, but just nettlerash.
But as Bunting pushed open the door of the sitting-room, there came a
note of sharp alarm in his daughter’s voice, and he heard her cry,
“Why, Ellen, whatever is the matter? You _do_ look bad!” and his wife’s
muffled answer, “Open the window—do.”
“’Orrible discovery near King’s Cross—a clue at last!” yelled the
newspaper-boys triumphantly.
And then, helplessly, Mrs. Bunting began to laugh. She laughed, and
laughed, and laughed, rocking herself to and fro as if in an ecstasy of
mirth.
“Why, father, whatever’s the matter with her?”
Daisy looked quite scared.
“She’s in ’sterics—that’s what it is,” he said shortly. “I’ll just get
the water-jug. Wait a minute!”
Bunting felt very put out. Ellen was ridiculous—that’s what she was, to
be so easily upset.
The lodger’s bell suddenly pealed through the quiet house. Either that
sound, or maybe the threat of the water-jug, had a magical effect on
Mrs. Bunting. She rose to her feet, still shaking all over, but
mentally composed.
“I’ll go up,” she said a little chokingly. “As for you, child, just run
down into the kitchen. You’ll find a piece of pork roasting in the
oven. You might start paring the apples for the sauce.”
As Mrs. Bunting went upstairs her legs felt as if they were made of
cotton wool. She put out a trembling hand, and clutched at the banister
for support. But soon, making a great effort over herself, she began to
feel more steady; and after waiting for a few moments on the landing,
she knocked at the door of the drawing-room.
Mr. Sleuth’s voice answered her from the bedroom. “I’m not well,” he
called out querulously; “I think I’ve caught a chill. I should be
obliged if you would kindly bring me up a cup of tea, and put it
outside my door, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Very well, sir.”
Mrs. Bunting turned and went downstairs. She still felt queer and
giddy, so instead of going into the kitchen, she made the lodger his
cup of tea over her sitting-room gas-ring.
During their midday dinner the husband and wife had a little discussion
as to where Daisy should sleep. It had been settled that a bed should
be made up for her in the top back room, but Mrs. Bunting saw reason to
change this plan. “I think ’twould be better if Daisy were to sleep
with me, Bunting, and you was to sleep upstairs.”
Bunting felt and looked rather surprised, but he acquiesced. Ellen was
probably right; the girl would be rather lonely up there, and, after
all, they didn’t know much about the lodger, though he seemed a
respectable gentleman enough.
Daisy was a good-natured girl; she liked London, and wanted to make
herself useful to her stepmother. “I’ll wash up; don’t you bother to
come downstairs,” she said cheerfully.
Bunting began to walk up and down the room. His wife gave him a furtive
glance; she wondered what he was thinking about.
“Didn’t you get a paper?” she said at last.
“Yes, of course I did,” he answered hastily. “But I’ve put it away. I
thought you’d rather not look at it, as you’re that nervous.”
Again she glanced at him quickly, furtively, but he seemed just as
usual—he evidently meant just what he said and no more.
“I thought they was shouting something in the street—I mean just before
I was took bad.”
It was now Bunting’s turn to stare at his wife quickly and rather
furtively. He had felt sure that her sudden attack of queerness, of
hysterics—call it what you might—had been due to the shouting outside.
She was not the only woman in London who had got the Avenger murders on
her nerves. His morning paper said quite a lot of women were afraid to
go out alone. Was it possible that the curious way she had been taken
just now had had nothing to do with the shouts and excitement outside?
“Don’t you know what it was they were calling out?” he asked slowly.
Mrs. Bunting looked across at him. She would have given a very great
deal to be able to lie, to pretend that she did not know what those
dreadful cries had portended. But when it came to the point she found
she could not do so.
“Yes,” she said dully. “I heard a word here and there. There’s been
another murder, hasn’t there?”
“Two other murders,” he said soberly.
“Two? That’s worse news!” She turned so pale—a sallow
greenish-white—that Bunting thought she was again going queer.
“Ellen?” he said warningly, “Ellen, now do have a care! I can’t think
what’s come over you about these murders. Turn your mind away from
them, do! We needn’t talk about them—not so much, that is—”
“But I wants to talk about them,” cried Mrs. Bunting hysterically.
The husband and wife were standing, one each side of the table, the man
with his back to the fire, the woman with her back to the door.
Bunting, staring across at his wife, felt sadly perplexed and
disturbed. She really did seem ill; even her slight, spare figure
looked shrunk. For the first time, so he told himself ruefully, Ellen
was beginning to look her full age. Her slender hands—she had kept the
pretty, soft white hands of the woman who has never done rough
work—grasped the edge of the table with a convulsive movement.
Bunting didn’t at all like the look of her. “Oh, dear,” he said to
himself, “I do hope Ellen isn’t going to be ill! That would be a to-do
just now.”
“Tell me about it,” she commanded, in a low voice. “Can’t you see I’m
waiting to hear? Be quick now, Bunting!”
“There isn’t very much to tell,” he said reluctantly. “There’s precious
little in this paper, anyway. But the cabman what brought Daisy told
me—”
“Well?”
“What I said just now. There’s two of ’em this time, and they’d both
been drinking heavily, poor creatures.”
“Was it where the others was done?” she asked looking at her husband
fearfully.
“No,” he said awkwardly. “No, it wasn’t, Ellen. It was a good bit
farther West—in fact, not so very far from here. Near King’s
Cross—that’s how the cabman knew about it, you see. They seems to have
been done in a passage which isn’t used no more.” And then, as he
thought his wife’s eyes were beginning to look rather funny, he added
hastily. “There, that’s enough for the present! We shall soon be
hearing a lot more about it from Joe Chandler. He’s pretty sure to come
in some time to-day.”
“Then the five thousand constables weren’t no use?” said Mrs. Bunting
slowly.
She had relaxed her grip of the table, and was standing more upright.
“No use at all,” said Bunting briefly. “He is artful and no mistake
about it. But wait a minute—” he turned and took up the paper which he
had laid aside, on a chair. “Yes they says here that they has a clue.”
“A clue, Bunting?” Mrs. Bunting spoke in a soft, weak, die-away voice,
and again, stooping somewhat, she grasped the edge of the table.
But her husband was not noticing her now. He was holding the paper
close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a tone of considerable
satisfaction:
“‘It is gratifying to be able to state that the police at last believe
they are in possession of a clue which will lead to the arrest of
the—’”
and then Bunting dropped the paper and rushed round the table.
His wife, with a curious sighing moan, had slipped down on to the
floor, taking with her the tablecloth as she went. She lay there in
what appeared to be a dead faint. And Bunting, scared out of his wits,
opened the door and screamed out, “Daisy! Daisy! Come up, child.
Ellen’s took bad again.”
And Daisy, hurrying in, showed an amount of sense and resource which
even at this anxious moment roused her fond father’s admiration.
“Get a wet sponge, Dad—quick!” she cried, “a sponge,—and, if you’ve got
such a thing, a drop o’ brandy. I’ll see after her!” And then, after he
had got the little medicine flask, “I can’t think what’s wrong with
Ellen,” said Daisy wonderingly. “She seemed quite all right when I
first came in. She was listening, interested-like, to what I was
telling her, and then, suddenly—well, you saw how she was took, father?
’Tain’t like Ellen this, is it now?”
“No,” he whispered. “No, ’tain’t. But you see, child, we’ve been going
through a pretty bad time—worse nor I should ever have let you know of,
my dear. Ellen’s just feeling it now—that’s what it is. She didn’t say
nothing, for Ellen’s a good plucked one, but it’s told on her—it’s told
on her!”
And then Mrs. Bunting, sitting up, slowly opened her eyes, and
instinctively put her hand up to her head to see if her hair was all
right.
She hadn’t really been quite “off.” It would have been better for her
if she had. She had simply had an awful feeling that she couldn’t stand
up—more, that she must fall down. Bunting’s words touched a most
unwonted chord in the poor woman’s heart, and the eyes which she opened
were full of tears. She had not thought her husband knew how she had
suffered during those weeks of starving and waiting.
But she had a morbid dislike of any betrayal of sentiment. To her such
betrayal betokened “foolishness,” and so all she said was, “There’s no
need to make a fuss! I only turned over a little queer. I never was
right off, Daisy.”
Pettishly she pushed away the glass in which Bunting had hurriedly
poured a little brandy. “I wouldn’t touch such stuff—no, not if I was
dying!” she exclaimed.
Putting out a languid hand, she pulled herself up, with the help of the
table, on to her feet. “Go down again to the kitchen, child”; but there
was a sob, a kind of tremor in her voice.
“You haven’t been eating properly, Ellen—that’s what’s the matter with
you,” said Bunting suddenly. “Now I come to think of it, you haven’t
eat half enough these last two days. I always did say—in old days many
a time I telled you—that a woman couldn’t live on air. But there, you
never believed me!”
Daisy stood looking from one to the other, a shadow over her bright,
pretty face. “I’d no idea you’d had such a bad time, father,” she said
feelingly. “Why didn’t you let me know about it? I might have got
something out of Old Aunt.”
“We didn’t want anything of that sort,” said her stepmother hastily.
“But of course—well, I expect I’m still feeling the worry now. I don’t
seem able to forget it. Those days of waiting, of—of—” she restrained
herself; another moment and the word “starving” would have left her
lips.
“But everything’s all right now,” said Bunting eagerly, “all right,
thanks to Mr. Sleuth, that is.”
“Yes,” repeated his wife, in a low, strange tone of voice. “Yes, we’re
all right now, and as you say, Bunting, it’s all along of Mr. Sleuth.”
She walked across to a chair and sat down on it. “I’m just a little
tottery still,” she muttered.
And Daisy, looking at her, turned to her father and said in a whisper,
but not so low but that Mrs. Bunting heard her, “Don’t you think Ellen
ought to see a doctor, father? He might give her something that would
pull her round.”
“I won’t see no doctor!” said Mrs. Bunting with sudden emphasis. “I saw
enough of doctors in my last place. Thirty-eight doctors in ten months
did my poor missis have. Just determined on having ’em she was! Did
they save her? No! She died just the same! Maybe a bit sooner.”
“She was a freak, was your last mistress, Ellen,” began Bunting
aggressively.
Ellen had insisted on staying on in that place till her poor mistress
died. They might have been married some months before they were married
but for that fact. Bunting had always resented it.
His wife smile wanly. “We won’t have no words about that,” she said,
and again she spoke in a softer, kindlier tone than usual. “Daisy? If
you won’t go down to the kitchen again, then I must”—she turned to her
stepdaughter, and the girl flew out of the room.
“I think the child grows prettier every minute,” said Bunting fondly.
“Folks are too apt to forget that beauty is but skin deep,” said his
wife. She was beginning to feel better. “But still, I do agree,
Bunting, that Daisy’s well enough. And she seems more willing, too.”
“I say, we mustn’t forget the lodger’s dinner,” Bunting spoke uneasily.
“It’s a bit of fish to-day, isn’t it? Hadn’t I better just tell Daisy
to see to it, and then I can take it up to him, as you’re not feeling
quite the thing, Ellen?”
“I’m quite well enough to take up Mr. Sleuth’s luncheon,” she said
quickly. It irritated her to hear her husband speak of the lodger’s
dinner. They had dinner in the middle of the day, but Mr. Sleuth had
luncheon. However odd he might be, Mrs. Bunting never forgot her lodger
was a gentleman.
“After all, he likes me to wait on him, doesn’t he? I can manage all
right. Don’t you worry,” she added after a long pause.