Perhaps because his luncheon was served to him a good deal later than
usual, Mr. Sleuth ate his nice piece of steamed sole upstairs with far
heartier an appetite than his landlady had eaten her nice slice of
roast pork downstairs.
“I hope you’re feeling a little better, sir,” Mrs. Bunting had forced
herself to say when she first took in his tray.
And he had answered plaintively, querulously, “No, I can’t say I feel
well to-day, Mrs. Bunting. I am tired—very tired. And as I lay in bed I
seemed to hear so many sounds—so much crying and shouting. I trust the
Marylebone Road is not going to become a noisy thoroughfare, Mrs.
Bunting?”
“Oh, no, sir, I don’t think that. We’re generally reckoned very quiet
indeed, sir.”
She waited a moment—try as she would, she could not allude to what
those unwonted shouts and noises had betokened. “I expect you’ve got a
chill, sir,” she said suddenly. “If I was you, I shouldn’t go out this
afternoon; I’d just stay quietly indoors. There’s a lot of rough people
about—” Perhaps there was an undercurrent of warning, of painful
pleading, in her toneless voice which penetrated in some way to the
brain of the lodger, for Mr. Sleuth looked up, and an uneasy, watchful
look came into his luminous grey eyes.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Bunting. But I think I’ll take your
advice. That is, I will stay quietly at home, I am never at a loss to
know what to do with myself so long as I can study the Book of Books.”
“Then you’re not afraid about your eyes, sir?” said Mrs. Bunting
curiously. Somehow she was beginning to feel better. It comforted her
to be up here, talking to Mr. Sleuth, instead of thinking about him
downstairs. It seemed to banish the terror which filled her soul—aye,
and her body, too—at other times. When she was with him Mr. Sleuth was
so gentle, so reasonable, so—so grateful.
Poor kindly, solitary Mr. Sleuth! This kind of gentleman surely
wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a human being. Eccentric—so much must be
admitted. But Mrs. Bunting had seen a good deal of eccentric folk,
eccentric women rather than eccentric men, in her long career as useful
maid.
Being at ordinary times an exceptionally sensible, well-balanced woman,
she had never, in old days, allowed her mind to dwell on certain things
she had learnt as to the aberrations of which human nature is
capable—even well-born, well-nurtured, gentle human nature—as
exemplified in some of the households where she had served. It would,
indeed, be unfortunate if she now became morbid or—or hysterical.
So it was in a sharp, cheerful voice, almost the voice in which she had
talked during the first few days of Mr. Sleuth’s stay in her house,
that she exclaimed, “Well, sir, I’ll be up again to clear away in about
half an hour. And if you’ll forgive me for saying so, I hope you will
stay in and have a rest to-day. Nasty, muggy weather—that’s what it is!
If there’s any little thing you want, me or Bunting can go out and get
it.”
It must have been about four o’clock when there came a ring at the
front door.
The three were sitting chatting together, for Daisy had washed up—she
really was saving her stepmother a good bit of trouble—and the girl was
now amusing her elders by a funny account of Old Aunt’s pernickety
ways.
“Whoever can that be?” said Bunting, looking up. “It’s too early for
Joe Chandler, surely.”
“I’ll go,” said his wife, hurriedly jumping up from her chair. “I’ll
go! We don’t want no strangers in here.”
And as she stepped down the short bit of passage she said to herself,
“A clue? What clue?”
But when she opened the front door a glad sigh of relief broke from
her. “Why, Joe? We never thought ’twas you! But you’re very welcome,
I’m sure. Come in.”
And Chandler came in, a rather sheepish look on his good-looking, fair
young face.
“I thought maybe that Mr. Bunting would like to know—” he began, in a
loud, cheerful voice, and Mrs. Bunting hurriedly checked him. She
didn’t want the lodger upstairs to hear what young Chandler might be
going to say.
“Don’t talk so loud,” she said a little sharply. “The lodger is not
very well to-day. He’s had a cold,” she added hastily, “and during the
last two or three days he hasn’t been able to go out.”
She wondered at her temerity, her—her hypocrisy, and that moment, those
few words, marked an epoch in Ellen Bunting’s life. It was the first
time she had told a bold and deliberate lie. She was one of those
women—there are many, many such—to whom there is a whole world of
difference between the suppression of the truth and the utterance of an
untruth.
But Chandler paid no heed to her remarks. “Has Miss Daisy arrived?” he
asked, in a lower voice.
She nodded. And then he went through into the room where the father and
daughter were sitting.
“Well?” said Bunting, starting up. “Well, Joe? Now you can tell us all
about that mysterious clue. I suppose it’d be too good news to expect
you to tell us they’ve caught him?”
“No fear of such good news as that yet awhile. If they’d caught him,”
said Joe ruefully, “well, I don’t suppose I should be here, Mr.
Bunting. But the Yard are circulating a description at last. And—well,
they’ve found his weapon!”
“No?” cried Bunting excitedly. “You don’t say so! Whatever sort of a
thing is it? And are they sure ’tis his?”
“Well, ’tain’t sure, but it seems to be likely.”
Mrs. Bunting had slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.
But she was still standing with her back against the door, looking at
the group in front of her. None of them were thinking of her—she
thanked God for that! She could hear everything that was said without
joining in the talk and excitement.
“Listen to this!” cried Joe Chandler exultantly. “’Tain’t given out
yet—not for the public, that is—but we was all given it by eight
o’clock this morning. Quick work that, eh?” He read out:
“WANTED
“A man, of age approximately 28, slight in figure, height approximately
5 ft. 8 in. Complexion dark. No beard or whiskers. Wearing a black
diagonal coat, hard felt hat, high white collar, and tie. Carried a
newspaper parcel. Very respectable appearance.”
Mrs. Bunting walked forward. She gave a long, fluttering sigh of
unutterable relief.
“There’s the chap!” said Joe Chandler triumphantly. “And now, Miss
Daisy”—he turned to her jokingly, but there was a funny little tremor
in his frank, cheerful-sounding voice—“if you knows of any nice, likely
young fellow that answers to that description—well, you’ve only got to
walk in and earn your reward of five hundred pounds.”
“Five hundred pounds!” cried Daisy and her father simultaneously.
“Yes. That’s what the Lord Mayor offered yesterday. Some private
bloke—nothing official about it. But we of the Yard is barred from
taking that reward, worse luck. And it’s too bad, for we has all the
trouble, after all.”
“Just hand that bit of paper over, will you?” said Bunting. “I’d like
to con it over to myself.”
Chandler threw over the bit of flimsy.
A moment later Bunting looked up and handed it back. “Well, it’s clear
enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And there’s hundreds—nay, thousands—of young fellows that might
be a description of,” said Chandler sarcastically. “As a pal of mine
said this morning, ‘There isn’t a chap will like to carry a newspaper
parcel after this.’ And it won’t do to have a respectable
appearance—eh?”
Daisy’s voice rang out in merry, pealing laughter. She greatly
appreciated Mr. Chandler’s witticism.
“Why on earth didn’t the people who saw him try and catch him?” asked
Bunting suddenly.
And Mrs. Bunting broke in, in a lower voice, “Yes, Joe—that seems odd,
don’t it?”
Joe Chandler coughed. “Well, it’s this way,” he said. “No one person
did see all that. The man who’s described here is just made up from the
description of two different folk who _think_ they saw him. You see,
the murders must have taken place—well, now, let me see—perhaps at two
o’clock this last time. Two o’clock—that’s the idea. Well, at such a
time as that not many people are about, especially on a foggy night.
Yes, one woman declares she saw a young chap walking away from the spot
where ’twas done; and another one—but that was a good bit later—says
The Avenger passed by her. It’s mostly her they’re following in this
’ere description. And then the boss who has charge of that sort of
thing looked up what other people had said—I mean when the other crimes
was committed. That’s how he made up this ‘Wanted.’”
“Then The Avenger may be quite a different sort of man?” said Bunting
slowly, disappointedly.
“Well, of course he may be. But, no; I think that description fits him
all right,” said Chandler; but he also spoke in a hesitating voice.
“You was saying, Joe, that they found a weapon?” observed Bunting
insinuatingly.
He was glad that Ellen allowed the discussion to go on—in fact, that
she even seemed to take an intelligent interest in it. She had come up
close to them, and now looked quite her old self again.
“Yes. They believe they’ve found the weapon what he does his awful
deeds with,” said Chandler. “At any rate, within a hundred yards of
that little dark passage where they found the bodies—one at each end,
that was—there was discovered this morning a very peculiar kind o’
knife—‘keen as a razor, pointed as a dagger’—that’s the exact words the
boss used when he was describing it to a lot of us. He seemed to think
a lot more of that clue than of the other—I mean than of the
description people gave of the chap who walked quickly by with a
newspaper parcel. But now there’s a pretty job in front of us. Every
shop where they sell or might a’ sold, such a thing as that knife,
including every eating-house in the East End, has got to be called at!”
“Whatever for?” asked Daisy.
“Why, with an idea of finding out if anyone saw such a knife fooling
about there any time, and, if so, in whose possession it was at the
time. But, Mr. Bunting”—Chandler’s voice changed; it became
businesslike, official—“they’re not going to say anything about
that—not in newspapers—till to-morrow, so don’t you go and tell
anybody. You see, we don’t want to frighten the fellow off. If he knew
they’d got his knife—well, he might just make himself scarce, and they
don’t want that! If it’s discovered that any knife of that kind was
sold, say a month ago, to some customer whose ways are known,
then—then—”
“What’ll happen then?” said Mrs. Bunting, coming nearer.
“Well, then, nothing’ll be put about it in the papers at all,” said
Chandler deliberately. “The only objec’ of letting the public know
about it would be if nothink was found—I mean if the search of the
shops, and so on, was no good. Then, of course, we must try and find
out someone—some private person-like, who’s watched that knife in the
criminal’s possession. It’s there the reward—the five hundred pounds
will come in.”
“Oh, I’d give anything to see that knife!” exclaimed Daisy, clasping
her hands together.
“You cruel, bloodthirsty, girl!” cried her stepmother passionately.
They all looked round at her, surprised.
“Come, come, Ellen!” said Bunting reprovingly.
“Well, it _is_ a horrible idea!” said his wife sullenly. “To go and
sell a fellow-being for five hundred pounds.”
But Daisy was offended. “Of course I’d like to see it!” she cried
defiantly. “I never said nothing about the reward. That was Mr.
Chandler said that! I only said I’d like to see the knife.”
Chandler looked at her soothingly. “Well, the day may come when you
_will_ see it,” he said slowly.
A great idea had come into his mind.
“No! What makes you think that?”
“If they catches him, and if you comes along with me to see our Black
Museum at the Yard, you’ll certainly see the knife, Miss Daisy. They
keeps all them kind of things there. So if, as I say, this weapon
_should_ lead to the conviction of The Avenger—well, then, that knife
’ull be there, and you’ll see it!”
“The Black Museum? Why, whatever do they have a museum in your place
for?” asked Daisy wonderingly. “I thought there was only the British
Museum—”
And then even Mrs. Bunting, as well as Bunting and Chandler, laughed
aloud.
“You are a goosey girl!” said her father fondly. “Why, there’s a lot of
museums in London; the town’s thick with ’em. Ask Ellen there. She and
me used to go to them kind of places when we was courting—if the
weather was bad.”
“But our museum’s the one that would interest Miss Daisy,” broke in
Chandler eagerly. “It’s a regular Chamber of ’Orrors!”
“Why, Joe, you never told us about that place before,” said Bunting
excitedly. “D’you really mean that there’s a museum where they keeps
all sorts of things connected with crimes? Things like knives murders
have been committed with?”
“Knives?” cried Joe, pleased at having become the centre of attention,
for Daisy had also fixed her blue eyes on him, and even Mrs. Bunting
looked at him expectantly. “Much more than knives, Mr. Bunting! Why,
they’ve got there, in little bottles, the real poison what people have
been done away with.”
“And can you go there whenever you like?” asked Daisy wonderingly. She
had not realised before what extraordinary and agreeable privileges are
attached to the position of a detective member of the London Police
Force.
“Well, I suppose I _could_—” Joe smiled. “Anyway I can certainly get
leave to take a friend there.” He looked meaningly at Daisy, and Daisy
looked eagerly at him.
But would Ellen ever let her go out by herself with Mr. Chandler? Ellen
was so prim, so—so irritatingly proper. But what was this father was
saying? “D’you really mean that, Joe?”
“Yes, of course I do!”
“Well, then, look here! If it isn’t asking too much of a favour, I
should like to go along there with you very much one day. I don’t want
to wait till The Avenger’s caught”—Bunting smiled broadly. “I’d be
quite content as it is with what there is in that museum o’ yours.
Ellen, there,”—he looked across at his wife—“don’t agree with me about
such things. Yet I don’t think I’m a bloodthirsty man! But I’m just
terribly interested in all that sort of thing—always have been. I used
to positively envy the butler in that Balham Mystery!”
Again a look passed between Daisy and the young man—it was a look which
contained and carried a great many things backwards and forwards, such
as—“Now, isn’t it funny that your father should want to go to such a
place? But still, I can’t help it if he does want to go, so we must put
up with his company, though it would have been much nicer for us to go
just by our two selves.” And then Daisy’s look answered quite as
plainly, though perhaps Joe didn’t read her glance quite as clearly as
she had read his: “Yes, it is tiresome. But father means well; and
’twill be very pleasant going there, even if he does come too.”
“Well, what d’you say to the day after to-morrow, Mr. Bunting? I’d call
for you here about—shall we say half-past two?—and just take you and
Miss Daisy down to the Yard. ’Twouldn’t take very long; we could go all
the way by bus, right down to Westminster Bridge.” He looked round at
his hostess: “Wouldn’t you join us, Mrs. Bunting? ’Tis truly a
wonderful interesting place.”
But his hostess shook her head decidedly. “’Twould turn me sick,” she
exclaimed, “to see the bottle of poison what had done away with the
life of some poor creature!
“And as for knives—!” a look of real horror, of startled fear, crept
over her pale face.
“There, there!” said Bunting hastily. “Live and let live—that’s what I
always say. Ellen ain’t on in this turn. She can just stay at home and
mind the cat—I beg his pardon, I mean the lodger!”
“I won’t have Mr. Sleuth laughed at,” said Mrs. Bunting darkly. “But
there! I’m sure it’s very kind of you, Joe, to think of giving Bunting
and Daisy such a rare treat”—she spoke sarcastically, but none of the
three who heard her understood that.