MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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taken aback, almost aghast.
“Yes, sir? What can I do for you, sir? I hope you didn’t ring, sir?”
Mrs. Bunting held her ground in front of the stove. Mr. Sleuth had no business to come like this into her kitchen, and she intended to let him know that such was her view.
“No, I—I didn’t ring,” he stammered awkwardly. “The truth is, I didn’t know you were here, Mrs. Bunting. Please excuse my costume. My gas-stove has gone wrong, or, rather, that shilling-inthe-slot arrangement has done so. So I came down to see if you had a gas-stove. I am going to ask you to allow me to use it to-night for an important experiment I wish to make.”
Mrs. Bunting’s heart was beating quickly—quickly. She felt horribly troubled, unnaturally so. Why couldn’t Mr. Sleuth’s experiment wait till the morning? She stared at him dubiously, but there was that in his face that made her at once afraid and pitiful. It was a wild, eager, imploring look.
“Oh, certainly, sir; but you will find it very cold down here.”
“It seems most pleasantly warm,” he observed, his voice full of relief, “warm and cosy, after my cold room upstairs.”
Warm and cosy? Mrs. Bunting stared at him in amazement. Nay, even that cheerless room at the top of the house must be far warmer and more cosy than this cold underground kitchen could possibly be.
“I’ll make you a fire, sir. We never use the grate, but it’s in perfect order, for the first thing I did after I came into the house was to have the chimney swept. It was terribly dirty. It might have set the house on fire.” Mrs. Bunting’s housewifely instincts were roused. “For the matter of that, you ought to have a fire in your bedroom this cold night.”
“By no means—I would prefer not. I certainly do not want a fire there. I dislike an open fire, Mrs. Bunting. I thought I had told you as much.”
Mr. Sleuth frowned. He stood there, a strange-looking figure, his candle still alight, just inside the kitchen door.
“I shan’t be very long, sir. Just about a quarter of an hour. You could come down then. I’ll have everything quite tidy for you. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“I do not require the use of your kitchen yet—thank you all the same, Mrs. Bunting. I shall come down later—altogether later— after you and your husband have gone to bed. But I should be much obliged if you would see that the gas people come tomorrow and put my stove in order. It might be done while I am out. That the shilling-inthe-slot machine should go wrong is very unpleasant. It has upset me greatly.”
“Perhaps Bunting could put it right for you, sir. For the matter of that, I could ask him to go up now.”
“No, no, I don’t want anything of that sort done to-night. Besides, he couldn’t put it right. I am something of an expert, Mrs. Bunting, and I have done all I could. The cause of the trouble is quite simple. The machine is choked up with shillings; a very foolish plan, so I always felt it to be.”
Mr. Sleuth spoke pettishly, with far more heat than he was wont to speak, but Mrs. Bunting sympathised with him in this matter. She had always suspected that those slot machines were as dishonest as if they were human. It was dreadful, the way they swallowed up the shillings! She had had one once, so she knew.
And as if he were divining her thoughts, Mr. Sleuth walked forward and stared at the stove. “Then you haven’t got a slot machine?” he said wonderingly. “I’m very glad of that, for I expect my experiment will take some time. But, of course, I shall pay you something for the use of the stove, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Oh, no, sir, I wouldn’t think of charging you anything for that. We don’t use our stove very much, you know, sir. I’m never in the kitchen a minute longer than I can help this cold weather.”
Mrs. Bunting was beginning to feel better. When she was actually in Mr. Sleuth’s presence her morbid fears would be lulled, perhaps because his manner almost invariably was gentle and very quiet. But still there came over her an eerie feeling, as, with him preceding her, they made a slow progress to the ground floor.
Once there, the lodger courteously bade his landlady good-night, and proceeded upstairs to his own apartments.
Mrs. Bunting returned to the kitchen. Again she lighted the stove; but she felt unnerved, afraid of she knew not what. As she was cooking the cheese, she tried to concentrate her mind on what she was doing, and on the whole she succeeded. But another part of her mind seemed to be working independently, asking her insistent questions.
The place seemed to her alive with alien presences, and once she caught herself listening—which was absurd, for, of course, she could not hope to hear what Mr. Sleuth was doing two, if not three, flights upstairs. She wondered in what the lodger’s experiments consisted. It was odd that she had never been able to discover what it was he really did with that big gas-stove. All she knew was that he used a very high degree of heat.
Chapter 15
The Buntings went to bed early that night. But Mrs. Bunting made up her mind to keep awake. She was set upon knowing at what hour of the night the lodger would come down into her kitchen to carry through his experiment, and, above all, she was anxious to know how long he would stay there.
But she had had a long and a very anxious day, and presently she fell asleep.
The church clock hard by struck two, and, suddenly Mrs. Bunting awoke. She felt put out, sharply annoyed with herself. How could she have dropped off like that? Mr. Sleuth must have been down and up again hours ago!
Then, gradually, she became aware that there was a faint acrid odour in the room. Elusive, intangible, it yet seemed to encompass her and the snoring man by her side, almost as a vapour might have done.
Mrs. Bunting sat up in bed and sniffed; and then, in spite of the cold, she quietly crept out of her nice, warm bedclothes, and crawled along to the bottom of the bed. When there, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady did a very curious thing; she leaned over the brass rail and put her face close to the hinge of the door giving into the hall. Yes, it was from here that this strange, horrible odor was coming; the smell must be very strong in the passage.
As, shivering, she crept back under the bedclothes, she longed to give her sleeping husband a good shake, and in fancy she heard herself saying, “Bunting, get up! There’s something strange and dreadful going on downstairs which we ought to know about.”
But as she lay there, by her husband’s side, listening with painful intentness for the slightest sound, she knew very well that she would do nothing of the sort.
What if the lodger did make a certain amount of mess—a certain amount of smell—in her nice clean kitchen? Was he not—was he not an almost perfect lodger? If they did anything to upset him, where could they ever hope to get another like him?
Three o’clock struck before Mrs. Bunting heard slow, heavy steps creaking up the kitchen stairs. But Mr. Sleuth did not go straight up to his own quarters, as she had expected him to do. Instead, he went to the front door, and, opening it, put on the chain. Then he came past her door, and she thought—but could not be sure—that he sat down on the stairs.
At the end of ten minutes or so she heard him go down the passage again. Very softly he closed the front door. By then she had divined why the lodger had behaved in this funny fashion. He wanted to get the strong, acrid smell of burning—was it of burning wool? —out of the house.
But Mrs. Bunting, lying there in the darkness, listening to the lodger creeping upstairs, felt as if she herself would never get rid of the horrible odour.
Mrs. Bunting felt herself to be all smell.
At last the unhappy woman fell into a deep, troubled sleep; and then she dreamed a most terrible and unnatural dream. Hoarse voices seemed to be shouting