The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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come a full half-hour before they expected him, explaining, rather lamely, that it was the fog which had brought him so soon.
“If we was to have waited much longer, perhaps, ‘twouldn’t have been possible to walk a yard,” he explained, and they had accepted, silently, his explanation.
“I hope it’s quite safe sending her off like that?” Bunting looked deprecatingly at his wife. She had already told him more than once that he was too fussy about Daisy, that about his daughter he was like an old hen with her last chicken.
“She’s safer than she would be, with you or me. She couldn’t have a smarter young fellow to look after her.”
“It’ll be awful thick at Hyde Park Corner,” said Bunting. “It’s always worse there than anywhere else. If I was Joe I’d ‘a taken her by the Underground Railway to Victoria—that ‘ud been the best way, considering the weather ’tis.”
“They don’t think anything of the weather, bless you!” said his wife. “They’ll walk and walk as long as there’s a glimmer left for ’em to steer by. Daisy’s just been pining to have a walk with that young chap. I wonder you didn’t notice how disappointed they both were when you was so set on going along with them to that horrid place.”
“D’you really mean that, Ellen?” Bunting looked upset. “I understood Joe to say he liked my company.”
“Oh, did you?” said Mrs. Bunting dryly. “I expect he liked it just about as much as we liked the company of that old cook who would go out with us when we was courting. It always was a wonder to me how the woman could force herself upon two people who didn’t want her.”
“But I’m Daisy’s father; and an old friend of Chandler,” said Bunting remonstratingly. “I’m quite different from that cook. She was nothing to us, and we was nothing to her.”
“She’d have liked to be something to you, I make no doubt,” observed his Ellen, shaking her head, and her husband smiled, a little foolishly.
By this time they were back in their nice, cosy sitting-room, and a feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting. It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly curiosity concerning the lodger. “You might just let me have one peep at him, Ellen?” she had pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had shaken her head. “No, that I won’t! He’s a very quiet gentleman; but he knows exactly what he likes, and he don’t like anyone but me waiting on him. Why, even your father’s hardly seen him.”
But that, naturally, had only increased Daisy’s desire to view Mr. Sleuth.
There was another reason why Mrs. Bunting was glad that her stepdaughter had gone away for two days. During her absence young Chandler was far less likely to haunt them in the way he had taken to doing lately, the more so that, in spite of what she had said to her husband, Mrs. Bunting felt sure that Daisy would ask Joe Chandler to call at Belgrave Square. ‘Twouldn’t be human nature —at any rate, not girlish human nature—not to do so, even if Joe’s coming did anger Aunt Margaret.
Yes, it was pretty safe that with Daisy away they, the Buntings, would be rid of that young chap for a bit, and that would be a good thing.
When Daisy wasn’t there to occupy the whole of his attention, Mrs. Bunting felt queerly afraid of Chandler. After all, he was a detective—it was his job to be always nosing about, trying to find out things. And, though she couldn’t fairly say to herself that he had done much of that sort of thing in her house, he might start doing it any minute. And then—then—where would she, and —and Mr. Sleuth, be?
She thought of the bottle of red ink—of the leather bag which must be hidden somewhere—and her heart almost stopped beating. Those were the sort of things which, in the stories Bunting was so fond of reading, always led to the detection of famous criminals . . . .
Mr. Sleuth’s bell for tea rang that afternoon far earlier than usual. The fog had probably misled him, and made him think it later than it was.
When she went up, “I would like a cup of tea now, and just one piece of bread-and-butter,” the lodger said wearily. “I don’t feel like having anything else this afternoon.”
“It’s a horrible day,” Mrs. Bunting observed, in a cheerier voice than usual. “No wonder you don’t feel hungry, sir. And then it isn’t so very long since you had your dinner, is it?”
“No,” he said absently. “No, it isn’t, Mrs. Bunting.”
She went down, made the tea, and brought it up again. And then, as she came into the room, she uttered an exclamation of sharp dismay.
Mr. Sleuth was dressed for going out. He was wearing his long Inverness cloak, and his queer old high hat lay on the table, ready for him to put on.
“You’re never going out this afternoon, sir?” she asked falteringly. “Why, the fog’s awful; you can’t see a yard ahead of you!”
Unknown to herself, Mrs. Bunting’s voice had risen almost to a scream. She moved back, still holding the tray, and stood between the door and her lodger, as if she meant to bar his way—to erect between Mr. Sleuth and the dark, foggy world outside a living barrier.
“The weather never affects me at all,” he said sullenly; and he looked at her with so wild and pleading a look in his eyes that, slowly, reluctantly, she moved aside. As she did so she noticed for the first time that Mr. Sleuth held something in his right hand. It was the key of the chiffonnier cupboard. He had been on his way there when her coming in had disturbed him.
“It’s very kind of you to be so concerned about me,” he stammered, “but—but, Mrs. Bunting, you must excuse me if I say that I do not welcome such solicitude. I prefer to be left alone. I—I cannot stay in your house if I feel that my comings and goings are watched—spied upon.”
She pulled herself together. “No one spies upon you, sir,” she said, with considerable dignity. “I’ve done my best to satisfy you—”
“You have—you have!” he spoke in a distressed, apologetic tone. “But you spoke just now as if you were trying to prevent my doing what I wish to do—indeed, what I have to do. For years I have been misunderstood—persecuted”—he waited a moment, then in a hollow voice added the one word, “tortured! Do not tell me that you are going to add yourself to the number of my tormentors, Mrs. Bunting?”
She stared at him helplessly. “Don’t you be afraid I’ll ever be that, sir. I only spoke as I did because—well, sir, because I thought it really wasn’t safe for a gentleman to go out this afternoon. Why, there’s hardly anyone about, though we’re so near Christmas.”
He walked across to the window and looked out. “The fog is clearing somewhat; Mrs. Bunting,” but there was no relief in his voice, rather was there disappointment and dread.
Plucking up courage, she followed him. Yes, Mr. Sleuth was right. The fog was lifting—rolling off in that sudden, mysterious way in which local fogs sometimes do lift in London.
He turned sharply from the window. “Our conversation has made me forget an important thing, Mrs. Bunting. I should be glad if you would just leave out a glass of milk and some bread-and-butter for me this evening. I shall not require supper when I come in, for after my walk I shall probably go straight upstairs to carry through a very difficult experiment.”
“Very good, sir.” And then Mrs. Bunting left the lodger.
But when she found herself downstairs in the fog-laden hall, for it had drifted in as she and her husband had stood at the door seeing Daisy off, instead of going in to Bunting she did a very odd thing —a thing she had never thought of doing in her life before. She pressed her hot forehead against the cool bit of looking-glass let into the hat-and-umbrella stand. “I don’t know what to do!” she moaned to herself, and then, “I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!”
But