She went slowly, reluctantly to the door. And then her face cleared, for it was that good young chap, Joe Chandler, who stood waiting outside.
He was breathing a little hard, as if he had walked over-quickly through the moist, foggy air.
“Why, Joe?” said Mrs. Bunting wonderingly. “Come in—do! Bunting’s out, but he won’t be very long now. You’ve been quite a stranger these last few days.”
“Well, you know why, Mrs. Bunting—”
She stared at him for a moment, wondering what he could mean. Then, suddenly she remembered. Why, of course, Joe was on a big job just now—the job of trying to catch The Avenger! Her husband had alluded to the fact again and again when reading out to her little bits from the halfpenny evening paper he was taking again.
She led the way to the sitting-room. It was a good thing Bunting had insisted on lighting the fire before he went out, for now the room was nice and warm—and it was just horrible outside. She had felt a chill go right through her as she had stood, even for that second, at the front door.
And she hadn’t been alone to feel it, for, “I say, it is jolly to be in here, out of that awful cold!” exclaimed Chandler, sitting down heavily in Bunting’s easy chair.
And then Mrs. Bunting bethought herself that the young man was tired, as well as cold. He was pale, almost pallid under his usual healthy, tanned complexion—the complexion of the man who lives much out of doors.
“Wouldn’t you like me just to make you a cup of tea?” she said solicitously.
“Well, to tell truth, I should be right down thankful for one, Mrs. Bunting!” Then he looked round, and again he said her name, “Mrs. Bunting—?”
He spoke in so odd, so thick a tone that she turned quickly. “Yes, what is it, Joe?” she asked. And then, in sudden terror, “You’ve never come to tell me that anything’s happened to Bunting? He’s not had an accident?”
“Goodness, no! Whatever made you think that? But—but, Mrs. Bunting, there’s been another of them!”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper. He was staring at her with unhappy, it seemed to her terror-filled, eyes.
“Another of them?” She looked at him, bewildered—at a loss. And then what he meant flashed across her—“another of them” meant another of these strange, mysterious, awful murders.
But her relief for the moment was so great—for she really had thought for a second that he had come to give her ill news of Bunting—that the feeling that she did experience on hearing this piece of news was actually pleasurable, though she would have been much shocked had that fact been brought to her notice.
Almost in spite of herself, Mrs. Bunting had become keenly interested in the amazing series of crimes which was occupying the imagination of the whole of London’s netherworld. Even her refined mind had busied itself for the last two or three days with the strange problem so frequently presented to it by Bunting—for Bunting, now that they were no longer worried, took an open, unashamed, intense interest in “The Avenger” and his doings.
She took the kettle off the gas-ring. “It’s a pity Bunting isn’t here,” she said, drawing in her breath. “He’d a-liked so much to hear you tell all about it, Joe.”
As she spoke she was pouring boiling water into a little teapot.
But Chandler said nothing, and she turned and glanced at him. “Why, you do look bad!” she exclaimed.
And, indeed, the young fellow did look bad—very bad indeed.
“I can’t help it,” he said, with a kind of gasp. “It was your saying that about my telling you all about it that made me turn queer. You see, this time I was one of the first there, and it fairly turned me sick—that it did. Oh, it was too awful, Mrs. Bunting! Don’t talk of it.”
He began gulping down the hot tea before it was well made.
She looked at him with sympathetic interest. “Why, Joe,” she said, “I never would have thought, with all the horrible sights you see, that anything could upset you like that.”
“This isn’t like anything there’s ever been before,” he said. “And then—then—oh, Mrs. Bunting, ’twas I that discovered the piece of paper this time.”
“Then it is true,” she cried eagerly. “It is The Avenger’s bit of paper! Bunting always said it was. He never believed in that practical joker.”
“I did,” said Chandler reluctantly. “You see, there are some queer fellows even—even—” (he lowered his voice, and looked round him as if the walls had ears)—“even in the Force, Mrs. Bunting, and these murders have fair got on our nerves.”
“No, never!” she said. “D’you think that a Bobby might do a thing like that?”
He nodded impatiently, as if the question wasn’t worth answering. Then, “It was all along of that bit of paper and my finding it while the poor soul was still warm,”—he shuddered—“that brought me out West this morning. One of our bosses lives close by, in Prince Albert Terrace, and I had to go and tell him all about it. They never offered me a bit or a sup—I think they might have done that, don’t you, Mrs. Bunting?”
“Yes,” she said absently. “Yes, I do think so.”
“But, there, I don’t know that I ought to say that,” went on Chandler. “He had me up in his dressing-room, and was very considerate-like to me while I was telling him.”
“Have a bit of something now?” she said suddenly.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t eat anything,” he said hastily. “I don’t feel as if I could ever eat anything any more.”
“That’ll only make you ill.” Mrs. Bunting spoke rather crossly, for she was a sensible woman. And to please her he took a bite out of the slice of bread-and-butter she had cut for him.
“I expect you’re right,” he said. “And I’ve a goodish heavy day in front of me. Been
