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 today. 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
