“She ain’t coming home today”—there was an odd, sly, smiling look on Bunting’s face.
“Did she send a telegram?” asked Mrs. Bunting.
“No. Young Chandler’s just come in and told me. He’s been over there and—would you believe it, Ellen?—he’s managed to make friends with Margaret. Wonderful what love will do, ain’t it? He went over there just to help Daisy carry her bag back, you know, and then Margaret told him that her lady had sent her some money to go to the play, and she actually asked Joe to go with them this evening—she and Daisy—to the pantomime. Did you ever hear o’ such a thing?”
“Very nice for them, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Bunting absently. But she was pleased—pleased to have her mind taken off herself. “Then when is that girl coming home?” she asked patiently.
“Well, it appears that Chandler’s got tomorrow morning off too—this evening and tomorrow morning. He’ll be on duty all night, but he proposes to go over and bring Daisy back in time for early dinner. Will that suit you, Ellen?”
“Yes. That’ll be all right,” she said. “I don’t grudge the girl her bit of pleasure. One’s only young once. By the way, did the lodger ring while I was out?”
Bunting turned round from the gas-ring, which he was watching to see the kettle boil. “No,” he said. “Come to think of it, it’s rather a funny thing, but the truth is, Ellen, I never gave Mr. Sleuth a thought. You see, Chandler came in and was telling me all about Margaret, laughing-like, and then something else happened while you was out, Ellen.”
“Something else happened?” she said in a startled voice. Getting up from her chair she came towards her husband: “What happened? Who came?”
“Just a message for me, asking if I could go tonight to wait at a young lady’s birthday party. In Hanover Terrace it is. A waiter—one of them nasty Swiss fellows as works for nothing—fell out just at the last minute and so they had to send for me.”
His honest face shone with triumph. The man who had taken over his old friend’s business in Baker Street had hitherto behaved very badly to Bunting, and that though Bunting had been on the books for ever so long, and had always given every satisfaction. But this new man had never employed him—no, not once.
“I hope you didn’t make yourself too cheap?” said his wife jealously.
“No, that I didn’t! I hum’d and haw’d a lot; and I could see the fellow was quite worried—in fact, at the end he offered me half-a-crown more. So I graciously consented!”
Husband and wife laughed more merrily than they had done for a long time.
“You won’t mind being alone, here? I don’t count the lodger—he’s no good—” Bunting looked at her anxiously. He was only prompted to ask the question because lately Ellen had been so queer, so unlike herself. Otherwise it never would have occurred to him that she could be afraid of being alone in the house. She had often been so in the days when he got more jobs.
She stared at him, a little suspiciously. “I be afraid?” she echoed. “Certainly not. Why should I be? I’ve never been afraid before. What d’you exactly mean by that, Bunting?”
“Oh, nothing. I only thought you might feel funny-like, all alone on this ground floor. You was so upset yesterday when that young fool Chandler came, dressed up, to the door.”
“I shouldn’t have been frightened if he’d just been an ordinary stranger,” she said shortly. “He said something silly to me—just in keeping with his character-like, and it upset me. Besides, I feel better now.”
As she was sipping gratefully her cup of tea, there came a noise outside, the shouts of newspaper-sellers.
“I’ll just run out,” said Bunting apologetically, “and see what happened at that inquest today. Besides, they may have a clue about the horrible affair last night. Chandler was full of it—when he wasn’t talking about Daisy and Margaret, that is. He’s on tonight, luckily not till twelve o’clock; plenty of time to escort the two of ’em back after the play. Besides, he said he’ll put them into a cab and blow the expense, if the panto’ goes on too long for him to take ’em home.”
“On tonight?” repeated Mrs. Bunting. “Whatever for?”
“Well, you see, The Avenger’s always done ’em in couples, so to speak. They’ve got an idea that he’ll have a try again tonight. However, even so, Joe’s only on from midnight till five o’clock. Then he’ll go and turn in a bit before going off to fetch Daisy, Fine thing to be young, ain’t it, Ellen?”
“I can’t believe that he’d go out on such a night as this!”
“What do you mean?” said Bunting, staring at her. Ellen had spoken so oddly, as if to herself, and in so fierce and passionate a tone.
“What do I mean?” she repeated—and a great fear clutched at her heart. What had she said? She had been thinking aloud.
“Why, by saying he won’t go out. Of course, he has to go out. Besides, he’ll have been to the play as it is. ’Twould be a pretty thing if the police didn’t go out, just because it was cold!”
“I—I was thinking of The Avenger,” said Mrs. Bunting. She looked at her husband fixedly. Somehow she had felt impelled to utter those true words.
“He don’t take no heed of heat nor cold,” said Bunting sombrely. “I take it the man’s dead to all human feeling—saving, of course, revenge.”
“So that’s your idea about him, is it?” She looked across at her husband. Somehow this dangerous, this perilous conversation between them attracted her strangely. She felt as if she must go on with it. “D’you think he was the man that woman said she saw? That young man what passed her with a newspaper parcel?”
“Let me see,” he said slowly. “I thought that ’twas
