The Lodger

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Each hour of the days that followed held for Bunting its full meedof aching fear and suspense.

  The unhappy man was ever debating within himself what course heshould pursue, and, according to his mood and to the state of hismind at any particular moment, he would waver between variouswidely-differing lines of action.

  He told himself again and again, and with fretful unease, that themost awful thing about it all was that he wasn't sure. If only hecould have been sure, he might have made up his mind exactly whatit was he ought to do.

  But when telling himself this he was deceiving himself, and he wasvaguely conscious of the fact; for, from Bunting's point of view,almost any alternative would have been preferable to that which tosome, nay, perhaps to most, householders would have seemed the onlything to do, namely, to go to the police. But Londoners of Bunting'sclass have an uneasy fear of the law. To his mind it would be ruinfor him and for his Ellen to be mixed up publicly in such a terribleaffair. No one concerned in the business would give them and theirfuture a thought, but it would track them to their dying day, and,above all, it would make it quite impossible for them ever to getagain into a good joint situation. It was that for which Bunting,in his secret soul, now longed with all his heart.

  No, some other way than going to the police must be found--and heracked his slow brain to find it.

  The worst of it was that every hour that went by made his futurecourse more difficult and more delicate, and increased the awfulweight on his conscience.

  If only he really knew! If only he could feel quite sure! Andthen he would tell himself that, after all, he had very little togo upon; only suspicion--suspicion, and a secret, horriblecertainty that his suspicion was justified.

  And so at last Bunting began to long for a solution which he knewto be indefensible from every point of view; he began to hope, thatis, in the depths of his heart, that the lodger would again go outone evening on his horrible business and be caught--red-handed.

  But far from going out on any business, horrible or other, Mr.Sleuth now never went out at all. He kept upstairs, and often spentquite a considerable part of his day in bed. He still felt, so heassured Mrs. Bunting, very far from well. He had never thrown offthe chill he had caught on that bitter night he and his landlordhad met on their several ways home.

  Joe Chandler, too, had become a terrible complication to Daisy'sfather. The detective spent every waking hour that he was not onduty with the Buntings; and Bunting, who at one time had liked himso well and so cordially, now became mortally afraid of him.

  But though the young man talked of little else than The Avenger,and though on one evening he described at immense length theeccentric-looking gent who had given the barmaid a sovereign,picturing Mr. Sleuth with such awful accuracy that both Bunting andMrs. Bunting secretly and separately turned sick when they listenedto him, he never showed the slightest interest in their lodger.

  At last there came a morning when Bunting and Chandler held a strangeconversation about The Avenger. The young fellow had come in earlierthan usual, and just as he arrived Mrs. Bunting and Daisy werestarting out to do some shopping. The girl would fain have stoppedbehind, but her stepmother had given her a very peculiar, disagreeablelook, daring her, so to speak, to be so forward, and Daisy had goneon with a flushed, angry look on her pretty face.

  And then, as young Chandler stepped through into the sitting-room,it suddenly struck Bunting that the young man looked unlike himself--indeed, to the ex-butler's apprehension there was something almostthreatening in Chandler's attitude.

  "I want a word with you, Mr. Bunting," he began abruptly, falteringly."And I'm glad to have the chance now that Mrs. Bunting and Miss Daisyare out."

  Bunting braced himself to hear the awful words--the accusation ofhaving sheltered a murderer, the monster whom all the world wasseeking, under his roof. And then he remembered a phrase, ahorrible legal phrase--"Accessory after the fact." Yes, he hadbeen that, there wasn't any doubt about it!

  "Yes?" he said. "What is it, Joe?" and then the unfortunate mansat down in his chair. "Yes?" he said again uncertainly; for youngChandler had now advanced to the table, he was looking at Buntingfixedly--the other thought threateningly. "Well, out with it,Joe! Don't keep me in suspense."

  And then a slight smile broke over the young man's face. "I don'tthink what I've got to say can take you by surprise, Mr. Bunting."

  And Bunting wagged his head in a way that might mean anything--yesor no, as the case might be.

  The two men looked at one another for what seemed a very, very longtime to the elder of them. And then, making a great effort, JoeChandler brought out the words, "Well, I suppose you know what itis I want to talk about. I'm sure Mrs. Bunting would, from a lookor two she's lately cast on me. It's your daughter--it's MissDaisy."

  And then Bunting gave a kind of cry, 'twixt a sob and a laugh."My girl?" he cried. "Good Lord, Joe! Is that all you wants totalk about? Why, you fair frightened me--that you did!"

  And, indeed, the relief was so great that the room swam round ashe stared across it at his daughter's lover, that lover who wasalso the embodiment of that now awful thing to him, the law. Hesmiled, rather foolishly, at his visitor; and Chandler felt a sharpwave of irritation, of impatience sweep over his good-natured soul.Daisy's father was an old stupid--that's what he was.

  And then Bunting grew serious. The room ceased to go round. "Asfar as I'm concerned," he said, with a good deal of solemnity, evena little dignity, "you have my blessing, Joe. You're a very likelyyoung chap, and I had a true respect for your father."

  "Yes," said Chandler, "that's very kind of you, Mr. Bunting. Buthow about her--her herself?"

  Bunting stared at him. It pleased him to think that Daisy hadn'tgiven herself away, as Ellen was always hinting the girl was doing.

  "I can't answer for Daisy," he said heavily. "You'll have to askher yourself--that's not a job any other man can do for you, my lad."

  "I never gets a chance. I never sees her, not by our two selves,"said Chandler, with some heat. "You don't seem to understand, Mr.Bunting, that I never do see Miss Daisy alone," he repeated. "Ihear now that she's going away Monday, and I've only once had thechance of a walk with her. Mrs. Bunting's very particular, not tosay pernickety in her ideas, Mr. Bunting--"

  "That's a fault on the right side, that is--with a young girl,"said Bunting thoughtfully.

  And Chandler nodded. He quite agreed that as regarded other youngchaps Mrs. Bunting could not be too particular.

  "She's been brought up like a lady, my Daisy has," went on Bunting,with some pride. "That Old Aunt of hers hardly lets her out of hersight."

  "I was coming to the old aunt," said Chandler heavily. "Mrs.Bunting she talks as if your daughter was going to stay with thatold woman the whole of her natural life--now is that right? That'swhat I wants to ask you, Mr. Bunting,--is that right?"

  "I'll say a word to Ellen, don't you fear," said Bunting abstractedly.

  His mind had wandered off, away from Daisy and this nice young chap,to his now constant anxious preoccupation. "You come alongto-morrow," he said, "and I'll see you gets your walk with Daisy.It's only right you and she should have a chance of seeing oneanother without old folk being by; else how's the girl to tellwhether she likes you or not! For the matter of that, you hardlyknows her, Joe--" He looked at the young man consideringly.

  Chandler shook his head impatiently. "I knows her quite as well asI wants to know her," he said. "I made up my mind the very firsttime I see'd her, Mr. Bunting."

  "No! Did you really?" said Bunting. "Well, come to think of it,I did so with her mother; aye, and years after, with Ellen, too.But I hope you'll never want no second, Chandler."

  "God forbid!" said the young man under his breath. And then heasked, rather longingly, "D'you think they'll be out long now, Mr.Bunting?"

  And Bunting woke up to a due sense of hospitality. "Sit down, sitdown; do!" he said hastily. "I don't believe they'll be very long.They've
only got a little bit of shopping to do."

  And then, in a changed, in a ringing, nervous tone, he asked, "Andhow about your job, Joe? Nothing new, I take it? I suppose you'reall just waiting for the next time?"

  "Aye--that's about the figure of it." Chandler's voice had alsochanged; it was now sombre, menacing. "We're fair tired of it--beginning to wonder when it'll end, that we are!"

  "Do you ever try and make to yourself a picture of what the master'slike?" asked Bunting. Somehow, he felt he must ask that.

  "Yes," said Joe slowly. "I've a sort of notion--a savage,fierce-looking devil, the chap must be. It's that description thatwas circulated put us wrong. I don't believe it was the man thatknocked up against that woman in the fog--no, not one bit I don't.But I wavers, I can't quite make up my mind. Sometimes I think it'sa sailor--the foreigner they talks about, that goes away for eightor nine days in between, to Holland maybe, or to France. Then,again, I says to myself that it's a butcher, a man from the CentralMarket. Whoever it is, it's someone used to killing, that's flat."

  "Then it don't seem to you possible--?" (Bunting got up and walkedover to the window.) "You don't take any stock, I suppose, in thatidea some of the papers put out, that the man is"--then hehesitated and brought out, with a gasp--"a gentleman?"

  Chandler looked at him, surprised. "No," he said deliberately."I've made up my mind that's quite a wrong tack, though I knows thatsome of our fellows--big pots, too--are quite sure that the fellowwhat gave the girl the sovereign is the man we're looking for. Yousee, Mr. Bunting, if that's the fact--well, it stands to reason thefellow's an escaped lunatic; and if he's an escaped lunatic he's gota keeper, and they'd be raising a hue and cry after him; now,wouldn't they?"

  "You don't think," went on Bunting, lowering his voice, "that hecould be just staying somewhere, lodging like?"

  "D'you mean that The Avenger may be a toff, staying in someWest-end hotel, Mr. Bunting? Well, things almost as funny as that'ud be have come to pass." He smiled as if the notion was a funnyone.

  "Yes, something o' that sort," muttered Bunting.

  "Well, if your idea's correct, Mr. Bunting--"

  "I never said 'twas my idea," said Bunting, all in a hurry.

  "Well, if that idea's correct then, 'twill make our task moredifficult than ever. Why, 'twould be looking for a needle in afield of hay, Mr. Bunting! But there! I don't think it'sanything quite so unlikely as that--not myself I don't." Hehesitated. "There's some of us"--he lowered his voice--"thathopes he'll betake himself off--The Avenger, I mean--to anotherbig city, to Manchester or to Edinburgh. There'd be plenty ofwork for him to do there," and Chandler chuckled at his own grimjoke.

  And then, to both men's secret relief, for Bunting was nowmortally afraid of this discussion concerning The Avenger andhis doings, they heard Mrs. Bunting's key in the lock.

  Daisy blushed rosy-red with pleasure when she saw that youngChandler was still there. She had feared that when they got homehe would be gone, the more so that Ellen, just as if she was doingit on purpose, had lingered aggravatingly long over each smallpurchase.

  "Here's Joe come to ask if he can take Daisy out for a walk,"blurted out Bunting.

  "My mother says as how she'd like you to come to tea, over atRichmond," said Chandler awkwardly, "I just come in to see whetherwe could fix it up, Miss Daisy." And Daisy looked imploringly ather stepmother.

  "D'you mean now--this minute?" asked Mrs. Bunting tartly.

  "No, o' course not"--Bunting broke in hastily. "How you do go on,Ellen!"

  "What day did your mother mention would be convenient to her?"asked Mrs. Bunting, looking at the young man satirically.

  Chandler hesitated. His mother had not mentioned any special day--in fact, his mother had shown a surprising lack of anxiety tosee Daisy at all. But he had talked her round.

  "How about Saturday?" suggested Bunting. "That's Daisy's birthday.'Twould be a birthday treat for her to go to Richmond, and she'sgoing back to Old Aunt on Monday."

  "I can't go Saturday," said Chandler disconsolately. "I'm on dutySaturday."

  "Well, then, let it be Sunday," said Bunting firmly. And his wifelooked at him surprised; he seldom asserted himself so much in herpresence.

  "What do you say, Miss Daisy?" said Chandler.

  "Sunday would be very nice," said Daisy demurely. And then, as theyoung man took up his hat, and as her stepmother did not stir, Daisyventured to go out into the hall with him for a minute.

  Chandler shut the door behind them, and so was spared the hearingof Mrs. Bunting's whispered remark: "When I was a young woman folkdidn't gallivant about on Sunday; those who was courting used togo to church together, decent-like--"