He stood up and looked round him with a dreamy, abstracted air. And then, “Where’s my bag?” he asked suddenly, and there came a note of sharp, angry fear in his voice. He glared at the quiet woman standing before him, and for a moment Mrs. Bunting felt a tremor of fright shoot through her. It seemed a pity that Bunting was so far away, right down the house.
But Mrs. Bunting was aware that eccentricity has always been a perquisite, as it were the special luxury, of the well-born and of the well-educated. Scholars, as she well knew, are never quite like other people, and her new lodger was undoubtedly a scholar. “Surely I had a bag when I came in?” he said in a scared, troubled voice.
“Here it is, sir,” she said soothingly, and, stooping, picked it up and handed it to him. And as she did so she noticed that the bag was not at all heavy; it was evidently by no means full.
He took it eagerly from her. “I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “But there is something in that bag which is very precious to me—something I procured with infinite difficulty, and which I could never get again without running into great danger, Mrs. Bunting. That must be the excuse for my late agitation.”
“About terms, sir?” she said a little timidly, returning to the subject which meant so much, so very much to her.
“About terms?” he echoed. And then there came a pause. “My name is Sleuth,” he said suddenly,—“S-l-e-u-t-h. Think of a hound, Mrs. Bunting, and you’ll never forget my name. I could provide you with a reference——” (he gave her what she described to herself as a funny, sideways look), “but I should prefer you to dispense with that, if you don’t mind. I am quite willing to pay you—well, shall we say a month in advance?”
A spot of red shot into Mrs. Bunting’s cheeks. She felt sick with relief—nay, with a joy which was almost pain. She had not known till that moment how hungry she was—how eager for a good meal. “That would be all right, sir,” she murmured.
“And what are you going to charge me?” There had come a kindly, almost a friendly note into his voice. “With attendance, mind! I shall expect you to give me attendance, and I need hardly ask if you can cook, Mrs. Bunting?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” she said. “I am a plain cook. What would you say to twenty-five shillings a week, sir?” She looked at him deprecatingly, and as he did not answer she went on falteringly, “You see, sir, it may seem a good deal, but you would have the best of attendance and careful cooking—and my husband, sir—he would be pleased to valet you.”
“I shouldn’t want anything of that sort done for me,” said Mr. Sleuth hastily. “I prefer looking after my own clothes. I am used to waiting on myself. But, Mrs. Bunting, I have a great dislike to sharing lodgings——”
She interrupted eagerly, “I could let you have the use of the two floors for the same price—that is, until we get another lodger. I shouldn’t like you to sleep in the back room up here, sir. It’s such a poor little room. You could do as you say, sir—do your work and your experiments up here, and then have your meals in the drawing-room.”
“Yes,” he said hesitatingly, “that sounds a good plan. And if I offered you two pounds, or two guineas? Might I then rely on your not taking another lodger?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d be very glad only to have you to wait on, sir.”
“I suppose you have a key to the door of this room, Mrs. Bunting? I don’t like to be disturbed while I’m working.”
He waited a moment, and then said again, rather urgently, “I suppose you have a key to this door, Mrs. Bunting?”
“Oh, yes, sir, there’s a key—a very nice little key. The people who lived here before had a new kind of lock put on to the door.” She went over, and throwing the door open, showed him that a round disc had been fitted above the old keyhole.
He nodded his head, and then, after standing silent a little, as if absorbed in thought, “Forty-two shillings a week? Yes, that will suit me perfectly. And I’ll begin now by paying my first month’s rent in advance. Now, four times forty-two shillings is”—he jerked his head back and stared at his new landlady; for the first time he smiled, a queer, wry smile—“why, just eight pounds eight shillings, Mrs. Bunting!”
He thrust his hand through into an inner pocket of his long cape-like coat and took out a handful of sovereigns. Then he began putting these down in a row on the bare wooden table which stood in the centre of the room. “Here’s five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten pounds. You’d better keep the odd change, Mrs. Bunting, for I shall want you to do some shopping for me to-morrow morning. I met with a misfortune to-day.” But the new lodger did not speak as if his misfortune, whatever it was, weighed on his spirits.
“Indeed, sir. I’m sorry to hear that.” Mrs. Bunting’s heart was going thump—thump—thump. She felt extraordinarily moved, dizzy with relief and joy.
“Yes, a very great misfortune! I lost my luggage, the few things I managed to bring away with me.” His voice dropped suddenly. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered. “I was a fool to say that!” Then, more loudly, “Someone said to me, ‘You can’t go into a lodging-house without any luggage. They wouldn’t take you in.’ But you have taken me in, Mrs. Bunting, and I’m grateful for—for the kind way you have met me——” He looked at her feelingly, appealingly, and Mrs. Bunting was touched. She was beginning to feel very kindly towards her new lodger.
“I hope I know a gentleman when I see one,” she said, with a break in her staid voice.
“I shall have to see about getting some clothes to-morrow, Mrs. Bunting.” Again he looked at her appealingly.
“I expect you’d like to wash your hands now, sir. And would you tell me what you’d like for supper? We haven’t much in the house.”
“Oh, anything’ll do,” he said hastily. “I don’t want you to go out for me. It’s a cold, foggy, wet night, Mrs. Bunting. If you have a little bread-and-butter and a cup of milk I shall be quite satisfied.”
“I have a nice sausage,” she said hesitatingly.
It was a very nice sausage, and she had bought it that same morning for Bunting’s supper; as to herself, she had been going to content herself with a little bread and cheese. But now—wonderful, almost, intoxicating thought—she could send Bunting out to get anything they both liked. The ten sovereigns lay in her hand full of comfort and good cheer.
“A sausage? No, I fear that will hardly do. I never touch flesh meat,” he said; “it is a long, long time since I tasted a sausage, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Is it indeed, sir?” She hesitated a moment, then asked stiffly, “And will you be requiring any beer, or wine, sir?”
A strange, wild look of lowering wrath suddenly filled Mr. Sleuth’s pale face.
“Certainly not. I thought I had made that quite clear, Mrs. Bunting. I had hoped to hear that you were an abstainer——”
“So I am, sir, lifelong. And so’s Bunting been since we married.” She might have said, had she been a woman given to make such confidences, that she had made Bunting abstain very early in their acquaintance. That he had given in about that had been the thing that first made her believe that he was sincere in all the nonsense that he talked to her, in those far-away days of his courting. Glad she was now that he had taken the pledge as a younger man; but for that nothing would have kept him from the drink during the bad times they had gone through.
And then, going downstairs, she showed Mr. Sleuth the nice bedroom which opened out of the drawing-room. It was a replica of Mrs. Bunting’s own room just underneath, excepting that everything up here had cost just a little more, and was therefore rather better in quality.
The new lodger looked round him with such a strange expression of content and peace stealing over his worn face. “A haven of rest,” he muttered; and then, “ ‘He bringeth them to their desired haven.’ Beautiful words, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mrs. Bunting felt a little startled. It was the first time anyone had quoted the Bible to her for many a long day. But it seemed
to set the seal, as it were, on Mr. Sleuth’s respectability.
What a comfort it was, too, that she had to deal with only one lodger, and that a gentleman, instead of with a married couple! Very peculiar married couples had drifted in and out of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting’s lodgings, not only here, in London, but at the seaside….
How unlucky they had been, to be sure! Since they had come to London not a single pair of lodgers had been even moderately respectable and kindly. The last lot had belonged to that horrible underworld of men and women who, having, as the phrase goes, seen better days, now only keep their heads above water with the help of petty fraud.
“I’ll bring you up some hot water in a minute, sir, and some clean towels,” she said, going to the door.
And then Mr. Sleuth turned quickly round. “Mrs. Bunting”—and as he spoke he stammered a little—“I—I don’t want you to interpret the word attendance too liberally. You need not run yourself off your feet for me. I’m accustomed to look after myself.”
And, queerly, uncomfortably, she felt herself dismissed—even a little snubbed. “All right, sir,” she said. “I’ll only just let you know when I’ve your supper ready.”
CHAPTER III
But what was a little snub compared with the intense relief and joy of going down and telling Bunting of the great piece of good fortune which had fallen their way?
Staid Mrs. Bunting seemed to make but one leap down the steep stairs. In the hall, however, she pulled herself together, and tried to still her agitation. She had always disliked and despised any show of emotion; she called such betrayal of feeling “making a fuss.”
Opening the door of their sitting-room, she stood for a moment looking at her husband’s bent back, and she realised, with a pang of pain, how the last few weeks had aged him.
Bunting suddenly looked round, and, seeing his wife, stood up. He put the paper he had been holding down on to the table: “Well,” he said, “well, who was it, Ellen?”
He felt rather ashamed of himself; it was he who ought to have answered the door and done all that parleying of which he had heard murmurs.
And then in a moment his wife’s hand shot out, and the ten sovereigns fell in a little clinking heap on the table.
“Look there!” she whispered, with an excited, tearful quiver in her voice. “Look there, Bunting!”
And Bunting did look there, but with a troubled, frowning gaze.
He was not quick-witted, but at once he jumped to the conclusion that his wife had just had in a furniture dealer, and that this ten pounds represented all their nice furniture upstairs. If that were so, then it was the beginning of the end. That furniture in the first-floor front had cost—Ellen had reminded him of the fact bitterly only yesterday—seventeen pounds nine shillings, and every single item had been a bargain. It was too bad that she had only got ten pounds for it.
Yet he hadn’t the heart to reproach her.
He did not speak as he looked across at her, and meeting that troubled, rebuking glance, she guessed what it was that he thought had happened.
“We’ve a new lodger!” she cried. “And—and, Bunting? He’s quite the gentleman! He actually offered to pay four weeks in advance, at two guineas a week.”
“No, never!”
Bunting moved quickly round the table, and together they stood there, fascinated by the little heap of gold. “But there’s ten sovereigns here,” he said suddenly.
“Yes, the gentleman said I’d have to buy some things for him to-morrow. And, oh, Bunting, he’s so well spoken, I really felt that—I really felt that——” and then Mrs. Bunting, taking a step or two sideways, sat down, and throwing her little black apron over her face burst into gasping sobs.
Bunting patted her back timidly. “Ellen?” he said, much moved by her agitation, “Ellen? Don’t take on so, my dear——”
“I won’t,” she sobbed, “I—I won’t! I’m a fool—I know I am! But, oh, I didn’t think we was ever going to have any luck again!”
And then she told him—or rather tried to tell him—what the lodger was like. Mrs. Bunting was no hand at talking, but one thing she did impress on her husband’s mind, namely, that Mr. Sleuth was eccentric, as so many clever people are eccentric—that is, in a harmless way—and that he must be humoured.
“He says he doesn’t want to be waited on much,” she said at last, wiping her eyes, “but I can see he will want a good bit of looking after, all the same, poor gentleman.”
And just as the words left her mouth there came the unfamiliar sound of a loud ring. It was that of the drawing-room bell being pulled again and again.
Bunting looked at his wife eagerly. “I think I’d better go up, eh, Ellen?” he said. He felt quite anxious to see their new lodger. For the matter of that, it would be a relief to be doing something again.
“Yes,” she answered, “you go up! Don’t keep him waiting! I wonder what it is he wants? I said I’d let him know when his supper was ready.”
A moment later Bunting came down again. There was an odd smile on his face. “Whatever d’you think he wanted?” he whispered mysteriously. And as she said nothing, he went on, “He’s asked me for the loan of a Bible!”
“Well, I don’t see anything so out of the way in that,” she said hastily, “ ’specially if he don’t feel well. I’ll take it up to him.”
And, then, going to a small table which stood between the two windows, Mrs. Bunting took off it a large Bible, which had been given to her as a wedding present by a married lady with whose mother she had lived for several years.
“He said it would do quite well when you take up his supper,” said Bunting; and, then, “Ellen? He’s a queer-looking cove—not like any gentleman I ever had to do with.”
“He is a gentleman,” said Mrs. Bunting rather fiercely.
“Oh, yes, that’s all right.” But still he looked at her doubtfully. “I asked him if he’d like me to just put away his clothes. But, Ellen, he said he hadn’t got any clothes!”
“No more he hasn’t,” she spoke quickly, defensively. “He had the misfortune to lose his luggage. He’s one dishonest folk ’ud take advantage of.”
“Yes, one can see that with half an eye,” Bunting agreed.
And then there was silence for a few moments, while Mrs. Bunting put down on a little bit of paper the things she wanted her husband to go out and buy for her. She handed him the list, together with a sovereign. “Be as quick as you can,” she said, “for I feel a bit hungry. I’ll be going down now to see about Mr. Sleuth’s supper. He only wants a glass of milk and two eggs. I’m glad I’ve never fallen to bad eggs!”
“Sleuth,” echoed Bunting, staring at her. “What a queer name! How d’you spell it—S-l-u-t-h?”
“No,” she shot out, “S-l-e-u-t-h.”
“Oh,” he said doubtfully.
“He said, ‘Think of a hound and you’ll never forget my name,’ ” and Mrs. Bunting smiled.
When he got to the door, Bunting turned round: “We’ll now be able to pay young Chandler back some o’ that thirty shillings. I am glad.”
She nodded; her heart, as the saying is, too full for words.
And then each went about his and her business—Bunting out into the drenching fog, his wife down to her cold kitchen.
The lodger’s tray was soon ready; everything upon it nicely and daintily arranged. Mrs. Bunting knew how to wait upon a gentleman.
Just as the landlady was going up the kitchen stair, she suddenly remembered Mr. Sleuth’s request for a Bible. Putting the tray down in the hall, she went into her sitting-room and took up the Book; but when back in the hall she hesitated a moment as to whether it was worth while to make two journeys. But, no, she thought she could manage; clasping the large, heavy volume under her arm, and taking up the tray, she walked slowly up the staircase.
But a great surprise awaited her; in fact, when Mr. Sleuth’s landlady opened the door of the drawing-room she very nearly dropped the tray. She actually did drop the
Bible, and it fell with a heavy thud to the ground.
The new lodger had turned all those nice framed engravings of the early Victorian beauties, of which Mrs. Bunting had been so proud, with their faces to the wall!
For a moment she was really too surprised to speak. Putting the tray down on the table, she stooped and picked up the Book. It troubled her that the Bible should have fallen to the ground; but really she hadn’t been able to help it—it was a mercy that the tray hadn’t fallen, too.
Mr. Sleuth got up. “I—I have taken the liberty to arrange the room as I should wish it to be,” he said awkwardly. “You see, Mrs.—er—Bunting, I felt as I sat here that these women’s eyes followed me about. It was a most unpleasant sensation, and gave me quite an eerie feeling.”
The landlady was now laying a small tablecloth over half of the table. She made no answer to her lodger’s remark, for the good reason that she did not know what to say.
Her silence seemed to distress Mr. Sleuth. After what seemed a long pause, he spoke again.
“I prefer bare walls, Mrs. Bunting,” he spoke with some agitation. “As a matter of fact, I have been used to seeing bare walls about me for a long time.”
And then, at last, his landlady answered him, in a composed, soothing voice, which somehow did him good to hear. “I quite understand, sir. And when Bunting comes in he shall take the pictures all down. We have plenty of space in our own rooms for them.”
“Thank you—thank you very much.”
Mr. Sleuth appeared greatly relieved.
“And I have brought you up my Bible, sir. I understood you wanted the loan of it?”
Mr. Sleuth stared at her as if dazed for a moment; and then, rousing himself, he said, “Yes, yes, I do. There is no reading like the Book. There is something there which suits every state of mind, aye, and of body too——”
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper Page 67