The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
“As for you, child, just run down into the kitchen. You’ll find a piece of pork roasting in the oven. You might start paring the apples for the sauce.”
As Mrs. Bunting went upstairs her legs felt as if they were made of cotton wool. She put out a trembling hand, and clutched at the banister for support. But soon, making a great effort over herself, she began to feel more steady; and after waiting for a few moments on the landing, she knocked at the door of the drawing-room.
Mr. Sleuth’s voice answered her from the bedroom. “I’m not well,” he called out querulously; “I think I’ve caught a chill. I should be obliged if you would kindly bring me up a cup of tea, and put it outside my door, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Very well, sir.”
Mrs. Bunting turned and went downstairs. She still felt queer and giddy, so instead of going into the kitchen, she made the lodger his cup of tea over her sitting-room gas-ring.
During their midday dinner the husband and wife had a little discussion as to where Daisy should sleep. It had been settled that a bed should be made up for her in the top back room, but Mrs. Bunting saw reason to change this plan. “I think ’twould be better if Daisy were to sleep with me, Bunting, and you was to sleep upstairs.”
Bunting felt and looked rather surprised, but he acquiesced. Ellen was probably right; the girl would be rather lonely up there, and, after all, they didn’t know much about the lodger, though he seemed a respectable gentleman enough.
Daisy was a good-natured girl; she liked London, and wanted to make herself useful to her stepmother. “I’ll wash up; don’t you bother to come downstairs,” she said cheerfully.
Bunting began to walk up and down the room. His wife gave him a furtive glance; she wondered what he was thinking about.
“Didn’t you get a paper?” she said at last.
“Yes, of course I did,” he answered hastily. “But I’ve put it away. I thought you’d rather not look at it, as you’re that nervous.”
Again she glanced at him quickly, furtively, but he seemed just as usual—he evidently meant just what he said and no more.
“I thought they was shouting something in the street—I mean just before I was took bad.”
It was now Bunting’s turn to stare at his wife quickly and rather furtively. He had felt sure that her sudden attack of queerness, of hysterics—call it what you might—had been due to the shouting outside. She was not the only woman in London who had got the Avenger murders on her nerves. His morning paper said quite a lot of women were afraid to go out alone. Was it possible that the curious way she had been taken just now had had nothing to do with the shouts and excitement outside?
“Don’t you know what it was they were calling out?” he asked slowly.
Mrs. Bunting looked across at him. She would have given a very great deal to be able to lie, to pretend that she did not know what those dreadful cries had portended. But when it came to the point she found she could not do so.
“Yes,” she said dully. “I heard a word here and there. There’s been another murder, hasn’t there?”
“Two other murders,” he said soberly.
“Two? That’s worse news!” She turned so pale—a sallow greenish-white—that Bunting thought she was again going queer.
“Ellen?” he said warningly, “Ellen, now do have a care! I can’t think what’s come over you about these murders. Turn your mind away from them, do! We needn’t talk about them—not so much, that is—”
“But I wants to talk about them,” cried Mrs. Bunting hysterically.
The husband and wife were standing, one each side of the table, the man with his back to the fire, the woman with her back to the door.
Bunting, staring across at his wife, felt sadly perplexed and disturbed. She really did seem ill; even her slight, spare figure looked shrunk. For the first time, so he told himself ruefully, Ellen was beginning to look her full age. Her slender hands—she had kept the pretty, soft white hands of the woman who has never done rough work—grasped the edge of the table with a convulsive movement.
Bunting didn’t at all like the look of her. “Oh, dear,” he said to himself, “I do hope Ellen isn’t going to be ill! That would be a to-do just now.”
“Tell me about it,” she commanded, in a low voice. “Can’t you see I’m waiting to hear? Be quick now, Bunting!”
“There isn’t very much to tell,” he said reluctantly. “There’s precious little in this paper, anyway. But the cabman what brought Daisy told me—”
“Well?”
“What I said just now. There’s two of ’em this time, and they’d both been drinking heavily, poor creatures.”
“Was it where the others was done?” she asked looking at her husband fearfully.
“No,” he said awkwardly. “No, it wasn’t, Ellen. It was a good bit farther West—in fact, not so very far from here. Near King’s Cross —that’s how the cabman knew about it, you see. They seems to have been done in a passage which isn’t used no more.” And then, as he thought his wife’s eyes were beginning to look rather funny, he added hastily. “There, that’s enough for the present! We shall soon be hearing a lot more about it from Joe Chandler. He’s pretty sure to come in some time today.”
“Then the five thousand constables weren’t no use?” said Mrs. Bunting slowly.
She had relaxed her grip of the table, and was standing more upright.
“No use at all,” said Bunting briefly. “He is artful and no mistake about it. But wait a minute—” he turned and took up the paper which he had laid aside, on a chair. “Yes they says here that they has a clue.”
“A clue, Bunting?” Mrs. Bunting spoke in a soft, weak, die-away voice, and again, stooping somewhat, she grasped the edge of the table.
But her husband was not noticing her now. He was holding the paper close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a tone of considerable satisfaction:
“‘It is gratifying to be able to state that the police at last believe they are in possession of a clue which will lead to the arrest of the—’” and then Bunting dropped the paper and rushed round the table.
His wife, with a curious sighing moan, had slipped down on to the floor, taking with her the tablecloth as she went. She lay there in what appeared to be a dead faint. And Bunting, scared out of his wits, opened the door and screamed out, “Daisy! Daisy! Come up, child. Ellen’s took bad again.”
And Daisy, hurrying in, showed an amount of sense and resource which even at this anxious moment roused her fond father’s admiration.
“Get a wet sponge, Dad—quick!” she cried, “a sponge,—and, if you’ve got such a thing, a drop o’ brandy. I’ll see after her!” And then, after he had got the little medicine flask, “I can’t think what’s wrong with Ellen,” said Daisy wonderingly. “She seemed quite all right when I first came in. She was listening, interested-like, to what I was telling her, and then, suddenly—well, you saw how she was took, father? ‘Tain’t like Ellen this, is it now?”
“No,” he whispered. “No, ‘tain’t. But you see, child, we’ve been going through a pretty bad time—worse nor I should ever have let you know of, my dear. Ellen’s just feeling it now—that’s what it is. She didn’t say nothing, for Ellen’s a good plucked one, but it’s told on her—it’s told on her!”
And then Mrs. Bunting, sitting up, slowly opened her eyes, and instinctively put her hand up to her head to see if her hair was all right.
She hadn’t really been quite “off.” It would have been better for her if she had. She had simply had an awful feeling that she couldn’t