The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (color ebook reader txt) 📕

Mrs. Bunting slept well the night following that during which the lodger had been engaged in making his mysterious experiments in her kitchen. She was so tired, so utterly exhausted, that sleep came to her the moment she laid her head upon her pillow.

Perhaps that was why she rose so early the next morning. Hardly giving herself time to swallow the tea Bunting had made and brought her, she got up and dressed.

She had suddenly come to the conclusion that the hall and staircase required a thorough “doing down,” and she did not even wait till they had eaten their breakfast before beginning her labours. It made Bunting feel quite uncomfortable. As he sat by the fire reading his morning paper—the paper which was again of such absorbing interest—he called out, “There’s no need for so much hurry, Ellen. Daisy’ll be back to-day. Why don’t you wait till she’s come home to help you?”

But from the hall where she was busy dusting, sweeping, polishing, his wife’s voice came back: “Girls ain’t no good at this sort of work. Don’t you worry about me. I feel as if I’d enjoy doing an extra bit of cleaning to-day. I don’t like to feel as anyone could come in and see my place dirty.”

“No fear of that!” Bunting chuckled. And then a new thought struck him. “Ain’t you afraid of waking the lodger?” he called out.

“Mr. Sleuth slept most of yesterday, and all last night,” she answered quickly. “As it is, I study him overmuch; it’s a long, long time since I’ve done this staircase down.”

All the time she was engaged in doing the hall, Mrs. Bunting left the sitting-room door wide open.

That was a queer thing of her to do, but Bunting didn’t like to get up and shut her out, as it were. Still, try as he would, he couldn’t read with any comfort while all that noise was going on. He had never known Ellen make such a lot of noise before. Once or twice he looked up and frowned rather crossly.

There came a sudden silence, and he was startled to see that. Ellen was standing in the doorway, staring at him, doing nothing.

“Come in,” he said, “do! Ain’t you finished yet?”

“I was only resting a minute,” she said. “You don’t tell me nothing. I’d like to know if there’s anything—I mean anything new—in the paper this morning.”

She spoke in a muffled voice, almost as if she were ashamed of her unusual curiosity; and her look of fatigue, of pallor, made Bunting suddenly uneasy. “Come in—do!” he repeated sharply. “You’ve done quite enough—and before breakfast, too. ‘Tain’t necessary. Come in and shut that door.”

He spoke authoritatively, and his wife, for a wonder, obeyed him.

She came in, and did what she had never done before—brought the broom with her, and put it up against the wall in the corner.

Then she sat down.

“I think I’ll make breakfast up here,” she said. “I—I feel cold, Bunting.” And her husband stared at her surprised, for drops of perspiration were glistening on her forehead.

He got up. “All right. I’ll go down and bring the eggs up. Don’t you worry. For the matter of that, I can cook them downstairs if you like.”

“No,” she said obstinately. “I’d rather do my own work. You just bring them up here—that’ll be all right. To-morrow morning we’ll have Daisy to help see to things.”

“Come over here and sit down comfortable in my chair,” he suggested kindly. “You never do take any bit of rest, Ellen. I never see’d such a woman!”

And again she got up and meekly obeyed him, walking across the room with languid steps.

He watched her, anxiously, uncomfortably.

She took up the newspaper he had just laid down, and Bunting took two steps towards her.

“I’ll show you the most interesting bit” he said eagerly. “It’s the piece headed, ‘Our Special Investigator.’ You see, they’ve started a special investigator of their own, and he’s got hold of a lot of little facts the police seem to have overlooked. The man who writes all that—I mean the Special Investigator—was a famous ‘tec in his time, and he’s just come back out of his retirement o’ purpose to do this bit of work for the paper. You read what he says—I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he ends by getting that reward! One can see he just loves the work of tracking people down.”

“There’s nothing to be proud of in such a job,” said his wife listlessly.

“He’ll have something to be proud of if he catches The Avenger!” cried Bunting. He was too keen about this affair to be put off by Ellen’s contradictory remarks. “You just notice that bit about the rubber soles. Now, no one’s thought o’ that. I’ll just tell Chandler—he don’t seem to me to be half awake, that young man don’t.”

“He’s quite wide awake enough without you saying things to him! How about those eggs, Bunting? I feel quite ready for my breakfast even if you don’t—”

Mrs. Bunting now spoke in what her husband sometimes secretly described to himself as “Ellen’s snarling voice.”

He turned away and left the room, feeling oddly troubled. There was something queer about her, and he couldn’t make it out. He didn’t mind it when she spoke sharply and nastily to him. He was used to that. But now she was so up and down; so different from what she used to be! In old days she had always been the same, but now a man never knew where to have her.

And as he went downstairs he pondered uneasily over his wife’s changed ways and manner.

Take the question of his easy chair. A very small matter, no doubt, but he had never known Ellen sit in that chair—no, not even once, for a minute, since it had been purchased by her as a present for him.

They had been so happy, so happy, and so—so restful, during that first week after Mr. Sleuth had come to them. Perhaps it was the sudden, dramatic change from agonising anxiety to peace and security which had been too much for Ellen—yes, that was what was the matter with her, that and the universal excitement about these Avenger murders, which were shaking the nerves of all London. Even Bunting, unobservant as he was, had come to realise that his wife took a morbid interest in these terrible happenings. And it was the more queer of her to do so that at first she refused to discuss them, and said openly that she was utterly uninterested in murder or crime of any sort.

He, Bunting, had always had a mild pleasure in such things. In his time he had been a great reader of detective tales, and even now he thought there was no pleasanter reading. It was that which had first drawn him to Joe Chandler, and made him welcome the young chap as cordially as he had done when they first came to London.

But though Ellen had tolerated, she had never encouraged, that sort of talk