And then, through the closed door of the sitting-room, came the sound of Bunting coughing—it was just a little, hard cough, but Mrs. Bunting’s future lodger started violently.
“Who’s that?” he said, putting out a hand and clutching her arm. “Whatever was that?”
“Only my husband, sir. He went out to buy a paper a few minutes ago, and the cold just caught him, I suppose.”
“Your husband—?” he looked at her intently, suspiciously. “What —what, may I ask, is your husband’s occupation?”
Mrs. Bunting drew herself up. The question as to Bunting’s occupation was no one’s business but theirs. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to show offence. “He goes out waiting,” she said stiffly. “He was a gentleman’s servant, sir. He could, of course, valet you should you require him to do so.”
And then she turned and led the way up the steep, narrow staircase.
At the top of the first flight of stairs was what Mrs. Bunting, to herself, called the drawing-room floor. It consisted of a sitting-room in front, and a bedroom behind. She opened the door of the sitting-room and quickly lit the chandelier.
This front room was pleasant enough, though perhaps a little over-encumbered with furniture. Covering the floor was a green carpet simulating moss; four chairs were placed round the table which occupied the exact middle of the apartment, and in the corner, opposite the door giving on to the landing, was a roomy, old-fashioned chiffonnier.
On the dark-green walls hung a series of eight engravings, portraits of early Victorian belles, clad in lace and tarletan ball dresses, clipped from an old Book of Beauty. Mrs. Bunting was very fond of these pictures; she thought they gave the drawing-room a note of elegance and refinement.
As she hurriedly turned up the gas she was glad, glad indeed, that she had summoned up sufficient energy, two days ago, to give the room a thorough turn-out.
It had remained for a long time in the state in which it had been left by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when they had been scared into going away by Bunting’s rough threats of the police. But now it was in apple-pie order, with one paramount exception, of which Mrs. Bunting was painfully aware. There were no white curtains to the windows, but that omission could soon be remedied if this gentleman really took the lodgings.
But what was this—? The stranger was looking round him rather dubiously. “This is rather—rather too grand for me,” he said at last “I should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er—”
“—Bunting,” she said softly. “Bunting, sir.”
And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again came down and settled on her sad, burdened heart. Perhaps she had been mistaken, after all—or rather, she had not been mistaken in one sense, but perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman—too poor, that is, to afford the rent of more than one room, say eight or ten shillings a week; eight or ten shillings a week would be very little use to her and Bunting, though better than nothing at all.
“Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?”
“No,” he said, “no. I think I should like to see what you have farther up the house, Mrs.—,” and then, as if making a prodigious mental effort, he brought out her name, “Bunting,” with a kind of gasp.
The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the drawing-room floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact that they were bare of any kind of ornament. Very little trouble had been taken over their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.
For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-inthe-slot arrangement. It had been the property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over the lease of the house, who, knowing it to be of no monetary value, had thrown it in among the humble fittings they had left behind.
What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry that she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.
To her surprise, however, her companion’s dark, sensitive, hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction. “Capital! Capital!” he exclaimed, for the first time putting down the bag he held at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands together with a quick, nervous movement.
“This is just what I have been looking for.” He walked with long, eager strides towards the gas stove. “First-rate—quite first-rate! Exactly what I wanted to find! You must understand, Mrs.—er— Bunting, that I am a man of science. I make, that is, all sorts of experiments, and I often require the—ah, well, the presence of great heat.”
He shot out a hand, which she noticed shook a little, towards the stove. “This, too, will be useful—exceedingly useful, to me,” and he touched the edge of the stone sink with a lingering, caressing touch.
He threw his head back and passed his hand over his high, bare forehead; then, moving towards a chair, he sat down—wearily. “I’m tired,” he muttered in a low voice, “tired—tired! I’ve been walking about all day, Mrs. Bunting, and I could find nothing to sit down upon. They do not put benches for tired men in the London streets. They do so on the Continent. In some ways they are far more humane on the Continent than they are in England, Mrs. Bunting.”
“Indeed, sir,” she said civilly; and then, after a nervous glance, she asked the question of which the answer would mean so much to her, “Then you mean to take my rooms, sir?”
“This room, certainly,” he said, looking round. “This room is exactly what I have been looking for, and longing for, the last few days;” and then hastily he added, “I mean this kind of place is what I have always wanted to possess, Mrs. Bunting. You would be surprised if you knew how difficult it is to get anything of the sort. But now my weary search has ended, and that is a relief —a very, very great relief to me!”
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