Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/113

Rh like it, and I know that the Boss attaches quite a lot of importance to it."

"And where was it posted?" asked Bunting. "That might be a bit of a clue, you know."

"Oh, no," said the other. "They always goes a very long way to post anything—criminals do. It stands to reason they would. But this particular one was put in the Edgware Road Post Office."

"What? Close to us?" said Bunting. "Goodness! How dreadful!"

"Any of us might knock up against him any minute. I don’t suppose The Avenger’s in any way peculiar-looking—in fact we know he ain’t."

"Then you think that woman as says she saw him did see him?" asked Bunting hesitatingly.

"Our description was made up from what she said," answered the other cautiously. "But, there, you can’t tell! In a case like that it’s groping—groping in the dark all the time—and it’s just a lucky accident if it comes out right in the end. Of course, it’s upsetting us all very much here. You can’t wonder at that!"

"No, indeed," said Bunting quickly. "I give you my word, I’ve hardly thought of anything else for the last month."

Daisy had disappeared, and when her father joined her in the passage she was listening, with downcast eyes, to what Joe Chandler was saying.

He was telling her about his real home, of the place where his mother lived, at Richmond—that it was a nice little house, close to the park. He was asking her whether she could manage to come out there one afternoon,