Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/146

Rh face. There had fallen on her ear the still distant, but unmistakable, shouts which betokened that something had happened last night—something which made it worth while for the newspaper-sellers to come crying down the Marylebone Road.

"Well?" she said a little breathlessly. "Well, Joe? I suppose you’ve brought us news? I suppose there’s been another?"

He looked at her, surprised. "No, that there hasn’t, Mrs. Bunting—not as far as I know, that is. Oh, you’re thinking of those newspaper chaps? They’ve got to cry out something," he grinned. "You wouldn’t ’a thought folk was so bloodthirsty. They’re just shouting out that there’s been an arrest; but we don’t take no stock of that. It’s a Scotchman what gave himself up last night at Dorking. He’d been drinking, and was a-pitying of himself. Why, since this business began, there’s been about twenty arrests, but they’ve all come to nothing."

"Why, Ellen, you looks quite sad, quite disappointed," said Bunting jokingly. "Come to think of it, it’s high time The Avenger was at work again." He laughed as he made his grim joke. Then turned to young Chandler: "Well, you’ll be glad when its all over, my lad."

"Glad in a way," said Chandler unwillingly. "But one 'ud have liked to have caught him. One doesn't like to know such a creature's at large, now, does one?"

Mrs. Bunting had taken off her bonnet and jacket. "I must just go and see about Mr. Sleuth's breakfast," she said in a weary, dispirited voice, and left them there.

She felt disappointed, and very, very depressed. As