Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/185

Rh "I suppose you went to see the place?" she said.

And guiltily he acknowledged that he had done so.

"Well?"

"Well, there wasn’t anything much to see—not now. But, oh, Ellen, the daring of him! Why, Ellen, if the poor soul had had time to cry out—which they don’t believe she had—it’s impossible someone wouldn’t ’a heard her. They say that if he goes on doing it like that—in the afternoon, like—he never will be caught. He must have just got mixed up with all the other people within ten seconds of what he’d done!"

During the afternoon Bunting bought papers recklessly—in fact, he must have spent the best part of sixpence. But in spite of all the supposed and suggested clues, there was nothing—nothing at all new to read, less, in fact than ever before.

The police, it was clear, were quite at a loss, and Mrs. Bunting began to feel curiously better, less tired, less ill, less—less terrified than she had felt through the morning.

And then something happened which broke with dramatic suddenness the quietude of the day.

They had had their tea, and Bunting was reading the last of the papers he had run out to buy, when suddenly there came a loud, thundering, double knock at the door.

Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. "Why, whoever can that be?" she said.

But as Bunting got up she added quickly, "You just sit down again. I’ll go myself. Sounds like someone after lodgings. I’ll soon send them to the right-about!"

And then she left the room, but not before there had come another loud double knock.