Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/309

Rh had left them, when he had come downstairs and suggested that ill-starred expedition to his landlord’s daughter. She took a few steps forward, listening the while anxiously for the familiar sound of the click in the door which would tell her that the lodger had come back, and then she went over to the window and looked out.

What a cold night for a man to be wandering about, homeless, friendless, and, as she suspected with a pang, with but very little money on him!

Turning abruptly, she went into the lodger’s bedroom and opened the drawer of the looking-glass.

Yes, there lay the much-diminished heap of sovereigns. If only he had taken his money out with him! She wondered painfully whether he had enough on his person to secure a good night’s lodging, and then suddenly she remembered that which brought relief to her mind. The lodger had given something to that Hopkins fellow—either a sovereign or half a sovereign, she wasn’t sure which.

The memory of Mr. Sleuth’s cruel words to her, of his threat, did not disturb her overmuch. It had been a mistake—all a mistake. Far from betraying Mr. Sleuth, she had sheltered him—kept his awful secret as she could not have kept it had she known, or even dimly suspected, the horrible fact with which Sir John Burney’s words had made her acquainted; namely, that Mr. Sleuth was victim of no temporary aberration, but that he was, and had been for years, a madman, a homicidal maniac.

In her ears there still rang the Frenchman’s half careless yet confident question, "De Leipsic and Liverpool man?"