Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/52

42 now, when these awful and mysterious crimes were amazing and terrifying the town.

"Them who says that says wrong," answered Chandler slowly, and a look of unease, of resentment, came over his fair, stolid face. "’Twould make a good bit of difference to me if the Yard had a clue."

And then Mrs. Bunting interposed. "Why that, Joe?" she said, smiling indulgently; the young man’s keenness about his work pleased her. And in his slow, sure way Joe Chandler was very keen, and took his job very seriously. He put his whole heart and mind into it.

"Well, ’tis this way," he explained. "From to-day I’m on this business myself. You see, Mrs. Bunting, the Yard’s nettled—that’s what it is, and we’re all on our mettle—that we are. I was right down sorry for the poor chap who was on point duty in the street where the last one happened"

"No!" said Bunting incredulously. "You don’t mean there was a policeman there, within a few yards?"

That fact hadn’t been recorded in his newspaper.

Chandler nodded. "That’s exactly what I do mean, Mr. Bunting! The man is near off his head, so I’m told. He did hear a yell, so he says, but he took no notice—there are a good few yells in that part o’ London, as you can guess. People always quarrelling and rowing at one another in such low parts."

"Have you seen the bits of grey paper on which the monster writes his name?" inquired Bunting eagerly.

Public imagination had been much stirred by the account of those three-cornered pieces of grey paper, pinned to the victims’ skirts, on which was roughly written in