Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/69

Rh you’d call a lively, jolly woman, but when things were going well—as now—she was generally equable enough. He supposed she was still resentful of the way he had spoken to her about young Chandler and the new Avenger murder.

However, he was always for peace, so he opened the drawing-room door, and as soon as he had started going downstairs Mrs. Bunting walked into the room.

And then at once there came over her the queerest feeling of relief, of lightness of heart.

As usual, the lodger was sitting at his old place, reading the Bible.

Somehow—she could not have told you why, she would not willingly have told herself—she had expected to see Mr. Sleuth looking different. But no, he appeared to be exactly the same—in fact, as he glanced up at her a pleasanter smile than usual lighted up his thin, pallid face.

"Well, Mrs. Bunting," he said genially, "I overslept myself this morning, but I feel all the better for the rest."

"I’m glad of that, sir," she answered, in a low voice. "One of the ladies I once lived with used to say, ‘Rest is an old-fashioned remedy, but it’s the best remedy of all.’"

Mr. Sleuth himself removed the Bible and Cruden’s Concordance off the table out of her way, and then he stood watching his landlady laying the cloth.

Suddenly he spoke again. He was not often so talkative in the morning. "I think, Mrs. Bunting, that there was someone with you outside the door just now?"

"Yes, sir. Bunting helped me up with the tray."