Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/74

64 at the table. And then she said languidly, "You might as well show me the girl’s letter."

He handed it across to her, and she read it slowly to herself.

" (it ran)—I hope this finds you as well at it leaves me. Mrs. Puddle’s youngest has got scarlet fever, and Aunt thinks I had better come away at once, just to stay with you for a few days. Please tell Ellen I won’t give her no trouble. I’ll start at ten if I don’t hear nothing.—Your loving daughter, "."

"Yes, I suppose Daisy will have to come here," Mrs. Bunting slowly. "It’ll do her good to have a bit of work to do for once in her life."

And with that ungraciously worded permission Bunting had to content himself.

Quietly the rest of that eventful day sped by. When dusk fell Mr. Sleuth’s landlady heard him go upstairs to the top floor. She remembered that this was the signal for her to go and do his room.

He was a tidy man, was the lodger; he did not throw his things about as so many gentlemen do, leaving them all over the place. No, he kept everything scrupulously tidy. His clothes, and the various articles Mrs. Bunting had bought for him during the first two days he had been there, were carefully arranged in the chest of drawers. He had lately purchased a pair of boots. Those he had arrived in were peculiar-looking footgear, buff leather shoes with rubber soles, and he had told his landlady on that very first day that he never wished them to go down to be cleaned.