Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/87

Rh "What I said just now. There’s two of ’em this time, and they’d both been drinking heavily, poor creatures."

"Was it where the others was done?" she asked looking at her husband fearfully.

"No," he said awkwardly. "No, it wasn’t, Ellen. It was a good bit farther West—in fact, not so very far from here. Near King’s Cross—that’s how the cabman knew about it, you see. They seems to have been done in a passage which isn’t used no more." And then, as he thought his wife’s eyes were beginning to look rather funny, he added hastily. "There, that’s enough for the present! We shall soon be hearing a lot more about it from Joe Chandler. He’s pretty sure to come in some time to-day."

"Then the five thousand constables weren’t no use?" said Mrs. Bunting slowly.

She had relaxed her grip of the table, and was standing more upright.

"No use at all," said Bunting briefly. "He is artful, and no mistake about it. But wait a minute" he turned and took up the paper which he had laid aside, on a chair. "Yes, they says here that they has a clue."

"A clue, Bunting?" Mrs. Bunting spoke in a soft, weak, die-away voice, and again, stooping somewhat, she grasped the edge of the table.

But her husband was not noticing her now. He was holding the paper close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a tone of considerable satisfaction: