chiffonnier
must become known to her lodger, for a thin trickle of some
dark-coloured liquid was oozing out though the bottom of the little
cupboard door.

She stooped down and touched the stuff. It showed red, bright red,
on her finger.

Mrs. Bunting grew chalky white, then recovered herself quickly. In
fact the colour rushed into her face, and she grew hot all over.

It was only a bottle of red ink she had upset--that was all! How
could she have thought it was anything else?

It was the more silly of her--so she told herself in scornful
condemnation--because she knew that the lodger used red ink.
Certain pages of Cruden's Concordance were covered with notes written
in Mr. Sleuth's peculiar upright handwriting. In fact in some places
you couldn't see the margin, so closely covered was it with remarks
and notes of interrogation.

Mr. Sleuth had foolishly placed his bottle of red ink in the
chiffonnier--that was what her poor, foolish gentleman had done;
and it was owing to her inquisitiveness, her restless wish to know
things she would be none the better, none the happier, for knowing,
that this accident had taken place.

She mopped up with her duster the few drops of ink which had fallen
on the green carpet and then, still feeling, as she angrily told
herself, foolishly upset she went once more into the back room.

It was curious that Mr. Sleuth possessed no notepaper. She would
have expected him to have made that one of his first purchases--the
more so that paper is so very cheap, especially that rather
dirty-looking grey Silurian paper. Mrs. Bunting had once lived with
a lady who always used two kinds of notepaper, white for her friends
and equals, grey for those whom she called "common people." She,
Ellen Green, as she then was, had always resented the fact. Strange
she should remember it now, stranger in a way because that employer
of her's had not been a real lady, and Mr. Sleuth, whatever his
peculiarities, was, in every sense of the word, a real gentleman.
Somehow Mrs. Bunting felt sure that if he had bought any notepaper
it would have been white--white and probably cream-laid--not
grey and cheap.

Again she opened the drawer of the old-fashioned wardrobe and lifted
up the few pieces of underclothing Mr. Sleuth now possessed.

But there was nothing there--nothing, that is, hidden away. When
one came to think of it there seemed something strange in the notion
of leaving all one's money where anyone