for the bottle of
red ink which had turned over and now lay in a red pool of its own
making on the lower shelf.

"I'm afraid it will have stained the wood, Mrs. Bunting. Perhaps I
was ill-advised to keep my ink in there."

"Oh, no, sir! That doesn't matter at all. Only a drop or two fell
out on to the carpet, and they don't show, as you see, sir, for it's
a dark corner. Shall I take the bottle away? I may as well."

Mr. Sleuth hesitated. "No," he said, after a long pause, "I think
not, Mrs. Bunting. For the very little I require it the ink
remaining in the bottle will do quite well, especially if I add a
little water, or better still, a little tea, to what already
remains in the bottle. I only require it to mark up passages which
happen to be of peculiar interest in my Concordance--a work, Mrs.
Bunting, which I should have taken great pleasure in compiling
myself had not this--ah--this gentleman called Cruden, been before."

******

Not only Bunting, but Daisy also, thought Ellen far pleasanter in
her manner than usual that evening. She listened to all they had
to say about their interesting visit to the Black Museum, and did
not snub either of them--no, not even when Bunting told of the
dreadful, haunting, silly-looking death-masks taken from the hanged.

But a few minutes after that, when her husband suddenly asked her
a question, Mrs. Bunting answered at random. It was clear she had
not heard the last few words he had been saying.

"A penny for your thoughts!" he said jocularly. But she shook her
head.

Daisy slipped out of the room, and, five minutes later, came back
dressed up in a blue-and-white check silk gown.

"My!" said her father. "You do look fine, Daisy. I've never seen
you wearing that before."

"And a rare figure of fun she looks in it!" observed Mrs. Bunting
sarcastically. And then, "I suppose this dressing up means that
you're expecting someone. I should have thought both of you must
have seen enough of young Chandler for one day. I wonder when that
young chap does his work--that I do! He never seems too busy to
come and waste an hour or two here."

But that was the only nasty thing Ellen said all that evening. And
even Daisy noticed that her stepmother seemed dazed and unlike
herself. She went about her cooking and the various little things
she had to do even more silently than was her wont.

Yet under that still, almost sullen, manner, how fierce was the
storm of dread, of sombre ang