said, but there was a lilt in
her voice.

"So it is," Bunting briefly answered. "Didn't that old cook get
married just after us? She'd never 'a thought of it if it hadn't
been for you!"

But once she was out, walking along the damp, uneven pavement, Mr.
Sleuth revenged himself for his landlady's temporary forgetfulness.

During the last two days the lodger had been queer, odder than usual,
unlike himself, or, rather, very much as he had been some ten days
ago, just before that double murder had taken place.

The night before, while Daisy was telling all about the dreadful
place to which Joe Chandler had taken her and her father, Mrs.
Bunting had heard Mr. Sleuth moving about overhead, restlessly
walking up and down his sitting-room. And later, when she took up
his supper, she had listened a moment outside the door, while he
read aloud some of the texts his soul delighted in--terrible texts
telling of the grim joys attendant on revenge.

Mrs. Bunting was so absorbed in her thoughts, so possessed with the
curious personality of her lodger, that she did not look where she
was going, and suddenly a young woman bumped up against her.

She started violently and looked round, dazed, as the young person
muttered a word of apology;--then she again fell into deep thought.

It was a good thing Daisy was going away for a few days; it made the
problem of Mr. Sleuth and his queer ways less disturbing. She,
Ellen, was sorry she had spoken so sharp-like to the girl, but after
all it wasn't wonderful that she had been snappy. This last night
she had hardly slept at all. Instead, she had lain awake listening
--and there is nothing so tiring as to lie awake listening for a
sound that never comes.

The house had remained so still you could have heard a pin drop. Mr.
Sleuth, lying snug in his nice warm bed upstairs, had not stirred.
Had he stirred his landlady was bound to have heard him, for his bed
was, as we know, just above hers. No, during those long hours of
darkness Daisy's light, regular breathing was all that had fallen on
Mrs. Bunting's ears.

And then her mind switched off Mr. Sleuth. She made a determined
effort to expel him, to toss him, as it were, out of her thoughts.

It seemed strange that The Avenger had stayed his hand, for, as Joe
had said only last evening, it was full time that he should again
turn that awful, mysterious searchlight of his on himself. Mrs.
Bunting always visioned The Avenger as a black sha