But I should be much
obliged if you would see that the gas people come to-morrow and
put my stove in order. It might be done while I am out. That the
shilling-in-the-slot machine should go wrong is very unpleasant.
It has upset me greatly."

"Perhaps Bunting could put it right for you, sir. For the matter
of that, I could ask him to go up now."

"No, no, I don't want anything of that sort done to-night. Besides,
he couldn't put it right. I am something of an expert, Mrs. Bunting,
and I have done all I could. The cause of the trouble is quite
simple. The machine is choked up with shillings; a very foolish
plan, so I always felt it to be."

Mr. Sleuth spoke pettishly, with far more heat than he was wont to
speak, but Mrs. Bunting sympathised with him in this matter. She
had always suspected that those slot machines were as dishonest as
if they were human. It was dreadful, the way they swallowed up
the shillings! She had had one once, so she knew.

And as if he were divining her thoughts, Mr. Sleuth walked forward
and stared at the stove. "Then you haven't got a slot machine?" he
said wonderingly. "I'm very glad of that, for I expect my experiment
will take some time. But, of course, I shall pay you something for
the use of the stove, Mrs. Bunting."

"Oh, no, sir, I wouldn't think of charging you anything for that.
We don't use our stove very much, you know, sir. I'm never in the
kitchen a minute longer than I can help this cold weather."

Mrs. Bunting was beginning to feel better. When she was actually
in Mr. Sleuth's presence her morbid fears would be lulled, perhaps
because his manner almost invariably was gentle and very quiet.
But still there came over her an eerie feeling, as, with him
preceding her, they made a slow progress to the ground floor.

Once there, the lodger courteously bade his landlady good-night,
and proceeded upstairs to his own apartments.

Mrs. Bunting returned to the kitchen. Again she lighted the stove;
but she felt unnerved, afraid of she knew not what. As she was
cooking the cheese, she tried to concentrate her mind on what she
was doing, and on the whole she succeeded. But another part of her
mind seemed to be working independently, asking her insistent
questions.

The place seemed to her alive with alien presences, and once she
caught herself listening--which was absurd, for, of course, she
could not hope to hear what Mr. Sleuth was doing two, if not three,
flights upstairs. She w