dn't give a good bit to lay
that chap by the heels. Well, I suppose I must be going now."

"Won't you wait a bit longer for Bunting?" she said hesitatingly.

"No, I can't do that. But I'll come in, maybe, either this evening
or to-morrow, and tell you any more that's happened. Thanks kindly
for the tea. It's made a man of me, Mrs. Bunting."

"Well, you've had enough to unman you, Joe."

"Aye, that I have," he said heavily.

A few minutes later Bunting did come in, and he and his wife had
quite a little tiff--the first tiff they had had since Mr. Sleuth
became their lodger.

It fell out this way. When he heard who had been there, Bunting
was angry that Mrs. Bunting hadn't got more details of the horrible
occurrence which had taken place that morning, out of Chandler.

"You don't mean to say, Ellen, that you can't even tell me where it
happened?" he said indignantly. "I suppose you put Chandler off
--that's what you did! Why, whatever did he come here for,
excepting to tell us all about it?"

"He came to have something to eat and drink," snapped out Mrs.
Bunting. "That's what the poor lad came for, if you wants to know.
He could hardly speak of it at all--he felt so bad. In fact, he
didn't say a word about it until he'd come right into the room and
sat down. He told me quite enough!"

"Didn't he tell you if the piece of paper on which the murderer had
written his name was square or three-cornered?" demanded Bunting.

"No; he did not. And that isn't the sort of thing I should have
cared to ask him."

"The more fool you!" And then he stopped abruptly. The newsboys
were coming down the Marylebone Road, shouting out the awful
discovery which had been made that morning--that of The Avenger's
fifth murder. Bunting went out to buy a paper, and his wife took
the things he had brought in down to the kitchen.

The noise the newspaper-sellers made outside had evidently wakened
Mr. Sleuth, for his landlady hadn't been in the kitchen ten minutes
before his bell rang.

CHAPTER VI

Mr. Sleuth's bell rang again.

Mr. Sleuth's breakfast was quite ready, but for the first time since
he had been her lodger Mrs. Bunting did not answer the summons at
once. But when there came the second imperative tinkle--for
electric bells had not been fitted into that old-fashioned house--
she made up her mind to go upstairs.

As she emerged into the hall from the kitchen stairway, Bunting,
sitting comfortably in their parlour, hea