e no clue to
the perpetrators of these horrible crimes, and we cannot feel any
surprise at the information that a popular attack has been organised
on the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. There is even
talk of an indignation mass meeting.'

"What d'you think of that? That's not a pleasant thing for a
gentleman as is doing his best to read, eh?"

"Well, it does seem queer that the police can't catch him, now
doesn't it?" said Bunting argumentatively.

"I don't think it's queer at all," said young Chandler crossly.
"Now you just listen again! Here's a bit of the truth for once--
in a newspaper." And slowly he read out:

"'The detection of crime in London now resembles a game of blind
man's buff, in which the detective has his hands tied and his eyes
bandaged. Thus is he turned loose to hunt the murderer through
the slums of a great city.'"

"Whatever does that mean?" said Bunting. "Your hands aren't tied,
and your eyes aren't bandaged, Joe?"

"It's metaphorical-like that it's intended, Mr. Bunting. We haven't
got the same facilities--no, not a quarter of them--that the
French 'tecs have."

And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting spoke: "What was that
word, Joe--'perpetrators'? I mean that first bit you read out."

"Yes," he said, turning to her eagerly.

"Then do they think there's more than one of them?" she said, and
a look of relief came over her thin face.

"There's some of our chaps thinks it's a gang," said Chandler.
"They say it can't be the work of one man."

"What do you think, Joe?"

"Well, Mrs. Bunting, I don't know what to think. I'm fair puzzled."

He got up. "Don't you come to the door. I'll shut it all right.
So long! See you to-morrow, perhaps." As he had done the other
evening, Mr. and Mrs. Bunting's visitor stopped at the door. "Any
news of Miss Daisy?" he asked casually.

"Yes; she's coming to-morrow," said her father. "They've got scarlet
fever at her place. So Old Aunt thinks she'd better clear out."

The husband and wife went to bed early that night, but Mrs. Bunting
found she could not sleep. She lay wide awake, hearing the hours,
the half-hours, the quarters chime out from the belfry of the old
church close by.

And then, just as she was dozing off--it must have been about one
o'clock--she heard the sound she had half unconsciously been
expecting to hear, that of the lodger's stealthy footsteps coming
down the stairs just outside her room.

He crept along