第51章

They had been so happy, so happy, and so - so restful, during that first week after Mr.Sleuth had come to them.Perhaps it was the sudden, dramatic change from agonising anxiety to peace and security which had been too much for Ellen - yes, that was what was the matter with her, that and the universal excitement about these Avenger murders, which were shaking the nerves of all London.Even Bunting, unobservant as he was, had come to realise that his wife took a morbid interest in these terrible happenings.And it was the more queer of her to do so that at first she refused to discuss them, and said openly that she was utterly uninterested in murder or crime of any sort.

He, Bunting, had always had a mild pleasure in such things.In his time he had been a great reader of detective tales, and even now he thought there was no pleasanter reading.It was that which had first drawn him to Joe Chandler, and made him welcome the young chap as cordially as he had done when they first came to London.

But though Ellen had tolerated, she had never encouraged, that sort of talk between the two men.More than once she had exclaimed reproachfully: "To hear you two, one would think there was no nice, respectable, quiet people left in the world!"But now all that was changed.She was as keen as anyone could be to hear the latest details of an Avenger crime.True, she took her own view of any theory suggested.But there! Ellen always had had her own notions about everything under the sun.Ellen was a woman who thought for herself - a clever woman, not an everyday woman by any manner of means.

While these thoughts were going disconnectedly through his mind, Bunting was breaking four eggs into a basin.He was going to give Ellen a nice little surprise - to cook an omelette as a French chef had once taught him to do, years and years ago.He didn't know how she would take his doing such a thing after what she had said; but never mind, she would enjoy the omelette when done.Ellen hadn't been eating her food properly of late.

And when he went up again, his wife, to his relief, and, it must be admitted, to his surprise, took it very well.She had not even noticed how long he had been downstairs, for she had been reading with intense, painful care the column that the great daily paper they took in had allotted to the one-time famous detective.

According to this Special Investigator's own account he had discovered all sorts of things that had escaped the eye of the police and of the official detectives.For instance, owing, he admitted, to a fortunate chance, he had been at the place where the two last murders had been committed very soon after the double crime had been discovered - in fact within half an hour, and he had found, or so he felt sure, on the slippery, wet pavement imprints of the murderer's right foot.

The paper reproduced the impression of a half-worn rubber sole.

At the same time, he also admitted - for the Special Investigator was very honest, and he had a good bit of space to fill in the enterprising paper which had engaged him to probe the awful mystery - that there were thousands of rubber soles being worn in London....

And when she came to that statement Mrs.Bunting looked up, and there came a wan smile over her thin, closely-shut lips.It was quite true - that about rubber soles; there were thousands of rubber soles being worn just now.She felt grateful to the Special Investigator for having stated the fact so clearly.

The column ended up with the words: