His wife smile wanly. "We won't have no words about that," she said,
and again she spoke in a softer, kindlier tone than usual. "Daisy?
If you won't go down to the kitchen again, then I must"--she turned
to her stepdaughter, and the girl flew out of the room.

"I think the child grows prettier every minute," said Bunting fondly.

"Folks are too apt to forget that beauty is but skin deep," said his
wife. She was beginning to feel better. "But still, I do agree,
Bunting, that Daisy's well enough. And she seems more willing, too."

"I say, we mustn't forget the lodger's dinner," Bunting spoke
uneasily. "It's a bit of fish to-day, isn't it? Hadn't I better
just tell Daisy to see to it, and then I can take it up to him, as
you're not feeling quite the thing, Ellen?"

"I'm quite well enough to take up Mr. Sleuth's luncheon," she said
quickly. It irritated her to hear her husband speak of the lodger's
dinner. They had dinner in the middle of the day, but Mr. Sleuth
had luncheon. However odd he might be, Mrs. Bunting never forgot
her lodger was a gentleman.

"After all, he likes me to wait on him, doesn't he? I can manage
all right. Don't you worry," she added after a long pause.

CHAPTER VIII

Perhaps because his luncheon was served to him a good deal later
than usual, Mr. Sleuth ate his nice piece of steamed sole upstairs
with far heartier an appetite than his landlady had eaten her nice
slice of roast pork downstairs.

"I hope you're feeling a little better, sir," Mrs. Bunting had forced
herself to say when she first took in his tray.

And he had answered plaintively, querulously, "No, I can't say I
feel well to-day, Mrs. Bunting. I am tired--very tired. And as I
lay in bed I seemed to hear so many sounds--so much crying and
shouting. I trust the Marylebone Road is not going to become a noisy
thoroughfare, Mrs. Bunting?"

"Oh, no, sir, I don't think that. We're generally reckoned very
quiet indeed, sir."

She waited a moment--try as she would, she could not allude to what
those unwonted shouts and noises had betokened. "I expect you've
got a chill, sir," she said suddenly. "If I was you, I shouldn't
go out this afternoon; I'd just stay quietly indoors. There's a lot
of rough people about--" Perhaps there was an undercurrent of
warning, of painful pleading, in her toneless voice which penetrated
in some way to the brain of the lodger, for Mr. Sleuth looked up, and
an uneasy, watchful look came into his lum