than the lodger, and yet in some ways he was so secret,
so--so peculiar.

She thought of the bag--that bag which had rumbled about so
queerly in the chiffonnier. Something seemed to tell her that
tonight the lodger had taken that bag out with him.

And then she thrust away the thought of the bag almost violently
from her mind, and went back to the more agreeable thought of Mr.
Sleuth's income, and of how little trouble he gave. Of course,
the lodger was eccentric, otherwise he wouldn't be their lodger
at all--he would be living in quite a different sort of way with
some of his relations, or with a friend in his own class.

While these thoughts galloped disconnectedly through her mind,
Mrs. Bunting went on with her cooking, preparing the cheese, cutting
it up into little shreds, carefully measuring out the butter, doing
everything, as was always her way, with a certain delicate and
cleanly precision.

And then, while in the middle of toasting the bread on which was to
be poured the melted cheese, she suddenly heard sounds which startled
her, made her feel uncomfortable.

Shuffling, hesitating steps were creaking down the house.

She looked up and listened.

Surely the lodger was not going out again into the cold and foggy
night--going out, as he had done the other evening, for a second
time? But no; the sounds she heard, the sounds of now familiar
footsteps, did not continue down the passage leading to the front
door.

Instead--Why, what was this she heard now? She began to listen
so intently that the bread she was holding at the end of the
toasting-fork grew quite black. With a start she became aware
that this was so, and she frowned, vexed with herself. That came
of not attending to one's work.

Mr. Sleuth was evidently about to do what he had never yet done.
He was coming down into the kitchen.

Nearer and nearer came the thudding sounds, treading heavily on the
kitchen stairs, and Mrs. Bunting's heart began to beat as if in
response. She put out the flame of the gas-ring, unheedful of the
fact that the cheese would stiffen and spoil in the cold air.

Then she turned and faced the door.

There came a fumbling at the handle, and a moment later the door
opened, and revealed, as she had at once known and feared it would
do, the lodger.

Mr. Sleuth looked even odder than usual. He was clad in a plaid
dressing-gown, which she had never seen him wear before, though
she knew that he had purchased it not lo