what
they supposed that man who had gone into the public-house was really
like. It was fortunate, indeed, that the lodger and that inquisitive
young chap had never met face to face.

At last Mr. Sleuth's bell rang--a quiet little tinkle. But when
she went up with his breakfast the lodger was not in his sitting-room.

Supposing him to be still in his bedroom, Mrs. Bunting put the cloth
on the table, and then she heard the sound of his footsteps coming
down the stairs, and her quick ears detected the slight whirring
sound which showed that the gas-stove was alight. Mr. Sleuth had
already lit the stove; that meant that he would carry out some
elaborate experiment this afternoon.

"Still snowing?" he said doubtfully. "How very, very quiet and
still London is when under snow, Mrs. Bunting. I have never known
it quite as quiet as this morning. Not a sound, outside or in. A
very pleasant change from the shouting which sometimes goes on in
the Marylebone Road."

"Yes," she said dully. "It's awful quiet to-day--too quiet to my
thinking. 'Tain't natural-like."

The outside gate swung to, making a noisy clatter in the still air.

"Is that someone coming in here?" asked Mr. Sleuth, drawing a quick,
hissing breath. "Perhaps you will oblige me by going to the window
and telling me who it is, Mrs. Bunting?"

And his landlady obeyed him.

"It's only Bunting, sir--Bunting and his daughter."

"Oh! Is that all?"

Mr. Sleuth hurried after her, and she shrank back a little. She
had never been quite so near to the lodger before, save on that
first day when she had been showing him her rooms.

Side by side they stood, looking out of the window. And, as if
aware that someone was standing there, Daisy turned her bright face
up towards the window and smiled at her stepmother, and at the
lodger, whose face she could only dimly discern.

"A very sweet-looking young girl," said Mr. Sleuth thoughtfully.
And then he quoted a little bit of poetry, and this took Mrs.
Bunting very much aback.

"Wordsworth," he murmured dreamily. "A poet too little read
nowadays, Mrs. Bunting; but one with a beautiful feeling for nature,
for youth, for innocence."

"Indeed, sir?" Mrs. Bunting stepped back a little. "Your breakfast
will be getting cold, sir, if you don't have it now."

He went back to the table, obediently, and sat down as a child
rebuked might have done.

And then his landlady left him.

"Well?" said Bunting cheerily. "Everything