Now, under ordinary circumstances Bunting would have rushed forward to drive out whoever was there.  He and his wife had often had trouble, before the cold weather began, with vagrants seeking shelter there.  But to-night he stayed outside, listening intently, sick with suspense and fear.

Was it possible that their place was being watched—­already?  He thought it only too likely.  Bunting, like Mrs. Bunting, credited the police with almost supernatural powers, especially since he had paid that visit to Scotland Yard.

But to Bunting’s amazement, and, yes, relief, it was his lodger who suddenly loomed up in the dim light.

Mr. Sleuth must have been stooping down, for his tall, lank form had been quite concealed till he stepped forward from behind the low wall on to the flagged path leading to the front door.

The lodger was carrying a brown paper parcel, and, as he walked along, the new boots he was wearing creaked, and the tap-tap of hard nail-studded heels rang out on the flat-stones of the narrow path.

Bunting, still standing outside the gate, suddenly knew what it was his lodger had been doing on the other side of the low wall.  Mr. Sleuth had evidently been out to buy himself another pair of new boots, and then he had gone inside the gate and had put them on, placing his old footgear in the paper in which the new pair had been wrapped.

The ex-butler waited—­waited quite a long time, not only until Mr. Sleuth had let himself into the house, but till the lodger had had time to get well away, upstairs.

Then he also walked up the flagged pathway, and put his latchkey in the door.  He lingered as long over the job of hanging his hat and coat up in the hall as he dared, in fact till his wife called out to him.  Then he went in, and throwing the paper down on the table, he said sullenly:  “There it is!  You can see it all for yourself—­ not that there’s very much to see,” and groped his way to the fire.

His wife looked at him in sharp alarm.  “Whatever have you done to yourself?” she exclaimed.  “You’re ill—­that’s what it is, Bunting.  You got a chill last night!”

“I told you I’d got a chill,” he muttered. “’Twasn’t last night, though; ’twas going out this morning, coming back in the bus.  Margaret keeps that housekeeper’s room o’ hers like a hothouse—­ that’s what she does.  ’Twas going out from there into the biting wind, that’s what did for me.  It must be awful to stand about in such weather; ’tis a wonder to me how that young fellow, Joe Chandler, can stand the life—­being out in all weathers like he is.”

Bunting spoke at random, his one anxiety being to get away from what was in the paper, which now lay, neglected, on the table.

“Those that keep out o’ doors all day never do come to no harm,” said his wife testily.  “But if you felt so bad, whatever was you out so long for, Bunting?  I thought you’d gone away somewhere!  D’you mean you only went to get the paper?”