It fell out this way.  When he heard who had been there, Bunting was angry that Mrs. Bunting hadn’t got more details of the horrible occurrence which had taken place that morning, out of Chandler.

“You don’t mean to say, Ellen, that you can’t even tell me where it happened?” he said indignantly.  “I suppose you put Chandler off —­that’s what you did!  Why, whatever did he come here for, excepting to tell us all about it?”

“He came to have something to eat and drink,” snapped out Mrs. Bunting.  “That’s what the poor lad came for, if you wants to know.  He could hardly speak of it at all—­he felt so bad.  In fact, he didn’t say a word about it until he’d come right into the room and sat down.  He told me quite enough!”

“Didn’t he tell you if the piece of paper on which the murderer had written his name was square or three-cornered?” demanded Bunting.

“No; he did not.  And that isn’t the sort of thing I should have cared to ask him.”

“The more fool you!” And then he stopped abruptly.  The newsboys were coming down the Marylebone Road, shouting out the awful discovery which had been made that morning—­that of The Avenger’s fifth murder.  Bunting went out to buy a paper, and his wife took the things he had brought in down to the kitchen.

The noise the newspaper-sellers made outside had evidently wakened Mr. Sleuth, for his landlady hadn’t been in the kitchen ten minutes before his bell rang.

CHAPTER VI

Mr. Sleuth’s bell rang again.

Mr. Sleuth’s breakfast was quite ready, but for the first time since he had been her lodger Mrs. Bunting did not answer the summons at once.  But when there came the second imperative tinkle—­for electric bells had not been fitted into that old-fashioned house—­ she made up her mind to go upstairs.

As she emerged into the hall from the kitchen stairway, Bunting, sitting comfortably in their parlour, heard his wife stepping heavily under the load of the well-laden tray.

“Wait a minute!” he called out.  “I’ll help you, Ellen,” and he came out and took the tray from her.

She said nothing, and together they proceeded up to the drawing-room floor landing.

There she stopped him.  “Here,” she whispered quickly, “you give me that, Bunting.  The lodger won’t like your going in to him.”  And then, as he obeyed her, and was about to turn downstairs again, she added in a rather acid tone, “You might open the door for me, at any rate!  How can I manage to do it with this here heavy tray on my hands?”

She spoke in a queer, jerky way, and Bunting felt surprised—­rather put out.  Ellen wasn’t exactly what you’d call a lively, jolly woman, but when things were going well—­as now—­she was generally equable enough.  He supposed she was still resentful of the way he had spoken to her about young Chandler and the new Avenger murder.