Again Daisy hesitated, and then with an effort she brought out the word “Gab-o-ri-you,” said she.

“What a funny name!” said Bunting wonderingly.

And then Joe broke in:  “That’s the name of a French chap what wrote detective stories,” he said.  “Pretty good, some of them are, too!”

“Then this Gaboriyou has come over to study these Avenger murders, I take it?” said Bunting.

“Oh, no,” Joe spoke with confidence.  “Whoever’s written that silly letter just signed that name for fun.”

“It is a silly letter,” Mrs. Bunting had broken in resentfully.  “I wonder a respectable paper prints such rubbish.”

“Fancy if The Avenger did turn out to be a gentleman!” cried Daisy, in an awe-struck voice.  “There’d be a how-to-do!”

“There may be something in the notion,” said her father thoughtfully.  “After all, the monster must be somewhere.  This very minute he must be somewhere a-hiding of himself.”

“Of course he’s somewhere,” said Mrs. Bunting scornfully.

She had just heard Mr. Sleuth moving overhead.  ’Twould soon be time for the lodger’s supper.

She hurried on:  “But what I do say is that—­that—­he has nothing to do with the West End.  Why, they say it’s a sailor from the Docks —­that’s a good bit more likely, I take it.  But there, I’m fair sick of the whole subject!  We talk of nothing else in this house.  The Avenger this—­The Avenger that—­”

“I expect Joe has something to tell us new to-night,” said Bunting cheerfully.  “Well, Joe, is there anything new?”

“I say, father, just listen to this!” Daisy broke in excitedly.  She read out: 

“Bloodhounds to be seriously considered”

“Bloodhounds?” repeated Mrs. Bunting, and there was terror in her tone.  “Why bloodhounds?  That do seem to me a most horrible idea!”

Bunting looked across at her, mildly astonished.  “Why, ’twould be a very good idea, if ’twas possible to have bloodhounds in a town.  But, there, how can that be done in London, full of butchers’ shops, to say nothing of slaughter-yards and other places o’ that sort?”

But Daisy went on, and to her stepmother’s shrinking ear there seemed a horrible thrill of delight; of gloating pleasure, in her fresh young voice.

“Hark to this,” she said: 

“A man who had committed a murder in a lonely wood near Blackburn was traced by the help of a bloodhound, and thanks to the sagacious instincts of the animal, the miscreant was finally convicted and hanged.”

“La, now!  Who’d ever have thought of such a thing?” Bunting exclaimed, in admiration.  “The newspapers do have some useful hints in sometimes, Joe.”

But young Chandler shook his head.  “Bloodhounds ain’t no use,” he said; “no use at all!  If the Yard was to listen to all the suggestions that the last few days have brought in—­well, all I can say is our work would be cut out for us—­not but what it’s cut out for us now, if it comes to that!” He sighed ruefully.  He was beginning to feel very tired; if only he could stay in this pleasant, cosy room listening to Daisy Bunting reading on and on for ever, instead of having to go out, as he would presently have to do, into the cold and foggy night!