“A man as gives up someone for a reward is no better than a common informer,” went on Bunting obstinately.  “And no man ’ud care to be called that!  It’s different for you, Joe,” he added hastily.  “It’s your job to catch those who’ve done anything wrong.  And a man’d be a fool who’d take refuge—­like with you.  He’d be walking into the lion’s mouth—­” Bunting laughed.

And then Daisy broke in coquettishly:  “If I’d done anything I wouldn’t mind going for help to Mr. Chandler,” she said.

And Joe, with eyes kindling, cried, “No.  And if you did you needn’t be afraid I’d give you up, Miss Daisy!”

And then, to their amazement, there suddenly broke from Mrs. Bunting, sitting with bowed head over the table, an exclamation of impatience and anger, and, it seemed to those listening, of pain.

“Why, Ellen, don’t you feel well?” asked Bunting quickly.

“Just a spasm, a sharp stitch in my side, like,” answered the poor woman heavily.  “It’s over now.  Don’t mind me.”

“But I don’t believe—­no, that I don’t—­that there’s anybody in the world who knows who The Avenger is,” went on Chandler quickly.  “It stands to reason that anybody’d give him up—­in their own interest, if not in anyone else’s.  Who’d shelter such a creature?  Why, ’twould be dangerous to have him in the house along with one!”

“Then it’s your idea that he’s not responsible for the wicked things he does?” Mrs. Bunting raised her head, and looked over at Chandler with eager, anxious eyes.

“I’d be sorry to think he wasn’t responsible enough to hang!” said Chandler deliberately.  “After all the trouble he’s been giving us, too!”

“Hanging’d be too good for that chap,” said Bunting.

“Not if he’s not responsible,” said his wife sharply.  “I never heard of anything so cruel—­that I never did!  If the man’s a madman, he ought to be in an asylum—­that’s where he ought to be.”

“Hark to her now!” Bunting looked at his Ellen with amusement.  “Contrary isn’t the word for her!  But there, I’ve noticed the last few days that she seemed to be taking that monster’s part.  That’s what comes of being a born total abstainer.”

Mrs. Bunting had got up from her chair.  “What nonsense you do talk!” she said angrily.  “Not but what it’s a good thing if these murders have emptied the public-houses of women for a bit.  England’s drink is England’s shame—­I’ll never depart from that!  Now, Daisy, child, get up, do!  Put down that paper.  We’ve heard quite enough.  You can be laying the cloth while I goes down the kitchen.”

“Yes, you mustn’t be forgetting the lodger’s supper,” called out Bunting.  “Mr. Sleuth don’t always ring—­” he turned to Chandler.  “For one thing, he’s often out about this time.”

“Not often—­just now and again, when he wants to buy something,” snapped out Mrs. Bunting.  “But I hadn’t forgot his supper.  He never do want it before eight o’clock.”