The police, it was clear, were quite at a loss, and Mrs. Bunting began to feel curiously better, less tired, less ill, less—­less terrified than she had felt through the morning.

And then something happened which broke with dramatic suddenness the quietude of the day.

They had had their tea, and Bunting was reading the last of the papers he had run out to buy, when suddenly there came a loud, thundering, double knock at the door.

Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled.  “Why, whoever can that be?” she said.

But as Bunting got up she added quickly, “You just sit down again.  I’ll go myself.  Sounds like someone after lodgings.  I’ll soon send them to the right-about!”

And then she left the room, but not before there had come another loud double knock.

Mrs. Bunting opened the front door.  In a moment she saw that the person who stood there was a stranger to her.  He was a big, dark man, with fierce, black moustaches.  And somehow—­she could not have told you why—­he suggested a policeman to Mrs. Bunting’s mind.

This notion of hers was confirmed by the very first words he uttered.  For, “I’m here to execute a warrant!” he exclaimed in a theatrical, hollow tone.

With a weak cry of protest Mrs. Bunting suddenly threw out her arms as if to bar the way; she turned deadly white—­but then, in an instant the supposed stranger’s laugh rang out, with loud, jovial, familiar sound!

“There now, Mrs. Bunting!  I never thought I’d take you in as well as all that!”

It was Joe Chandler—­Joe Chandler dressed up, as she knew he sometimes, not very often, did dress up in the course of his work.

Mrs. Bunting began laughing—­laughing helplessly, hysterically, just as she had done on the morning of Daisy’s arrival, when the newspaper-sellers had come shouting down the Marylebone Road.

“What’s all this about?” Bunting came out

Young Chandler ruefully shut the front door.  “I didn’t mean to upset her like this,” he said, looking foolish; “’twas just my silly nonsense, Mr. Bunting.”  And together they helped her into the sitting-room.

But, once there, poor Mrs. Bunting went on worse than ever; she threw her black apron over her face, and began to sob hysterically.

“I made sure she’d know who I was when I spoke,” went on the young fellow apologetically.  “But, there now, I have upset her.  I am sorry!”

“It don’t matter!” she exclaimed, throwing the apron off her face, but the tears were still streaming from her eyes as she sobbed and laughed by turns.  “Don’t matter one little bit, Joe!  ’Twas stupid of me to be so taken aback.  But, there, that murder that’s happened close by, it’s just upset me—­upset me altogether to-day.”

“Enough to upset anyone—­that was,” acknowledged the young man ruefully.  “I’ve only come in for a minute, like.  I haven’t no right to come when I’m on duty like this—­”