“No,” she said obstinately.  “I’d rather do my own work.  You just bring them up here—­that’ll be all right.  To-morrow morning we’ll have Daisy to help see to things.”

“Come over here and sit down comfortable in my chair,” he suggested kindly.  “You never do take any bit of rest, Ellen.  I never see’d such a woman!”

And again she got up and meekly obeyed him, walking across the room with languid steps.

He watched her, anxiously, uncomfortably.

She took up the newspaper he had just laid down, and Bunting took two steps towards her.

“I’ll show you the most interesting bit” he said eagerly.  “It’s the piece headed, ‘Our Special Investigator.’  You see, they’ve started a special investigator of their own, and he’s got hold of a lot of little facts the police seem to have overlooked.  The man who writes all that—­I mean the Special Investigator—­was a famous ’tec in his time, and he’s just come back out of his retirement o’ purpose to do this bit of work for the paper.  You read what he says—­I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he ends by getting that reward!  One can see he just loves the work of tracking people down.”

“There’s nothing to be proud of in such a job,” said his wife listlessly.

“He’ll have something to be proud of if he catches The Avenger!” cried Bunting.  He was too keen about this affair to be put off by Ellen’s contradictory remarks.  “You just notice that bit about the rubber soles.  Now, no one’s thought o’ that.  I’ll just tell Chandler—­he don’t seem to me to be half awake, that young man don’t.”

“He’s quite wide awake enough without you saying things to him!  How about those eggs, Bunting?  I feel quite ready for my breakfast even if you don’t—­”

Mrs. Bunting now spoke in what her husband sometimes secretly described to himself as “Ellen’s snarling voice.”

He turned away and left the room, feeling oddly troubled.  There was something queer about her, and he couldn’t make it out.  He didn’t mind it when she spoke sharply and nastily to him.  He was used to that.  But now she was so up and down; so different from what she used to be!  In old days she had always been the same, but now a man never knew where to have her.

And as he went downstairs he pondered uneasily over his wife’s changed ways and manner.

Take the question of his easy chair.  A very small matter, no doubt, but he had never known Ellen sit in that chair—­no, not even once, for a minute, since it had been purchased by her as a present for him.

They had been so happy, so happy, and so—­so restful, during that first week after Mr. Sleuth had come to them.  Perhaps it was the sudden, dramatic change from agonising anxiety to peace and security which had been too much for Ellen—­yes, that was what was the matter with her, that and the universal excitement about these Avenger murders, which were shaking the nerves of all London.  Even Bunting, unobservant as he was, had come to realise that his wife took a morbid interest in these terrible happenings.  And it was the more queer of her to do so that at first she refused to discuss them, and said openly that she was utterly uninterested in murder or crime of any sort.