The Lodger Read Online Free

been left by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when
they had been scared into going away by Bunting's rough threats of
the police. But now it was in apple-pie order, with one paramount
exception, of which Mrs. Bunting was painfully aware. There were no
white curtains to the windows, but that omission could soon be
remedied if this gentleman really took the lodgings.
      But what was this - ? The stranger was looking round
him rather dubiously. "This is rather - rather too grand for me,"
he said at last "I should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er -
"
      " - Bunting," she said softly. "Bunting, sir."
      And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again
came down and settled on her sad, burdened heart. Perhaps she had
been mistaken, after all - or rather, she had not been mistaken in
one sense, but perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman - too
poor, that is, to afford the rent of more than one room, say eight
or ten shillings a week; eight or ten shlllings a week would be
very little use to her and Bunting, though better than nothing at
all.
      "Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?"
      "No," he said, "no. I think I should like to see
what you have farther up the house, Mrs. - ," and then, as if
making a prodigious mental effort, he brought out her name,
"Bunting," with a kind of gasp.
      "The two top rooms were, of course, immediately
above the drawing-room floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing
to the fact that they were bare of any kind of ornament. Very
little trouble had been taken over their arrangement; in fact, they
bad been left in much the same condition as that in which the
Buntings had found them.
      For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a
nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the
principal features are a sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove,
of an obsolete pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot
arrangement. It had been the property of the people from whom the
Buntings had taken over the lease of the house, who, knowing it to
be of no monetary value, had thrown it in among the humble fittings
they had left behind.
      What furniture there was in the room was substantial
and clean, as everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be,
but it was a bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady
now felt sorry that she had done nothing to make it appear more
attractive.
      To her surprise, however, her companion's dark,
sensitive, hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction.
"Capital! Capital!" he exclaimed, for the first time putting down
the bag he held at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands
together with a quick, nervous movement.
      "This is just what I have been looking for." He
walked with long, eager strides towards the gas stove. "First-rate
- quite first-rate! Exactly what I wanted to find! You must
understand, Mrs. - er - Bunting, that I am a man of science. I
make, that is, all sorts of experiments, and I often require the -
ah, well, the presence of great heat."
      He shot out a hand, which she noticed shook a
little, towards the stove. "This, too, will be useful - exceedingly
useful, to me," and he touched the edge of the stone sink with a
lingering, caressing touch.
      He threw his head back and passed his hand over his
high, bare forehead; then, moving towards a chair, he sat down -
wearily. "I'm tired," he muttered in a low voice, "tired - tired!
I've been walking about all day, Mrs. Bunting, and I could find
nothing to sit down upon. They do not put benches for tired men in
the London streets. They do so on the Continent. In some ways they
are far more humane on the Continent than they are in England, Mrs.
Bunting."
      "Indeed, sir," she said civilly; and then, after a
nervous glance, she asked the question of which the answer would
mean so much to her, "Then you mean to take my rooms, sir?"
      "This room, certainly," he said, looking round.
"This room is exactly what I have been looking