How pleasant it was to feel that there was money in her purse
again--not only someone else's money, but money she was now in
the very act of earning so agreeably.

Mrs. Bunting first made her way to a little barber's shop close by.
It was there she purchased the brush and comb and the razors. It
was a funny, rather smelly little place, and she hurried as much as
she could, the more so that the foreigner who served her insisted
on telling her some of the strange, peculiar details of this
Avenger murder which had taken place forty-eight hours before, and
in which Bunting took such a morbid interest.

The conversation upset Mrs. Bunting. She didn't want to think of
anything painful or disagreeable on such a day as this.

Then she came back and showed the lodger her various purchases. Mr.
Sleuth was pleased with everything, and thanked her most courteously.
But when she suggested doing his bedroom he frowned, and looked
quite put out.

"Please wait till this evening," he said hastily. "It is my custom
to stay at home all day. I only care to walk about the streets when
the lights are lit. You must bear with me, Mrs. Bunting, if I seem
a little, just a little, unlike the lodgers you have been accustomed
to. And I must ask you to understand that I must not be disturbed
when thinking out my problems--" He broke off short, sighed, then
added solemnly, "for mine are the great problems of life and death."

And Mrs. Bunting willingly fell in with his wishes. In spite of her