As for the delicate and yet the all-important question of money,
Mr. Sleuth was everything--everything that the most exacting
landlady could have wished. Never had there been a more confiding
or trusting gentleman. On the very first day he had been with them
he had allowed his money--the considerable sum of one hundred and
eighty-four sovereigns--to lie about wrapped up in little pieces
of rather dirty newspaper on his dressing-table. That had quite
upset Mrs. Bunting. She had allowed herself respectfully to point
out to him that what he was doing was foolish, indeed wrong. But
as only answer he had laughed, and she had been startled when the
loud, unusual and discordant sound had issued from his thin lips.

"I know those I can trust," he had answered, stuttering rather, as
was his way when moved. "And--and I assure you, Mrs. Bunting, that
I hardly have to speak to a human being--especially to a woman"
(and he had drawn in his breath with a hissing sound) "before I
know exactly what manner of person is before me."

It hadn't taken the landlady very long to find out that her lodger
had a queer kind of fear and dislike of women. When she was doing
the staircase and landings she would often hear Mr. Sleuth reading
aloud to himself passages in the Bible that were very uncomplimentary
to her sex. But Mrs. Bunting had no very great opinion of her sister
woman, so that didn't put her out. Besides, where one's lodger is
concerned, a dislike of women is better than--well, than the other
thing.

In any case, where would have been the good of worrying about the
lodger's funny ways? Of course, Mr. Sleuth was eccentric. If he