at ten if I don't hear nothing.--Your loving daughter,


"Yes, I suppose Daisy will have to come here," Mrs. Bunting slowly.
"It'll do her good to have a bit of work to do for once in her life."

And with that ungraciously worded permission Bunting had to content
himself.

******

Quietly the rest of that eventful day sped by. When dusk fell Mr.
Sleuth's landlady heard him go upstairs to the top floor. She
remembered that this was the signal for her to go and do his room.

He was a tidy man, was the lodger; he did not throw his things
about as so many gentlemen do, leaving them all over the place.
No, he kept everything scrupulously tidy. His clothes, and the
various articles Mrs. Bunting had bought for him during the first
two days he had been there, were carefully arranged in the chest
of drawers. He had lately purchased a pair of boots. Those he
had arrived in were peculiar-looking footgear, buff leather shoes
with rubber soles, and he had told his landlady on that very first
day that he never wished them to go down to be cleaned.

A funny idea--a funny habit that, of going out for a walk after
midnight in weather so cold and foggy that all other folk were
glad to be at home, snug in bed. But then Mr. Sleuth himself
admitted that he was a funny sort of gentleman.