第43章

My gas-stove has gone wrong, or, rather, that shilling-in-the-slot arrangement has done so.So I came down to see if you had a gas-stove.I am going to ask you to allow me to use it to-night for an important experiment I wish to make."Mrs.Bunting's heart was beating quickly - quickly.She felt horribly troubled, unnaturally so.Why couldn't Mr.Sleuth's experiment wait till the morning? She stared at him dubiously, but there was that in his face that made her at once afraid and pitiful.

It was a wild, eager, imploring look.

"Oh, certainly, sir; but you will find it very cold down here.""It seems most pleasantly warm," he observed, his voice full of relief, "warm and cosy, after my cold room upstairs."Warm and cosy? Mrs.Bunting stared at him in amazement.Nay, even that cheerless room at the top of the house must be far warmer and more cosy than this cold underground kitchen could possibly be.

"I'll make you a fire, sir.We never use the grate, but it's in perfect order, for the first thing I did after I came into the house was to have the chimney swept.It was terribly dirty.It might have set the house on fire." Mrs.Bunting's housewifely instincts were roused."For the matter of that, you ought to have a fire in your bedroom this cold night.""By no means - I would prefer not.I certainly do not want a fire there.I dislike an open fire, Mrs.Bunting.I thought I had told you as much."Mr.Sleuth frowned.He stood there, a strange-looking figure, his candle still alight, just inside the kitchen door.

"I shan't be very long, sir.Just about a quarter of an hour.You could come down then.I'll have everything quite tidy for you.Is there anything I can do to help you?""I do not require the use of your kitchen yet - thank you all the same, Mrs.Bunting.I shall come down later - altogether later -after you and your husband have gone to bed.But I should be much obliged if you would see that the gas people come to-morrow and put my stove in order.It might be done while I am out.That the shilling-in-the-slot machine should go wrong is very unpleasant.

It has upset me greatly."

"Perhaps Bunting could put it right for you, sir.For the matter of that, I could ask him to go up now.

"No, no, I don't want anything of that sort done to-night.Besides, he couldn't put it right.I am something of an expert, Mrs.Bunting, and I have done all I could.The cause of the trouble is quite simple.The machine is choked up with shillings; a very foolish plan, so I always felt it to be."Mr.Sleuth spoke pettishly, with far more heat than he was wont to speak, but Mrs.Bunting sympathised with him in this matter.She had always suspected that those slot machines were as dishonest as if they were human.It was dreadful, the way they swallowed up the shillings! She had had one once, so she knew.

And as if he were divining her thoughts, Mr.Sleuth walked forward and stared at the stove."Then you haven't got a slot machine?" he said wonderingly."I'm very glad of that, for I expect my experiment will take some time.But, of course, I shall pay you something for the use of the stove, Mrs.Bunting.""Oh, no, sir, I wouldn't think of charging you anything for that.

We don't use our stove very much, you know, sir.I'm never in the kitchen a minute longer than I can help this cold weather."Mrs.Bunting was beginning to feel better.When she was actually in Mr.Sleuth's presence her morbid fears would be lulled, perhaps because his manner almost invariably was gentle and very quiet.

But still there came over her an eerie feeling, as, with him preceding her, they made a slow progress to the ground floor.

Once there, the lodger courteously bade his landlady good-night, and proceeded upstairs to his own apartments.

Mrs.Bunting returned to the kitchen.Again she lighted the stove;but she felt unnerved, afraid of she knew not what.As she was cooking the cheese, she tried to concentrate her mind on what she was doing, and on the whole she succeeded.But another part of her mind seemed to be working independently, asking her insistent questions.

The place seemed to her alive with alien presences, and once she caught herself listening - which was absurd, for, of course, she could not hope to hear what Mr.Sleuth was doing two, if not three, flights upstairs.She wondered in what the lodger's experiments consisted.It was odd that she had never been able to discover what it was he really did with that big gas-stove.All she knew was that he used a very high degree of heat.