The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4325]
"They do say," observed Bunting cautiously, "They do say, Joe, that the police have a clue they won't say nothing about?" He looked expectantly at his visitor. To Bunting the fact that Chandler was attached to the detective section of the Metropolitan Police invested the young man with a kind of sinister glory--especially just now, when these awful and mysterious crimes were amazing and terrifying the town.
"Them who says that says wrong," answered Chandler slowly, and a look of unease, of resentment came over his fair, stolid face. "'Twould make a good bit of difference to me if the Yard had a clue."
And then Mrs. Bunting interposed. "Why that, Joe?" she said, smiling indulgently; the young man's keenness about his work pleased her. And in his slow, sure way Joe Chandler was very keen, and took his job very seriously. He put his whole heart and mind into it.
"Well, 'tis this way," he explained. "From to-day I'm on this business myself. You see, Mrs. Bunting, the Yard's nettled--that's what it is, and we're all on our mettle--that we are. I was right down sorry for the poor chap who was on point duty in the street where the last one happened--"
"No!" said Bunting incredulously. "You don't mean there was a policeman there, within a few yards?"
That fact hadn't been recorded in his newspaper.
Chandler nodded. "That's exactly what I do mean, Mr. Bunting! The man is near off his head, so I'm told. He did hear a yell, so he says, but he took no notice--there are a good few yells in that part o' London, as you can guess. People always quarrelling and rowing at one another in such low parts."
"Have you seen the bits of grey paper on which the monster writes his name?" inquired Bunting eagerly.
Public imagination had been much stirred by the account of those three-cornered pieces of grey paper, pinned to the victims' skirts, on which was roughly written in red ink and in printed characters the words "The Avenger."
His round, fat face was full of questioning eagerness. He put his elbows on the table, and stared across expectantly at the young man.
"Yes, I have," said Joe briefly.
"A funny kind of visiting card, eh!" Bunting laughed; the notion struck him as downright comic.
But Mrs. Bunting coloured. "It isn't a thing to make a joke about," she said reprovingly.
And Chandler backed her up. "No, indeed," he said feelingly. "I'll never forget what I've been made to see over this job. And as for that grey bit of paper, Mr. Bunting--or, rather, those grey bits of paper"--he corrected himself hastily--"you know they've three of them now at the Yard--well, they gives me the horrors!"
And then he jumped up. "That reminds me that I oughtn't to be wasting my time in pleasant company--"
"Won't you stay and have a bit of dinner?" said Mrs. Bunting solicitously.
But the detective shook his head. "No," he said, "I had a bite before I came out. Our job's a queer kind of job, as you know. A lot's left to our discretion, so to speak, but it don't leave us much time for lazing about, I can tell you."
When he reached the door he turned round, and with elaborate carelessness he inquired, "Any chance of Miss Daisy coming to London again soon?"
Bunting shook his head, but his face brightened. He was very, very fond of his only child; the pity was he saw her so seldom. "No," he said, "I'm afraid not Joe. Old Aunt, as we calls the old lady, keeps Daisy pretty tightly tied to her apron-string. She was quite put about that week the child was up with us last June."
"Indeed? Well, so long!"
After his wife had let their friend out, Bunting said cheerfully, "Joe seems to like our Daisy, eh, Ellen?"
But Mrs. Bunting shook her head scornfully. She did not exactly dislike the girl, though she did not hold with the way Bunting's daughter was being managed by that old aunt of hers--an idle, good-for-nothing way, very different from