“’Tisn’t the first time Mr. Sleuth’s been out in a fog,” said Mrs. Bunting sombrely.
Somehow she couldn’t help uttering these over-true words. And then she turned, eager and half frightened, to see how Bunting had taken what she said.
But he looked quite placid, as if he had hardly heard her. “We don’t get the good old fogs we used to get—not what people used to call ‘London particulars.’ I expect the lodger feels like Mrs. Crowley—I’ve often told you about her, Ellen?”
Mrs. Bunting nodded.
Mrs. Crowley had been one of Bunting’s ladies, one of those he had liked best—a cheerful, jolly lady, who used often to give her servants what she called a treat. It was seldom the kind of treat they would have chosen for themselves, but still they appreciated her kind thought.
“Mrs. Crowley used to say,” went on Bunting, in his slow, dogmatic way, “that she never minded how bad the weather was in London, so long as it was London and not the country. Mr. Crowley, he liked the country best, but Mrs. Crowley always felt dull-like there. Fog never kept her from going out—no, that it didn’t. She wasn’t a bit afraid. But—” he turned round and looked at his wife—“I am a bit surprised at Mr. Sleuth. I should have thought him a timid kind of gentleman—”
He waited a moment, and she felt forced to answer him.
“I wouldn’t exactly call him timid,” she said, in a low voice, “but he is very quiet, certainly. That’s why he dislikes going out when there are a lot of people bustling about the streets. I don’t suppose he’ll be out long.”
She hoped with all her soul that Mr. Sleuth would be in very soon—that he would be daunted by the now increasing gloom.
Somehow she did not feel she could sit still for very long. She got up, and went over to the farthest window.