“But I wants to talk about them,” cried Mrs. Bunting hysterically. The husband and wife were standing, one each side of the table, the man with his back to the fire, the woman with her back to the door. Bunting, staring across at his wife, felt sadly perplexed and disturbed. She really did seem ill; even her slight, spare figure looked shrunk. For the first time, so he told himself ruefully, Ellen was beginning to look her full age. Her slender hands—she had kept the pretty, soft white hands of the woman who has never done rough work—grasped the edge of the table with a convulsive movement. Bunting didn’t at all like the look of her. “Oh, dear,” he said to himself, “I do hope Ellen isn’t going to be ill! That would be a to-do just now.” “Tell me about it,” she commanded, in a low voice. “Can’t you see I’m waiting to hear? Be quick now, Bunting!” “There isn’t very much to tell,” he said reluctantly. “There’s precious little in this paper, anyway. But the cabman what brought Daisy told me—” “Well?” “What I said just now. There’s two of ’em this time, and they’d both been drinking heavily, poor creatures.” “Was it where the others was done?” she asked looking at her husband fearfully. “No,” he said awkwardly. “No, it wasn’t, Ellen. It was a good bit farther West—in fact, not so very far from here. Near King’s Cross—that’s how the cabman knew about it, you see. They seems to have been done in a passage which isn’t used no more.” And then, as he thought his wife’s eyes were beginning to look rather funny, he added hastily. “There, that’s enough for the present! We shall soon be hearing a lot more about it from Joe Chandler. He’s pretty sure to come in some time to-day.” “Then the five thousand constables weren’t no use?” said Mrs. Bunting slowly. She had relaxed her grip of the table, and was standing more upright. “No use at all,” said Bunting briefly. “He is artful and no mistake about it. But wait a minute—” he turned and took up the paper which he had laid aside, on a chair. “Yes they says here that they has a clue.” “A clue, Bunting?” Mrs. Bunting spoke in a soft, weak, die-away voice, and again, stooping somewhat, she grasped the edge of the table. But her husband was not noticing her now. He was holding the paper close up to his eyes, and he read from it, in a tone of considerable satisfaction: “‘It is gratifying to be able to state that the police at last believe they are in possession of a clue which will lead to the arrest of the—’” and then Bunting dropped the paper and rushed round the table. His wife, with a curious sighing moan, had slipped down on to the floor, taking with her the tablecloth as she went. She lay there in what appeared to be a dead faint. And Bunting, scared out of his wits, opened the door and screamed out, “Daisy! Daisy! Come up, child. Ellen’s took bad again.” And Daisy, hurrying in, showed an amount of sense and resource which even at this anxious moment roused her fond father’s admiration.