About this story
Outside, London is bolting its doors against a murderer the papers call the Avenger; upstairs, the lodger reads Scripture aloud and goes out walking on foggy nights. Lowndes invented the serial-killer suspense novel in 1913 — Hitchcock filmed it before anyone. You keep the house as Mrs Bunting, and the rent is very good.
Who you’ll meet
single figure
How it opens
November drizzle blurred the lamps beyond the red damask curtains.
Cab wheels hissed along the Marylebone Road, then faded into the fog.
Robert BuntingThat coal will hold if neither of us touches it.
Choose
It must last until morning.
One small piece would brighten it.
The ash keeps what warmth remains.