Marie Belloc Lowndes

The Lodger

1913. Hamish Hamilton, 1969.

"In order to come home I had to pass through a portion of the Regent's Park; and it was there - to be exact, about the middle of Prince's Terrace - when a very peculiar-looking individual stopped and accosted me...To tell you the truth, I thought this gentleman was a poor escaped lunatic, a man who'd got away from his keeper...I said to him, as soothingly as possible, 'A very foggy night, sir.' And he said, 'Yes - yes, it is a foggy night, a night fit for the commission of dark and salutary deeds."

The Avenger has struck again; a witness is giving evidence at the coroner's court, and the police are baffled. Mr. Bunting would have known who the peculiar-looking individual was, but as yet he has no reason to suspect his mysterious lodger. Returning home a few nights later he bumps into him in the hall, and experiences a 'sensation of mortal terror'. Mr. Sleuth (!) apologises:

"I'm afraid, Mr. Bunting, that you must have felt something dirty, foul, on my coat? It's too long a story to tell you now, but I brushed up against a dead animal, a creature to whose misery some thoughtful soul had put an end, lying across a bench on Primrose Hill."

The Avenger's ninth victim is duly discovered the next day. The story was inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders; the 1926 film version was Alfred Hitchcock's first critical and commercial success.