"He's certainly a funny kind of gentleman.

It wasn't the sort of night one would have chosen to go out for a walk, now was it?
And yet he must 'a been out a long time if what he said was true." "I don't wonder a quiet gentleman like Mr.Sleuth hates the crowded streets," she said slowly.

"They gets worse every day-- that they do! But go along now; I want to get up." He went back into their sitting-room, and, having laid the fire and put a match to it, he sat down comfortably with his newspaper.
Deep down in his heart Bunting looked back to this last night with a feeling of shame and self-rebuke.

Whatever had made such horrible thoughts and suspicions as had possessed him suddenly come into his head?
And just because of a trifling thing like that blood.

No doubt Mr.Sleuth's nose had bled--that was what had happened; though, come to think of it, he had mentioned brushing up against a dead animal.
Perhaps Ellen was right after all.