When dusk fell Mr.
Sleuth's landlady heard him go upstairs to the top floor.

She remembered that this was the signal for her to go and do his room.
He was a tidy man, was the lodger; he did not throw his things about as so many gentlemen do, leaving them all over the place.
No, he kept everything scrupulously tidy.

His clothes, and the various articles Mrs.Bunting had bought for him during the first two days he had been there, were carefully arranged in the chest of drawers.

He had lately purchased a pair of boots.

Those he had arrived in were peculiar-looking footgear, buff leather shoes with rubber soles, and he had told his landlady on that very first day that he never wished them to go down to be cleaned.
A funny idea--a funny habit that, of going out for a walk after midnight in weather so cold and foggy that all other folk were glad to be at home, snug in bed.