下宿人

Robert and Ellen Bunting sit before a flickering fire in a tidy room that masks the grimy streets of Victorian London. Once diligent servants, they now clutch at the semblance of respectability held together by sturdy oak furniture, a red‑damsel curtain, and a few cherished photographs of country estates they once tended. Their proud exterior belies a mounting desperation—rent is due, coins clink in empty pockets, and even the modest comforts they bought for each other feel precariously thin.

A steady, if infrequent, visitor named Joe Chandler, a former police officer, brings occasional news and a small loan that barely steadies the Buntings’ wavering balance. Ellen’s quiet generosity—secretly buying a packet of Virginia tobacco for Robert—offers a brief warmth amid their silence. Their conversations have thinned, each day a careful negotiation between dignity and the fear of falling into the shadows of the city’s poorest.

When a sudden chorus of shouting street vendors announces a fresh string of brutal murders, the Buntings are pulled toward a world beyond their humble hearth. The frantic cries of “murderer!” echo through their curtains, igniting a restless curiosity that threatens to upend the fragile stability they have painstakingly preserved.