While some of the traits of the novel's killer have been attributed to Forbes Winslow's findings about the original murderer, Lowndes was also influenced by the Lambeth Poisoner's physical appearance.

The book tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, owners of a failing lodging in London, who see in Mr. Sleuth, their only guest in a long time, their chance to salvage their business.

The novel has been considered an example of how to write a psychological suspense due to its focus on the effects the serial killer has on the main cast of characters, instead of on the murders themselves.

The novel was adapted multiple times to the cinema and radio, including Alfred Hitchcock's first thriller film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.

[6] Edmund Pearson described Cream as "roaming about the dark streets of London, grotesque in his high hat and sober professional clothes, but venomous as a puff-adder.

"[5] According to Laura Marcus, many of the aspects that Belloc Lowndes used to develop the lodger in her story are very similar to the details given by L. Forbes Winslow in his publication about Jack the Ripper.

Both Lowndes' and Winslow's murderers shared the following characteristics: "religious obsession, hatred of women, days spent writing Biblical commentary, silent nocturnal exits and entrances.

Jack the Ripper scholar Stephen P. Ryder believes that, due to the similarity and prominence of those stories, the idea of the murderer as a lodger quickly became an urban myth.

Lowndes' short story borrows elements from the penny dreadful style but was the first time the concept of the Ripper as a lodger was presented in fiction.

Mrs. Bunting likes Mr. Sleuth and his quiet ways, but becomes increasingly suspicious of him as he arrived on the same day that a gruesome murder happened, and, while he is staying there, several more women are killed by a mysterious man.

Mr. Bunting, having received some extra money after working as a waiter for an expensive party, invites his daughter from a previous marriage, Daisy, to visit them for a few days during her 18th birthday.

[9] Scholars Laura Marcus and Joseph Kestner, both responsible for writing "full-length academic texts on Marie Belloc Lowndes," consider the British writer to be "decidedly feminist.

"[7]: 33 Warkentin, in her analysis, notes that, although the reader sees the perspective of several characters throughout the story, the one that is most prevalent is Mrs. Bunting's, who is also the first of them to realize that the new lodger might be the killer that the Scotland Yard is after.

[4] In an analysis of three of Lowndes' works, "focusing primarily on [...] novels about murderesses", Ellen Turner comments on how Mr. Sleuth, the murderer, is feminised by the author, being described as "a strange, queer looking figure of a man".

[10]: 60 Even though Mrs. Bunting is portrayed as a "respectable, nineteenth century woman of her class," she is free of any ethical dilemma when she chooses to protect Mr. Sleuth from the police.

[3]: ix; xiii  Afterwards, Marie Belloc Lowndes wrote a novel by the same name, based on the short story, which was published in 1913 in a serialized format in the Daily Telegraph.

"[5] A review published in The Observer in 1913 said "[Belloc Lowndes] brings to the making of a mystery a literary sense and an imagination that puts life into the tale and into the readers."

[20] While the plot is very similar to the novel, Hitchcock had to change the script to have the Buntings' daughter, Daisy, as the lodger's love interest due to pressure from the studio.

[31] BBC Radio 4 released a new version adapted by Stephen Sheridan and produced by David Blount in 2003, which significantly changed the ending of the story.