Chapter V.Inspector WhylandThe death of Mr. Colburn, following so closely upon that of Mr. Tovey, caused a distinct sensation in Praed Street and its immediate neighbourhood. Suspicion was, so to speak, in the air, and anybody known to have been intimate with either of the dead men was looked at askance, and became the subject of whispered comment when their backs were turned. Not that this floating suspicion actually settled down upon any individual head. But Praed Street discovered an uneasy feeling that the two inexplicable deaths of which it had been the scene indicated that it harboured a murderer.On the Wednesday morning following Mr. Ludgrove’s visit to Suffolk, a man walked into his shop and rapped upon the counter. The herbalist emerged from the back room at the summons, and, as was his habit, glanced gravely at his customer. He saw before him a youngish man, immaculately dressed, who immediately turned towards him interrogatively. “Mr. Ludgrove?” he said.The herbalist bowed. “That is my name,” he replied. “Can I be of any service to you?”The stranger placed a card upon the counter, with an apologetic gesture. “I’m Detective Inspector Whyland, attached to the F Division,” he said. “And if you could spare me a few minutes, I should be very grateful. I’m awfully sorry to have to intrude in business hours.”“Oh, pray do not apologize, I am rarely very busy in the morning,” replied Mr. Ludgrove courteously. “Perhaps you would not mind coming through this door. We shall be able to talk more privately.”Inspector Whyland accepted the invitation, and sat down in the chair offered him. Mr. Ludgrove having pressed him to smoke, sat down in the opposite chair, and looked at him enquiringly.“I daresay that you can guess what I have come to talk about,” began the Inspector, with a pleasant smile. “I may as well confess at once that I want your help. We policemen are not the super-men which some people think we ought to be, and most of us are only too anxious to ask for assistance wherever we are likely to get it. And I personally am under a debt of gratitude to you for persuading Mr. Copperdock to unburden himself to me.”Mr. Ludgrove smiled. “Oh, he told you, did he?” he replied. “It was much the best thing he could do. I hope he convinced you, as he certainly did me, that both he and his son were completely innocent of any knowledge of these queer happenings.”It was the Inspector’s turn to smile. “He did. I don’t think that Mr. Copperdock is of the stuff of which deliberate murderers are made, and from what I have seen of the son, I fancy the same applies to him. But may I, since you appear to be pretty intimate with Mr. Copperdock, ask you one or two questions about him? You needn’t answer them unless you like.”“Most certainly I will answer them to the best of my ability,” replied Mr. Ludgrove gravely.“Thank you. In the first place, can you suggest why he is so obviously confused when any reference is made to the Tovey family? I understand that his son and Tovey’s daughter are—well, great friends, but that could hardly account for his manner.”Again Mr. Ludgrove smiled, this time with genuine amusement. “My dear sir, haven’t you guessed the reason? I did, some days ago. Mrs. Tovey is, I believe, a very charming woman, and by no means too old to consider the possibility of marrying again. Mind you, Mr. Copperdock is convinced that his secret is safely locked in his own breast, and I should forfeit his friendship if he had any inkling that I shared it.”Inspector Whyland laughed with an obvious air of relief. “Oh, that’s the way the wind blows, is it?” he said. “You may rest assured that I shall be the soul of discretion. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew something that he did not care to tell me. Now, if I may trouble you with another question, what do you know of the relations between the Copperdocks and the Colburns?”This time Mr. Ludgrove shook his head. “Nothing at first hand,” he replied, “only what Mr. Copperdock has told me, which is doubtless the same as what he told you.”“You will forgive my pressing the point, Mr. Ludgrove,” persisted the Inspector. “But I gather from Mr. Copperdock’s remarks that you are to some extent in the confidence of young Colburn.”Mr. Ludgrove looked him straight in the face. “Inspector Whyland,” he said gravely, “I should like you fully to realize my position. Many of the inhabitants of this part of London believe, rightly or wrongly, that my experience of the world is greater than theirs. Consequently they frequently seek my advice upon the most personal and intimate matters. I have been the recipient of many confidences, which it has been my invariable rule never to mention to a third person. Dick Colburn has consulted me more than once, and it is only because I believe it to be in his interest that I am prepared to break my rule in his case.”“I fully appreciate your motives, Mr. Ludgrove,” replied the Inspector. “I will make no use of anything you care to tell me without your permission.”“Thank you, Inspector,” said Mr. Ludgrove simply. “Dick Colburn informed me some months ago that he found it very difficult to get on with his father. His chief complaint was that although he performed the whole work of the shop, his father treated him as though he were still a child, and refused to allow him any share of the profits of the business. I advised him to persuade his father to admit him into partnership, and if he proved obdurate, to announce his intention of seeking work elsewhere. I think it is only fair to add that the lad came to see me yesterday evening, in order to assure me that he had no share in his father’s death.”Inspector Whyland shrugged his shoulders. “In spite of appearances I am inclined to believe him,” he replied wearily. “Frankly, Mr. Ludgrove, I am completely at a loss. As you know, the jury at the inquest on Mr. Colburn returned an open verdict, but I think there can be very little doubt that he was deliberately murdered. We can rule out suicide, people don’t take such elaborate steps to kill themselves. And the circumstances seem too remarkable to be accidental, which brings us back to Mr. Copperdock and his remarkable story of the numbered discs. What do you make of that, Mr. Ludgrove?”“Very little, although I have puzzled over it a good deal, since I heard it,” replied the herbalist. “Of course, it is possible that the receipt by Mr. Colburn of the one you have doubtless seen had nothing whatever to do with his death, and that the combined imagination of Mr. Copperdock and Mrs. Tovey evolved the first out of something equally harmless. Mrs. Tovey is the only person who claims to have seen it, I understand.”“And yet her accounts of it are remarkably consistent,” said the Inspector. “I went to see her and introduced the subject as tactfully as I could. She described the incident in almost exactly the same words as Mr. Copperdock used, and added that her husband, attaching no importance to it, threw counter, envelope and all into the fire. Her daughter, Ivy, was not present at the time. And yet, if we apply the obvious deduction to the sending of these numbered counters, what possible motive could anybody have for murdering two peaceful and elderly tradesmen, apparently strangers to one another, or, still more, for warning them first? It only adds another problem to this extraordinary business.”“Are you going to make the story of the numbered counters public?” asked Mr. Ludgrove.“One of my reasons for coming to see you was to ask you to say nothing about it,” replied the Inspector. “We have decided that there is nothing to be gained by letting it be known. Bone counters of this size are very common, and we are not likely to learn where these particular ones originated. On the other hand, the minute the story becomes known, there will be an epidemic of counters bearing the number III in red ink. The Post Office will be overwhelmed by envelopes containing them, and every one of the recipients will come clamouring to us for protection. You may think this is an exaggeration. But you have no idea of the effect of crime upon some people’s mentality.”Mr. Ludgrove laughed softly. “I think I have,” he replied. “I haven’t been a sort of confidential adviser to the poorer classes all these years for nothing. Nearly everybody who has been in this room for the last week has had definite knowledge of the murderer of Mr. Tovey, for which knowledge they seem to think it is my duty to pay a large sum of money. When I tell them to go to the police their enthusiasm evaporates with amazing rapidity. And since you people offered a reward for Wal Snyder’s sailor, the whole neighbourhood appears to have seen him.”“So I imagine,” said the Inspector. “There is usually a queue at the police station waiting to claim the reward. But what could we do? I confess I was very sceptical about the existence of this man; but I’ve bullied the wretched Wal half a dozen times, drunk and sober, and he sticks to the story. ‘S’welp me, it’s as true as I’m standing here,’ he says, ‘a big tall bloke, dressed like a sailor, with a black beard, an ugly gash on his cheek, and a woollen cap.’ We had no option but to advertise for such a man.”“Well, I hope you’ll find him, Inspector,” remarked Mr. Ludgrove. “But you’ll forgive my saying that I have grave doubts about it. Even Mr. Copperdock, who spends a large part of his time watching the people who pass his shop, has never seen anybody answering his description. And again I find it difficult to imagine a black-bearded sailor with a scar having a grudge against Mr. Tovey. Besides, he doesn’t sound the sort of person to deliver numbered counters in typewritten envelopes.”The Inspector rose from his chair with a smile. “It is a maxim of the police never to admit defeat,” he said. “I am immensely obliged to you for your courtesy, Mr. Ludgrove. Perhaps if you hear of anything which has any possible bearing on the case you will send for me?”The herbalist willingly consenting to this, Inspector Whyland took his departure. He had scarcely been gone five minutes before Mr. Ludgrove, who had returned to the back room, heard Mr. Copperdock’s voice in the shop.“Come in, Mr. Copperdock,” called the herbalist genially.The curtain was furtively drawn aside, and Mr. Copperdock came in, a look of deep anxiety upon his face. “That was Inspector Whyland in here just now, wasn’t it?” he enquired.“It was,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “We had quite a long chat.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, he laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Look here, Mr. Copperdock,” he said earnestly, “get out of your head all idea that the police have any suspicions of you or your son. I can assure you that they have not, and that your straightforwardness in going to them and telling them all you know has impressed them greatly in your favour.”“Thank God for that!” exclaimed the tobacconist fervently. “I’ve been terrible worried these last few days. I’ve laid awake at nights and puzzled over it all again and again. I’ve even given up going to the Cambridge Arms of an evening. I sort of feel that the fellows there don’t talk to me quite in the way they did.”“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Ludgrove. “You mustn’t let this prey on your mind. We all know as well as you do that you have done nothing to reproach yourself with. Now I must ask you to excuse me, for I think I hear a customer in the shop.”As the days went by, and no further developments took place, Mr. Copperdock’s face regained its accustomed cheerfulness, and he resumed his visits to the Cambridge Arms. The newspapers found fresh sensations with which to fill their columns, and even Praed Street, in the stimulus to trade furnished by the approach of Christmas, began to forget the strange occurrences of which it had been the scene. Ted Copperdock developed a new smartness of appearance and carefulness of speech, no doubt the results of his frequent enjoyment of Ivy’s company. It was only natural that on Sundays, when the young people were out at the Pictures, Mr. Copperdock should walk over to Lisson Grove to console Mrs. Tovey’s loneliness. Only Mr. Ludgrove, as he regretfully explained to his friends, found himself too busy to spend one of those week-ends in the country which he so much enjoyed.Indeed, it was not until the week-end before Christmas that he found an opportunity for leaving the shop for more than an hour or two at a time. He confided his intentions to Mr. Copperdock on the Friday. “I have just heard that a plant of which I have long been in search is to be discovered in a spot not far from Wokingham,” he said. “The nearest Inn appears to be at a village called Penderworth. I propose to go there to-morrow and spend the afternoon and Sunday searching for the herb. As I mean to come up by an early train on Monday, I have taken the liberty of telling Mrs. Cooper, who comes in every week-day to tidy my place up, that I have left the key with you. I suppose that it is no use asking you to come with me?”Mr. Copperdock fidgeted uncomfortably. “Leave the key by all means,” he replied heartily. “I’ll look after it for you. Sorry I can’t come with you, but you see about Christmas time I—we—there’s a lot of folk comes to the shop and I can’t very well leave Ted alone.”“I quite understand,” said Mr. Ludgrove, without a smile. “I shall leave Waterloo at 1.30 to-morrow, and reach that station again just before ten on Monday. If Mrs. Cooper has finished before then, she will bring you back the key.”His arrangements thus made, the herbalist closed his shop at noon on Saturday, and, equipped with a suit-case which he always took with him, took the Tube to Waterloo station. On arrival at Wokingham, he hired a car to drive him to the Cross Keys at Penderworth. It was after three o’clock when he arrived, and after securing a room, writing his name and address in the register, and arranging for some supper to be ready for him at half-past seven, he went out again immediately, a haversack slung over his shoulder, and an ordnance map in his hand.It was after seven when he returned, his boots covered with mud, and his haversack bulging with a miscellaneous collection of plants. A fine drizzle had come on during the afternoon, and he was very wet. But trifles like these never dampened his spirits, and he made remarkable headway with the cold beef and pickles produced for his delectation. His meal over, he made his way to the smoking-room fire, and, spreading a newspaper on the table, began to examine the contents of his haversack.The rain, which by this time was falling steadily, seemed to have kept the regular customers of the Cross Keys at home. The smoking-room was empty, but for Mr. Ludgrove; and the landlord, after leaning idly against the bar at one end of the room, and staring inquisitively at his solitary guest, could restrain his curiosity no longer. Lifting the flap, he walked across the room, with the ostensible object of making up the fire.Mr. Ludgrove looked up at his approach. “Good evening,” he said pleasantly.“Good evening, sir,” replied the landlord, glancing at the plants laid out on the newspaper. “You’ve been having a walk round the country this afternoon, then.”“Yes, and a very pleasant country it is for one of my interests,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “I have secured several very interesting specimens, and I hope to find others to-morrow.”“Ah!” exclaimed the landlord. “Flowers and that aren’t much in my line. I’ve got a bit of garden, but it’s mostly vegetables. Pity the rain came on like it did.”“Oh, I don’t mind the rain,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “Walking about the country as I do, I am compelled to take the weather as it comes. I can only get away from London during the week-ends.”“I see you come from London by what you wrote in the book,” said the landlord slowly. “It’s Praed Street you lives in, isn’t it?”Mr. Ludgrove smiled. The eagerness in the landlord’s voice was very transparent. “Won’t you sit down and have a drink with me?” he said. “Yes, I live in Praed Street. Perhaps you saw in the paper that we had some very unusual happenings there a few weeks ago.”“I did, sir, and it was seeing you came from there made me think of them,” replied the landlord. He went back to the bar and got the drinks, which he brought to the fire. It immediately appeared that his interest in crime, as reported in the newspapers, was at least as keen as that of the late Mr. Tovey. But never before had it been his fortune to meet one who had personally known the victims of two unsolved murders.“It’s a queer thing,” he said, “but a couple of days or so before this Mr. Tovey was murdered, I was polishing the glasses behind the bar in this very room, when I looked out of the window and sees a sailor, big chap he was, walking past. I didn’t rightly catch sight of his face, but he was carrying a bag and going towards London. Looked as if he was on the tramp, I thought. I never thought about it again till I sees the police advertising for this sailor chap, then, of course, I tells the constable at the Police Station up the village. I never heard whether they traced him or not.”“You didn’t notice if he had a black beard or a scar?” suggested Mr. Ludgrove mildly.“No, I didn’t see his face,” replied the landlord, with an air of a man brushing aside an irrelevant detail. “But that’s just like the police. You give ’em a bit of valuable information, and they hardly ever says thank you for it.”The landlord, warming to his work, and finding Mr. Ludgrove an excellent listener, developed theory after theory, each more far-fetched than the last. It was not until the clock pointed to closing time, that he rose from his chair with evident reluctance. “You mark my words, there’s more in it than meets the eye,” he said darkly, as he leant over the table, “as my old dad, what kept this house afore I did, used to say, if there’s anything you can’t rightly understand, there’s bound to be a woman in it. Look at the things what you sees in the papers every week. How do you know that these two poor chaps as were killed wasn’t both running after the same woman? And if she was married couldn’t ’er ’usband tell you something about why they was murdered? You think it over, sir, when you gets back to London.”And the landlord, nodding his head with an air of superlative wisdom, disappeared in the direction of the tap-room. By the time he returned, Mr. Ludgrove had collected his belongings and retired to bed.By the following morning the rain had ceased, and Mr. Ludgrove was enabled to pursue his explorations in comfort. He went out directly after breakfast and returned to the Inn in time for lunch. In the afternoon he followed a different direction, arriving back shortly after dark. When he repaired to the smoking-room after supper, he found that his fame as a personal acquaintance of the murdered men had preceded him. Mr. Ludgrove was before all things a student of human nature, and he seemed almost to enjoy taking part with the leading men of Penderworth in an interminable discussion of the unsolved crimes. Perhaps he reflected that the looker-on sees most of the game, and that these men, viewing the circumstances from a distance, might have hit upon some point in the evidence which had escaped the observers on the spot.At all events, he went to bed on Sunday night with the remark that he had thoroughly enjoyed his visit to Penderworth. A car had been ordered to take him to Wokingham station early on Monday morning. His first act upon reaching the platform was to buy a paper and open it. Across the top of the centre page lay spread the ominous headline:Another tragedy in Praed Street
The death of Mr. Colburn, following so closely upon that of Mr. Tovey, caused a distinct sensation in Praed Street and its immediate neighbourhood. Suspicion was, so to speak, in the air, and anybody known to have been intimate with either of the dead men was looked at askance, and became the subject of whispered comment when their backs were turned. Not that this floating suspicion actually settled down upon any individual head. But Praed Street discovered an uneasy feeling that the two inexplicable deaths of which it had been the scene indicated that it harboured a murderer.
On the Wednesday morning following Mr. Ludgrove’s visit to Suffolk, a man walked into his shop and rapped upon the counter. The herbalist emerged from the back room at the summons, and, as was his habit, glanced gravely at his customer. He saw before him a youngish man, immaculately dressed, who immediately turned towards him interrogatively. “Mr. Ludgrove?” he said.
The herbalist bowed. “That is my name,” he replied. “Can I be of any service to you?”
The stranger placed a card upon the counter, with an apologetic gesture. “I’m Detective Inspector Whyland, attached to the F Division,” he said. “And if you could spare me a few minutes, I should be very grateful. I’m awfully sorry to have to intrude in business hours.”
“Oh, pray do not apologize, I am rarely very busy in the morning,” replied Mr. Ludgrove courteously. “Perhaps you would not mind coming through this door. We shall be able to talk more privately.”
Inspector Whyland accepted the invitation, and sat down in the chair offered him. Mr. Ludgrove having pressed him to smoke, sat down in the opposite chair, and looked at him enquiringly.
“I daresay that you can guess what I have come to talk about,” began the Inspector, with a pleasant smile. “I may as well confess at once that I want your help. We policemen are not the super-men which some people think we ought to be, and most of us are only too anxious to ask for assistance wherever we are likely to get it. And I personally am under a debt of gratitude to you for persuading Mr. Copperdock to unburden himself to me.”
Mr. Ludgrove smiled. “Oh, he told you, did he?” he replied. “It was much the best thing he could do. I hope he convinced you, as he certainly did me, that both he and his son were completely innocent of any knowledge of these queer happenings.”
It was the Inspector’s turn to smile. “He did. I don’t think that Mr. Copperdock is of the stuff of which deliberate murderers are made, and from what I have seen of the son, I fancy the same applies to him. But may I, since you appear to be pretty intimate with Mr. Copperdock, ask you one or two questions about him? You needn’t answer them unless you like.”
“Most certainly I will answer them to the best of my ability,” replied Mr. Ludgrove gravely.
“Thank you. In the first place, can you suggest why he is so obviously confused when any reference is made to the Tovey family? I understand that his son and Tovey’s daughter are—well, great friends, but that could hardly account for his manner.”
Again Mr. Ludgrove smiled, this time with genuine amusement. “My dear sir, haven’t you guessed the reason? I did, some days ago. Mrs. Tovey is, I believe, a very charming woman, and by no means too old to consider the possibility of marrying again. Mind you, Mr. Copperdock is convinced that his secret is safely locked in his own breast, and I should forfeit his friendship if he had any inkling that I shared it.”
Inspector Whyland laughed with an obvious air of relief. “Oh, that’s the way the wind blows, is it?” he said. “You may rest assured that I shall be the soul of discretion. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew something that he did not care to tell me. Now, if I may trouble you with another question, what do you know of the relations between the Copperdocks and the Colburns?”
This time Mr. Ludgrove shook his head. “Nothing at first hand,” he replied, “only what Mr. Copperdock has told me, which is doubtless the same as what he told you.”
“You will forgive my pressing the point, Mr. Ludgrove,” persisted the Inspector. “But I gather from Mr. Copperdock’s remarks that you are to some extent in the confidence of young Colburn.”
Mr. Ludgrove looked him straight in the face. “Inspector Whyland,” he said gravely, “I should like you fully to realize my position. Many of the inhabitants of this part of London believe, rightly or wrongly, that my experience of the world is greater than theirs. Consequently they frequently seek my advice upon the most personal and intimate matters. I have been the recipient of many confidences, which it has been my invariable rule never to mention to a third person. Dick Colburn has consulted me more than once, and it is only because I believe it to be in his interest that I am prepared to break my rule in his case.”
“I fully appreciate your motives, Mr. Ludgrove,” replied the Inspector. “I will make no use of anything you care to tell me without your permission.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” said Mr. Ludgrove simply. “Dick Colburn informed me some months ago that he found it very difficult to get on with his father. His chief complaint was that although he performed the whole work of the shop, his father treated him as though he were still a child, and refused to allow him any share of the profits of the business. I advised him to persuade his father to admit him into partnership, and if he proved obdurate, to announce his intention of seeking work elsewhere. I think it is only fair to add that the lad came to see me yesterday evening, in order to assure me that he had no share in his father’s death.”
Inspector Whyland shrugged his shoulders. “In spite of appearances I am inclined to believe him,” he replied wearily. “Frankly, Mr. Ludgrove, I am completely at a loss. As you know, the jury at the inquest on Mr. Colburn returned an open verdict, but I think there can be very little doubt that he was deliberately murdered. We can rule out suicide, people don’t take such elaborate steps to kill themselves. And the circumstances seem too remarkable to be accidental, which brings us back to Mr. Copperdock and his remarkable story of the numbered discs. What do you make of that, Mr. Ludgrove?”
“Very little, although I have puzzled over it a good deal, since I heard it,” replied the herbalist. “Of course, it is possible that the receipt by Mr. Colburn of the one you have doubtless seen had nothing whatever to do with his death, and that the combined imagination of Mr. Copperdock and Mrs. Tovey evolved the first out of something equally harmless. Mrs. Tovey is the only person who claims to have seen it, I understand.”
“And yet her accounts of it are remarkably consistent,” said the Inspector. “I went to see her and introduced the subject as tactfully as I could. She described the incident in almost exactly the same words as Mr. Copperdock used, and added that her husband, attaching no importance to it, threw counter, envelope and all into the fire. Her daughter, Ivy, was not present at the time. And yet, if we apply the obvious deduction to the sending of these numbered counters, what possible motive could anybody have for murdering two peaceful and elderly tradesmen, apparently strangers to one another, or, still more, for warning them first? It only adds another problem to this extraordinary business.”
“Are you going to make the story of the numbered counters public?” asked Mr. Ludgrove.
“One of my reasons for coming to see you was to ask you to say nothing about it,” replied the Inspector. “We have decided that there is nothing to be gained by letting it be known. Bone counters of this size are very common, and we are not likely to learn where these particular ones originated. On the other hand, the minute the story becomes known, there will be an epidemic of counters bearing the number III in red ink. The Post Office will be overwhelmed by envelopes containing them, and every one of the recipients will come clamouring to us for protection. You may think this is an exaggeration. But you have no idea of the effect of crime upon some people’s mentality.”
Mr. Ludgrove laughed softly. “I think I have,” he replied. “I haven’t been a sort of confidential adviser to the poorer classes all these years for nothing. Nearly everybody who has been in this room for the last week has had definite knowledge of the murderer of Mr. Tovey, for which knowledge they seem to think it is my duty to pay a large sum of money. When I tell them to go to the police their enthusiasm evaporates with amazing rapidity. And since you people offered a reward for Wal Snyder’s sailor, the whole neighbourhood appears to have seen him.”
“So I imagine,” said the Inspector. “There is usually a queue at the police station waiting to claim the reward. But what could we do? I confess I was very sceptical about the existence of this man; but I’ve bullied the wretched Wal half a dozen times, drunk and sober, and he sticks to the story. ‘S’welp me, it’s as true as I’m standing here,’ he says, ‘a big tall bloke, dressed like a sailor, with a black beard, an ugly gash on his cheek, and a woollen cap.’ We had no option but to advertise for such a man.”
“Well, I hope you’ll find him, Inspector,” remarked Mr. Ludgrove. “But you’ll forgive my saying that I have grave doubts about it. Even Mr. Copperdock, who spends a large part of his time watching the people who pass his shop, has never seen anybody answering his description. And again I find it difficult to imagine a black-bearded sailor with a scar having a grudge against Mr. Tovey. Besides, he doesn’t sound the sort of person to deliver numbered counters in typewritten envelopes.”
The Inspector rose from his chair with a smile. “It is a maxim of the police never to admit defeat,” he said. “I am immensely obliged to you for your courtesy, Mr. Ludgrove. Perhaps if you hear of anything which has any possible bearing on the case you will send for me?”
The herbalist willingly consenting to this, Inspector Whyland took his departure. He had scarcely been gone five minutes before Mr. Ludgrove, who had returned to the back room, heard Mr. Copperdock’s voice in the shop.
“Come in, Mr. Copperdock,” called the herbalist genially.
The curtain was furtively drawn aside, and Mr. Copperdock came in, a look of deep anxiety upon his face. “That was Inspector Whyland in here just now, wasn’t it?” he enquired.
“It was,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “We had quite a long chat.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, he laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Look here, Mr. Copperdock,” he said earnestly, “get out of your head all idea that the police have any suspicions of you or your son. I can assure you that they have not, and that your straightforwardness in going to them and telling them all you know has impressed them greatly in your favour.”
“Thank God for that!” exclaimed the tobacconist fervently. “I’ve been terrible worried these last few days. I’ve laid awake at nights and puzzled over it all again and again. I’ve even given up going to the Cambridge Arms of an evening. I sort of feel that the fellows there don’t talk to me quite in the way they did.”
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Ludgrove. “You mustn’t let this prey on your mind. We all know as well as you do that you have done nothing to reproach yourself with. Now I must ask you to excuse me, for I think I hear a customer in the shop.”
As the days went by, and no further developments took place, Mr. Copperdock’s face regained its accustomed cheerfulness, and he resumed his visits to the Cambridge Arms. The newspapers found fresh sensations with which to fill their columns, and even Praed Street, in the stimulus to trade furnished by the approach of Christmas, began to forget the strange occurrences of which it had been the scene. Ted Copperdock developed a new smartness of appearance and carefulness of speech, no doubt the results of his frequent enjoyment of Ivy’s company. It was only natural that on Sundays, when the young people were out at the Pictures, Mr. Copperdock should walk over to Lisson Grove to console Mrs. Tovey’s loneliness. Only Mr. Ludgrove, as he regretfully explained to his friends, found himself too busy to spend one of those week-ends in the country which he so much enjoyed.
Indeed, it was not until the week-end before Christmas that he found an opportunity for leaving the shop for more than an hour or two at a time. He confided his intentions to Mr. Copperdock on the Friday. “I have just heard that a plant of which I have long been in search is to be discovered in a spot not far from Wokingham,” he said. “The nearest Inn appears to be at a village called Penderworth. I propose to go there to-morrow and spend the afternoon and Sunday searching for the herb. As I mean to come up by an early train on Monday, I have taken the liberty of telling Mrs. Cooper, who comes in every week-day to tidy my place up, that I have left the key with you. I suppose that it is no use asking you to come with me?”
Mr. Copperdock fidgeted uncomfortably. “Leave the key by all means,” he replied heartily. “I’ll look after it for you. Sorry I can’t come with you, but you see about Christmas time I—we—there’s a lot of folk comes to the shop and I can’t very well leave Ted alone.”
“I quite understand,” said Mr. Ludgrove, without a smile. “I shall leave Waterloo at 1.30 to-morrow, and reach that station again just before ten on Monday. If Mrs. Cooper has finished before then, she will bring you back the key.”
His arrangements thus made, the herbalist closed his shop at noon on Saturday, and, equipped with a suit-case which he always took with him, took the Tube to Waterloo station. On arrival at Wokingham, he hired a car to drive him to the Cross Keys at Penderworth. It was after three o’clock when he arrived, and after securing a room, writing his name and address in the register, and arranging for some supper to be ready for him at half-past seven, he went out again immediately, a haversack slung over his shoulder, and an ordnance map in his hand.
It was after seven when he returned, his boots covered with mud, and his haversack bulging with a miscellaneous collection of plants. A fine drizzle had come on during the afternoon, and he was very wet. But trifles like these never dampened his spirits, and he made remarkable headway with the cold beef and pickles produced for his delectation. His meal over, he made his way to the smoking-room fire, and, spreading a newspaper on the table, began to examine the contents of his haversack.
The rain, which by this time was falling steadily, seemed to have kept the regular customers of the Cross Keys at home. The smoking-room was empty, but for Mr. Ludgrove; and the landlord, after leaning idly against the bar at one end of the room, and staring inquisitively at his solitary guest, could restrain his curiosity no longer. Lifting the flap, he walked across the room, with the ostensible object of making up the fire.
Mr. Ludgrove looked up at his approach. “Good evening,” he said pleasantly.
“Good evening, sir,” replied the landlord, glancing at the plants laid out on the newspaper. “You’ve been having a walk round the country this afternoon, then.”
“Yes, and a very pleasant country it is for one of my interests,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “I have secured several very interesting specimens, and I hope to find others to-morrow.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the landlord. “Flowers and that aren’t much in my line. I’ve got a bit of garden, but it’s mostly vegetables. Pity the rain came on like it did.”
“Oh, I don’t mind the rain,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “Walking about the country as I do, I am compelled to take the weather as it comes. I can only get away from London during the week-ends.”
“I see you come from London by what you wrote in the book,” said the landlord slowly. “It’s Praed Street you lives in, isn’t it?”
Mr. Ludgrove smiled. The eagerness in the landlord’s voice was very transparent. “Won’t you sit down and have a drink with me?” he said. “Yes, I live in Praed Street. Perhaps you saw in the paper that we had some very unusual happenings there a few weeks ago.”
“I did, sir, and it was seeing you came from there made me think of them,” replied the landlord. He went back to the bar and got the drinks, which he brought to the fire. It immediately appeared that his interest in crime, as reported in the newspapers, was at least as keen as that of the late Mr. Tovey. But never before had it been his fortune to meet one who had personally known the victims of two unsolved murders.
“It’s a queer thing,” he said, “but a couple of days or so before this Mr. Tovey was murdered, I was polishing the glasses behind the bar in this very room, when I looked out of the window and sees a sailor, big chap he was, walking past. I didn’t rightly catch sight of his face, but he was carrying a bag and going towards London. Looked as if he was on the tramp, I thought. I never thought about it again till I sees the police advertising for this sailor chap, then, of course, I tells the constable at the Police Station up the village. I never heard whether they traced him or not.”
“You didn’t notice if he had a black beard or a scar?” suggested Mr. Ludgrove mildly.
“No, I didn’t see his face,” replied the landlord, with an air of a man brushing aside an irrelevant detail. “But that’s just like the police. You give ’em a bit of valuable information, and they hardly ever says thank you for it.”
The landlord, warming to his work, and finding Mr. Ludgrove an excellent listener, developed theory after theory, each more far-fetched than the last. It was not until the clock pointed to closing time, that he rose from his chair with evident reluctance. “You mark my words, there’s more in it than meets the eye,” he said darkly, as he leant over the table, “as my old dad, what kept this house afore I did, used to say, if there’s anything you can’t rightly understand, there’s bound to be a woman in it. Look at the things what you sees in the papers every week. How do you know that these two poor chaps as were killed wasn’t both running after the same woman? And if she was married couldn’t ’er ’usband tell you something about why they was murdered? You think it over, sir, when you gets back to London.”
And the landlord, nodding his head with an air of superlative wisdom, disappeared in the direction of the tap-room. By the time he returned, Mr. Ludgrove had collected his belongings and retired to bed.
By the following morning the rain had ceased, and Mr. Ludgrove was enabled to pursue his explorations in comfort. He went out directly after breakfast and returned to the Inn in time for lunch. In the afternoon he followed a different direction, arriving back shortly after dark. When he repaired to the smoking-room after supper, he found that his fame as a personal acquaintance of the murdered men had preceded him. Mr. Ludgrove was before all things a student of human nature, and he seemed almost to enjoy taking part with the leading men of Penderworth in an interminable discussion of the unsolved crimes. Perhaps he reflected that the looker-on sees most of the game, and that these men, viewing the circumstances from a distance, might have hit upon some point in the evidence which had escaped the observers on the spot.
At all events, he went to bed on Sunday night with the remark that he had thoroughly enjoyed his visit to Penderworth. A car had been ordered to take him to Wokingham station early on Monday morning. His first act upon reaching the platform was to buy a paper and open it. Across the top of the centre page lay spread the ominous headline:
Another tragedy in Praed Street