Chapter XI.The Sixth Counter

Chapter XI.The Sixth CounterMr. Ludgrove looked at the counter and then raised his eyes to Mr. Copperdock’s face. The tobacconist was staring at him with an expression of complete bewilderment and terror, very different from his truculent demeanour of a few minutes earlier. The herbalist checked the slow smile which had begun to twitch the corner of his lips, and sat down quietly opposite Mr. Copperdock.“Where did you find this?” he asked.“On my bed, after I left you just now,” replied the tobacconist. “It wasn’t there when I went out to the Cambridge Arms this evening, I’ll swear. I always goes upstairs to have a wash before I goes out, and I’d have been bound to have seen it. It’s that black sailor. I always thought he’d get me.”“Well, he hasn’t got you yet,” said Mr. Ludgrove soothingly. “Now that you have been warned, we can take the proper precautions. How do you suppose this counter came into your room?”Mr. Copperdock shook his head helplessly. “It beats me,” he replied. “I locked the door behind me when I went out, and nobody couldn’t have got in till I went back just now, seeing as I had the key in my pocket all the time.”“You locked the door when you went out? Was Ted out, too, then?”“Yes, Ted and I went out together, about half-past eight. He was going to spend the evening with the Toveys. I don’t expect him back till nigh on eleven. I goes round to the Cambridge Arms, where I stays until I comes in to you just now. And when I gets back, there was this counter, right in the middle of my bed. I just picks it up and comes over to you. I daren’t stay no longer in the house alone.”“You didn’t notice if anything else in the house had been disturbed, I suppose?”“I didn’t stop to look. It gave me such a turn seeing that thing there, I didn’t hardly know what I was doing.”“Well, you’d better stay here until your son comes back,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “It is very nearly eleven now. I suppose you shut the door behind you when you came over here? How will Ted get in?”“We both has our keys,” replied Mr. Copperdock. “Ted’s a good boy. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d been there.”“Well, I’ll go to the door and watch for him,” said Mr. Ludgrove cheerfully. “You’ll be all right here, Mr. Copperdock.”“Don’t you go no further than the door!” exclaimed the tobacconist fearfully. “For all I know that black sailor chap may be on the lookout, and seen me come across here. He’ll get me, for sure.”“He won’t get you here, I promise you,” said Mr. Ludgrove reassuringly. He mixed a strong whiskey and water, and placed it in the trembling hand of his guest. “You drink this while I go into the shop and keep an eye open for your son.”Mr. Ludgrove had not been at his post for many minutes before Ted came swinging along the opposite pavement. He stopped at the sound of the herbalist’s voice, and crossed the road towards him. In a few whispered words Mr. Ludgrove acquainted him with what had happened.Ted said nothing, but jerked his elbow upwards and winked suggestively.“No, I don’t think so,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “But you had better come in and talk to him.”The two entered the back room together, and Mr. Copperdock looked up anxiously as they came in.“Ah, Ted, my boy, I’m glad to see you,” he said dolefully. “The black sailor’s on my track, and he’ll get me, for sure.”“Nonsense, Dad,” replied Ted heartily. “Somebody put that counter on your bed for a joke; one of your pals at the Cambridge Arms, I’ll be bound. You come along home with me, and we’ll soon find out who it was.”But Mr. Copperdock shook his head. “I wouldn’t go into that house again not to-night, no, not if you was to pay me,” he replied firmly. “I’d sooner go and spend the night at the police station.”“You needn’t do that,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “You can spend the night here on my bed upstairs. I have no objection to sleeping on the chair.”“I daren’t be left alone,” lamented Mr. Copperdock. “Anybody might have seen me cross the road and come in here. Do you think Inspector Whyland would send a couple of coppers along if Ted was to ring him up? I’d feel a lot safer if they was about.”“I hardly think he would,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “But if you like we will spend the night together in this room. You can have one chair, and I will have the other. I can put a mattress on the floor for Ted if he cares to join us.”“Not I, I’m going home to bed,” put in Ted heartily, with a wink at the herbalist. “Somebody ought to be on guard over at our place in case the black sailor breaks in, you know, Dad.”Rather reluctantly Mr. Copperdock agreed to this arrangement. After a few more minutes’ conversation, Ted went home, and the two settled themselves down in the chairs. A further strong whiskey and water produced its effect upon Mr. Copperdock, and he was very soon dozing restlessly. To Mr. Ludgrove sleep seemed an unnecessary luxury. He moved quietly over to his bench, and spent the greater part of the night absorbed in his herbs and his microscope, apparently entirely oblivious of the presence of his guest. The only sign he manifested of interest in his affairs was to pick up the counter and examine it very carefully through a powerful lens.It was not until seven o’clock in the morning that he gently shook the sleeping form. Mr. Copperdock woke with a start, and stared about him with puzzled eyes.“I’ve got a cup of tea ready for you, Mr. Copperdock,” said the herbalist. “I thought it was time to wake you, as Mrs. Cooper will be here presently, and if she found you here she might talk. We don’t want that, do we?”The tobacconist rose stiffly to his feet and shook himself. “Very kind of you, I’m sure, Ludgrove,” he said. “Yes, I remember. What did you do with that counter?”“I have it here,” replied the herbalist. “You are still quite sure that you found it on your bed last night? It wasn’t by any chance slipped into your pocket by somebody at the Cambridge Arms?”“As sure as I live. I found it on my bed, same as I told you,” affirmed Mr. Copperdock earnestly. “I wasn’t tight last night, if that’s what you’re getting at.”“No, no, of course not,” replied Mr. Ludgrove soothingly. “Now, shall we go across and see if your son heard anything during the night?”Mr. Copperdock agreeing, they crossed the road to the tobacconist’s shop, and let themselves in. Ted was still asleep, and they had some difficulty in waking him. When they had done so, he reported that he had had a good look round the place before he went to bed, and had found nothing unusual. After that—well, he had gone to sleep, and had heard nothing until they had awakened him.The light of morning appeared to have instilled rather more courage into Mr. Copperdock’s heart. He announced his determination to carry on business as usual, but insisted that Inspector Whyland should be communicated with and told of his discovery of the numbered counter. It was about ten o’clock when Whyland arrived in Praed Street, but instead of going straight to Copperdock’s shop, he went first to the herbalist’s.“What’s this story about Copperdock having found a numbered counter?” he asked, as soon as they were safely hidden in the back room from prying ears.Mr. Ludgrove recounted his experiences of the past night, and as he came to a conclusion Whyland laughed contemptuously. “Is this another of Copperdock’s hallucinations, like that meeting of his with the black sailor?” he enquired.“Not altogether,” replied Mr. Ludgrove with a smile. “The counter is real enough, at all events. He left it here last night. Here it is.”Whyland examined the counter in silence. He had very little doubt that Mr. Copperdock had staged the whole affair, had written the figure VI upon it in red ink himself, and had placed it on his bed. But why? What was his game? Was this a feeble scheme to draw suspicion from himself? The series of murders appeared to have come to an end. What was the point of reviving the memory of them like this?Mr. Ludgrove broke in upon his meditations. “I took the liberty of examining it under a powerful glass,” he said, nodding his head towards the bench. “It seems to be an ordinary bone counter and the figure VI has been drawn upon it with a steel pen and red ink.”“Just as the others were,” agreed Whyland. “I’ll keep this counter, if you don’t mind. I want to add it to my collection. Now I suppose I had better step across and see Copperdock. I should like you to come with me, if you can spare the time.”“I think I can risk shutting the shop for a few minutes,” replied the herbalist. “I get very few customers in the morning. Most of the people who require my services are at work all day.”“Dishonest work, I’ll be bound,” said Whyland chaffingly. “Well, come along, then.”They went across to Mr. Copperdock’s shop together, and were shown by the tobacconist into the room behind the shop, which was used as an office. At one side was a table upon which stood a Planet typewriter, at the other a desk. Inspector Whyland seated himself at the latter, selected one of the pens before him, and dipped it into an inkpot, which happened to contain red ink.“Now then, Mr. Copperdock,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happened yesterday evening.”The tobacconist immediately launched into an account of his adventure. Whyland listened patiently, occasionally making a brief note with the pen. “You say that nobody could have entered the house while you were out?” he asked, as Mr. Copperdock came to the end of his story.“Quite impossible,” replied Mr. Copperdock emphatically. “There’s only one door, with a spring lock which catches when you shuts it.”“H’m. I’d like to have a look round, if you don’t mind,” said the Inspector.He examined the house carefully. On the ground floor was the shop, and behind it the office and a little kitchen containing a gas stove. The windows of these did not open, and were high up in the wall, and covered with a stout iron grating. There was no back entrance. From a narrow passage a staircase ran up to the first floor, upon which were two bedrooms, occupied respectively by Mr. Copperdock and his son, and a sitting-room. The bedrooms were over the shop, and looked out upon Praed Street. The sitting-room was at the back, and looked out over an enclosed yard, belonging to a transport contractor, and used for storing vans at night. The windows on the first floor were obviously inaccessible without the aid of a ladder. Above the first floor were a couple of attics, lighted only by skylights, which were closed and padlocked. From the cobwebs which covered them, it was obvious that they had not been opened for a long time.Inspector Whyland returned to the first floor. “Were these windows closed and fastened while you were out last night?” he enquired.“The sitting-room was,” replied Ted, who had followed them upstairs. “I looked at it when I came in. It hasn’t been touched since.”Whyland looked at it, and satisfied himself that it showed no signs of having been forced. “What about the bedroom windows?” he asked.“Both Dad’s and mine were open at the top,” replied Ted. “But nobody could have got in through them, unless they had put up a ladder in the middle of Praed Street.”“Even the black sailor isn’t likely to have done that,” observed Whyland sarcastically. “Well, Mr. Copperdock, the best advice I can give you is not to go about alone at night too much. I’ll have a man watch outside the premises for a bit, if that’s any comfort to you. But, if you ask me, I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger.”It seemed that the Inspector was right. Several days passed without anything untoward happening to Mr. Copperdock. The tobacconist resumed his normal routine, with the modification that he took care never to be alone. His son walked with him as far as the Cambridge Arms, and one at least of his cronies there walked back with him to the shop. Mr. Ludgrove, watching with some amusement, recognized every night the watcher that Whyland had promised to provide. It struck him that the man’s instructions were probably to keep an eye on Mr. Copperdock’s movements rather than to provide for his safety. But upon the tobacconist, who, now he had got over his fright, appeared to regard himself as something of a hero, the man’s presence produced an impression of importance and of security.The only aspect of the incident which appealed to Whyland was the counter itself. He had submitted it to the experts at Scotland Yard, together with the notes which he had made in red ink in Mr. Copperdock’s office, and they had given it as their opinion that the figure upon it had been drawn with the same ink as that in which the notes had been written, and by a similar pen. Further, this pen and ink corresponded with those which had been used on the previous counters, in the cases in which they had been preserved. The more the Inspector considered it, the more convinced he became that Mr. Copperdock was at the bottom of the business. But how to bring it home to him? That was the difficulty.Mr. Copperdock had found the numbered counter on Tuesday evening. On the following Saturday Ted had arranged to take Ivy to a dance, from which he was not likely to return until after midnight. It had been suggested that Mr. Copperdock, in order that he should not be left alone, should spend the time between the closing of the Cambridge Arms and the return of his son in Mr. Ludgrove’s sanctum.But, deriving courage from the fact that four days had elapsed without anything happening, Mr. Copperdock refused to consider any such proposal. He must have detected the general scepticism with which his story of the finding of the counter had been received, and had resolved to say no more about it. He went to the Cambridge Arms at his usual hour, stayed there until closing time, and was then accompanied home by two friends of his, who lived in the Edgware Road, and who had to pass the door on their way home. He invited these two to come in and have a last drink with him, and they accepted, on the grounds that it was a beautiful night, and very thirsty work walking.The story of the finding of the counter was by this time familiar to all the clientele of the Cambridge Arms, each individual member of which suspected some other member of having somehow conveyed it into Mr. Copperdock’s possession. It was absurd to think, as one of them remarked in his absence, that anybody could have a grudge against Sam Copperdock. Somebody must be pulling his leg, that was the only possible explanation. It was with some considerable interest, therefore, that his two friends followed the tobacconist as he took them into his bedroom and showed them the exact place where he found the counter.It was not until nearly eleven that Mr. Copperdock’s party broke up. Inspector Whyland’s deputy, strolling past on the other side of the road, noticed the parting on the doorstep, and observed that after the departure of his friends, Mr. Copperdock shut the door of his shop. A few minutes later he saw a light switched on in one of the front rooms upstairs. This he knew, from his experience of previous nights, was the signal that Mr. Copperdock was going to bed.Mr. Ludgrove, since the tobacconist had refused his offer of hospitality, spent the evening by himself. The room above his shop was littered with innumerable boxes containing all manner of dried herbs and similar items of the stock-in-trade of his calling. He spent several hours between that room and his sanctum. His work bench became strewed with specimens to which from time to time he affixed labels with high-sounding names. The door of his shop was ajar until about half-past ten, up till which hour an occasional customer interrupted his labours. After that time it was closed, and he was able to devote his whole attention to his plants.He was still working at midnight. He appeared to require very little sleep, and rarely went to bed before the early hours of the morning. He had just brewed himself a cup of his favourite cocoa, when suddenly he heard a violent hammering upon the door of the shop. Instinctively he glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece. The hands pointed to twenty minutes past twelve.Surely no customer could be seeking admittance at such an hour! Besides, the knocking was clamorous, insistent, not in the least like the furtive taps which usually proclaimed the visit of some client, anxious to hide his errand under the cover of darkness. With a shrug of his shoulders Mr. Ludgrove put down his cup and went to the door. He drew back the bolts and put out his head, to find Ted Copperdock standing on the pavement outside.The young man gave him no chance to ask questions. He threw out his hand and caught Mr. Ludgrove by the arm, as though to drag him forcibly into the street. “For God’s sake come and see Dad!” he exclaimed.“Why, what has happened?” enquired Mr. Ludgrove quickly.“I don’t know, he’s dead, I think,” replied Ted incoherently. “I’ve just come back and found him. Something terrible’s happened——”Mr. Ludgrove was not the man to be carried off his feet by a sudden crisis. “Certainly, Ted, I’ll come over,” he said quietly. “But you appear to want a doctor rather than me. You probably know that a detective has been patrolling the streets for the last few nights. I think I see him coming towards us now. You go and fetch the doctor, while he and I attend to your father.”Ted, after a moment’s hesitation, ran off down the road, and Mr. Ludgrove walked swiftly towards the advancing figure, which he had already recognized. “Something has happened to Mr. Copperdock,” he said as he reached him. “I have sent his son for a doctor, and said that you and I would go in.”“Something happened, eh?” replied the man, as the two strode swiftly towards the door of the tobacconist’s shop. “You don’t know what it is, I suppose? I’ve had my eye on the place all the evening, and there’s been nobody near it between eleven, when two fellows whom Copperdock took in came out, and five minutes ago, when his son let himself in with a key. And there’s been a light in the front window upstairs all that time.”“No, I know nothing,” replied Mr. Ludgrove anxiously. They had reached the shop by this time. The door had been left open by Ted in his haste to call the herbalist, and they hurried on through the shop and up the staircase to the first floor. The door of Mr. Copperdock’s bedroom stood open, and they rushed in together. On the threshold they halted, moved by a simultaneous impulse. Before them, in the middle of the floor, lay Mr. Copperdock, stripped to the waist, with an expression of innocent surprise upon his face.

Mr. Ludgrove looked at the counter and then raised his eyes to Mr. Copperdock’s face. The tobacconist was staring at him with an expression of complete bewilderment and terror, very different from his truculent demeanour of a few minutes earlier. The herbalist checked the slow smile which had begun to twitch the corner of his lips, and sat down quietly opposite Mr. Copperdock.

“Where did you find this?” he asked.

“On my bed, after I left you just now,” replied the tobacconist. “It wasn’t there when I went out to the Cambridge Arms this evening, I’ll swear. I always goes upstairs to have a wash before I goes out, and I’d have been bound to have seen it. It’s that black sailor. I always thought he’d get me.”

“Well, he hasn’t got you yet,” said Mr. Ludgrove soothingly. “Now that you have been warned, we can take the proper precautions. How do you suppose this counter came into your room?”

Mr. Copperdock shook his head helplessly. “It beats me,” he replied. “I locked the door behind me when I went out, and nobody couldn’t have got in till I went back just now, seeing as I had the key in my pocket all the time.”

“You locked the door when you went out? Was Ted out, too, then?”

“Yes, Ted and I went out together, about half-past eight. He was going to spend the evening with the Toveys. I don’t expect him back till nigh on eleven. I goes round to the Cambridge Arms, where I stays until I comes in to you just now. And when I gets back, there was this counter, right in the middle of my bed. I just picks it up and comes over to you. I daren’t stay no longer in the house alone.”

“You didn’t notice if anything else in the house had been disturbed, I suppose?”

“I didn’t stop to look. It gave me such a turn seeing that thing there, I didn’t hardly know what I was doing.”

“Well, you’d better stay here until your son comes back,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “It is very nearly eleven now. I suppose you shut the door behind you when you came over here? How will Ted get in?”

“We both has our keys,” replied Mr. Copperdock. “Ted’s a good boy. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d been there.”

“Well, I’ll go to the door and watch for him,” said Mr. Ludgrove cheerfully. “You’ll be all right here, Mr. Copperdock.”

“Don’t you go no further than the door!” exclaimed the tobacconist fearfully. “For all I know that black sailor chap may be on the lookout, and seen me come across here. He’ll get me, for sure.”

“He won’t get you here, I promise you,” said Mr. Ludgrove reassuringly. He mixed a strong whiskey and water, and placed it in the trembling hand of his guest. “You drink this while I go into the shop and keep an eye open for your son.”

Mr. Ludgrove had not been at his post for many minutes before Ted came swinging along the opposite pavement. He stopped at the sound of the herbalist’s voice, and crossed the road towards him. In a few whispered words Mr. Ludgrove acquainted him with what had happened.

Ted said nothing, but jerked his elbow upwards and winked suggestively.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “But you had better come in and talk to him.”

The two entered the back room together, and Mr. Copperdock looked up anxiously as they came in.

“Ah, Ted, my boy, I’m glad to see you,” he said dolefully. “The black sailor’s on my track, and he’ll get me, for sure.”

“Nonsense, Dad,” replied Ted heartily. “Somebody put that counter on your bed for a joke; one of your pals at the Cambridge Arms, I’ll be bound. You come along home with me, and we’ll soon find out who it was.”

But Mr. Copperdock shook his head. “I wouldn’t go into that house again not to-night, no, not if you was to pay me,” he replied firmly. “I’d sooner go and spend the night at the police station.”

“You needn’t do that,” said Mr. Ludgrove. “You can spend the night here on my bed upstairs. I have no objection to sleeping on the chair.”

“I daren’t be left alone,” lamented Mr. Copperdock. “Anybody might have seen me cross the road and come in here. Do you think Inspector Whyland would send a couple of coppers along if Ted was to ring him up? I’d feel a lot safer if they was about.”

“I hardly think he would,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “But if you like we will spend the night together in this room. You can have one chair, and I will have the other. I can put a mattress on the floor for Ted if he cares to join us.”

“Not I, I’m going home to bed,” put in Ted heartily, with a wink at the herbalist. “Somebody ought to be on guard over at our place in case the black sailor breaks in, you know, Dad.”

Rather reluctantly Mr. Copperdock agreed to this arrangement. After a few more minutes’ conversation, Ted went home, and the two settled themselves down in the chairs. A further strong whiskey and water produced its effect upon Mr. Copperdock, and he was very soon dozing restlessly. To Mr. Ludgrove sleep seemed an unnecessary luxury. He moved quietly over to his bench, and spent the greater part of the night absorbed in his herbs and his microscope, apparently entirely oblivious of the presence of his guest. The only sign he manifested of interest in his affairs was to pick up the counter and examine it very carefully through a powerful lens.

It was not until seven o’clock in the morning that he gently shook the sleeping form. Mr. Copperdock woke with a start, and stared about him with puzzled eyes.

“I’ve got a cup of tea ready for you, Mr. Copperdock,” said the herbalist. “I thought it was time to wake you, as Mrs. Cooper will be here presently, and if she found you here she might talk. We don’t want that, do we?”

The tobacconist rose stiffly to his feet and shook himself. “Very kind of you, I’m sure, Ludgrove,” he said. “Yes, I remember. What did you do with that counter?”

“I have it here,” replied the herbalist. “You are still quite sure that you found it on your bed last night? It wasn’t by any chance slipped into your pocket by somebody at the Cambridge Arms?”

“As sure as I live. I found it on my bed, same as I told you,” affirmed Mr. Copperdock earnestly. “I wasn’t tight last night, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“No, no, of course not,” replied Mr. Ludgrove soothingly. “Now, shall we go across and see if your son heard anything during the night?”

Mr. Copperdock agreeing, they crossed the road to the tobacconist’s shop, and let themselves in. Ted was still asleep, and they had some difficulty in waking him. When they had done so, he reported that he had had a good look round the place before he went to bed, and had found nothing unusual. After that—well, he had gone to sleep, and had heard nothing until they had awakened him.

The light of morning appeared to have instilled rather more courage into Mr. Copperdock’s heart. He announced his determination to carry on business as usual, but insisted that Inspector Whyland should be communicated with and told of his discovery of the numbered counter. It was about ten o’clock when Whyland arrived in Praed Street, but instead of going straight to Copperdock’s shop, he went first to the herbalist’s.

“What’s this story about Copperdock having found a numbered counter?” he asked, as soon as they were safely hidden in the back room from prying ears.

Mr. Ludgrove recounted his experiences of the past night, and as he came to a conclusion Whyland laughed contemptuously. “Is this another of Copperdock’s hallucinations, like that meeting of his with the black sailor?” he enquired.

“Not altogether,” replied Mr. Ludgrove with a smile. “The counter is real enough, at all events. He left it here last night. Here it is.”

Whyland examined the counter in silence. He had very little doubt that Mr. Copperdock had staged the whole affair, had written the figure VI upon it in red ink himself, and had placed it on his bed. But why? What was his game? Was this a feeble scheme to draw suspicion from himself? The series of murders appeared to have come to an end. What was the point of reviving the memory of them like this?

Mr. Ludgrove broke in upon his meditations. “I took the liberty of examining it under a powerful glass,” he said, nodding his head towards the bench. “It seems to be an ordinary bone counter and the figure VI has been drawn upon it with a steel pen and red ink.”

“Just as the others were,” agreed Whyland. “I’ll keep this counter, if you don’t mind. I want to add it to my collection. Now I suppose I had better step across and see Copperdock. I should like you to come with me, if you can spare the time.”

“I think I can risk shutting the shop for a few minutes,” replied the herbalist. “I get very few customers in the morning. Most of the people who require my services are at work all day.”

“Dishonest work, I’ll be bound,” said Whyland chaffingly. “Well, come along, then.”

They went across to Mr. Copperdock’s shop together, and were shown by the tobacconist into the room behind the shop, which was used as an office. At one side was a table upon which stood a Planet typewriter, at the other a desk. Inspector Whyland seated himself at the latter, selected one of the pens before him, and dipped it into an inkpot, which happened to contain red ink.

“Now then, Mr. Copperdock,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happened yesterday evening.”

The tobacconist immediately launched into an account of his adventure. Whyland listened patiently, occasionally making a brief note with the pen. “You say that nobody could have entered the house while you were out?” he asked, as Mr. Copperdock came to the end of his story.

“Quite impossible,” replied Mr. Copperdock emphatically. “There’s only one door, with a spring lock which catches when you shuts it.”

“H’m. I’d like to have a look round, if you don’t mind,” said the Inspector.

He examined the house carefully. On the ground floor was the shop, and behind it the office and a little kitchen containing a gas stove. The windows of these did not open, and were high up in the wall, and covered with a stout iron grating. There was no back entrance. From a narrow passage a staircase ran up to the first floor, upon which were two bedrooms, occupied respectively by Mr. Copperdock and his son, and a sitting-room. The bedrooms were over the shop, and looked out upon Praed Street. The sitting-room was at the back, and looked out over an enclosed yard, belonging to a transport contractor, and used for storing vans at night. The windows on the first floor were obviously inaccessible without the aid of a ladder. Above the first floor were a couple of attics, lighted only by skylights, which were closed and padlocked. From the cobwebs which covered them, it was obvious that they had not been opened for a long time.

Inspector Whyland returned to the first floor. “Were these windows closed and fastened while you were out last night?” he enquired.

“The sitting-room was,” replied Ted, who had followed them upstairs. “I looked at it when I came in. It hasn’t been touched since.”

Whyland looked at it, and satisfied himself that it showed no signs of having been forced. “What about the bedroom windows?” he asked.

“Both Dad’s and mine were open at the top,” replied Ted. “But nobody could have got in through them, unless they had put up a ladder in the middle of Praed Street.”

“Even the black sailor isn’t likely to have done that,” observed Whyland sarcastically. “Well, Mr. Copperdock, the best advice I can give you is not to go about alone at night too much. I’ll have a man watch outside the premises for a bit, if that’s any comfort to you. But, if you ask me, I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger.”

It seemed that the Inspector was right. Several days passed without anything untoward happening to Mr. Copperdock. The tobacconist resumed his normal routine, with the modification that he took care never to be alone. His son walked with him as far as the Cambridge Arms, and one at least of his cronies there walked back with him to the shop. Mr. Ludgrove, watching with some amusement, recognized every night the watcher that Whyland had promised to provide. It struck him that the man’s instructions were probably to keep an eye on Mr. Copperdock’s movements rather than to provide for his safety. But upon the tobacconist, who, now he had got over his fright, appeared to regard himself as something of a hero, the man’s presence produced an impression of importance and of security.

The only aspect of the incident which appealed to Whyland was the counter itself. He had submitted it to the experts at Scotland Yard, together with the notes which he had made in red ink in Mr. Copperdock’s office, and they had given it as their opinion that the figure upon it had been drawn with the same ink as that in which the notes had been written, and by a similar pen. Further, this pen and ink corresponded with those which had been used on the previous counters, in the cases in which they had been preserved. The more the Inspector considered it, the more convinced he became that Mr. Copperdock was at the bottom of the business. But how to bring it home to him? That was the difficulty.

Mr. Copperdock had found the numbered counter on Tuesday evening. On the following Saturday Ted had arranged to take Ivy to a dance, from which he was not likely to return until after midnight. It had been suggested that Mr. Copperdock, in order that he should not be left alone, should spend the time between the closing of the Cambridge Arms and the return of his son in Mr. Ludgrove’s sanctum.

But, deriving courage from the fact that four days had elapsed without anything happening, Mr. Copperdock refused to consider any such proposal. He must have detected the general scepticism with which his story of the finding of the counter had been received, and had resolved to say no more about it. He went to the Cambridge Arms at his usual hour, stayed there until closing time, and was then accompanied home by two friends of his, who lived in the Edgware Road, and who had to pass the door on their way home. He invited these two to come in and have a last drink with him, and they accepted, on the grounds that it was a beautiful night, and very thirsty work walking.

The story of the finding of the counter was by this time familiar to all the clientele of the Cambridge Arms, each individual member of which suspected some other member of having somehow conveyed it into Mr. Copperdock’s possession. It was absurd to think, as one of them remarked in his absence, that anybody could have a grudge against Sam Copperdock. Somebody must be pulling his leg, that was the only possible explanation. It was with some considerable interest, therefore, that his two friends followed the tobacconist as he took them into his bedroom and showed them the exact place where he found the counter.

It was not until nearly eleven that Mr. Copperdock’s party broke up. Inspector Whyland’s deputy, strolling past on the other side of the road, noticed the parting on the doorstep, and observed that after the departure of his friends, Mr. Copperdock shut the door of his shop. A few minutes later he saw a light switched on in one of the front rooms upstairs. This he knew, from his experience of previous nights, was the signal that Mr. Copperdock was going to bed.

Mr. Ludgrove, since the tobacconist had refused his offer of hospitality, spent the evening by himself. The room above his shop was littered with innumerable boxes containing all manner of dried herbs and similar items of the stock-in-trade of his calling. He spent several hours between that room and his sanctum. His work bench became strewed with specimens to which from time to time he affixed labels with high-sounding names. The door of his shop was ajar until about half-past ten, up till which hour an occasional customer interrupted his labours. After that time it was closed, and he was able to devote his whole attention to his plants.

He was still working at midnight. He appeared to require very little sleep, and rarely went to bed before the early hours of the morning. He had just brewed himself a cup of his favourite cocoa, when suddenly he heard a violent hammering upon the door of the shop. Instinctively he glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece. The hands pointed to twenty minutes past twelve.

Surely no customer could be seeking admittance at such an hour! Besides, the knocking was clamorous, insistent, not in the least like the furtive taps which usually proclaimed the visit of some client, anxious to hide his errand under the cover of darkness. With a shrug of his shoulders Mr. Ludgrove put down his cup and went to the door. He drew back the bolts and put out his head, to find Ted Copperdock standing on the pavement outside.

The young man gave him no chance to ask questions. He threw out his hand and caught Mr. Ludgrove by the arm, as though to drag him forcibly into the street. “For God’s sake come and see Dad!” he exclaimed.

“Why, what has happened?” enquired Mr. Ludgrove quickly.

“I don’t know, he’s dead, I think,” replied Ted incoherently. “I’ve just come back and found him. Something terrible’s happened——”

Mr. Ludgrove was not the man to be carried off his feet by a sudden crisis. “Certainly, Ted, I’ll come over,” he said quietly. “But you appear to want a doctor rather than me. You probably know that a detective has been patrolling the streets for the last few nights. I think I see him coming towards us now. You go and fetch the doctor, while he and I attend to your father.”

Ted, after a moment’s hesitation, ran off down the road, and Mr. Ludgrove walked swiftly towards the advancing figure, which he had already recognized. “Something has happened to Mr. Copperdock,” he said as he reached him. “I have sent his son for a doctor, and said that you and I would go in.”

“Something happened, eh?” replied the man, as the two strode swiftly towards the door of the tobacconist’s shop. “You don’t know what it is, I suppose? I’ve had my eye on the place all the evening, and there’s been nobody near it between eleven, when two fellows whom Copperdock took in came out, and five minutes ago, when his son let himself in with a key. And there’s been a light in the front window upstairs all that time.”

“No, I know nothing,” replied Mr. Ludgrove anxiously. They had reached the shop by this time. The door had been left open by Ted in his haste to call the herbalist, and they hurried on through the shop and up the staircase to the first floor. The door of Mr. Copperdock’s bedroom stood open, and they rushed in together. On the threshold they halted, moved by a simultaneous impulse. Before them, in the middle of the floor, lay Mr. Copperdock, stripped to the waist, with an expression of innocent surprise upon his face.

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