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.
XII
A Hypodermic Needle
For a moment the two men stood still, rooted to the ground with horror. Then Mr. Ludgrove stepped forward and fell on his knees by Mr. Copperdock’s side. He put his finger on his wrist for a moment, then slowly rose to his feet and shook his head.
“Dead?” said the detective enquiringly. “By jove, this is a bad business. Will you stay here for a moment while I go down into the shop and telephone? I’ll ring up the station and get them to send for Whyland. Don’t touch anything, whatever you do.”
Mr. Ludgrove nodded. He stood motionless in the doorway when voices below proclaimed the arrival on the scene of Ted and the doctor. The detective, who had sent his message, came upstairs with them, and the three joined Mr. Ludgrove.
The doctor took in the situation at a glance. Mr. Copperdock was lying on his back, his legs drawn up close to his body. The doctor
