The doctor shook his head. “I can’t say, since I do not yet know its nature,” he replied. “If it was the same as was employed in Colburn’s case, we can make a rough guess, however. A very small quantity, applied to a scratch in his tongue, caused death in two hours and a half. We may assume that very much larger quantity would be contained in a syringe, and it was driven well into the tissues. Death might well have occurred within a few minutes. But in any case, there would have been time to dispose of the syringe.”
The doctor turned and pointed to the window. “That’s open at the top, as you see, and the curtains do not meet by a couple of feet or more. He could have thrown it out there without the slightest difficulty.”
Whyland turned to the three men, who had been standing by the door. “Slip down below, Waters, and search the pavement and roadway outside this window for a hypodermic syringe,” he said. “Sharp, now! Mr. Ludgrove, come to this window for a moment; you know this street better than I do. That’s your place opposite, isn’t it? What’s behind that window over the shop?”
“A room I use for storing herbs in,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “As it happens, I have been in there once or twice this evening.”
“You didn’t see anything of what was happening in here, I suppose?” asked Whyland quickly.
“No, I did not,” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “I was only in the room for a moment or two, selecting bundles of herbs to take downstairs. I did happen to notice about eleven o’clock that there was a light in here, but that was all.”
“What about the windows to the right and left of your place?”
“I believe that they belong to offices occupied only in the daytime. I do not think it at all likely that anyone could have overlooked this room from them at night.”
“No,” agreed Whyland. “We’re not likely to be lucky to find an actual witness. All right, Mr. Ludgrove, thank you. Now, young man, do you know if your father possessed a hypodermic syringe?”
Ted Copperdock, thus addressed, shook his head. “I don’t think so, Inspector,” he replied. “But I shouldn’t know one if I saw it. There’s a cupboard over there by the washing stand where he kept a lot of bottles of stuff.”
Whyland strode over to the cupboard and opened it. It contained about a dozen bottles of various sizes, each half full of some patent medicine or other. But of a hypodermic syringe, or even any caustic potash, there was no trace.
“If he did it himself he must have thrown the syringe away,” muttered Whyland. “Waters ought to find it; there isn’t a lot of traffic along here at this time of night. Well, doctor, I don’t think we need keep you out of bed any longer. I’ll have the body taken to the mortuary, and perhaps you’ll ring me up at the station later in the morning?”
The doctor nodded, picked up his bag, which contained the broken needle and the sample of the incrustation, and left the house. When he had gone, Whyland turned once again to Ted.
“Can you suggest any reason why your father should wish to take his life?” he enquired.
“No, Inspector, I can’t,” replied Ted frankly. “The business is doing very well, and father was only saying the other day that we’d got a tidy bit put away in the bank. I keep the books myself, and I know everything’s all right.”
“I see. No money troubles, in fact. You don’t know of any disappointment which he may have experienced, or anything like that?”
A faint smile passed across Ted’s face. “I don’t think he had any disappointment, Inspector,” he replied. “In fact, I should say it was rather the other way.”
“What do you mean?” said Whyland sharply.
“Why, he always reckoned that nobody knew, but I fancy that we all guessed sharp enough. He’s hinted to me once or twice lately that he wasn’t too old to marry again. And—well, from what her daughter lets drop, Mrs. Tovey wouldn’t mind. He went round there pretty often, and she always seemed glad to see him.”
Whyland shot a quick glance at Mr. Ludgrove. It was from him that he had first learnt of this attachment. Ludgrove nodded almost imperceptibly, and Whyland turned once more to Ted.
“There was nothing preying on his mind, was there?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve thought sometimes that he fair had the wind up about this black sailor,” replied Ted reluctantly. “I never knew what to make of that. He told me one day that he’d met him coming out of the Cambridge Arms, but I never could quite believe it somehow.”
“As it happens, I share your scepticism,” said Whyland. “Mr. Ludgrove here was in the street at the time, and saw your father come out of the Cambridge Arms. There was nobody but himself and your father in sight, he assures me.”
“That is so,” assented Mr. Ludgrove gravely.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” said Ted. “It’s a funny thing, but these things always happen when he’d been to the Cambridge Arms of an evening. It was when he came home from there that he found that counter the other day?”
“Have you ever seen your father definitely under the influence of liquor?” asked Whyland.
“Why no, not to say actually squiffy. He’d talk freer than usual, and imagine all sorts of yarns about things that never happened. I think he got the black sailor on his brain sometimes. When he first got the counter he made up his mind that the black sailor was going to get him. But the last day or two he’s been much more cheerful. Of course, it’s possible that this evening, when he was alone, it got on his
