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.