“With Miss Tovey,” replied Ted, readily enough, but with an awkward blush. “We went to a dance, then we had some supper. After that I saw her home, and stayed there a few minutes. I walked home from Lisson Grove, found Dad like this, and ran straight across to fetch Mr. Ludgrove.”
“Nobody but you and your father had a key to the premises, I suppose?”
“No. One of us always came down to let the charwoman in in the morning.”
“You are perfectly certain, Waters, that nobody came to the house between eleven and a quarter past twelve?” enquired Whyland.
“Certain, sir. I was in the street outside all the time, and never took my eyes off the place.”
“Very well. You stay here with the body. I’ll arrange for it to be taken to the mortuary as soon as I can. As for you, young man, you had better go to bed and try to get some sleep. We shall want you in the morning. Mr. Ludgrove, if you’ve nothing better to do, I should like you to come round the house with me. I want to make certain that nobody can have broken in.”
Mr. Ludgrove nodded, and the two left the room together. Whyland examined the sitting-room window. It was shut and fastened, and bore no traces of violence. Then they went downstairs and looked over the ground floor, without discovering anything in any way out of the ordinary.
When they reached the office behind the shop, Whyland closed the door and sank wearily into a chair. “Well, Mr. Ludgrove, what do you make of it?” he said.
“I couldn’t help overhearing snatches of your conversation with the doctor,” replied the herbalist. “I confess that I cannot understand why, if Mr. Copperdock wished to poison himself with a hypodermic injection, he should select his back for the purpose, unless he had some confused idea of a lumbar puncture. Yet, on the other hand, he is not likely to have let someone else drive a needle into him without a struggle, and of that there is no trace, so far as I could see.”
“And how did that person get in?” put in Whyland quickly. “That is, if both Waters and young Ted are telling the truth. Waters is a good man, and I haven’t the least reason to suspect him. But it’s just possible that he was dozing somewhere between eleven and twelve, and that Ted came home before he said he did. His father wouldn’t be surprised to see him, and he might have walked up behind him and jabbed the needle in. Then, when his father found out what he’d done, he got a bit of caustic potash from somewhere and clapped it on. I know there are lots of difficulties, but at least it’s possible. At all events, I can’t think of another alternative to the suicide theory.”