The Sixth Counter
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.”