“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.