“The baker at the other end of the street?” replied Mr. Ludgrove. “I always buy my bread at his shop, but I hardly know Ben Colburn himself, I have seen his son Dick several times. Isn’t Dick a friend of your lad’s?”

For an instant Mr. Copperdock made no reply. His face grew even redder than usual, and he picked with his fingers at the arms of his chair. Mr. Ludgrove, recognising the symptoms, knew that at last he was approaching the point of this late visit. He walked across the room, sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the fire, and waited.

“Old Ben Colburn’s dead,” blurted out the tobacconist at last, as though the words had been torn from his lips.