“Well, the bakehouse is away behind, you go up a long passage from the shop to get to it. Old Ben spent most of his time in the bakehouse, leaving the shop to the lad. But he was a suspicious old cove, and he always had it in his mind that Dick was trying to make a bit out of the business. Couldn’t blame him if he had, the old man kept him short enough. But Dick hadn’t much chance. There’s a cash register in the shop, through which every penny of the takings has to pass.”

Mr. Ludgrove nodded. “I know, I’ve often noticed it,” he agreed.

“Every afternoon between two and three, when he’d had his dinner, old Ben used to come into the shop and sit at the cash register, checking the takings. And he always smoked a pipe while he was doing it. Queer thing he never smoked in the bakehouse, only just this one pipe in the day. He would smoke it through, then refill it and put it on a shelf in the corner of the shop, ready for the next day. I suppose he done the same thing every day for a dozen years or more. Now, you remember that Friday was poor Jim Tovey’s funeral?”