The murder of Roger Ackroyd
“Mr. Ackroyd had laid it down on this little table at his right hand.”
Poirot nodded.
“Except for that, everything was in its place?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Colonel Melrose, would you be so extremely obliging as to sit down in
this chair a minute. I thank you. Now, M. le docteur, will you kindly
indicate to me the exact position of the dagger?”
I did so, whilst the little man stood in the doorway.
“The hilt of the dagger was plainly visible from the door then. Both
you and Parker could see it at once?”
“Yes.”
Poirot went next to the window.
“The electric light was on, of course, when you discovered the body?”
he asked over his shoulder.
I assented, and joined him where he was studying the marks on the
window-sill.
“The rubber studs are the same pattern as those in Captain Paton’s
shoes,” he said quietly.
Then he came back once more to the middle of the room. His eye traveled
round, searching everything in the room with a quick, trained glance.
“Are you a man of good observation, Dr. Sheppard?” he asked at last.
“I think so,” I said, surprised.
“There was a fire in the grate, I see. When you broke the door down and
found Mr. Ackroyd dead, how was the fire? Was it low?”
I gave a vexed laugh.
“I—I really can’t say. I didn’t notice. Perhaps Mr. Raymond or Major
Blunt——”
The little man opposite me shook his head with a faint smile.
“One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment in
asking you that question. To each man his own knowledge. You could tell
me the details of the patient’s appearance—nothing there would escape
you. If I wanted information about the papers on that desk, Mr. Raymond
would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the
fire, I must ask the man whose business it is to observe such things.
You permit——”
He moved swiftly to the fireplace and rang the bell.
After a lapse of a minute or two Parker appeared.
“The bell rang, sir,” he said hesitatingly.
“Come in, Parker,” said Colonel Melrose. “This gentleman wants to ask
you something.”
Parker transferred a respectful attention to Poirot.
“Parker,” said the little man, “when you broke down the door with Dr.
Sheppard last night, and found your master dead, what was the state of
the fire?”
Parker replied without a pause.
“It had burned very low, sir. It was almost out.”
“Ah!” said Poirot. The exclamation sounded almost triumphant. He went
on:—
“Look round you, my good Parker. Is this room exactly as it was then?”
The butler’s eye swept round. It came to rest on the windows.
“The curtains were drawn, sir, and the electric light was on.”
Poirot nodded approval.
“Anything else?”
“Yes, sir, this chair was drawn out a little more.”
He indicated a big grandfather chair to the left of the door between it
and the window. I append a plan of the room with the chair in question
marked with an X.
“Just show me,” said Poirot.
[Illustration:
+---------------- +-----------------+
| + DOOR / GRANDFATHER |
| / \ / CHAIR +---+ |
| / + ] | |
| + / SMALL X ] | |
| \ / TABLE +---+ |
| + |
+++ |
||| +---+ CHAIR IN WHICH ___ |
||| ] | ACKROYD WAS / \ |
||| +---+ FOUND TABLE | | |
||| \___/ |
||| |
||| |
+++ +---+ + |
| ^ ] | CHAIR IN WHICH / \ |
| | +---+ SHEPPARD SAT / / + |
| | / / |
| | DESK & + / |
| | FIREPLACE CHAIR \ / |
| +------------ + |
+----------------------------------------+
]
The butler drew the chair in question out a good two feet from the
wall, turning it so that the seat faced the door.
“_Voilà ce qui est curieux_,” murmured Poirot. “No one would want to
sit in a chair in such a position, I fancy. Now who pushed it back into
place again, I wonder? Did you, my friend?”
“No, sir,” said Parker. “I was too upset with seeing the master and
all.”
Poirot looked across at me.
“Did you, doctor?”
I shook my head.
“It was back in position when I arrived with the police, sir,” put in
Parker. “I’m sure of that.”
“Curious,” said Poirot again.
“Raymond or Blunt must have pushed it back,” I suggested. “Surely it
isn’t important?”
“It is completely unimportant,” said Poirot. “That is why it is so
interesting,” he added softly.
“Excuse me a minute,” said Colonel Melrose. He left the room with
Parker.
“Do you think Parker is speaking the truth?” I asked.
“About the chair, yes. Otherwise I do not know. You will find, M. le
docteur, if you have much to do with cases of this kind, that they all
resemble each other in one thing.”
“What is that?” I asked curiously.
“Every one concerned in them has something to hide.”
“Have I?” I asked, smiling.
Poirot looked at me attentively.
“I think you have,” he said quietly.
“But——”
“Have you told me everything known to you about this young man Paton?”
He smiled as I grew red. “Oh! do not fear. I will not press you. I
shall learn it in good time.”
“I wish you’d tell me something of your methods,” I said hastily, to
cover my confusion. “The point about the fire, for instance?”
“Oh! that was very simple. You leave Mr. Ackroyd at—ten minutes to
nine, was it not?”
“Yes, exactly, I should say.”
“The window is then closed and bolted and the door unlocked. At a
quarter past ten when the body is discovered, the door is locked and
the window is open. Who opened it? Clearly only Mr. Ackroyd himself
could have done so, and for one of two reasons. Either because the room
became unbearably hot (but since the fire was nearly out and there was
a sharp drop in temperature last night, that cannot be the reason),
or because he admitted some one that way. And if he admitted some one
that way, it must have been some one well known to him, since he had
previously shown himself uneasy on the subject of that same window.”
“It sounds very simple,” I said.
“Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically. We are
concerned now with the personality of the person who was with him at
nine-thirty last night. Everything goes to show that that was the
individual admitted by the window, and though Mr. Ackroyd was seen
alive later by Miss Flora, we cannot approach a solution of the mystery
until we know who that visitor was. The window may have been left open
after his departure and so afforded entrance to the murderer, or the
same person may have returned a second time. Ah! here is the colonel
who returns.”
Colonel Melrose entered with an animated manner.
“That telephone call has been traced at last,” he said. “It did not
come from here. It was put through to Dr. Sheppard at 10.15 last night
from a public call office at King’s Abbot station. And at 10.23 the
night mail leaves for Liverpool.”
CHAPTER VIII
INSPECTOR RAGLAN IS CONFIDENT
We looked at each other.
“You’ll have inquiries made at the station, of course?” I said.
“Naturally, but I’m not over sanguine as to the result. You know what
that station is like.”
I did. King’s Abbot is a mere village, but its station happens to
be an important junction. Most of the big expresses stop there, and
trains are shunted, re-sorted, and made up. It has two or three public
telephone boxes. At that time of night three local trains come in
close upon each other, to catch the connection with the express for
the north which comes in at 10.19 and leaves at 10.23. The whole place
is in a bustle, and the chances of one particular person being noticed
telephoning or getting into the express are very small indeed.
“But why telephone at all?” demanded Melrose. “That is what I find so
extraordinary. There seems no rhyme or reason in the thing.”
Poirot carefully straightened a china ornament on one of the bookcases.
“Be sure there was a reason,” he said over his shoulder.
“But what reason could it be?”
“When we know that, we shall know everything. This case is very curious
and very interesting.”
There was something almost indescribable in the way he said those last
words. I felt that he was looking at the case from some peculiar angle
of his own, and what he saw I could not tell.
He went to the window and stood there, looking out.
“You say it was nine o’clock, Dr. Sheppard, when you met this stranger
outside the gate?”
He asked the question without turning round.
“Yes,” I replied. “I heard the church clock chime the hour.”
“How long would it take him to reach the house—to reach this window,
for instance?”
“Five minutes at the outside. Two or three minutes only if he took the
path at the right of the drive and came straight here.”
“But to do that he would have to know the way. How can I explain
myself?—it would mean that he had been here before—that he knew his
surroundings.”
“That is true,” replied Colonel Melrose.
“We could find out, doubtless, if Mr. Ackroyd had received any
strangers during the past week?”
“Young Raymond could tell us that,” I said.
“Or Parker,” suggested Colonel Melrose.
“_Ou tous les deux_,” suggested Poirot, smiling.
Colonel Melrose went in search of Raymond, and I rang the bell once
more for Parker.
Colonel Melrose returned almost immediately, accompanied by the young
secretary, whom he introduced to Poirot. Geoffrey Raymond was fresh and
debonair as ever. He seemed surprised and delighted to make Poirot’s
acquaintance.
“No idea you’d been living among us incognito, M. Poirot,” he said. “It
will be a great privilege to watch you at work——Hallo, what’s this?”
Poirot had been standing just to the left of the door. Now he moved
aside suddenly, and I saw that while my back was turned he must have
swiftly drawn out the arm-chair till it stood in the position Parker
had indicated.
“Want me to sit in the chair whilst you take a blood test?” asked
Raymond good-humoredly. “What’s the idea?”
“M. Raymond, this chair was pulled out—so—last night when Mr. Ackroyd
was found killed. Some one moved it back again into place. Did you do
so?”
The secretary’s reply came without a second’s hesitation.
“No, indeed I didn’t. I don’t even remember that it was in that
position, but it must have been if you say so. Anyway, somebody else
must have moved it back to its proper place. Have they destroyed a clew
in doing so? Too bad!”
“It is of no consequence,” said the detective. “Of no consequence
whatever. What I really want to ask you is this, M. Raymond: Did any
stranger come to see Mr. Ackroyd during this past week?”
The secretary reflected for a minute or two, knitting his brows, and
during the pause Parker appeared in answer to the bell.
“No,” said Raymond at last. “I can’t remember any one. Can you, Parker?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Any stranger coming to see Mr. Ackroyd this week?”
The butler reflected for a minute or two.
“There was the young man who came on Wednesday, sir,” he said at last.
“From Curtis and Troute, I understood he was.”
Raymond moved this aside with an impatient hand.
“Oh! yes, I remember, but that is not the kind of stranger this
gentleman means.” He turned to Poirot. “Mr. Ackroyd had some idea of
purchasing a dictaphone,” he explained. “It would have enabled us to
get through a lot more work in a limited time. The firm in question
sent down their representative, but nothing came of it. Mr. Ackroyd did