The murder of Roger Ackroyd
Poirot gets hold of her, and puts it to her as her duty, she’ll come
forward of her own accord and clear Ralph.”
“You seem to have invented a romantic fairy story of your own,” I said.
“You read too many trashy novels, Caroline. I’ve always told you so.”
I dropped into my chair again.
“Did Poirot ask you any more questions?” I inquired.
“Only about the patients you had that morning.”
“The patients?” I demanded, unbelievingly.
“Yes, your surgery patients. How many and who they were?”
“Do you mean to say you were able to tell him that?” I demanded.
Caroline is really amazing.
“Why not?” asked my sister triumphantly. “I can see the path up to the
surgery door perfectly from this window. And I’ve got an excellent
memory, James. Much better than yours, let me tell you.”
“I’m sure you have,” I murmured mechanically.
My sister went on, checking the names on her fingers.
“There was old Mrs. Bennett, and that boy from the farm with the bad
finger, Dolly Grice to have a needle out of her finger; that American
steward off the liner. Let me see—that’s four. Yes, and old George
Evans with his ulcer. And lastly——”
She paused significantly.
“Well?”
Caroline brought out her climax triumphantly. She hissed in the most
approved style—aided by the fortunate number of s’s at her disposal.
“_Miss Russell!_”
She sat back in her chair and looked at me meaningly, and when Caroline
looks at you meaningly, it is impossible to miss it.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, quite untruthfully. “Why
shouldn’t Miss Russell consult me about her bad knee?”
“Bad knee,” said Caroline. “Fiddlesticks! No more bad knee than you and
I. She was after something else.”
“What?” I asked.
Caroline had to admit that she didn’t know.
“But depend upon it, that was what he was trying to get at, M. Poirot,
I mean. There’s something fishy about that woman, and he knows it.”
“Precisely the remark Mrs. Ackroyd made to me yesterday,” I said. “That
there was something fishy about Miss Russell.”
“Ah!” said Caroline darkly, “Mrs. Ackroyd! There’s another!”
“Another what?”
Caroline refused to explain her remarks. She merely nodded her head
several times, rolled up her knitting, and went upstairs to don the
high mauve silk blouse and the gold locket which she calls dressing for
dinner.
I stayed there staring into the fire and thinking over Caroline’s
words. Had Poirot really come to gain information about Miss Russell,
or was it only Caroline’s tortuous mind that interpreted everything
according to her own ideas?
There had certainly been nothing in Miss Russell’s manner that morning
to arouse suspicion. At least——
I remembered her persistent conversation on the subject of drug-taking
and from that she had led the conversation to poisons and poisoning.
But there was nothing in that. Ackroyd had not been poisoned. Still, it
was odd....
I heard Caroline’s voice, rather acid in note, calling from the top of
the stairs.
“James, you will be late for dinner.”
I put some coal on the fire and went upstairs obediently.
It is well at any price to have peace in the home.
CHAPTER XII
ROUND THE TABLE
A joint inquest was held on Monday.
I do not propose to give the proceedings in detail. To do so would only
be to go over the same ground again and again. By arrangement with the
police, very little was allowed to come out. I gave evidence as to the
cause of Ackroyd’s death and the probable time. The absence of Ralph
Paton was commented on by the coroner, but not unduly stressed.
Afterwards, Poirot and I had a few words with Inspector Raglan. The
inspector was very grave.
“It looks bad, Mr. Poirot,” he said. “I’m trying to judge the thing
fair and square. I’m a local man, and I’ve seen Captain Paton many
times in Cranchester. I’m not wanting him to be the guilty one—but it’s
bad whichever way you look at it. If he’s innocent, why doesn’t he come
forward? We’ve got evidence against him, but it’s just possible that
that evidence could be explained away. Then why doesn’t he give an
explanation?”
A lot more lay behind the inspector’s words than I knew at the time.
Ralph’s description had been wired to every port and railway station
in England. The police everywhere were on the alert. His rooms in town
were watched, and any houses he had been known to be in the habit
of frequenting. With such a _cordon_ it seemed impossible that Ralph
should be able to evade detection. He had no luggage, and, as far as
any one knew, no money.
“I can’t find any one who saw him at the station that night,” continued
the inspector. “And yet he’s well known down here, and you’d think
somebody would have noticed him. There’s no news from Liverpool either.”
“You think he went to Liverpool?” queried Poirot.
“Well, it’s on the cards. That telephone message from the station,
just three minutes before the Liverpool express left—there ought to be
something in that.”
“Unless it was deliberately intended to throw you off the scent. That
might just possibly be the point of the telephone message.”
“That’s an idea,” said the inspector eagerly. “Do you really think
that’s the explanation of the telephone call?”
“My friend,” said Poirot gravely, “I do not know. But I will tell you
this: I believe that when we find the explanation of that telephone
call we shall find the explanation of the murder.”
“You said something like that before, I remember,” I observed, looking
at him curiously.
Poirot nodded.
“I always come back to it,” he said seriously.
“It seems to me utterly irrelevant,” I declared.
“I wouldn’t say that,” demurred the inspector. “But I must confess I
think Mr. Poirot here harps on it a little too much. We’ve better clews
than that. The fingerprints on the dagger, for instance.”
Poirot became suddenly very foreign in manner, as he often did when
excited over anything.
“M. l’Inspecteur,” he said, “beware of the blind—the blind—_comment
dire?_—the little street that has no end to it.”
Inspector Raglan stared, but I was quicker.
“You mean a blind alley?” I said.
“That is it—the blind street that leads nowhere. So it may be with
those fingerprints—they may lead you nowhere.”
“I don’t see how that can well be,” said the police officer. “I suppose
you’re hinting that they’re faked? I’ve read of such things being done,
though I can’t say I’ve ever come across it in my experience. But fake
or true—they’re bound to lead _somewhere_.”
Poirot merely shrugged his shoulders, flinging out his arms wide.
The inspector then showed us various enlarged photographs of the
fingerprints, and proceeded to become technical on the subject of loops
and whorls.
“Come now,” he said at last, annoyed by Poirot’s detached manner,
“you’ve got to admit that those prints were made by some one who was in
the house that night?”
“_Bien entendu_,” said Poirot, nodding his head.
“Well, I’ve taken the prints of every member of the household, every
one, mind you, from the old lady down to the kitchenmaid.”
I don’t think Mrs. Ackroyd would enjoy being referred to as the old
lady. She must spend a considerable amount on cosmetics.
“Every one’s,” repeated the inspector fussily.
“Including mine,” I said dryly.
“Very well. None of them correspond. That leaves us two alternatives.
Ralph Paton, or the mysterious stranger the doctor here tells us about.
When we get hold of those two——”
“Much valuable time may have been lost,” broke in Poirot.
“I don’t quite get you, Mr. Poirot?”
“You have taken the prints of every one in the house, you say,”
murmured Poirot. “Is that the exact truth you are telling me there, M.
l’Inspecteur?”
“Certainly.”
“Without overlooking any one?”
“Without overlooking any one.”
“The quick or the dead?”
For a moment the inspector looked bewildered at what he took to be a
religious observation. Then he reacted slowly.
“You mean——”
“The dead, M. l’Inspecteur.”
The inspector still took a minute or two to understand.
“I am suggesting,” said Poirot placidly, “that the fingerprints on the
dagger handle are those of Mr. Ackroyd himself. It is an easy matter to
verify. His body is still available.”
“But why? What would be the point of it? You’re surely not suggesting
suicide, Mr. Poirot?”
“Ah! no. My theory is that the murderer wore gloves or wrapped
something round his hand. After the blow was struck, he picked up the
victim’s hand and closed it round the dagger handle.”
“But why?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders again.
“To make a confusing case even more confusing.”
“Well,” said the inspector, “I’ll look into it. What gave you the idea
in the first place?”
“When you were so kind as to show me the dagger and draw attention to
the fingerprints. I know very little of loops and whorls—see, I confess
my ignorance frankly. But it did occur to me that the position of the
prints was somewhat awkward. Not so would I have held a dagger in order
to strike. Naturally, with the right hand brought up over the shoulder
backwards, it would have been difficult to put it in exactly the right
position.”
Inspector Raglan stared at the little man. Poirot, with an air of great
unconcern, flecked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
“Well,” said the inspector, “it’s an idea. I’ll look into it all right,
but don’t you be disappointed if nothing comes of it.”
He endeavored to make his tone kindly and patronizing. Poirot watched
him go off. Then he turned to me with twinkling eyes.
“Another time,” he observed, “I must be more careful of his _amour
propre_. And now that we are left to our own devices, what do you
think, my good friend, of a little reunion of the family?”
The “little reunion,” as Poirot called it, took place about half an
hour later. We sat round the table in the dining-room at Fernly—Poirot
at the head of the table, like the chairman of some ghastly board
meeting. The servants were not present, so we were six in all. Mrs.
Ackroyd, Flora, Major Blunt, young Raymond, Poirot, and myself.
When every one was assembled, Poirot rose and bowed.
“Messieurs, mesdames, I have called you together for a certain
purpose.” He paused. “To begin with, I want to make a very special plea
to mademoiselle.”
“To me?” said Flora.
“Mademoiselle, you are engaged to Captain Ralph Paton. If any one
is in his confidence, you are. I beg you, most earnestly, if you
know of his whereabouts, to persuade him to come forward. One little
minute”—as Flora raised her head to speak—“say nothing till you have
well reflected. Mademoiselle, his position grows daily more dangerous.
If he had come forward at once, no matter how damning the facts, he
might have had a chance of explaining them away. But this silence—this
flight—what can it mean? Surely only one thing, knowledge of guilt.
Mademoiselle, if you really believe in his innocence, persuade him to
come forward before it is too late.”
Flora’s face had gone very white.
“Too late!” she repeated, very low.
Poirot leant forward, looking at her.
“See now, mademoiselle,” he said very gently, “it is Papa Poirot who
asks you this. The old Papa Poirot who has much knowledge and much
experience. I would not seek to entrap you, mademoiselle. Will you not
trust me—and tell me where Ralph Paton is hiding?”
The girl rose, and stood facing him.
“M. Poirot,” she said in a clear voice, “I swear to you—swear
solemnly—that I have no idea where Ralph is, and that I have neither
seen him nor heard from him either on the day of—of the murder, or
since.”
She sat down again. Poirot gazed at her in silence for a minute or two,
then he brought his hand down on the table with a sharp rap.
“_Bien!_ That is that,” he said. His face hardened. “Now I appeal to