The murder of Roger Ackroyd
more convenient place than that little summer-house? I searched it with
the hope that I might find some clew inside. I found two, the scrap of
cambric and the quill.”
“And the scrap of cambric?” I asked curiously. “What about that?”
Poirot raised his eyebrows.
“You do not use your little gray cells,” he remarked dryly. “The scrap
of starched cambric should be obvious.”
“Not very obvious to me.” I changed the subject. “Anyway,” I said,
“this man went to the summer-house to meet somebody. Who was that
somebody?”
“Exactly the question,” said Poirot. “You will remember that Mrs.
Ackroyd and her daughter came over from Canada to live here?”
“Is that what you meant to-day when you accused them of hiding the
truth?”
“Perhaps. Now another point. What did you think of the parlormaid’s
story?”
“What story?”
“The story of her dismissal. Does it take half an hour to dismiss a
servant? Was the story of those important papers a likely one? And
remember, though she says she was in her bedroom from nine-thirty until
ten o’clock, there is no one to confirm her statement.”
“You bewilder me,” I said.
“To me it grows clearer. But tell me now your own ideas and theories.”
I drew a piece of paper from my pocket.
“I just scribbled down a few suggestions,” I said apologetically.
“But excellent—you have method. Let us hear them.”
I read out in a somewhat embarrassed voice.
“To begin with, one must look at the thing logically——”
“Just what my poor Hastings used to say,” interrupted Poirot, “but
alas! he never did so.”
“_Point No. 1._—Mr. Ackroyd was heard talking to some one at half-past
nine.
“_Point No. 2._—At some time during the evening Ralph Paton must have
come in through the window, as evidenced by the prints of his shoes.
“_Point No. 3._—Mr. Ackroyd was nervous that evening, and would only
have admitted some one he knew.
“_Point No. 4._—The person with Mr. Ackroyd at nine-thirty was asking
for money. We know Ralph Paton was in a scrape.
“_These four points go to show that the person with Mr. Ackroyd at
nine-thirty was Ralph Paton. But we know that Mr. Ackroyd was alive at
a quarter to ten, therefore it was not Ralph who killed him. Ralph left
the window open. Afterwards the murderer came in that way._”
“And who was the murderer?” inquired Poirot.
“The American stranger. He may have been in league with Parker, and
possibly in Parker we have the man who blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars. If
so, Parker may have heard enough to realize the game was up, have told
his accomplice so, and the latter did the crime with the dagger which
Parker gave him.”
“It is a theory that,” admitted Poirot. “Decidedly you have cells of a
kind. But it leaves a good deal unaccounted for.”
“Such as——?”
“The telephone call, the pushed-out chair——”
“Do you really think the latter important?” I interrupted.
“Perhaps not,” admitted my friend. “It may have been pulled out
by accident, and Raymond or Blunt may have shoved it into place
unconsciously under the stress of emotion. Then there is the missing
forty pounds.”
“Given by Ackroyd to Ralph,” I suggested. “He may have reconsidered his
first refusal.”
“That still leaves one thing unexplained?”
“What?”
“Why was Blunt so certain in his own mind that it was Raymond with Mr.
Ackroyd at nine-thirty?”
“He explained that,” I said.
“You think so? I will not press the point. Tell me instead, what were
Ralph Paton’s reasons for disappearing?”
“That’s rather more difficult,” I said slowly. “I shall have to speak
as a medical man. Ralph’s nerves must have gone phut! If he suddenly
found out that his uncle had been murdered within a few minutes of his
leaving him—after, perhaps, a rather stormy interview—well, he might
get the wind up and clear right out. Men have been known to do that—act
guiltily when they’re perfectly innocent.”
“Yes, that is true,” said Poirot. “But we must not lose sight of one
thing.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” I remarked: “motive. Ralph Paton
inherits a great fortune by his uncle’s death.”
“That is one motive,” agreed Poirot.
“One?”
“_Mais oui._ Do you realize that there are three separate motives
staring us in the face. Somebody certainly stole the blue envelope and
its contents. That is one motive. Blackmail! Ralph Paton may have been
the man who blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars. Remember, as far as Hammond
knew, Ralph Paton had not applied to his uncle for help of late. That
looks as though he were being supplied with money elsewhere. Then there
is the fact that he was in some—how do you say—scrape?—which he feared
might get to his uncle’s ears. And finally there is the one you have
just mentioned.”
“Dear me,” I said, rather taken aback. “The case does seem black
against him.”
“Does it?” said Poirot. “That is where we disagree, you and I. Three
motives—it is almost too much. I am inclined to believe that, after
all, Ralph Paton is innocent.”
CHAPTER XIV
MRS. ACKROYD
After the evening talk I have just chronicled, the affair seemed to
me to enter on a different phase. The whole thing can be divided into
two parts, each clear and distinct from the other. Part I. ranges from
Ackroyd’s death on the Friday evening to the following Monday night.
It is the straight-forward narrative of what occurred, as presented
to Hercule Poirot. I was at Poirot’s elbow the whole time. I saw what
he saw. I tried my best to read his mind. As I know now, I failed in
this latter task. Though Poirot showed me all his discoveries—as, for
instance, the gold wedding-ring—he held back the vital and yet logical
impressions that he formed. As I came to know later, this secrecy was
characteristic of him. He would throw out hints and suggestions, but
beyond that he would not go.
As I say, up till the Monday evening, my narrative might have been that
of Poirot himself. I played Watson to his Sherlock. But after Monday
our ways diverged. Poirot was busy on his own account. I got to hear
of what he was doing, because, in King’s Abbot, you get to hear of
everything, but he did not take me into his confidence beforehand. And
I, too, had my own preoccupations.
On looking back, the thing that strikes me most is the piecemeal
character of this period. Every one had a hand in the elucidation of
the mystery. It was rather like a jig-saw puzzle to which every one
contributed their own little piece of knowledge or discovery. But their
task ended there. To Poirot alone belongs the renown of fitting those
pieces into their correct place.
Some of the incidents seemed at the time irrelevant and unmeaning.
There was, for instance, the question of the black boots. But that
comes later.... To take things strictly in chronological order, I must
begin with the summons from Mrs. Ackroyd.
She sent for me early on Tuesday morning, and since the summons sounded
an urgent one, I hastened there, expecting to find her _in extremis_.
The lady was in bed. So much did she concede to the etiquette of the
situation. She gave me her bony hand, and indicated a chair drawn up to
the bedside.
“Well, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said, “and what’s the matter with you?”
I spoke with that kind of spurious geniality which seems to be expected
of general practitioners.
“I’m prostrated,” said Mrs. Ackroyd in a faint voice. “Absolutely
prostrated. It’s the shock of poor Roger’s death. They say these
things often aren’t felt at the _time_, you know. It’s the reaction
afterwards.”
It is a pity that a doctor is precluded by his profession from being
able sometimes to say what he really thinks.
I would have given anything to be able to answer “Bunkum!”
Instead, I suggested a tonic. Mrs. Ackroyd accepted the tonic. One
move in the game seemed now to be concluded. Not for a moment did I
imagine that I had been sent for because of the shock occasioned by
Ackroyd’s death. But Mrs. Ackroyd is totally incapable of pursuing
a straight-forward course on any subject. She always approaches her
object by tortuous means. I wondered very much why it was she had sent
for me.
“And then that scene—yesterday,” continued my patient.
She paused as though expecting me to take up a cue.
“What scene?”
“Doctor, how can you? Have you forgotten? That dreadful little
Frenchman—or Belgian—or whatever he is. Bullying us all like he did. It
has quite upset me. Coming on top of Roger’s death.”
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said.
“I don’t know what he meant—shouting at us like he did. I should hope I
know my duty too well to _dream_ of concealing anything. I have given
the police _every_ assistance in my power.”
Mrs. Ackroyd paused, and I said, “Quite so.” I was beginning to have a
glimmering of what all the trouble was about.
“No one can say that I have failed in my duty,” continued Mrs. Ackroyd.
“I am sure Inspector Raglan is perfectly satisfied. Why should this
little upstart of a foreigner make a fuss? A most ridiculous-looking
creature he is too—just like a comic Frenchman in a revue. I can’t
think why Flora insisted on bringing him into the case. She never said
a word to me about it. Just went off and did it on her own. Flora is
too independent. I am a woman of the world and her mother. She should
have come to me for advice first.”
I listened to all this in silence.
“What does he think? That’s what I want to know. Does he actually
imagine I’m hiding something? He—he—positively _accused_ me yesterday.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“It is surely of no consequence, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said. “Since you are
not concealing anything, any remarks he may have made do not apply to
you.”
Mrs. Ackroyd went off at a tangent, after her usual fashion.
“Servants are so tiresome,” she said. “They gossip, and talk amongst
themselves. And then it gets round—and all the time there’s probably
nothing in it at all.”
“Have the servants been talking?” I asked. “What about?”
Mrs. Ackroyd cast a very shrewd glance at me. It quite threw me off my
balance.
“I was sure _you’d_ know, doctor, if any one did. You were with M.
Poirot all the time, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“Then of course you know. It was that girl, Ursula Bourne, wasn’t it?
Naturally—she’s leaving. She _would_ want to make all the trouble
she could. Spiteful, that’s what they are. They’re all alike. Now,
you being there, doctor, you must know exactly what she did say? I’m
most anxious that no wrong impression should get about. After all,
you don’t repeat every little detail to the police, do you? There are
family matters sometimes—nothing to do with the question of the murder.
But if the girl was spiteful, she may have made out all sorts of
things.”
I was shrewd enough to see that a very real anxiety lay behind these
outpourings. Poirot had been justified in his premises. Of the six
people round the table yesterday, Mrs. Ackroyd at least had had
something to hide. It was for me to discover what that something might
be.
“If I were you, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said brusquely, “I should make a clean
breast of things.”
She gave a little scream.
“Oh! doctor, how can you be so abrupt. It sounds as though—as
though——And I can explain everything so simply.”
“Then why not do so,” I suggested.
Mrs. Ackroyd took out a frilled handkerchief, and became tearful.
“I thought, doctor, that you might put it to M. Poirot—explain it, you
know—because it’s so difficult for a foreigner to see our point of
view. And you don’t know—nobody could know—what I’ve had to contend
with. A martyrdom—a long martyrdom. That’s what my life has been. I
don’t like to speak ill of the dead—but there it is. Not the smallest
bill, but it had all to be gone over—just as though Roger had had a
few miserly hundreds a year instead of being (as Mr. Hammond told me