The murder of Roger Ackroyd
you used the word evening instead of night.” Then, raising his voice
in a somewhat theatrical fashion: “Very good, miss. Shall I lock up as
usual?”
“Yes, please.”
Parker retired through the door, Flora followed him, and started to
ascend the main staircase.
“Is that enough?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Admirable,” declared the little man, rubbing his hands. “By the way,
Parker, are you sure there were two glasses on the tray that evening?
Who was the second one for?”
“I always bring two glasses, sir,” said Parker. “Is there anything
further?”
“Nothing. I thank you.”
Parker withdrew, dignified to the last.
Poirot stood in the middle of the hall frowning. Flora came down and
joined us.
“Has your experiment been successful?” she asked. “I don’t quite
understand, you know——”
Poirot smiled admiringly at her.
“It is not necessary that you should,” he said. “But tell me, were
there indeed two glasses on Parker’s tray that night?”
Flora wrinkled her brows a minute.
“I really can’t remember,” she said. “I think there were. Is—is that
the object of your experiment?”
Poirot took her hand and patted it.
“Put it this way,” he said. “I am always interested to see if people
will speak the truth.”
“And did Parker speak the truth?”
“I rather think he did,” said Poirot thoughtfully.
A few minutes later saw us retracing our steps to the village.
“What was the point of that question about the glasses?” I asked
curiously.
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“One must say something,” he remarked. “That particular question did as
well as any other.”
I stared at him.
“At any rate, my friend,” he said more seriously, “I know now something
I wanted to know. Let us leave it at that.”
CHAPTER XVI
AN EVENING AT MAH JONG
That night we had a little Mah Jong party. This kind of simple
entertainment is very popular in King’s Abbot. The guests arrive in
goloshes and waterproofs after dinner. They partake of coffee and later
of cake, sandwiches, and tea.
On this particular night our guests were Miss Ganett, and Colonel
Carter, who lives near the church. A good deal of gossip is handed
round at these evenings, sometimes seriously interfering with the
game in progress. We used to play bridge—chatty bridge of the worst
description. We find Mah Jong much more peaceful. The irritated demand
as to why on earth your partner did not lead a certain card is entirely
done away with, and though we still express criticisms frankly, there
is not the same acrimonious spirit.
“Very cold evening, eh, Sheppard?” said Colonel Carter, standing with
his back to the fire. Caroline had taken Miss Ganett to her own room,
and was there assisting her to disentangle herself from her many wraps.
“Reminds me of the Afghan passes.”
“Indeed?” I said politely.
“Very mysterious business this about poor Ackroyd,” continued the
colonel, accepting a cup of coffee. “A deuce of a lot behind it—that’s
what I say. Between you and me, Sheppard, I’ve heard the word blackmail
mentioned!”
The colonel gave me the look which might be tabulated “one man of the
world to another.”
“A woman in it, no doubt,” he said. “Depend upon it, a woman in it.”
Caroline and Miss Ganett joined us at this minute. Miss Ganett drank
coffee whilst Caroline got out the Mah Jong box and poured out the
tiles upon the table.
“Washing the tiles,” said the colonel facetiously. “That’s
right—washing the tiles, as we used to say in the Shanghai Club.”
It is the private opinion of both Caroline and myself that Colonel
Carter has never been in the Shanghai Club in his life. More, that he
has never been farther east than India, where he juggled with tins of
bully beef and plum and apple jam during the Great War. But the colonel
is determinedly military, and in King’s Abbot we permit people to
indulge their little idiosyncrasies freely.
“Shall we begin?” said Caroline.
We sat round the table. For some five minutes there was complete
silence, owing to the fact that there is tremendous secret competition
amongst us as to who can build their wall quickest.
“Go on, James,” said Caroline at last. “You’re East Wind.”
I discarded a tile. A round or two proceeded, broken by the monotonous
remarks of “Three Bamboos,” “Two Circles,” “Pung,” and frequently
from Miss Ganett “Unpung,” owing to that lady’s habit of too hastily
claiming tiles to which she had no right.
“I saw Flora Ackroyd this morning,” said Miss Ganett. “Pung—no—Unpung.
I made a mistake.”
“Four Circles,” said Caroline. “Where did you see her?”
“She didn’t see _me_,” said Miss Ganett, with that tremendous
significance only to be met with in small villages.
“Ah!” said Caroline interestedly. “Chow.”
“I believe,” said Miss Ganett, temporarily diverted, “that it’s the
right thing nowadays to say ‘Chee’ not ‘Chow.’”
“Nonsense,” said Caroline. “I have always said ‘_Chow_.’”
“In the Shanghai Club,” said Colonel Carter, “they say ‘_Chow_.’”
Miss Ganett retired, crushed.
“What were you saying about Flora Ackroyd?” asked Caroline, after a
moment or two devoted to the game. “Was she with any one?”
“Very much so,” said Miss Ganett.
The eyes of the two ladies met, and seemed to exchange information.
“Really,” said Caroline interestedly. “Is that it? Well, it doesn’t
surprise me in the least.”
“We’re waiting for you to discard, Miss Caroline,” said the colonel. He
sometimes affects the pose of the bluff male, intent on the game and
indifferent to gossip. But nobody is deceived.
“If you ask me,” said Miss Ganett. (“Was that a Bamboo you discarded,
dear? Oh! no, I see now—it was a Circle.) As I was saying, if you ask
me, Flora’s been exceedingly lucky. Exceedingly lucky she’s been.”
“How’s that, Miss Ganett?” asked the colonel. “I’ll Pung that Green
Dragon. How do you make out that Miss Flora’s been lucky? Very charming
girl and all that, I know.”
“I mayn’t know very much about crime,” said Miss Ganett, with the air
of one who knows everything there is to know, “but I can tell you one
thing. The first question that’s always asked is ‘Who last saw the
deceased alive?’ And the person who did is regarded with suspicion.
Now, Flora Ackroyd last saw her uncle alive. It might have looked very
nasty for her—very nasty indeed. It’s my opinion—and I give it for what
it’s worth, that Ralph Paton is staying away on her account, to draw
suspicion away from her.”
“Come, now,” I protested mildly, “you surely can’t suggest that a young
girl like Flora Ackroyd is capable of stabbing her uncle in cold blood?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Ganett. “I’ve just been reading a book
from the library about the underworld of Paris, and it says that some
of the worst women criminals are young girls with the faces of angels.”
“That’s in France,” said Caroline instantly.
“Just so,” said the colonel. “Now, I’ll tell you a very curious thing—a
story that was going round the Bazaars in India....”
The colonel’s story was one of interminable length, and of curiously
little interest. A thing that happened in India many years ago cannot
compare for a moment with an event that took place in King’s Abbot the
day before yesterday.
It was Caroline who brought the colonel’s story to a close by
fortunately going Mah Jong. After the slight unpleasantness always
occasioned by my corrections of Caroline’s somewhat faulty arithmetic,
we started a new hand.
“East Wind passes,” said Caroline. “I’ve got an idea of my own about
Ralph Paton. Three Characters. But I’m keeping it to myself for the
present.”
“Are you, dear?” said Miss Ganett. “Chow—I mean Pung.”
“Yes,” said Caroline firmly.
“Was it all right about the boots?” asked Miss Ganett. “Their being
black, I mean?”
“Quite all right,” said Caroline.
“What was the point, do you think?” asked Miss Ganett.
Caroline pursed up her lips, and shook her head with an air of knowing
all about it.
“Pung,” said Miss Ganett. “No—Unpung. I suppose that now the doctor’s
in with M. Poirot he knows all the secrets?”
“Far from it,” I said.
“James is so modest,” said Caroline. “Ah! a concealed Kong.”
The colonel gave vent to a whistle. For the moment gossip was
forgotten.
“Your own wind, too,” he said. “_And_ you’ve got two Pungs of Dragons.
We must be careful. Miss Caroline’s out for a big hand.”
We played for some minutes with no irrelevant conversation.
“This M. Poirot now,” said Colonel Carter, “is he really such a great
detective?”
“The greatest the world has ever known,” said Caroline solemnly. “He
had to come here incognito to avoid publicity.”
“Chow,” said Miss Ganett. “Quite wonderful for our little village, I’m
sure. By the way, Clara—my maid, you know—is great friends with Elsie,
the housemaid at Fernly, and what do you think Elsie told her? That
there’s been a lot of money stolen, and it’s her opinion—Elsie’s—I
mean, that the parlormaid had something to do with it. She’s leaving
at the month, and she’s crying a good deal at night. If you ask me,
the girl is very likely in league with a _gang_. She’s always been a
queer girl—she’s not friends with any of the girls round here. She
goes off by herself on her days out—very unnatural, I call it, and
most suspicious. I asked her once to come to our Girls’ Friendly
Evenings, but she refused, and then I asked her a few questions about
her home and her family—all that sort of thing, and I’m bound to say I
considered her manner most impertinent. Outwardly very respectful—but
she shut me up in the most barefaced way.”
Miss Ganett stopped for breath, and the colonel, who was totally
uninterested in the servant question, remarked that in the Shanghai
Club brisk play was the invariable rule.
We had a round of brisk play.
“That Miss Russell,” said Caroline. “She came here pretending to
consult James on Friday morning. It’s my opinion she wanted to see
where the poisons were kept. Five Characters.”
“Chow,” said Miss Ganett. “What an extraordinary idea? I wonder if you
can be right.”
“Talking of poisons,” said the colonel. “Eh—what? Haven’t I discarded?
Oh! Eight Bamboos.”
“Mah Jong!” said Miss Ganett.
Caroline was very much annoyed.
“One Red Dragon,” she said regretfully, “and I should have had a hand
of three doubles.”
“I’ve had two Red Dragons all the time,” I mentioned.
“So exactly like you, James,” said Caroline reproachfully. “You’ve no
conception of the spirit of the game.”
I myself thought I had played rather cleverly. I should have had to pay
Caroline an enormous amount if she had gone Mah Jong. Miss Ganett’s Mah
Jong was of the poorest variety possible, as Caroline did not fail to
point out to her.
East Wind passed, and we started a new hand in silence.
“What I was going to tell you just now was this,” said Caroline.
“Yes?” said Miss Ganett encouragingly.
“My idea about Ralph Paton, I mean.”
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Ganett, still more encouragingly. “Chow!”
“It’s a sign of weakness to Chow so early,” said Caroline severely.
“You should go for a big hand.”
“I know,” said Miss Ganett. “You were saying—about Ralph Paton, you
know?”
“Yes. Well, I’ve a pretty shrewd idea where he is.”
We all stopped to stare at her.
“This is very interesting, Miss Caroline,” said Colonel Carter. “All
your own idea, eh?”
“Well, not exactly. I’ll tell you about it. You know that big map of
the county we have in the hall?”
We all said Yes.
“As M. Poirot was going out the other day, he stopped and looked at it,
and he made some remark—I can’t remember exactly what it was. Something
about Cranchester being the only big town anywhere near us—which is
true, of course. But after he had gone—it came to me suddenly.”
“What came to you?”