The murder of Roger Ackroyd
Poirot leaned forward and shot the last words triumphantly at us,
drawing back afterwards with the air of one who has made a decided hit.
Raymond, however, did not seem impressed, and lodged a mild protest.
“I don’t know if you’re trying to make me out a liar, M. Poirot, but
the matter does not rest on my evidence alone—except perhaps as to the
exact words used. Remember, Major Blunt also heard Mr. Ackroyd talking
to some one. He was on the terrace outside, and couldn’t catch the
words clearly, but he distinctly heard the voices.”
Poirot nodded.
“I have not forgotten,” he said quietly. “But Major Blunt was under the
impression that it was _you_ to whom Mr. Ackroyd was speaking.”
For a moment Raymond seemed taken aback. Then he recovered himself.
“Blunt knows now that he was mistaken,” he said.
“Exactly,” agreed the other man.
“Yet there must have been some reason for his thinking so,” mused
Poirot. “Oh! no,” he held up his hand in protest, “I know the reason
you will give—but it is not enough. We must seek elsewhere. I will put
it this way. From the beginning of the case I have been struck by one
thing—the nature of those words which Mr. Raymond overheard. It has
been amazing to me that no one has commented on them—has seen anything
odd about them.”
He paused a minute, and then quoted softly:—
“... _The calls on my purse have been so frequent of late that I fear
it is impossible for me to accede to your request._ Does nothing strike
you as odd about that?”
“I don’t think so,” said Raymond. “He has frequently dictated letters
to me, using almost exactly those same words.”
“Exactly,” cried Poirot. “That is what I seek to arrive at. Would any
man use such a phrase in _talking_ to another? Impossible that that
should be part of a real conversation. Now, if he had been dictating a
letter——”
“You mean he was reading a letter aloud,” said Raymond slowly. “Even
so, he must have been reading to some one.”
“But why? We have no evidence that there was any one else in the room.
No other voice but Mr. Ackroyd’s was heard, remember.”
“Surely a man wouldn’t read letters of that type aloud to himself—not
unless he was—well—going balmy.”
“You have all forgotten one thing,” said Poirot softly: “the stranger
who called at the house the preceding Wednesday.”
They all stared at him.
“But yes,” said Poirot, nodding encouragingly, “on Wednesday. The
young man was not of himself important. But the firm he represented
interested me very much.”
“The Dictaphone Company,” gasped Raymond. “I see it now. A dictaphone.
That’s what you think?”
Poirot nodded.
“Mr. Ackroyd had promised to invest in a dictaphone, you remember.
Me, I had the curiosity to inquire of the company in question. Their
reply is that Mr. Ackroyd _did_ purchase a dictaphone from their
representative. Why he concealed the matter from you, I do not know.”
“He must have meant to surprise me with it,” murmured Raymond. “He had
quite a childish love of surprising people. Meant to keep it up his
sleeve for a day or so. Probably was playing with it like a new toy.
Yes, it fits in. You’re quite right—no one would use quite those words
in casual conversation.”
“It explains, too,” said Poirot, “why Major Blunt thought it was you
who were in the study. Such scraps as came to him were fragments of
dictation, and so his subconscious mind deduced that you were with him.
His conscious mind was occupied with something quite different—the
white figure he had caught a glimpse of. He fancied it was Miss
Ackroyd. Really, of course, it was Ursula Bourne’s white apron he saw
as she was stealing down to the summer-house.”
Raymond had recovered from his first surprise.
“All the same,” he remarked, “this discovery of yours, brilliant though
it is (I’m quite sure I should never have thought of it), leaves the
essential position unchanged. Mr. Ackroyd was alive at nine-thirty,
since he was speaking into the dictaphone. It seems clear that the man
Charles Kent was really off the premises by then. As to Ralph Paton——?”
He hesitated, glancing at Ursula.
Her color flared up, but she answered steadily enough.
“Ralph and I parted just before a quarter to ten. He never went near
the house, I am sure of that. He had no intention of doing so. The last
thing on earth he wanted was to face his stepfather. He would have
funked it badly.”
“It isn’t that I doubt your story for a moment,” explained Raymond.
“I’ve always been quite sure Captain Paton was innocent. But one has to
think of a court of law—and the questions that would be asked. He is in
a most unfortunate position, but if he were to come forward——”
Poirot interrupted.
“That is your advice, yes? That he should come forward?”
“Certainly. If you know where he is——”
“I perceive that you do not believe that I do know. And yet I have told
you just now that I know everything. The truth of the telephone call,
of the footprints on the window-sill, of the hiding-place of Ralph
Paton——”
“Where is he?” said Blunt sharply.
“Not very far away,” said Poirot, smiling.
“In Cranchester?” I asked.
Poirot turned towards me.
“Always you ask me that. The idea of Cranchester it is with you an
_idée fixe_. No, he is not in Cranchester. He is—_there_!”
He pointed a dramatic forefinger. Every one’s head turned.
Ralph Paton was standing in the doorway.
CHAPTER XXIV
RALPH PATON’S STORY
It was a very uncomfortable minute for _me_. I hardly took in what
happened next, but there were exclamations and cries of surprise! When
I was sufficiently master of myself to be able to realize what was
going on, Ralph Paton was standing by his wife, her hand in his, and he
was smiling across the room at me.
Poirot, too, was smiling, and at the same time shaking an eloquent
finger at me.
“Have I not told you at least thirty-six times that it is useless to
conceal things from Hercule Poirot?” he demanded. “That in such a case
he finds out?”
He turned to the others.
“One day, you remember, we held a little séance about a table—just
the six of us. I accused the other five persons present of concealing
something from me. Four of them gave up their secret. Dr. Sheppard did
not give up his. But all along I have had my suspicions. Dr. Sheppard
went to the Three Boars that night hoping to find Ralph. He did not
find him there; but supposing, I said to myself, that he met him in the
street on his way home? Dr. Sheppard was a friend of Captain Paton’s,
and he had come straight from the scene of the crime. He must know that
things looked very black against him. Perhaps he knew more than the
general public did——”
“I did,” I said ruefully. “I suppose I might as well make a clean
breast of things now. I went to see Ralph that afternoon. At first he
refused to take me into his confidence, but later he told me about his
marriage, and the hole he was in. As soon as the murder was discovered,
I realized that once the facts were known, suspicion could not fail to
attach to Ralph—or, if not to him, to the girl he loved. That night I
put the facts plainly before him. The thought of having possibly to
give evidence which might incriminate his wife made him resolve at all
costs to—to——”
I hesitated, and Ralph filled up the gap.
“To do a bunk,” he said graphically. “You see, Ursula left me to go
back to the house. I thought it possible that she might have attempted
to have another interview with my stepfather. He had already been very
rude to her that afternoon. It occurred to me that he might have so
insulted her—in such an unforgivable manner—that without knowing what
she was doing——”
He stopped. Ursula released her hand from his, and stepped back.
“You thought that, Ralph! You actually thought that I might have done
it?”
“Let us get back to the culpable conduct of Dr. Sheppard,” said Poirot
dryly. “Dr. Sheppard consented to do what he could to help him. He was
successful in hiding Captain Paton from the police.”
“Where?” asked Raymond. “In his own house?”
“Ah, no, indeed,” said Poirot. “You should ask yourself the question
that I did. If the good doctor is concealing the young man, what place
would he choose? It must necessarily be somewhere near at hand. I think
of Cranchester. A hotel? No. Lodgings? Even more emphatically, no.
Where, then? Ah! I have it. A nursing home. A home for the mentally
unfit. I test my theory. I invent a nephew with mental trouble. I
consult Mademoiselle Sheppard as to suitable homes. She gives me the
names of two near Cranchester to which her brother has sent patients. I
make inquiries. Yes, at one of them a patient was brought there by the
doctor himself early on Saturday morning. That patient, though known
by another name, I had no difficulty in identifying as Captain Paton.
After certain necessary formalities, I was allowed to bring him away.
He arrived at my house in the early hours of yesterday morning.”
I looked at him ruefully.
“Caroline’s Home Office expert,” I murmured. “And to think I never
guessed!”
“You see now why I drew attention to the reticence of your manuscript,”
murmured Poirot. “It was strictly truthful as far as it went—but it did
not go very far, eh, my friend?”
I was too abashed to argue.
“Dr. Sheppard has been very loyal,” said Ralph. “He has stood by me
through thick and thin. He did what he thought was the best. I see now,
from what M. Poirot has told me, that it was not really the best. I
should have come forward and faced the music. You see, in the home, we
never saw a newspaper. I knew nothing of what was going on.”
“Dr. Sheppard has been a model of discretion,” said Poirot dryly. “But
me, I discover all the little secrets. It is my business.”
“Now we can have your story of what happened that night,” said Raymond
impatiently.
“You know it already,” said Ralph. “There’s very little for me to add.
I left the summer-house about nine-forty-five, and tramped about the
lanes, trying to make up my mind as to what to do next—what line to
take. I’m bound to admit that I’ve not the shadow of an alibi, but I
give you my solemn word that I never went to the study, that I never
saw my stepfather alive—or dead. Whatever the world thinks, I’d like
all of you to believe me.”
“No alibi,” murmured Raymond. “That’s bad. I believe you, of course,
but—it’s a bad business.”
“It makes things very simple, though,” said Poirot, in a cheerful
voice. “Very simple indeed.”
We all stared at him.
“You see what I mean? No? Just this—to save Captain Paton the real
criminal must confess.”
He beamed round at us all.
“But yes—I mean what I say. See now, I did not invite Inspector Raglan
to be present. That was for a reason. I did not want to tell him all
that I knew—at least I did not want to tell him to-night.”
He leaned forward, and suddenly his voice and his whole personality
changed. He suddenly became dangerous.
“I who speak to you—I know the murderer of Mr. Ackroyd is in this
room now. It is to the murderer I speak. _To-morrow the truth goes to
Inspector Raglan._ You understand?”
There was a tense silence. Into the midst of it came the old Breton
woman with a telegram on a salver. Poirot tore it open.
Blunt’s voice rose abrupt and resonant.
“The murderer is amongst us, you say? You know—which?”
Poirot had read the message. He crumpled it up in his hand.
“I know—now.”
He tapped the crumpled ball of paper.
“What is that?” said Raymond sharply.
“A wireless message—from a steamer now on her way to the United States.”
There was a dead silence. Poirot rose to his feet bowing.
“Messieurs et Mesdames, this reunion of mine is at an end.
Remember—_the truth goes to Inspector Raglan in the morning_.”