The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christie

England | 1926 | 10,958 words · ~55 min read
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christie's 1926 mystery novel upends the conventions of detective fiction with a legendary twist. In the quiet English village of King's Abbot, the wealthy Roger Ackroyd is murdered in his locked study on the very night he receives a letter naming the person who had been blackmailing the woman he loved. Hercule Poirot, recently retired and growing vegetable marrows next door to the village doctor, is drawn back into detection — and the truth he uncovers implicates the last person anyone would suspect.

Narrative Note

The novel is narrated in the first person by Dr. James Sheppard, the village physician, who writes up the case in the manner of Poirot's former companion Hastings. The first-person perspective is central to the book's famous structural innovation, which is preserved in full below.

Cast of Characters

Chapter I: Dr. Sheppard at the Breakfast Table

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th–17th September—a Thursday. I was sent for at eight the next morning. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours.

I reached home just after nine and dawdled in the hall, hanging up my coat—stalling, really, because of my sister Caroline. Caroline's motto might well be that of the mongoose family: "Go and find out." She manages prodigious feats of intelligence-gathering without ever leaving the house. The servants and tradesmen constitute her network. When she goes out, it is not to collect information but to distribute it.

Whatever I told Caroline about Mrs. Ferrars would be common knowledge within ninety minutes. As a professional man, I aim at discretion. So I have made a habit of withholding everything possible from my sister. She usually finds out anyway, but I have the moral satisfaction of knowing I am not to blame.

Caroline has always maintained, without the least foundation, that Mrs. Ferrars poisoned her husband. She scorns my rejoinder that Ashley Ferrars died of acute gastritis aggravated by drink.

Over cold bacon, I admitted Mrs. Ferrars was dead. Caroline already knew—the milkman had it from the Ferrars' cook. When I revealed the cause was an overdose of veronal, Caroline declared at once: "She took it on purpose. Don't tell me!"

"Remorse," she said with great gusto, when I pressed her. "You never would believe me when I told you she poisoned her husband."

I denied it all firmly—the more so because I secretly agreed with part of what she said. But it is all wrong that Caroline should arrive at the truth by inspired guesswork. "Ten to one she's left a letter confessing everything," Caroline added.

"She didn't leave a letter of any kind," I said sharply—not seeing where the admission would land me.

"So you did inquire about that? You're a precious old humbug, James."

I left the table without answering whether I was absolutely satisfied the overdose was accidental.

Chapter II: Who's Who in King's Abbot

Our village, King's Abbot, is much like any other—rich in unmarried ladies and retired military officers, its chief recreation being gossip. Two houses matter: King's Paddock, belonging to the late Mrs. Ferrars, and Fernly Park, owned by Roger Ackroyd.

Ackroyd is an immensely successful manufacturer—wagon wheels, I think—rubicund, genial, the life and soul of the village. At twenty-one he married a widow named Paton who had one child. The marriage was short and painful: Mrs. Ackroyd was a dipsomaniac and drank herself into her grave within four years. Ackroyd raised her son Ralph as his own, though the boy has been wild and extravagant. Nevertheless, we are all fond of Ralph Paton. He is extraordinarily good-looking.

Everyone had noticed that Ackroyd and Mrs. Ferrars were growing close, and it was freely expected she would become the second Mrs. Ackroyd. Meanwhile, a series of lady housekeepers had presided over Fernly, the latest being the redoubtable Miss Russell, who has reigned five years. The arrival of Ackroyd's widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, with her daughter Flora from Canada, had complicated matters further.

Now, with Mrs. Ferrars dead, the kaleidoscope had shifted from wedding speculation to tragedy.

On my rounds that morning, I recalled seeing Mrs. Ferrars the previous day walking with Ralph Paton, their heads close together, she talking very earnestly. I had been surprised—Ralph hadn't been seen in King's Abbot for six months. A foreboding swept over me.

I ran into Ackroyd himself. He looked wretched—a wreck of his usual jolly self. His big red cheeks seemed to have fallen in. "It's worse than you know," he said. "Look here, Sheppard, I've got to talk to you. Dine to-night. Seven-thirty." He insisted Ralph was in London, which puzzled me, since I had seen the boy here only yesterday. He hurried away to avoid Miss Ganett, who was bearing down on us, thirsting for information.

Miss Ganett descended on me next, breathless with gossip about Mrs. Ferrars—drugs, broken engagements, no smoke without fire. Fortunately, long association with Caroline has led me to preserve an impassive countenance. I congratulated Miss Ganett on not joining in ill-natured gossip—rather a neat counterattack, I thought—and escaped before she could recover.

I went home to find one last patient: Miss Russell, Ackroyd's housekeeper. She presented a vague knee complaint that struck me as trumped-up. Her real interest seemed to lie in drugs—cocaine, rare poisons, curare. She asked whether there existed poisons so rare as to baffle detection. I told her she had been reading too many detective stories. She departed, and I was left to wonder at this unexpected fondness for crime fiction in so stern a woman.

Chapter III: The Man Who Grew Vegetable Marrows

At lunch, Caroline informed me that Ralph Paton was staying at the Three Boars—not at Fernly Park—and had been out the previous night with a girl. "Secretly engaged," Caroline declared with immense enjoyment. "Flora Ackroyd. Old Ackroyd won't hear of it, and they have to meet this way."

I diverted her with mention of our new neighbor at The Larches—a foreigner called Mr. Porrott, about whom Caroline had been unable to discover anything except his passion for growing vegetable marrows. To Caroline's extreme annoyance, the Intelligence Corps had proved a broken reed. I maintained he was a retired hairdresser—look at that mustache. Caroline dissented: all hairdressers had wavy hair.

That afternoon, while I was exterminating dandelions, a vegetable marrow whizzed past my ear and landed at my feet with a repellent squelch. Over the wall appeared an egg-shaped head, suspiciously black hair, immense mustaches, and watchful eyes. Mr. Porrott broke into fluent apologies—he had enraged himself with his marrows and hurled the biggest over the wall. "Monsieur, I am ashamed. I prostrate myself."

We fell into conversation. He spoke of yearning for his old occupation—"the most interesting work in the world: the study of human nature"—and of missing a dear friend, now in the Argentine, who was "occasionally of an imbecility to make one afraid, nevertheless very dear to me." I confessed my own failed dream of travel, lost to a bad investment in a Western Australian gold mine. When he asked if I'd considered Porcupine Oilfields and whether I had a penchant for auburn hair, I stared—and he burst out laughing. His far-off friend, he explained, had been a young man who thought all women beautiful. "But you are a man of middle age, a doctor, a man who knows the folly and vanity of most things."

He asked about Ralph Paton, whom he'd noticed in the village—"the young man with the very dark hair and the handsome face." When I mentioned Ackroyd, the little man said casually that Ackroyd knew him from London and had asked him to keep his profession quiet. He even knew of Ralph and Flora's engagement. I could not reconcile Ackroyd confiding in a hairdresser and began to suspect Porrott was something else entirely. "There was something about that young man that I did not understand," he mused about Ralph, in a tone that left an indefinable impression on me.

Caroline, meanwhile, had been busy. She had told Ackroyd that Ralph was at the Three Boars—news that astonished him. Then, walking through the wood (on "mongoose instinct," not for the autumnal tints she claimed), she had overheard Ralph talking to a girl: "Don't you realize the old man will cut me off with a shilling? I shall be a very rich man when the old fellow pops off. He's mean as they make 'em, but he's rolling in money. You leave it to me, and don't worry." She couldn't see who the girl was, though she was almost sure it was Flora Ackroyd—"only it doesn't seem to make sense."

I slipped away to the Three Boars. I knew Ralph well—handsome, charming, self-indulgent, weak. He greeted me warmly but was clearly in trouble. "I'm in the devil of a mess," he said gloomily. "It's my confounded stepfather—not what he's done yet, but what he's likely to do." He refused my help. "I've got to play a lone hand," he said, and then repeated it in a slightly different tone: "Yes—I've got to play a lone hand..."

Chapter IV: Dinner at Fernly

I arrived at Fernly Park just before half-past seven. In the hall I met Raymond, Ackroyd's pleasant young secretary, and explained the black bag—I was expecting a confinement call. Entering the drawing-room, I heard a sound I took for a window closing. Inside, I nearly collided with Miss Russell, who was breathing hard and seemed anxious to explain her presence—"I only came to see if the flowers were all right."

The windows, I realized, were long French ones opening onto the terrace. The sound I'd heard could not have been a window. Investigating, I found it matched exactly the lid of a silver display table being shut down. Inside were old silver, Chinese jade, African curios, and a Tunisian dagger.

Flora came in—extraordinarily fair, blue-eyed, the picture of health. She showed me her engagement ring, a single pearl. "I'm going to marry Ralph, you know. Uncle is very pleased. It keeps me in the family." She described their future plans with cool composure—hunting, yachting, Mothers' Meetings.

Mrs. Ackroyd appeared—all chains and teeth and bones, with small flinty blue eyes that remained coldly speculative however gushing her words. She tried to enlist me to sound Ackroyd about financial settlements for Flora. I was saved by the arrival of Major Hector Blunt, the famous big-game hunter and old friend of Ackroyd's—a taciturn, mahogany-faced man who stood squarely before the fireplace looking over our heads as though he saw something very interesting happening in Timbuctoo. Dinner was not cheerful. Ackroyd was visibly preoccupied, ate next to nothing. Immediately after, he slipped his arm through mine and led me to his study—a comfortable room with bookshelves, blue leather chairs, and a large desk by the window. He pretended to need medical tablets for Parker's benefit—"I only said that for Parker. Servants are so curious"—and asked me to close and latch the sash window behind the blue velvet curtains. Then, with the door shut, he said: "I'm in hell."

He asked whether I had ever suspected Ashley Ferrars might have been poisoned. I admitted Caroline's gossip had planted the idea. Roger Ackroyd was not Caroline—I could tell him the truth. "He was poisoned," Ackroyd said heavily. "His wife. She told me so herself. Yesterday! My God! yesterday! It seems ten years ago."

The story came out. Three months ago he had proposed to Mrs. Ferrars. Yesterday, when he pressed her to announce the engagement, she broke down and confessed everything—her hatred of her brute of a husband, her growing love for Ackroyd, and the dreadful means she had taken. "Poison! My God! It was murder in cold blood." I saw the repulsion in Ackroyd's face. He was not the type of the great lover who can forgive all for love's sake. He was fundamentally a good citizen, and all that was sound and law-abiding in him must have turned from her utterly.

"She confessed everything. It seems that there is one person who has known all along—who has been blackmailing her for huge sums. It was the strain of that that drove her nearly mad." She wouldn't name the blackmailer, but something she said made Ackroyd think the person might be in his own household. She begged for twenty-four hours. "My God! I swear it never entered my head what she meant to do. Suicide! And I drove her to it."

We debated what to do. Ackroyd was torn between letting the dead rest and hunting down the blackmailer. He was convinced Mrs. Ferrars had left a message for him.

At twenty minutes to nine, Parker brought the evening post. Among the letters was a long blue envelope—her writing. Ackroyd ripped it open and read aloud: "My dear, my very dear Roger—A life calls for a life. I leave to you the punishment of the person who has made my life a hell upon earth... I would not tell you the name this afternoon, but I propose to write it to you now..."

He paused at the page turn. "I must read this alone." He laid the letter on the table. I urged him—"At least, read the name of the man"—but Ackroyd was pig-headed. The more I pressed, the more he refused.

At ten minutes to nine I left him, the letter still unread. Outside the study I found Parker hovering suspiciously—he claimed to have heard the bell ring, a palpable untruth.

I stepped into the dark night. The church clock chimed nine as I passed through the lodge gates. A stranger almost cannoned into me—hat pulled down, collar up, a hoarse voice asking the way to Fernly Park. "I'm a stranger in these parts," he added unnecessarily. His voice reminded me of someone I knew, but I couldn't place it.

At home, I gave Caroline a fictitious account of the evening. At a quarter past ten, as we headed upstairs, the telephone rang.

"Parker telephoning," I shouted to Caroline, "from Fernly. They've just found Roger Ackroyd murdered."

Chapter V: Murder

I drove rapidly to Fernly. Parker opened the door—and denied everything. He had not telephoned. He knew nothing of any murder. We stared at each other blankly. "A very wicked joke to play, sir," said Parker, in a shocked tone.

"Where is Mr. Ackroyd?" I asked suddenly.

"Still in the study, sir."

We went to the study door. It was locked from the inside, key in the lock. No answer to my calls or my frantic banging. Parker and I seized a heavy oak chair and battered the door open at the third blow.

Ackroyd sat in the arm-chair before the fire, his head fallen sideways. Below the collar of his coat, clearly visible, was a shining piece of twisted metalwork—a dagger, driven in from behind.

"Stabbed from be'ind," Parker murmured. "'Orrible!"

I sent him to telephone the police and fetch Raymond and Blunt. Ackroyd had been dead some time. Raymond appeared, white-faced and incredulous. Blunt came in behind him, expressionless as ever but visibly shaken beneath the mask.

"Robbery, I suppose," said Raymond, but nothing seemed disturbed or missing. The letters Ackroyd had dropped lay on the floor—but the blue envelope containing Mrs. Ferrars's letter had disappeared. I half opened my mouth to speak, but at that moment the sound of a bell pealed through the house.

The local inspector arrived and took charge. I described the mysterious telephone call—Parker denied sending it, and the others confirmed he hadn't been near the telephone all evening. The window I had closed and latched at Ackroyd's request was now wide open, the lower sash raised to its fullest extent. The inspector's torch revealed clearly defined footmarks on the sill outside: shoes with rubber studs in the soles, one print pointing inward, another outward. "Plain as a pikestaff," said the inspector. "Man found an open window, climbed in, stabbed Mr. Ackroyd from behind, then lost his nerve and made off." I mentioned the stranger I'd met at the gates at nine o'clock—hat pulled down, collar up, asking the way to Fernly Park.

Raymond reported that at half-past nine he had heard Ackroyd's voice in the study, talking to someone. He'd caught a fragment: "The calls on my purse have been so frequent of late that I fear it is impossible for me to accede to your request..." He had assumed it was me with Ackroyd, but I had been home by quarter past nine. Neither Blunt nor anyone else admitted to being with Ackroyd at that time. "A demand for money," said the inspector musingly. "It may be that here we have a very important clew."

Parker then revealed that Flora had seen her uncle even later—about a quarter to ten. She was summoned. In a pale pink silk kimono, she told the inspector composedly that she had gone in to say good-night. "He gave a sort of grunt, and I kissed him, and he said something about my looking nice in the frock I had on, and then he told me to run away as he was busy. So I went." She'd met Parker just outside and relayed the message not to disturb her uncle. The inspector noted that Parker had already been told not to disturb Ackroyd, yet was bringing whisky and soda anyway—Parker stammered and shook, claiming force of habit.

When Blunt broke the news of Ackroyd's death—quietly, with his rocklike gravity—Flora gave a little cry and fainted. Blunt and I carried her upstairs.

Chapter VI: The Tunisian Dagger

Inspector Davis questioned me privately about the blackmail—Parker had been eavesdropping and blurted out a garbled version. I decided to make a clean breast of things and told the inspector everything: Mrs. Ferrars's confession to Ackroyd, the blackmailer, the letter that had arrived and then disappeared. "It gives us what we've been looking for—a motive for the murder," he said.

He built a theory around Parker: the butler had been listening at the door, knew about the blackmail, stabbed Ackroyd, locked the study from inside, opened the window, and escaped that way to a side door he'd previously left open. I objected: if Ackroyd had read the letter immediately after I left, he'd have confronted Parker at once—he was a man of choleric temper. The inspector countered that the unknown visitor at nine-thirty, followed by Flora's good-night visit, would have delayed the reading until nearly ten. "And the telephone call?" I asked. "Parker sent that all right—perhaps before he thought of the locked door and open window. Then he got in a panic and decided to deny it."

The murder weapon proved to be a Tunisian dagger—a curio given to Ackroyd by Major Blunt, normally kept in the silver table in the drawing-room. Raymond identified it excitedly; Blunt confirmed with his usual economy: "Saw it the moment I came into the study. Wrong moment to mention it. Lot of harm done by blurting out things at the wrong time."

This connected to the sound I'd heard on arriving for dinner. Miss Russell confirmed she had shut the silver table lid, which had been left open—"which it had no business to be." She couldn't say whether the dagger had been in its place. The drawing-room windows had been ajar—anyone could have taken the weapon at any time.

The inspector found fingerprints on the hilt. "Yes," I said mildly. "I guessed that." I do not see why I should be supposed to be totally devoid of intelligence. After all, I read detective stories. Raymond, with youthful buoyancy, volunteered his and my fingerprints on cards—"Souvenirs. No. 1, Dr. Sheppard; No. 2, my humble self. One from Major Blunt will be forthcoming in the morning."

At home, Caroline extracted the whole history from me over hot cocoa. "The police suspect Parker," I said. "Parker!" said my sister. "Fiddlesticks! That inspector must be a perfect fool. Parker indeed! Don't tell me." With which obscure pronouncement we went up to bed. Youth is very buoyant—even the brutal murder of his friend and employer could not dim Geoffrey Raymond's spirits for long. I have lost the quality of resilience long since myself.

Chapter VII: I Learn My Neighbor's Profession

The next morning Flora Ackroyd came to see me, pale and resolute in black. She wanted me to accompany her to The Larches. Our mysterious neighbor, she revealed, was not a retired hairdresser but Hercule Poirot—the famous private detective. "They say he's done the most wonderful things—just like detectives do in books."

I tried to dissuade her. "Flora, be guided by me. I advise you not to drag this detective into the case."

She sprang to her feet, color rushing into her cheeks. "I know why you say that. You're afraid! But I'm not. I know Ralph better than you do." She had been to the Three Boars that morning and learned that Ralph had gone out at nine o'clock the previous evening and never returned. A new inspector from Cranchester—"a horrid, weaselly little man"—had already been asking questions there. "He must think Ralph did it."

"Are you quite sure it is the truth we want?" I asked gently.

"I am. I know Ralph better than you do."

At The Larches, Poirot received us gravely. Flora asked him to find the murderer. "If I go into this," he warned, "you must understand one thing clearly. I shall go through with it to the end. The good dog, he does not leave the scent. You may wish that, after all, you had left it to the local police."

"I want the truth," said Flora. "All the truth."

"Then I accept."

I gave Poirot a full account of the previous evening. He listened with his eyes on the ceiling, then suggested we visit the police. At the station we found Inspector Raglan from Cranchester—confident and hostile to outside interference—along with Colonel Melrose, the Chief Constable. Poirot smoothed things over with diplomatic flattery about the English police and a promise to shun publicity.

Raglan's case against Ralph was building: the lodge-keeper's wife had seen him turn in at the gate at exactly twenty-five minutes past nine, taking the short cut to the terrace. His shoes matched the footprints on the window-sill. He was in serious money difficulties, and he had vanished without trace. "I can't help thinking you're mistaken, inspector," said Colonel Melrose warmly. "I've known Ralph Paton from a boy upward. He'd never stoop to murder." "Maybe not," said the inspector tonelessly.

At Fernly, Poirot examined the study methodically. He sat in Ackroyd's chair, had me indicate the dagger's position while he stood in the doorway, and noted the rubber studs on the window-sill matched Ralph's shoes. He asked Parker about the fire—it had burned very low, almost out. "Ah!" said Poirot, almost triumphantly. Parker also noted that a large grandfather chair near the door had been pulled out into an odd position, facing the door—and someone had pushed it back before the police arrived. Neither Raymond, Blunt, nor I had moved it.

"It is completely unimportant," said Poirot. "That is why it is so interesting."

"Every one concerned in them has something to hide," he told me when I asked about his methods. "Have I?" I asked, smiling. "I think you have," he said quietly. "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."

He explained his reasoning about the window: since the fire was nearly out and the temperature had dropped, Ackroyd hadn't opened the window for air. He must have opened it to admit someone he knew well—the person with him at nine-thirty. "Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically. We cannot approach a solution until we know who that visitor was."

Then Colonel Melrose returned with news: the telephone call to me had been traced. It came not from Fernly but from a public call box at King's Abbot station—at 10:15, just before the night mail left for Liverpool at 10:23.

Chapter VIII: Inspector Raglan Is Confident

"But why telephone at all?" demanded Melrose about the mysterious call to me. "There seems no rhyme or reason in the thing."

"Be sure there was a reason," said Poirot quietly. "When we know that, we shall know everything. This case is very curious and very interesting."

Poirot inquired whether Ackroyd had received any strangers recently. Parker recalled only a dictaphone salesman—fair-haired and short—nothing like the tall stranger I'd met at the gate. Raymond confirmed this. Poirot surveyed the study one last time. "An opened window. A locked door. A chair that apparently moved itself. To all three I say, 'Why?' and I find no answer." He looked ridiculously full of his own importance, and it crossed my mind to wonder whether he was really any good as a detective.

On the terrace, Inspector Raglan laid out his case with grim satisfaction. He had compiled a complete list of everyone's whereabouts between 9:45 and 10 p.m. Major Blunt and Raymond were together in the billiard room. Mrs. Ackroyd went up to bed at 9:55. Flora went straight upstairs after leaving her uncle. Parker was in his pantry, confirmed by Miss Russell. The cook and other servants were in the Servants' Hall. Only one person's alibi had no confirmation at all: Ursula Bourne, the parlormaid.

The critical evidence: the lodge-keeper's wife had seen Ralph Paton turn in at the gate at exactly twenty-five minutes past nine, taking the short cut toward the terrace. At nine-thirty, Raymond heard someone in the study asking Ackroyd for money and being refused. Raglan's theory was complete: Ralph asked for money, was refused, left through the window, walked along the terrace to the empty drawing-room, stole the dagger from the silver table, returned to the study window, slipped off his shoes, climbed in, and stabbed his stepfather. Then he fled to the station and telephoned me before catching the Liverpool express.

"Why?" said Poirot softly, leaning forward, his eyes shining with a queer green light. The inspector had no good answer. "Murderers do funny things," he said lamely.

The footprints on the window-sill and on a boggy patch near the path matched Ralph's rubber-studded shoes. "A very foolish young man, Captain Ralph Paton," mused Poirot, "to leave so much evidence of his presence."

Poirot's eye was caught by a summer-house near the path. After the inspector left, he investigated it—dropping to his hands and knees, crawling about the floor. He found two things: a scrap of stiff starched cambric torn from something—"remember this: a good laundry does not starch a handkerchief"—and a small goose quill, which he pocketed triumphantly. I did not understand the significance of either.

Chapter IX: The Goldfish Pond

"Une belle propriété," said Poirot on the terrace. "Who inherits it?" The question shocked me—until that moment, inheritance had never entered my head.

From a wooded slope above the goldfish pond, we inadvertently overheard Flora and Blunt below. Flora was dancing along the path, humming, laughing despite her black dress—nothing but joy in her whole attitude. Blunt emerged from the trees, taciturn and humble. "Never was much of a fellow for talking," he said. "Not even when I was young."

"How does it feel to be Methuselah?" Flora teased. Blunt mumbled about getting back to Africa. "I'm no good in this sort of life. Haven't got the manners for it." But when Flora asked him to stay, he spoke with quiet directness: "I meant you personally."

"I want you to stay," said Flora, "if that makes any difference."

"It makes all the difference," said Blunt.

Flora confessed her happiness about the will—twenty thousand pounds. "Freedom—life—no more scheming and scraping and lying——" She caught herself on the last word. "You know what I mean. Pretending to be thankful for all the nasty castoff things rich relations give you."

Blunt noticed something glittering in the goldfish pond. Poirot knelt and plunged his arm in, apparently coming up empty-handed. But later he showed me what he had secretly palmed: a woman's gold wedding ring, inscribed inside: From R., March 13th. He would say nothing more about it.

Poirot also questioned Blunt about the night of the murder. Blunt had strolled on the terrace at half-past nine and heard Ackroyd's voice in the study. He'd gone as far as the corner of the terrace—"thought I saw a woman disappearing into the bushes, just a gleam of white"—and assumed Ackroyd was speaking to Raymond, since Raymond had mentioned taking papers to the study. But Ackroyd hadn't used any name.

Flora insisted the Tunisian dagger had not been in the silver table when she and I examined it before dinner. "Inspector Raglan doesn't believe me. He thinks I'm saying it to shield Ralph."

"And aren't you?" I asked gravely. Flora stamped her foot. "You, too, Dr. Sheppard! Oh! it's too bad."

Chapter X: The Parlormaid

At lunch, Poirot learned the terms of Ackroyd's will from the solicitor Hammond. The legacies were: a thousand pounds to Miss Russell, fifty to the cook, five hundred to Geoffrey Raymond. Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd received income on ten thousand pounds' worth of shares during her lifetime. Flora inherited twenty thousand pounds outright. The residue—including Fernly Park and the shares in Ackroyd and Son—went to Ralph Paton. "Mr. Ackroyd possessed a very large fortune. Captain Paton will be an exceedingly wealthy young man." There was a silence as Poirot and the lawyer looked at each other.

Poirot enlisted me as his colleague. He asked me to question Blunt about Mrs. Ferrars while watching his face—"but do not seem to watch it." On the terrace, I steered the conversation naturally. Blunt had found Mrs. Ferrars "fascinating but deep—one would never know what she was up to." She had "looked ten years older" since he'd last seen her. He mentioned losing a legacy to a wild-cat investment a year ago. I reported to Poirot that Blunt seemed perfectly square. "Without doubt," said Poirot soothingly, as though to a fractious child.

Mrs. Ackroyd cornered me afterward. She was hurt that the twenty thousand had been left to Flora rather than to her—"a lack of trust, I call it." She revealed that Ackroyd had been extraordinarily mean, never giving Flora an allowance, paying her bills reluctantly. "Not a penny we could call our own." Flora had resented it strongly. And then there was the thousand pounds to "that Russell woman. Something very queer about her, and so I've always said. She was certainly doing her best to marry Roger."

Then a discovery: forty pounds was missing from the hundred Ackroyd had cashed the previous day, kept in a collar-box in his bedroom. Raymond had seen him put it away before dinner. "Either he paid out that forty pounds sometime last evening, or else it has been stolen," said Poirot.

The parlormaid Ursula Bourne was leaving—supposedly dismissed for disarranging papers on Ackroyd's desk. She was a tall girl with a lot of brown hair and very steady gray eyes. She denied any knowledge of the money with cold disdain: "You can search my things if you like. But you won't find anything." Poirot noted with interest that her interview with Ackroyd had lasted up to half an hour—a remarkably long time for a reprimand about papers. His eyes were shining.

Afterward, Poirot showed me the inspector's list with a small cross marked beside Ursula Bourne's name. She was the only person whose alibi had no confirmation whatsoever. I noted that Mrs. Ferrars's letter had mentioned a "person"—not specifically a man. Poirot muttered: "But then it is possible after all—I must rearrange my ideas. Method, order; never have I needed them more."

"Do you believe Ralph innocent?" I asked.

"My friend, everything points to the assumption that he is guilty. Motive, opportunity, means. But I will leave no stone unturned. I promised Mademoiselle Flora."

He sent me to Marby Grange to investigate Ursula Bourne's reference.

Chapter XI: Poirot Pays a Call

At Marby Grange, Mrs. Folliott—a tall woman with untidy brown hair and a winning smile—froze the moment I mentioned Ursula Bourne. She claimed to remember nothing about the girl's background, grew nervous and angry, and was plainly lying. A child could have seen through her, but she would tell me nothing more. Whatever the mystery centering around Ursula Bourne, I was not going to learn it here.

Meanwhile, Poirot had visited Caroline. He charmed her with tales of royal cases—Prince Paul of Mauretania and a dancer who might be a Russian Grand Duchess. He told her she had "the makings of a born detective and a wonderful psychological insight into human nature." Caroline, positively purring, had given him everything: the village gossip, what she'd overheard in the wood about Ralph and the unknown girl, and the names of my surgery patients that Friday morning—ending with the significant revelation: "Miss Russell!"

"Caroline," I said sharply, "you realize what you're doing? You're putting a halter round Ralph Paton's neck."

"Not at all," she said, unruffled. "I don't believe Ralph did it, and so the truth can't hurt him."

Poirot had also asked Caroline to find out whether Ralph's boots at the Three Boars were black or brown. Through her network—Annie to Miss Ganett's maid Clara to the boots at the inn—the answer came back: black. Poirot had expected brown. "That is a pity," he said, and seemed quite crestfallen. He entered into no explanations, and I failed altogether to grasp the significance of the boots.

I stayed staring into the fire, thinking over Caroline's words. Had Poirot really come to gain information about Miss Russell? I remembered her persistent conversation about drug-taking and poisons. Ackroyd had not been poisoned, but still—it was odd. Miss Russell's visit to my surgery that Friday morning had clearly been about something other than her knee.

Chapter XII: Round the Table

The inquest on Monday revealed little by arrangement with the police. Afterward, Poirot and I spoke with Inspector Raglan. "It looks bad, Mr. Poirot," the inspector said. "If he's innocent, why doesn't he come forward?" Ralph Paton's description had been wired to every port and station in England, but no one had seen him. He had no luggage and, as far as anyone knew, no money.

Poirot warned the inspector about the fingerprints: "Beware of the blind alley." He suggested the prints on the dagger were Ackroyd's own—placed there by the murderer, who wore gloves, then closed the victim's hand around the hilt afterward. "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." The inspector was skeptical but agreed to check.

Poirot then assembled the household around the dining table at Fernly—Mrs. Ackroyd, Flora, Blunt, Raymond, and myself—like the chairman of some ghastly board meeting. He begged Flora to reveal Ralph's whereabouts. "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 stood and swore solemnly she had no idea where Ralph was. Poirot appealed to the rest of us. Silence. Mrs. Ackroyd filled it by suggesting Ralph might have been affected by air raids as a boy—"like shell-shock"—and wondering what would happen to the estate if he were found guilty. Flora, furious, announced she would send the engagement to the papers. "Whatever else I am, I'm not disloyal to my friends." Blunt backed her: "She's doing the right thing. I'll stand by her through thick and thin." Poirot persuaded Flora to delay two days.

Then he threw down his challenge: "Every one of you in this room is concealing something from me. Each one of you has something to hide. Come, now, am I right?" His glance swept the table. Every pair of eyes dropped before his—yes, mine as well. "I am answered," said Poirot, with a curious laugh. "C'est dommage," he said, and went out.

Chapter XIII: The Goose Quill

That evening Poirot and I reviewed the case over hot chocolate (his) and Irish whisky (mine, which I detest). He inquired politely after Caroline, whom he declared "a most interesting woman." I accused him of giving her a swelled head. "I always like to employ the expert," he remarked obscurely.

The goose quill from the summer-house, he explained, was used for sniffing heroin—common in America. The stranger had spoken with an American accent at the Three Boars. The summer-house had been used as a rendezvous. "Did some one from the house go out and meet him? You will remember that Mrs. Ackroyd and her daughter came over from Canada."

The scrap of starched cambric remained significant: "A good laundry does not starch a handkerchief." It was not from a handkerchief at all—it was from a maid's apron.

He gave me a little lecture on method. "The first thing is to get a clear history of what happened that evening—always bearing in mind that the person who speaks may be lying." He verified each fact independently: my departure time confirmed by Parker, the stranger's existence confirmed by Miss Ganett's maid.

I presented my own theory on paper: Ralph was with Ackroyd at nine-thirty asking for money, left through the window, and the American stranger later entered and committed the murder, possibly in league with Parker the blackmailer. "It is a theory," admitted Poirot. "Decidedly you have cells of a kind. But it leaves a good deal unaccounted for—the telephone call, the pushed-out chair, the missing forty pounds, and why Blunt was so certain it was Raymond with Ackroyd."

"Three separate motives stare us in the face," said Poirot. "Somebody stole the blue envelope—blackmail. Ralph may have been the blackmailer; he had not applied to his uncle for money lately, which suggests he was being supplied elsewhere. Then his scrape that he feared would reach his uncle's ears. And finally, the inheritance. Three motives—it is almost too much. I am inclined to believe that, after all, Ralph Paton is innocent."

Chapter XIV: Mrs. Ackroyd

The affair entered a new phase. Everyone contributed pieces to the puzzle like a jigsaw, but only Poirot could fit them together.

Mrs. Ackroyd summoned me, ostensibly prostrated by shock. Her real anxiety was Poirot's accusation that everyone was hiding something. After much tortuous preamble about bills and moneylenders ("ten pounds to ten thousand on note of hand alone"), she confessed: on Friday afternoon, she had searched Ackroyd's desk looking for his will—"not in any sense of vulgar prying"—to assess her testamentary expectations. She'd found his keys in the lock. But Ursula Bourne had caught her at it, with "a very nasty light in her eyes. Almost contemptuous." Then Ackroyd himself walked in. She'd grabbed Punch and fled.

She also confessed to opening the silver table—she'd wanted to take a piece of old silver to London to have it valued. "Then if it really was a valuable piece, just think what a charming surprise it would have been for Roger!" She'd been startled by footsteps on the terrace and fled upstairs, leaving the lid open. This meant Miss Russell had entered the drawing-room through the French window—and had been out of breath from running. Where had she been? I thought of the summer-house and the scrap of starched cambric.

I also learned that it was Ursula Bourne who had asked to speak to Ackroyd on Friday—not the other way around. On my way out, the parlormaid asked urgently about Captain Paton. "He ought to come back. Indeed—indeed he ought to come back." She was eager to know if the murder could have been committed before a quarter to ten. When I said Flora had seen Ackroyd alive at that time, her whole figure seemed to droop. "A handsome girl," I said to myself. "An exceedingly handsome girl."

Poirot's challenge at the table had been working. A mixture of fear and guilt was wringing the truth from people one by one. Mrs. Ackroyd was the first to react. Geoffrey Raymond would be next.

Chapter XV: Geoffrey Raymond

Caroline maneuvered me into delivering medlar jelly to Poirot—and naturally I ended up staying. "Curiosity is not my besetting sin," I had remarked coldly when she suggested I go. "Stuff and nonsense, James," said my sister. "You want to know just as much as I do. You're not so honest, that's all." The honors were with Caroline. I reported Mrs. Ackroyd's confession about searching the desk and the silver table. Poirot confirmed it explained Miss Russell's presence in the drawing-room—she had entered through the French window, not to check flowers. "Whom did she go out to meet? And why?" We both agreed she had met someone.

Poirot showed me a newspaper article about cocaine smuggling from the previous Friday. "That is what put cocaine into her head," he said of Miss Russell's questions to me. Her interest in drugs had been prompted by the newspaper.

Geoffrey Raymond then arrived with his own confession—Poirot's challenge had worked on him too. "I was in debt—badly, and that legacy came in the nick of time. Five hundred pounds puts me on my feet again." He'd been afraid to admit it to the police, but his alibi with Blunt in the billiard room was watertight. Poirot approved: "You are a very wise young man."

Poirot noted that many people benefited from Ackroyd's death—Mrs. Ackroyd, Flora, Raymond, Miss Russell. "Only one does not—Major Blunt." As for Blunt's secret: "There is a saying that Englishmen conceal only one thing—their love."

I raised a new possibility: the blackmailer and the murderer might not be the same person. Poirot agreed it was possible. Parker remained his chief suspect for the blackmail. But the letter might have been taken by Raymond or Blunt—or even burned by Ackroyd himself.

Poirot conducted an experiment at Fernly, having Flora and Parker reenact their exchange outside the study door. He seemed satisfied, though he would not explain what he had learned. "One must say something," he said when I asked about a question he'd put to Parker about the glasses on the tray.

Chapter XVI: An Evening at Mah Jong

That night we had a little Mah Jong party—Miss Ganett and Colonel Carter. This kind of simple entertainment is very popular in King's Abbot. A good deal of gossip is handed round at these evenings, sometimes seriously interfering with the game. The village gossip flowed freely between discards and Pungs. Colonel Carter declared it a "deuce of a lot behind it—a woman in it, no doubt." Miss Ganett reported Flora had been seen with someone—significant looks were exchanged with Caroline. She opined that Flora was "exceedingly lucky" not to be more suspected, since she was the last person to see her uncle alive. "The first question that's always asked is 'Who last saw the deceased alive?'" Caroline announced her theory: Ralph was hiding in Cranchester, the nearest big town. "No one would dream of his being so near at hand." Miss Ganett confirmed she had seen Poirot driving back from that direction.

Flushed with the triumph of achieving Tin-ho—the Perfect Winning hand, which I had never held before—I rashly mentioned the gold wedding ring Poirot had found in the goldfish pond, inscribed "From R., March 13th." I pass over the scene that followed. The room erupted with theories: Colonel Carter thought Ralph was secretly married to Flora; Miss Ganett suggested Ackroyd had married Mrs. Ferrars; Caroline proposed Ackroyd had married Miss Russell. Later, going to bed, Caroline added a fourth: Geoffrey Raymond and Flora were secretly married. "Flora Ackroyd does not care a penny piece for Ralph Paton, and never has," she declared. "You can take it from me."

Chapter XVII: Parker

Poirot interrogated Parker at The Larches. "Have you made many experiments in blackmail?" he asked pleasantly. The butler sprang to his feet, but Poirot was relentless. He knew about Parker's previous employer, Major Ellerby—addicted to drugs, involved in a killing in Bermuda that was hushed up. Parker had extorted money to keep quiet.

Under pressure, Parker confessed. He had overheard the word "blackmail" and hoped to profit. "I thought that if Mr. Ackroyd was being blackmailed, why shouldn't I have a share of the pickings?" But he swore he hadn't killed Ackroyd. His bank-book showed savings from the Ellerby affair and horse-racing—nothing like the twenty thousand pounds Mrs. Ferrars had paid out. Poirot was inclined to believe him: "He has not the big ideas."

At the solicitor Hammond's office, we learned Mrs. Ferrars had sold securities totaling at least twenty thousand pounds in the past year—paid to the blackmailer. "With twenty thousand pounds in hand, would Parker have continued being a butler?" Poirot mused. That left Raymond—or Blunt, whose legacy, Poirot had discovered, was close upon twenty thousand pounds. I was staggered. But Poirot offered another possibility: Ackroyd himself might have burned the letter in the fire.

Over lunch at my house—where Caroline magnificently pretended to be vegetarian to stretch two chops among three people—Poirot fell into a strange, quiet mood. He spoke not specifically of Ralph but of a hypothetical man. "Let us take a man—a very ordinary man. A man with no idea of murder in his heart. There is in him somewhere a strain of weakness—deep down. It has so far never been called into play. Perhaps it never will be. But let us suppose that he stumbles on a secret involving life or death. His first impulse is to speak out. And then the strain of weakness tells. Here is a chance of money—a great amount of money. He has to do nothing for it—just keep silence." His voice was quiet and merciless, and something in the analysis struck fear into both Caroline and me. "He becomes greedy. He overreaches himself. And so—the dagger strikes!"

Caroline said he was speaking of Ralph. I was not so sure. The portrait seemed to fit no one in particular—and every one.

The telephone rang. A man named Charles Kent had been detained at Liverpool—believed to be the stranger who visited Fernly that night.

Chapter XVIII: Charles Kent

We traveled to Liverpool with Inspector Raglan. The inspector confirmed Poirot had been right about the fingerprints—they were Ackroyd's own. "I had rather the same idea myself," he said, plainly saving face.

Charles Kent was a young fellow, tall and thin, with shaking hands and shifty blue eyes. I had cherished the illusion that there was something familiar about the figure I had met that night, but this man did not remind me of anyone I knew. I recognized his voice, though. He denied everything but eventually claimed an alibi: he'd been at the Dog and Whistle, a pub a mile from Fernly, by a quarter to ten. He refused to say whom he'd gone to Fernly to meet.

Poirot showed him the goose quill. "Snow. No, my friend, it is empty. It lay where you dropped it in the summer-house that night." Kent's face changed. Poirot made a cryptic remark: "I fancy you were born in Kent." The man flushed brick red. On the train home, Poirot told me he knew why Kent had gone to Fernly—"because he was born in Kent." I stared at him blankly. "It certainly doesn't seem to make sense to me," I said dryly.

Chapter XIX: Flora Ackroyd

Kent's alibi checked out—the barmaid at the Dog and Whistle remembered him perfectly, and he'd had a lot of money on him. But Poirot was not ready to release him. "I admit nothing that is not proved!" he said, when Raglan pointed to Flora's evidence that Ackroyd was alive at a quarter to ten.

Then Poirot dropped his bombshell. "I do not always believe what a young lady tells me—no, not even when she is charming and beautiful." His experiment with Parker had proved it: Parker had seen Flora outside the study door, with her hand on the handle. He did not see her come out of the room. She could have been on the stairs from Ackroyd's bedroom, where she had gone to steal the forty pounds.

Confronted at Fernly, with Blunt at her side, Flora broke down completely. "M. Poirot is right. I took that money. I stole. I am a thief—yes, a common, vulgar little thief. Now you know! I'm glad it has come out." She confessed to a life of scheming and lying for money. "You don't know what my life has been since I came here. Wanting things, scheming for them, lying, cheating, running up bills."

Blunt immediately offered a gallant lie—the money had been given to him by Ackroyd. Poirot saw through it but approved: "It is very good what you have done there." Privately, he told Blunt to declare his love for Flora. "It is not Captain Paton Mademoiselle Flora loves." Blunt strode out into the garden where Flora had gone. "Not every kind of a fool," murmured Poirot, nursing his crushed hand. "Only one kind—the fool in love."

Chapter XX: Miss Russell

Flora's confession changed everything. Ackroyd's last confirmed time alive was now nine-thirty—not a quarter to ten. Inspector Raglan was shattered: "Those alibis now. Worthless! Absolutely worthless. Got to start again. Find out what every one was doing from nine-thirty onwards."

Poirot planted a false newspaper paragraph announcing Ralph Paton's arrest at Liverpool. The inspector was loath to agree, but Poirot assured him most solemnly that very interesting results would follow.

Then he arranged for Miss Russell to visit my surgery—a little complot, he called it, to avoid the whole village intriguing itself about the matter. Once before I had been struck by the remnants of beauty in the housekeeper's face. This morning, simply dressed in black, with an unwonted flush of color in her usually pale cheeks, I realized that as a girl she must have been startlingly handsome.

Poirot confronted her with the arrest of Charles Kent and the new timeline—the murder now fell between ten to nine and nine-thirty. Her iron self-control shattered at last. "He never touched a hair of old Ackroyd's head—he never went near the study. He didn't do it, I tell you!"

Charles Kent was her son—born out of wedlock, long ago, down in Kent. She had taken the county name as his surname. He had turned to drugs and drink. She'd gone to the summer-house to meet him that night, given him all the money she had, and he'd left by twenty-five past nine. The scrap of starched cambric was from her apron—she'd slipped out through the drawing-room window to leave a note in the summer-house. Her visit to my surgery that Friday morning had been to ask about cures for drug addiction—prompted by a newspaper article on cocaine.

"So that's that," I said. "Every time we come back to Ralph Paton."

Chapter XXI: The Paragraph in the Paper

The false paragraph about Ralph's arrest appeared in the morning papers. Caroline, who had stated all along that Ralph would try to get to America ("that's what Crippen did"), was triumphant. Raymond rang Liverpool and was told no such arrest had been made—he insisted it was a newspaper canard. Mrs. Ackroyd, meanwhile, was delighted that Flora's engagement to Ralph had never been formally announced, and even more delighted by the new understanding between Flora and Hector Blunt.

Caroline was convinced a "Home Office expert" had arrived at Poirot's house in the early hours—she'd seen a muffled figure from her window before the milk came. She was wrong about the expert, but right that someone had arrived.

Poirot invited the Fernly household to a reunion at his house that evening at nine o'clock. He asked me to deliver the invitations. "I much dislike to have to explain my little ideas until the time comes," he said.

Then Ursula Bourne appeared at our door in tears, clutching the newspaper paragraph. Caroline took charge, putting her arm around the girl and patting her shoulder. "There, there, my dear. It will be all right."

"No," said Poirot, taking Ursula's hands. "That is not quite right, I think. It is not Ursula Bourne, is it, my child—but Ursula Paton? Mrs. Ralph Paton."

Chapter XXII: Ursula's Story

Ursula was one of seven daughters of impoverished Irish gentry. She had taken work as a parlormaid rather than become a nursery governess—she scorned to label herself a "lady parlormaid" and would be the real thing. Her reference was supplied by her married sister Mrs. Folliott, which explained that lady's embarrassment when I visited. At Fernly she met Ralph Paton, and they married secretly in March—hence the ring inscribed "From R., March 13th."

Ralph had persuaded her into the secret marriage, declaring his stepfather would not hear of his marrying a penniless girl. But turning over a new leaf was easier in theory than practice. When Ackroyd refused to pay his debts, Ralph was bidden to Fernly and presented with a proposal: marry Flora. Neither Flora nor Ralph pretended love—it was a business arrangement on both sides. Flora accepted a chance of liberty and money; Ralph seized at having his debts paid. Both stipulated the engagement be kept secret for the present—Ralph was anxious to conceal it from Ursula. When the engagement was announced publicly, Ursula was devastated. Summoned by her, Ralph came hurriedly down from town. They met in the wood, where part of their conversation was overheard by Caroline. Ralph implored her to keep silent; Ursula was equally determined to have done with concealments. She confronted Ackroyd with the truth that Friday afternoon—the stormy half-hour interview that had nothing to do with disarranged papers. Ackroyd was furious at the deceit, his rancor mainly directed at Ralph. Unforgivable things were said on both sides. That evening she met Ralph in the summer-house; they parted acrimoniously at a quarter to ten. She never saw Ackroyd that night.

"What time was it when you parted from Captain Paton?" asked Poirot gravely.

"Just a quarter to ten. I was with him ten minutes—not longer."

Ralph had remained in the summer-house. He had no alibi. As the story unfolded, I realized what a damning series of facts it was. Alive, Ackroyd could hardly have failed to alter his will. His death came in the nick of time for Ralph and Ursula Paton.

Chapter XXIII: Poirot's Little Reunion

Caroline took Ursula upstairs to rest. Poirot agreed she should stay with us for the present and attend his reunion that evening.

That afternoon I was called out to a case. When I returned past eight, I found Poirot had supped with Caroline and was in my workshop finishing my manuscript—I had been writing an account of the case, in the manner of Poirot's old friend Hastings. I had divided it into chapters and brought it up to date. Poirot had therefore twenty chapters to read.

"Eh bien," he said when I found him, "I congratulate you—on your modesty!" And then: "on your reticence." He paused. "A very meticulous and accurate account. You have recorded all the facts faithfully and exactly—though you have shown yourself becomingly reticent as to your own share in them." I asked if it had helped him. "Yes. I may say that it has helped me considerably."

I was not sure what to make of this. Caroline, naturally, had asked whether I'd been careful in what I said about her. "M. Poirot will know what to think," she said. "He understands me much better than you do."

At nine o'clock, the household assembled at The Larches—Mrs. Ackroyd, Flora, Blunt, Raymond, Ursula, Parker, and Miss Russell. The lamps were arranged to throw clear light on the chairs where the guests sat, leaving Poirot's end of the room in dim twilight. There was a suggestion of a trap—a trap that had closed.

Poirot revealed Ursula as Mrs. Ralph Paton. Mrs. Ackroyd gave a little shriek: "Ralph! Married! Last March!" But Flora went quickly to Ursula's side and took her arm. "You must not mind our being surprised. I am—very glad about it."

Then Poirot laid out his case methodically. The goose quill and the starched cambric pointed to two separate meetings in the summer-house—Miss Russell with her son, and Ursula with Ralph. The wedding ring confirmed the secret marriage. Ralph could not have been with Ackroyd at nine-thirty—he was in the summer-house with his wife.

The key revelation: the dictaphone. A representative had called on Wednesday; Ackroyd had purchased one secretly. The words Raymond overheard—"The calls on my purse have been so frequent of late that I fear it is impossible for me to accede to your request"—were not conversation but dictation. "Would any man use such a phrase in talking to another? Impossible. Now, if he had been dictating a letter——" Raymond saw it at once: "A dictaphone. That's what you think?" Ackroyd had meant to surprise his secretary with it—"he had quite a childish love of surprising people."

At nine-thirty, the dictaphone was playing back Ackroyd's recorded voice. "At nine-thirty Mr. Ackroyd was already dead." It was the dictaphone speaking—not the man.

The white figure Blunt had glimpsed was not Flora but Ursula's white apron as she stole down to the summer-house. The chair had been pulled out to hide the dictaphone on the round table behind it. And no dictaphone had been found among Ackroyd's effects—someone had removed it. Someone who was on the scene when the body was discovered, who carried a receptacle large enough to conceal it.

"To save Captain Paton the real criminal must confess," said Poirot. Then Ralph Paton himself walked through the door.

Chapter XXIV: Ralph Paton's Story

Ralph had been hidden by me in a nursing home near Cranchester. Poirot had deduced this from my "reticence" in the manuscript I'd been writing—and from Caroline's information about homes where I'd sent patients. He had invented a nephew with mental trouble, consulted Caroline about suitable homes, made inquiries, and identified Ralph under another name. "Have I not told you at least thirty-six times that it is useless to conceal things from Hercule Poirot?" he demanded.

I confessed everything. I had met Ralph on my way home from Fernly that night, put the facts plainly before him, and helped him hide. Ralph confirmed he had no alibi: he'd tramped the lanes after leaving the summer-house and never went near the study. "I give you my solemn word that I never saw my stepfather alive—or dead."

"Very simple indeed," said Poirot. "To save Captain Paton the real criminal must confess." He announced that the truth would go to Inspector Raglan in the morning. A telegram arrived—a wireless from a steamer bound for America. "I know—now," said Poirot. "The murderer is amongst us. I know—which. To-morrow the truth goes to Inspector Raglan. You understand?"

Chapter XXV: The Whole Truth

After the others left, Poirot laid out the case against me, step by step.

The ten-minute discrepancy: I left the house at ten to nine but didn't reach the lodge gates until nine o'clock—a five-minute walk. Why had I taken ten minutes to do a five-minutes' walk on a chilly night? In those extra minutes, I had killed Ackroyd as I stood beside his chair, set the dictaphone to play at nine-thirty, pulled out the chair to hide it, run to the summer-house to change into Ralph's shoes—which I had brought up in my bag that evening—left prints on the window-sill, then raced to the gate. Poirot had gone through similar actions himself one day and timed it: ten minutes exactly.

As for the shoes: Ralph had had two pairs of brown shoes with rubber studs, and a pair of boots. The police had one pair of shoes. I had worn the other pair to make the prints. Ralph himself, that night, had been wearing boots—which was why Poirot had asked Caroline about the color. When the boots proved black, not brown, it confirmed that Ralph had not been wearing the rubber-studded shoes that left the prints.

The telephone call was genuine—but I had arranged it through a steward patient catching the Liverpool express. He was to ring me from the station; the reply was "No answer." Only my word existed for what was actually said. The wireless from the steamer confirmed it.

I was the blackmailer. My "legacy" of a year ago was Mrs. Ferrars's twenty thousand pounds, mostly lost in speculation. When she killed herself and Ackroyd received her letter naming me, I was ruined. "Safety," said Poirot. "It was you who blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars. Who could have had a better knowledge of what killed Mr. Ferrars than the doctor who was attending him? You had to invent some way of accounting for Mrs. Ferrars's twenty thousand pounds."

The dictaphone—given to me two days before to adjust—was the key. I had set it with an alarm-clock mechanism to play at nine-thirty. After discovering the body, while Parker telephoned the police, I had slipped the dictaphone into my black bag and pushed the chair back against the wall.

"Let us recapitulate," said Poirot. "A person who was at the Three Boars earlier that day, who knew of the dictaphone, who was of a mechanical turn of mind, who had the opportunity to take the dagger from the silver table, who had with him a receptacle suitable for hiding the dictaphone—such as a black bag—and who had the study to himself while Parker was telephoning. In fact—Dr. Sheppard!"

Chapter XXVI: And Nothing but the Truth

I laughed and called him mad. But he had every detail. The steward's wireless confirmed the telephone arrangement. "All this is very interesting," I said, in a voice that sounded strange and forced to my own ears, "but hardly in the sphere of practical politics."

Poirot offered me a way out—"there might be, for instance, an overdose of a sleeping draught"—on condition that Ralph Paton be cleared and I finish my manuscript truthfully. "But Captain Ralph Paton must be cleared—that goes without saying. I should suggest that you finish that very interesting manuscript of yours—but abandoning your former reticence."

"My dear Poirot," I said, "whatever else I may be, I am not a fool."

Chapter XXVII: Apologia

Five a.m. I am very tired—but I have finished my task.

I meant this manuscript to be the history of one of Poirot's failures. Odd, how things pan out. All along I've had a premonition of disaster, from the moment I saw Ralph Paton and Mrs. Ferrars with their heads together. I thought then that she was confiding in him; as it happened I was quite wrong there, but the idea persisted even after I went into the study with Ackroyd that night, until he told me the truth.

Poor old Ackroyd—I'm glad I gave him a chance. I urged him to read that letter before it was too late. Or let me be honest—didn't I subconsciously realize that with a pig-headed chap like him, it was my best chance of getting him not to read it? His nervousness that night was interesting psychologically. He knew danger was close at hand. And yet he never suspected me.

The dagger was an afterthought. I'd brought a weapon of my own, but when I saw the dagger in the silver table, it occurred to me how much better to use one that couldn't be traced to me.

What could be neater than: "The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitated with my hand on the door handle, looking back and wondering if there was anything I had left undone." All true. But suppose I had put a row of stars after the first sentence? Would somebody then have wondered what happened in that blank ten minutes?

My greatest fear has been Caroline. She is fond of me, and she is proud. My death will be a grief to her, but grief passes.

I have no pity for myself. So let it be veronal.

But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.

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