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 straightforward 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 the 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 ^d. 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 anyone 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 „. 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.