You asked me the way there.’ ‘I did, did I?’ ‘Do you admit it?’ asked the inspector.
‘I don’t admit anything. Not till I know what you’ve got on me.’ ‘Have you not read the papers in the last few days?’ asked Poirot, speaking for the first time.
The man’s eyes narrowed.
‘So that’s it, is it? I saw an old gent had been croaked at Pernly. Trying to make out I did the job, are you?’ ‘You were there that night,’ said Poirot quietly.
‘How do you know, mister?’ ‘By this.’ Poirot took something from his pocket and held it out.
It was the goose quill we had found in the summer house.
At the sight of it the man’s face changed. He half held out his hand.
‘Snow,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘No, my friend, it is empty. It lay where you dropped it in the summer house that night.’ Charles Kent looked at him uncertainly.
‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about everything, you little foreign cock duck. Perhaps you remember this: the papers say that the old gent was croaked between a quarter to ten and ten o’clock?’ ‘That is so,’ agreed Poirot.
‘Yes, but is it really so? That’s what I’m getting at.’ ‘This gentleman will tell you,’ said Poirot.
He indicated Inspector Raglan. The latter hesitated, glanced at Superintendent Hayes, then at Poirot, and finally, as though receiving sanction, he said: ‘That’s right. Between a quarter to ten and ten o’clock.’ ‘Then you’ve nothing to keep me here for,’ said Kent. ‘I was away from Fernly Park by twenty-five minutes past nine. You can ask at the Dog and Whistle. That’s a saloon about a mile out of Fernly on the road to Cranchester. I kicked up a bit of a row there, I remember. As near as nothing to quarter to ten, it was. How about that?’ Inspector Raglan wrote down something in his notebook.
‘Well?’ demanded Kent.
‘Inquiries will be made,’ said the inspector. ‘If you’ve spoken the truth, you won’t have anything to complain about. What were you doing at Fernly Park anyway?’ ‘Went there to meet someone.’ ‘Who?’ ‘That’s none of your business.’ ‘You’d better keep a civil tongue in your head, my man,’ the superintendent warned him.
‘To hell with a civil tongue. I went there on my own business, and that’s all there is to it. If I was clear away before the murder was done, that’s all that concerns the cops.’ ‘Your name, it is Charles Kent,’ said Poirot. ‘Where were you born?’ The man stared at him, then he grinned.
‘I’m a full-blown Britisher all right,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Poirot meditatively. ‘I think you are. I fancy you were born in Kent.’ The man stared.
‘Why’s that? Because of my name? What’s that to do with it? Is a man whose name is Kent bound to be born in that particular county?’ ‘Under certain circumstances, I can imagine he might be,’ said Poirot very deliberately. ‘Under certain circumstances, you comprehend.’ There was so much meaning in his voice as to surprise the two police officers. As for Charles Kent, he flushed a brick red, and for a moment I thought he was going to spring at Poirot. He thought better of it, however, and turned away with a kind of laugh.
Poirot nodded as though satisfied, and made his way out through the door. He was joined presently by the two officers.
‘We’ll verify that statement,’ remarked Raglan. ‘I don’t think he’s lying, though. But he’s got to come clean with a statement as to what he was doing at Fernly. It looks to me as though we’d got our blackmailer all right. On the other hand, granted his story’s correct, he couldn’t have had anything to do with the actual murder. He’d got ten pounds on him when he was arrested – rather a large sum. I fancy that forty pounds went to him – the numbers of the notes didn’t correspond, but of course he’d have changed them first thing. Mr Ackroyd must have given him the money, and he made off with it as fast as possible. What was that about Kent being his birthplace? What’s that got to do with it?’ ‘Nothing whatever,’ said Poirot mildly. ‘A little idea of mine, that was all. Me, I am famous for my little ideas.’ ‘Are you really?’ said Raglan, studying him with a puzzled expression.