‘All this,’ I said, ‘is very interesting – but hardly in the sphere of practical politics.’ ‘You think not? Remember what I said – the truth goes to Inspector Raglan in the morning. But, for the sake of your good sister, I am willing to give you the chance of another way out. There might be, for instance, an overdose of a sleeping draught. You comprehend me? But Captain Ralph Paton must be cleared – ?a va sans dire. I should suggest that you finish that very interesting manuscript of yours – but abandoning your former reticence.’ ‘You seem to be very prolific of suggestions,’ I remarked.
‘Are you sure you’ve quite finished?’ ‘Now that you remind me of the fact, it is true that there is one thing more. It would be most unwise on your part to attempt to silence me as you silenced M. Ackroyd. That kind of business does not succeed against Hercule Poirot, you understand.’ ‘My dear Poirot,’ I said, smiling a little, ‘whatever else I may be, I am not a fool.’ I rose to my feet.
‘Well, well,’ I said, with a slight yawn, ‘I must be off home.
Thank you for a most interesting and instructive evening.’ Poirot also rose and bowed with his accustomed politeness as I passed out of the room.
CHAPTER 27 Apologia
Five a.m. I am very tired – but I have finished my task. My arm aches from writing.
A strange end to my manuscript. I meant it to be published some day as the history of one ofPoirot’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 always glad that 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 up a very handy little weapon of my own, but when I saw the dagger lying in the silver table, it occurred to me at once how much better it would be to use a weapon that couldn’t be traced to me.
I suppose I must have meant to murder him all along. As soon as I heard of Mrs Ferrars’s death, I felt convinced that she would have told him everything before she died. When I met him and he seemed so agitated, I thought that perhaps he knew the truth, but that he couldn’t bring himself to believe it, and was going to give me the chance of refuting it.
So I went home and took my precautions. If the trouble were after all only something to do with Ralph – well, no harm would have been done. The dictaphone he had given me two days ago to adjust. Something had gone a little wrong with it, and I persuaded him to let me have a go at it, instead of sending it back. I did what I wanted to, and took it up with me in my bag that evening.
I am rather pleased with myself as a writer. What could be neater, for instance, than the following: ‘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, you see. But suppose I had put a row of stars after the first sentence! Would somebody then have wondered what exactly happened in that blank ten minutes?
When I looked round the room from the door, I was quite satisfied. Nothing had been left undone. The dictaphone was on the table by the window, timed to go off at ninethirty (the mechanism of that little device was rather clever – based on the principle of an alarm clock), and the armchair was pulled out so as to hide it from the door.