‘Sheppard, you attended ^shiey Ferrars in his last illness, didn’t you?’ ‘Yes, I did.’ He seemed to find even greater difficulty in framing his next question.
‘Did you ever suspect – dS^ n ever enter Y0111″head -that well, that he might have be<^>
‘I’ll tell you the truth,’ \ sald- ‘At the tlme \ had n0 suspicion whatever, but sino^ – well, it was mere idle talk on my sister’s part that first p-r1 the ldea into my head- Since then I haven’t been able to ^t rt out aga”1- Bm’ “””d Y^ I’ve no foundation whateve if for that suspicion.’ ‘He was poisoned,’ said ^-Ackroyd.
He spoke in a dull heavy ‘volce- “Who by?’ I asked sharpMY- ‘His wife.’ ‘How do you know that?”‘ ‘She told me so herself.’ ‘When?’ ‘Yesterday! My God! yesterday! It seems ten years ago.’ I waited a minute, then M^ went on.
‘You understand, Sheppo^d’ rm tellmg V011 this m confidence.
It’s to go no furtl-i^- 1 want your advice – I can’t carry the whole weight by r-flY^- As l said ‘^ “”w, I don’t know what to do.’ ‘Can you tell me the whole story?’ I said. ‘I’m still in the dark. How did Mrs Ferrars come to make this confession to you?’ ‘It’s like this. Three months ago I asked Mrs Ferrars to marry me. She refused. I asked her again and she consented, but she refused to allow me to make the engagement public until her year of mourning was up. Yesterday I called upon her, pointed out that a year and three weeks had now elapsed since her husband’s death, and that there could be no further objection to making the engagement public property.
I had noticed that she had been very strange in her manner for some days. Now, suddenly, without the least warning, she broke down completely. She – she told me everything. Her hatred of her brute of a husband, her growing love for me, and the – the dreadful means she had taken. Poison! My God! It was murder in cold blood.’ I saw the repulsion, the horror, in Ackroyd’s face. So Mrs Ferrars must have seen it. Ackroyd’s is not the type of the great lover who can forgive all for love’s sake. He is fundamentally a good citizen. All that was sound and wholesome and law-abiding in him must have turned from her utterly in that moment of revelation.
‘Yes,’ he went on, in a low, monotonous voice, ‘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.’ ‘Who was the man?’ Suddenly before my eyes there arose the picture of Ralph Paton and Mrs Ferrars side by side. Their heads so close together. I felt a momentary throb of anxiety. Supposing oh! but surely that was impossible. I remembered the frankness of Ralph’s greeting that very afternoon. Absurd!
‘She wouldn’t tell me his name,’ said Ackroyd slowly. ‘As a matter of fact, she didn’t actually say that it was a man.
But of course ‘ ‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘It must have been a man. And you’ve no suspicion at all?’ For answer Ackroyd groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
‘It can’t be,’ he said. ‘I’m mad even to think of such a thing. No, I won’t even admit to you the wild suspicion that crossed my mind. I’ll tell you this much, though. Something she said made me think that the person in question might be actually among my household – but that can’t be so. I must have misunderstood her.’ ‘What did you say to her?’ I asked.
‘What could I say? She saw, of course, the awful shock it had been to me. And then there was the question, what was my duty in the matter? She had made me, you see, an accessory after the fact. She saw all that, I think, quicker than I did. I was stunned, you know. She asked me for twenty-four hours – made me promise to do nothing till the end of that time. And she steadfastly refused to give me the name of the scoundrel who had been blackmailing her. I suppose she was afraid that I might go straight off and hammer him, and then the fat would have been in the fire as far as she was concerned. She told me that I should hear from her before twenty-four hours had passed. My God! I swear to you, Sheppard, that it never entered my head what she meant to do. Suicide! And I drove her to it.’ ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Don’t take an exaggerated view of things. The responsibility for her death doesn’t lie at your door.’ ‘The question is, what am I to do now? The poor lady is dead. Why rake up past trouble?’ ‘I rather agree with you,’ I said.