Ralph behaved very badly – especially to you.’ ‘You needn’t worry about that,’ said Flora, giving her arm a consoling little pat. ‘Ralph was in a corner and took the only way out. I should probably have done the same in his place. I do think he might have trusted me with the secret, though. I wouldn’t have let him down.’ Poirot rapped gently on a table and cleared his throat significantly.
‘The board meeting’s going to begin,’ said Flora. ‘M.
Poirot hints that we mustn’t talk. But just tell me one thing.
Where is Ralph? You must know if anyone does.’ ‘But I don’t,’ cried Ursula, almost in a wail. ‘That’s just it, I don’t.’ ‘Isn’t he detained at Liverpool?’ asked Raymond. ‘It said so in the paper.’ ‘He is not at Liverpool,’ said Poirot shortly.
‘In fact,’ I remarked, ‘no one knows where he is.’ ‘Except Hercule Poirot, eh?’ said Raymond.
Poirot replied seriously to the other’s banter.
The, I know everything. Remember that.’ Geoffrey Raymond lifted his eyebrows.
‘Everything?’ He whistled. ‘Whew! that’s a tall order.’ ‘Do you mean to say you can really guess where Ralph Paton is hiding?’ I asked incredulously.
‘You call it guessing. I call it knowing, my friend.’ ‘In Cranchester?’ I hazarded.
‘No,’ replied Poirot gravely, ‘not in Cranchester.’ He said no more, but at a gesture from him the assembled party took their seats. As they did so, the door opened once more and two other people came in and sat down near the door. They were Parker and the housekeeper.
The number is complete,’ said Poirot. ‘Everyone is here.’ There was a ring of satisfaction in his tone. And with the sound of it I saw a ripple of something like uneasiness pass over all those faces grouped at the other end of the room.
There was a suggestion in all this as of a trap – a trap that had closed.
Poirot read from a list in an important manner.
‘Mrs Ackroyd, Miss Flora Ackroyd, Major Blunt, Mr Geoffrey Raymond, Mrs Ralph Paton, John Parker, Elizabeth Russell.’ He laid the paper down on the table.
‘What’s the meaning of all this?’ began Raymond.
‘The list I have just read,’ said Poirot, ‘is a list ofsupected persons. Every one of you present had the opportunity to kill Mr Ackroyd-‘ With a cry Mrs Ackroyd sprang up, her throat working.
‘I don’t like it,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t like it. I would much prefer to go home.’ ‘You cannot go home, madame,’ said Poirot sternly, ‘until you have heard what I have to say.’ He paused a moment, then cleared his throat.
‘I will start at the beginning. When Miss Ackroyd asked me to investigate the case, I went up to Fernly Park with the good Doctor Sheppard. I walked with him along the terrace, where I was shown the footprints on the windowsill.
From there Inspector Raglan took me along the path which leads to the drive. My eye was caught by a little |§ summer-house, and I searched it thoroughly. I found two things – a scrap of starched cambric and an empty goose quill. The scrap of cambric immediately suggested to me a maid’s apron. When Inspector Raglan showed me his list of the people in the house, I noticed at once that one of the maids – Ursula Bourne, the parlourmaid – had no real alibi.
According to her own story, she was in her bedroom from nine-thirty until ten. But supposing that instead she was in the summer-house? If so, she must have gone there to meet someone. Now we know from Dr Sheppard that someone from outside did come to the house that night – the stranger whom he met just by the gate. At first glance it would seem that our problem was solved, and that the stranger went to the summer-house to meet Ursula Bourne. It was fairly certain that he did go to the summer-house because of the goose quill. That suggested at once to my mind a taker of drugs – and one who had acquired the habit on the other side of the Atlantic where sniffing “snow” is more common than in this country. The man whom Dr Sheppard met had an American accent, which fitted in with that supposition.