‘I satisfied myself that the call could not have been sent by anyone in the house, yet I was convinced that it was amongst those present on the fatal evening that I had to look for my criminal. Therefore I concluded that the telephone call must have been sent by an accomplice. I was not quite pleased with that deduction, but I let it stand for the minute.
‘I next examined the motive for the call. That was difficult. I could only get at it by judging its result. Which was – that the murder was discovered that night instead ofin all probability – the following morning. You agree with that?’ ‘Ye-es,’ I admitted. ‘Yes. As you say, Mr Ackroyd, having given orders that he was not to be disturbed, nobody would have been likely to go to the study that night.’ ‘Tres bien. The affair marches, does it not? But matters were still obscure. What was the advantage of having the crime discovered that night in preference to the following morning? The only idea I could get hold of was that the murderer, knowing the crime was to be discovered at a certain time, could make sure of being present when the door was broken in – or at any rate immediately afterwards.
And now we come to the second fact – the chair pulled out from the wall. Inspector Raglan dismissed that as of no importance. I, on the contrary, have always regarded it as of supreme importance.
‘In your manuscript you have drawn a neat little plan of the study. If you had it with you this minute you would see that – the chair being drawn out in the position indicated by Parker – it would stand in a direct line between the door and the window.’ ‘The window!’ I said quickly.
‘You, too, have my first idea. I imagined that the chair was drawn out so that something connected with the window should not be seen by anyone entering through the door. But I soon abandoned that supposition, for though the chair was a grandfather with a high back, it obscured very little of the window – only the part between the sash and the ground. No, mon ami – but remember that just in front of the window there stood a table with books and magazines upon it. Now that table was completely hidden by the drawn-out chair – and immediately I had my first shadowy suspicion of the truth.
‘Supposing that there had been something on that table not intended to be seen? Something placed there by the murderer? As yet I had no inkling of what that something might be. But I knew certain very interesting facts about it.
For instance, it was something that the murderer had not been able to take away with him at the time that he committed the crime. At the same time it was vital that it should be removed as soon as possible after the crime had been discovered. And so – the telephone message, and the opportunity for the murderer to be on the spot when the body was discovered.
‘Now four people were on the scene before the police arrived. Yourself, Parker, Major Blunt, and Mr Raymond.
Parker I eliminated at once, since at whatever time the crime was discovered, he was the one person certain to be on the spot. Also it was he who told me of the pulled-out chair. Parker, then, was cleared (of the murder, that is. I still thought it possible that he had been blackmailing Mrs Ferrars). Raymond and Blunt, however, remained under suspicion since, if the crime had been discovered in the early hours of the morning, it was quite possible that they might have arrived on the scene too late to prevent the object on the round table being discovered.
‘Now what was that object? You heard my arguments tonight in reference to the scrap of conversation overheard?
As soon as I learned that a representative of a dictaphone company had called, the idea of a dictaphone took root in my mind. You heard what I said in this room not half an hour ago? They all agreed with my theory – but one vital fact seems to have escaped them. Granted that a dictaphone was being used by Mr Ackroyd that night – why was no dictaphone found?’ ‘I never thought of that,’ I said.