'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.
'Me, 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 of supected 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.
'But I was held up by one point. The times did not fit. Ursula Bourne could certainly not have gone to the summer-house before nine-thirty, whereas the man must have got there by a few minutes past nine. I could, of course, assume that he waited there for half an hour. The only alternative supposition was that there had been two separate meetings in the summer-house that night. Eh bien, as soon as I went into that alternative I found several significant facts. I discovered that Miss Russell, the housekeeper, had visited Dr Sheppard that morning, and had displayed a good deal of interest in cures for victims of the drug habit. Taking that in conjunction with the goose quill, I assumed that the man in question came to Fernly to meet the housekeeper, and not Ursula Bourne. Who, then, did Ursula Bourne come to the rendezvous to meet? I was not long in doubt. First I found a ring - a wedding ring - with "From R." and a date inside it. Then I learnt that Ralph Paton had been seen coming up the path which led to the summer-house at twenty-five minutes past nine, and I also heard of a certain conversation which had taken place in the wood near the village that very afternoon - a conversation between Ralph Paton and some unknown girl. So I had my facts succeeding each other in a neat and orderly manner. A secret marriage, an engagement announced on the day of the tragedy, the stormy interview in the wood, and the meeting arranged for the summer-house that night.
'Incidentally this proved to me one thing, that both Ralph Paton and Ursula Bourne (or Paton) had the strongest motives for wishing Mr Ackroyd out of the way. And it also made one other point unexpectedly clear. It could not have been Ralph Paton who was with Mr Ackroyd in the study at nine-thirty.
'So we come to another and most interesting aspect of the crime. Who was it in the room with Mr Ackroyd at nine-thirty?
Not Ralph Paton, who was in the summer-house with his wife.
Not Charles Kent, who had already left. Who, then? I posed my cleverest - my most audacious question: Was anyone with him?' Poirot leaned forward and shot the last words triumphantly at us, drawing back afterwards with the air of one who has made a decided hit.
Raymond, however, did not seem impressed, and lodged a mild protest.
'I don't know if you're trying to make me out a liar, M. Poirot, but the matter does not rest on my evidence alone except perhaps as to the exact words used. Remember, Major Blunt also heard Mr Ackroyd talking to someone. He was on the terrace outside, and couldn't catch the words clearly, but he distinctly heard the voices.' Poirot nodded.
'I have not forgotten,' he said quietly. 'But Major Blunt was under the impression that it was you to whom Mr Ackroyd was speaking.' For a moment Raymond seemed taken aback. Then he recovered himself.
'Blunt knows now that he was mistaken,' he said.
'Exactly,' agreed the other man.
'Yet there must have been some reason for his thinking so,' mused Poirot. 'Oh! no,' he held up his hand in protest, 'I know the reason you will give - but it is not enough. We must seek elsewhere. I will put it this way. From the beginning of the case I have been struck by one thing - the nature of those words which Mr Raymond overheard. It has been amazing to me that no one has commented on them has seen anything odd about them.' He paused a minute, and then quoted softly: '… the calb on my purse have been so frequent of late that I fear it is impossible for me to accede to your request. Does nothing strike you as odd about that?' 'I don't think so,' said Raymond. 'He has frequently dictated letters to me, using almost exactly those same words.' 'Exactly,' cried Poirot. 'That is what I seek to arrive at.
Would any man use such a prase in talking to another?
Impossible that that should be part of a real conversation.
Now, if he had been dictating a letter ' 'You mean he was reading a letter aloud,' said Raymond slowly. 'Even so, he must have been reading to someone.' 'But why? We have no evidence that there was anyone else in the room. No other voice but Mr Ackroyd's was heard, remember.' 'Surely a man wouldn't read letters of that type aloud to himself- not unless he was - well - going balmy.' 'You have all forgotten one thing,' said Poirot softly: 'the stranger who called at the house the preceding Wednesday.' They all stared at him.
'But yes,' said Poirot, nodding encouragingly, 'on Wednesday. The young man was not of himself important.
But the firm he represented interested me very much.' 'The Dictaphone Company,' gasped Raymond. 'I see it now. A dictaphone. That's what you think?' Poirot nodded.
'Mr Ackroyd had promised to invest in a dictaphone, you remember. Me, I had the curiosity to inquire of the company in question. Their r
eply is that Mr Ackroyd did purchase a dictaphone from their representative. Why he concealed the matter from you, I do not know.' 'He must have meant to surprise me with it,' murmured Raymond. 'He had quite a childish love of surprising people.
Meant to keep it up his sleeve for a day or so. Probably was playing with it like a new toy. Yes, it fits in. You're quite right - no one would use quite those words in casual conversation.'
'It explains, too,' said Poirot, 'why Major Blunt thought it was you who were in the study. Such scraps as came to him were fragments of dictation, and so his subconscious mind deduced that you were with him. His conscious mind was occupied with something quite different - the white figure he had caught a glimpse of. He fancied it was Miss Ackroyd.
Really, of course, it was Ursula Bourne's white apron he saw as she was stealing down to the summerhouse.' Raymond had recovered from his first surprise.