The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

“Ralph?” he said vaguely. “Oh! no, it’s not Ralph. Ralph’s in London—Damn! Here’s old Miss Gannett coming. I don’t want to have to talk to her about this ghastly business. See you tonight, Sheppard. Seven-thirty.”

I nodded, and he hurried away, leaving me wondering. Ralph in London? But he had certainly been in King’s Abbot the preceding afternoon. He must have gone back to town last night or early this morning, and yet Ackroyd’s manner had conveyed quite a different impression. He had spoken as though Ralph had not been near the place for months.

I had no time to puzzle the matter out further. Miss Gannett was upon me, thirsting for information. Miss Gannett has all the characteristics of my sister Caroline, but she lacks that unerring aim in jumping to conclusions which lends a touch of greatness to Caroline’s manoeuvres. Miss Gannett was breathless and interrogatory.

Wasn’t it sad about poor dear Mrs Ferrars? A lot of people were saying she had been a confirmed drug-taker for years. So wicked the way people went about saying things. And yet, the worst of it was, there was usually a grain of truth somewhere in these wild statements. No smoke without fire! They were saying too that Mr Ackroyd had found out about it, and had broken off the engagement—because there was an engagement. She, Miss Gannett, had proof positive of that. Of course I must know all about it—doctors always did—but they never tell?

And all this with a sharp beady eye on me to see how I reacted to these suggestions. Fortunately, long association with Caroline has led me to preserve an impassive countenance, and to be ready with small non-committal remarks.

On this occasion I congratulated Miss Gannett on not joining in ill-natured gossip. Rather a neat counterattack, I thought. It left her in difficulties, and before she could pull herself together, I had passed on.

I went home thoughtful, to find several patients waiting for me in the surgery.

I had dismissed the last of them, as I thought, and was just contemplating a few minutes in the garden before lunch when I perceived one more patient waiting for me. She rose and came towards me as I stood somewhat surprised.

I don’t know why I should have been, except that there is a suggestion of cast iron about Miss Russell, a something that is above the ills of the flesh.

Ackroyd’s housekeeper is a tall woman, handsome but forbidding in appearance. She has a stern eye, and lips that shut tightly, and I feel that if I were an under housemaid or a kitchenmaid I should run for my life whenever I heard her coming.

“Good morning, Dr Sheppard,” said Miss Russell. “I should be much obliged if you would take a look at my knee.”

I took a look, but, truth to tell, I was very little wiser when I had done so. Miss Russell’s account of vague pains was so unconvincing that with a woman of less integrity of character I should have suspected a trumped-up tale. It did cross my mind for one moment that Miss Russell might have deliberately invented this affection of the knee in order to pump me on the subject of Mrs Ferrars’s death, but I soon saw that there, at least, I had misjudged her. She made a brief reference to the tragedy, nothing more. Yet she certainly seemed disposed to linger and chat.

“Well, thank you very much for this bottle of liniment, doctor,” she said at last. “Not that I believe it will do the least good.”

I didn’t think it would either, but I protested in duty bound. After all, it couldn’t do any harm, and one must stick up for the tools of one’s trade.

“I don’t believe in all these drugs,” said Miss Russell, her eyes sweeping over my array of bottles disparagingly. “Drugs do a lot of harm. Look at the cocaine habit.”

“Well, as far as that goes –”

“It’s very prevalent in high society.”

I’m sure Miss Russell knows far more about high society than I do. I didn’t attempt to argue with her.

“Just tell me this, doctor,” said Miss Russell. “Suppose you are really a slave of the drug habit, is there any cure?”

One cannot answer a question like that off-hand. I gave her a short lecture on the subject, and she listened with close attention. I still suspected her of seeking information about Mrs Ferrars.

“Now, veronal, for instance –” I proceeded.

But, strangely enough, she didn’t seem interested in veronal. Instead she changed the subject, and asked me if it was true that there were certain poisons so rare as to baffle detection.

“Ah!” I said. “You’ve been reading detective stories.”

She admitted that she had.

“The essence of a detective story,” I said, “is to have a rare poison—if possible something from South America, that nobody has ever heard of—something that one obscure tribe of savages use to poison their arrows with. Death is instantaneous, and Western science is powerless to detect it. Is that the kind of thing you mean?”

“Yes. Is there really such a thing?”

I shook my head regretfully.

“I’m afraid there isn’t. There’s curare, of course.”

I told her a good deal about curare, but she seemed to have lost interest once more. She asked me if I had any in my poison cupboard, and when I replied in the negative I fancy I fell in her estimation.

She said she must be getting back, and I saw her out at the surgery door just as the luncheon gong went.

I should never have suspected Miss Russell of a fondness for detective stories. It pleases me very much to think of her stepping out of the housekeeper’s room to rebuke a delinquent housemaid, and then returning to a comfortable perusal of The Mystery of the Seventh Death, or something of the kind.

Chapter 3 The Man Who Grew Vegetable Marrows (#ulink_503284a1-671b-5b82-85f9-d4e68b1331b6)

I told Caroline at lunch that I should be dining at Fernly. She expressed no objection—on the contrary.

“Excellent,” she said. “You’ll hear all about it. By the way, what is the trouble with Ralph?”

“With Ralph?” I said, surprised; “there isn’t any.”

“Then why is he staying at the Three Boars instead of at Fernly Park?”

I did not for a minute question Caroline’s statement that Ralph Paton was staying at the local inn. That Caroline said so was enough for me.

“Ackroyd told me he was in London,” I said. In the surprise of the moment I departed from my valuable rule of never parting with information.

“Oh!” said Caroline. I could see her nose twitching as she worked on this.

“He arrived at the Three Boars yesterday morning,’ she said. “And he’s still there. Last night he was out with a girl.”

That did not surprise me in the least. Ralph, I should say, is out with a girl most nights of his life. But I did rather wonder that he chose to indulge in the pastime in King’s Abbot instead of in the gay Metropolis.

“One of the barmaids?” I asked.

“No. That’s just it. He went out to meet her. I don’t know who she is.”

(Bitter for Caroline to have to admit such a thing.)

“But I can guess,” continued my indefatigable sister.

I waited patiently.

“His cousin.”

“Flora Ackroyd?” I exclaimed in surprise.

Flora Ackroyd is, of course, no relation whatever really to Ralph Paton but Ralph has been looked upon for so long as practically Ackroyd’s own son, that cousinship is taken for granted.

“Flora Ackroyd,” said my sister.