“Not at all,” said Caroline, quite unruffled. “I was surprised you hadn’t told him.”
“I took very good care not to,” I said. “I’m fond of that boy.”
“So am I. That’s why I say you’re talking nonsense. I don’t believe Ralph did it, and so the truth can’t hurt him, and we ought to give M. Poirot all the help we can. Why, think, very likely Ralph was out with that identical girl on the night of the murder, and if so, he’s got a perfect alibi.”
“If he’s got a perfect alibi,” I retorted, “why doesn’t he come forward and say so?”
“Might get the girl into trouble,” said Caroline sapiently. “But if M. Poirot gets hold of her, and puts it to her as her duty, she’ll come forward of her own accord and clear Ralph.”
“You seem to have invented a romantic fairy story of your own,” I said. “You read too many trashy novels, Caroline. I’ve always told you so.”
I dropped into my chair again. “Did Poirot ask you any more questions?” I inquired.
“Only about the patients you had that morning.”
“The patients?” I demanded, unbelievingly.
“Yes, your surgery patients. How many and who they were.”
“Do you mean to say you were able to tell him that?” I demanded.
Caroline is really amazing.
“Why not?” asked my sister triumphantly. “I can see the path up to the surgery door perfectly from this window. And I’ve got an excellent memory, James. Much better than yours, let me tell you.”
“I’m sure you have,” I murmured mechanically.
My sister went on, checking the names on her fingers. “There was old Mrs. Bennett, and that boy from the farm with the bad finger, Dolly Grice to have a needle out of her finger; that American steward off the liner. Let me see—that’s four. Yes, and old George Evans with his ulcer. And lastly—”
She paused significantly.
“Well?”
Caroline brought out her climax triumphantly. She hissed it in the most approved style—aided by the fortunate number of s’s at her disposal.
“Miss Russell!”
She sat back in her chair and looked at me meaningly, and when Caroline looks at you meaningly, it is impossible to miss it.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, quite untruthfully. “Why shouldn’t Miss Russell consult me about her bad knee?”
“Bad knee,” said Caroline. “Fiddlesticks! No more a bad knee than you and I. She was after something else.”
“What?” I asked.
Caroline had to admit that she didn’t know.
“But depend upon it, that was what he was trying to get at—M. Poirot, I mean. There’s something fishy about that woman, and he knows it.”
“Precisely the remark Mrs. Ackroyd made to me yesterday,” I said. “That there was something fishy about Miss Russell.”
“Ah!” said Caroline darkly, “Mrs. Ackroyd! There’s another!”
“Another what?”
Caroline refused to explain her remarks. She merely nodded her head several times, rolling up her knitting, and went upstairs to don the high mauve silk blouse and the gold locket which she calls dressing for dinner.
I stayed there staring into the fire and thinking over Caroline’s words. Had Poirot really come to gain information about Miss Russell, or was it only Caroline’s tortuous mind that interpreted everything according to her own ideas?
There had certainly been nothing in Miss Russell’s manner that morning to arouse suspicion. At least—
I remembered her persistent conversation on the subject of drug-taking and from that she had led the conversation to poisons and poisoning. But there was nothing in that. Ackroyd had not been poisoned. Still, it was odd. …
I heard Caroline’s voice, rather acid in tone, calling from the top of the stairs.
“James, you will be late for dinner.”
I put some coal on the fire and went upstairs obediently. It is well at any price to have peace in the home.
XII
Round the Table
A joint inquest was held on Monday.
I do not propose to give the proceedings in detail. To do so would only be to go over the same ground again and again. By arrangement with the police, very little was allowed to come out. I gave evidence as to the cause of Ackroyd’s death and the probable time. The absence of Ralph Paton was commented on by the coroner, but not unduly stressed.
Afterwards, Poirot and I had a few words with Inspector Raglan. The inspector was very grave.
“It looks bad, Mr. Poirot,” he said. “I’m trying to judge the thing fair and square. I’m a local man, and I’ve seen Captain Paton many times in Cranchester. I’m not wanting him to be the guilty one—but it’s bad whichever way you look at it. If he’s innocent, why doesn’t he come forward? We’ve got evidence against him, but it’s just possible that the evidence could be explained away. Then why doesn’t he give an explanation?”
A lot more lay behind the inspector’s words than I knew at the time. Ralph’s description had been wired to every port and railway station in England. The police everywhere were on the alert. His rooms in town were watched, and any houses he had been known to be in the habit of frequenting. With such a cordon it seemed impossible that Ralph should be able to evade detection. He had no luggage, and, as far as anyone knew, no money.
“I can’t find anyone who saw him at the station that night,” continued the inspector. “And yet he’s well known down here, and you’d think somebody would have noticed him. There’s no news from Liverpool either.”
“You think he went to Liverpool?” queried Poirot.
“Well, it’s on the cards. That telephone message from the station, just three minutes before the Liverpool express left, there ought to be something in that.”
“Unless it was deliberately intended to throw you off the scent. That might just possibly be the point of the telephone message.”
“That’s an idea,” said the inspector eagerly. “Do you really think that’s the explanation of the telephone call?”
“My friend,” said Poirot gravely, “I do not know. But I will tell you this: I believe that when we find the explanation of that telephone call we shall find the explanation
