He paused a minute, and then quoted softly:—
“ … the calls 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 phrase 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 reply 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. “All the same,” he remarked, “this discovery of yours, brilliant though it is (I’m quite sure I should never have thought of it), leaves the essential position unchanged. Mr. Ackroyd was alive at nine-thirty, since he was speaking into the dictaphone. It seems clear that the man Charles Kent was really off the premises by then. As to Ralph Paton—?”
He hesitated, glancing at Ursula.
Her colour flared up, but she answered steadily enough.
“Ralph and I parted just before a quarter to ten. He never went near the house, I am sure of that. He had no intention of doing so. The last thing on earth he wanted was to face his stepfather. He would have flunked it badly.”
“It isn’t that I doubt your story for a moment,” explained Raymond. “I’ve always been quite sure Captain Paton was innocent. But one has to think of a court of law—and the questions that would be asked. He is in a most unfortunate position, but if he were to come forward—”
Poirot interrupted.
“That is your advice, yes? That he should come forward?”
“Certainly. If you know where he is—”
“I perceive that you do not believe that I do know. And yet I have told you just now that I know everything. The truth of the telephone call, of the footprints on the windowsill, of the hiding place of Ralph Paton—”
“Where is he?” said Blunt sharply.
“Not very far away,” said Poirot, smiling.
“In Cranchester?” I asked.
Poirot turned towards me.
“Always you ask me that. The idea of Cranchester it is with you an idée fixe. No, he is not in Cranchester. He is—there!”
He pointed a dramatic finger. Everyone’s head turned.
Ralph Paton was standing in the doorway.
XXIV
Ralph Paton’s Story
It was a very uncomfortable minute for me. I hardly took in what happened next, but there were exclamations and cries of surprise! When I was sufficiently master of myself to be able to realize what was going on, Ralph Paton was standing by his wife, her hand in his, and he was smiling across the room at me.
Poirot, too, was smiling, and at the same time shaking an eloquent finger at me.
“Have I not told you at least thirty-six times that it is useless to conceal things from Hercule Poirot?” he demanded. “That in such a case he finds out?”
He turned to the others. “One day, you remember, we held a little séance about a table—just the six of us. I accused the other five persons present of concealing something from me. Four of them gave up their secret. Dr. Sheppard did not give up his. But all along I have had my suspicions. Dr. Sheppard went to the Three Boars that night hoping to find Ralph. He did not find him there; but supposing, I said to myself, that he met him in the street on his way home? Dr. Sheppard was a friend of Captain Paton’s, and he had come straight from the scene of the crime. He must know that things looked very black against him. Perhaps he knew more than the general public did—”
“I did,” I said ruefully. “I suppose I might as well make a clean breast of things now. I went to see Ralph that afternoon. At first he refused to take me into his confidence, but later he told me about his marriage, and the hole he was in. As soon as the murder was discovered, I realized that once the facts were known,
