CHAPTER XXV

THE WHOLE TRUTH

A slight gesture from Poirot enjoined me to stay behind the rest. I

obeyed, going over to the fire and thoughtfully stirring the big logs

on it with the toe of my boot.

I was puzzled. For the first time I was absolutely at sea as to

Poirot’s meaning. For a moment I was inclined to think that the scene

I had just witnessed was a gigantic piece of bombast—that he had been

what he called “playing the comedy” with a view to making himself

interesting and important. But, in spite of myself, I was forced to

believe in an underlying reality. There had been real menace in his

words—a certain indisputable sincerity. But I still believed him to be

on entirely the wrong tack.

When the door shut behind the last of the party he came over to the

fire.

“Well, my friend,” he said quietly, “and what do you think of it all?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said frankly. “What was the point? Why

not go straight to Inspector Raglan with the truth instead of giving

the guilty person this elaborate warning?”

Poirot sat down and drew out his case of tiny Russian cigarettes. He

smoked for a minute or two in silence. Then:—

“Use your little gray cells,” he said. “There is always a reason behind

my actions.”

I hesitated for a moment, and then I said slowly:

“The first one that occurs to me is that you yourself do not know who

the guilty person is, but that you are sure that he is to be found

amongst the people here to-night. Therefore your words were intended to

force a confession from the unknown murderer?”

Poirot nodded approvingly.

“A clever idea, but not the truth.”

“I thought, perhaps, that by making him believe you knew, you might

force him out into the open—not necessarily by confession. He might try

to silence you as he formerly silenced Mr. Ackroyd—before you could act

to-morrow morning.”

“A trap with myself as the bait! _Merci, mon ami_, but I am not

sufficiently heroic for that.”

“Then I fail to understand you. Surely you are running the risk of

letting the murderer escape by thus putting him on his guard?”

Poirot shook his head.

“He cannot escape,” he said gravely. “There is only one way out—and

that way does not lead to freedom.”

“You really believe that one of those people here to-night committed

the murder?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, my friend.”

“Which one?”

There was a silence for some minutes. Then Poirot tossed the stump of

his cigarette into the grate and began to speak in a quiet, reflective

tone.

“I will take you the way that I have traveled myself. Step by step

you shall accompany me, and see for yourself that all the facts point

indisputably to one person. Now, to begin with, there were two facts

and one little discrepancy in time which especially attracted my

attention. The first fact was the telephone call. If Ralph Paton were

indeed the murderer, the telephone call became meaningless and absurd.

Therefore, I said to myself, Ralph Paton is not the murderer.

“I satisfied myself that the call could not have been sent by any one

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 of—in 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.”

“_Très 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 any

one 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 to-night 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.

“We know that a dictaphone was supplied to Mr. Ackroyd. But no

dictaphone has been found amongst his effects. So, if something was

taken from that table—why should not that something be the dictaphone?

But there were certain difficulties in the way. The attention of every

one was, of course, focused on the murdered man. I think any one could

have gone to the table unnoticed by the other people in the room. But

a dictaphone has a certain bulk—it cannot be slipped casually into

a pocket. There must have been a receptacle of some kind capable of

holding it.

“You see where I am arriving? The figure of the murderer is taking

shape. A person who was on the scene straightway, but who might not

have been if the crime had been discovered the following morning.

A person carrying a receptacle into which the dictaphone might be

fitted——”

I interrupted.

“But why remove the dictaphone? What was the point?”

“You are like Mr. Raymond. You take it for granted that what was heard

at nine-thirty was Mr. Ackroyd’s voice speaking into a dictaphone. But

consider this useful invention for a little minute. You dictate into

it, do you not? And at some later time a secretary or a typist turns it

on, and the voice speaks again.”

“You mean——” I gasped.

Poirot nodded.

“Yes, I mean that. _At nine-thirty Mr. Ackroyd was already dead._ It

was the dictaphone speaking—not the man.”

“And the murderer switched it on. Then he must have been in the room at

that minute?”

“Possibly. But we must not exclude the likelihood of some mechanical

device having been applied—something after the nature of a time lock,

or even of a simple alarm clock. But in that case we must add two

qualifications to our imaginary portrait of the murderer. It must be

some one who knew of Mr. Ackroyd’s purchase of the dictaphone and also

some one with the necessary mechanical knowledge.

“I had got thus far in my own mind when we came to the footprints on

the window ledge. Here there were three conclusions open to me. (1)

They might really have been made by Ralph Paton. He had been at Fernly

that night, and might have climbed into the study and found his uncle

dead there. That was one hypothesis. (2) There was the possibility that

the footmarks might have been made by somebody else who happened to

have the same kind of studs in his shoes. But the inmates of the house

had shoes soled with crepe rubber, and I declined to believe in the

coincidence of some one from outside having the same kind of shoes as

Ralph Paton wore. Charles Kent, as we know from the barmaid of the Dog

and Whistle, had on a pair of boots ‘clean dropping off him.’ (3) Those

prints were made by some one deliberately trying to throw suspicion

on Ralph Paton. To test this last conclusion, it was necessary to

ascertain certain facts. One pair of Ralph’s shoes had been obtained

from the Three Boars by the police. Neither Ralph nor any one else

could have worn them that evening, since they were downstairs being

cleaned. According to the police theory, Ralph was wearing another pair

of the same kind, and I found out that it was true that he had two

pairs. Now for my theory to be proved correct it was necessary for the

murderer to have worn Ralph’s shoes that evening—in which case Ralph

must have been wearing yet a _third_ pair of footwear of some kind.

I could hardly suppose that he would bring three pairs of shoes all

alike—the third pair of footwear were more likely to be boots. I got

your sister to make inquiries on this point—laying some stress on the

color, in order—I admit it frankly—to obscure the real reason for my

asking.

“You know the result of her investigations. Ralph Paton _had_ had a

pair of boots with him. The first question I asked him when he came to

my house yesterday morning was what he was wearing on his feet on the

fatal night. He replied at once that he had worn _boots_—he was still

wearing them, in fact—having nothing else to put on.

“So we get a step further in our description of the murderer—a person

who had the opportunity to take these shoes of Ralph Paton’s from the

Three Boars that day.”

He paused, and then said, with a slightly raised voice:—

“There is one further point. The murderer must have been a person who

had the opportunity to purloin that dagger from the silver table. You

might argue that any one in the house might have done so, but I will

recall to you that Miss Ackroyd was very positive that the dagger was

not there when she examined the silver table.”

He paused again.

“Let us recapitulate—now that all is clear. A person who was at the

Three Boars earlier that day, a person who knew Ackroyd well enough

to know that he had purchased a dictaphone, a person who was of a

mechanical turn of mind, who had the opportunity to take the dagger

from the silver table before Miss Flora arrived, who had with him a

receptacle suitable for hiding the dictaphone—such as a black bag, and

who had the study to himself for a few minutes after the crime was

discovered while Parker was telephoning for the police. In fact—_Dr.

Sheppard!_”