The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th⁠–⁠17th September⁠—a Thursday. I was sent for at eight o’clock on the morning of Friday the 17th. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours.

It was just a few minutes after nine when I reached home once more. I opened the front door with my latchkey, and purposely delayed a few moments in the hall, hanging up my hat and the light overcoat that I had deemed a wise precaution against the chill of an early autumn morning. To tell the truth, I was considerably upset and worried. I am not going to pretend that at that moment I foresaw the events of the next few weeks. I emphatically did not do so. But my instinct told me that there were stirring times ahead.

From the dining room on my left there came the rattle of teacups and the short, dry cough of my sister Caroline.

“Is that you, James?” she called.

An unnecessary question, since who else could it be? To tell the truth, it was precisely my sister Caroline who was the cause of my few minutes’ delay. The motto of the mongoose family, so Mr. Kipling tells us, is: “Go and find out.” If Caroline ever adopts a crest, I should certainly suggest a mongoose rampant. One might omit the first part of the motto. Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home.

“I believe,” said Caroline, “that he’s got one of those new vacuum cleaners⁠—”

I saw a meditated loan and the opportunity of further questioning gleaming from her eye. I seized the chance to escape into the garden. I am rather fond of gardening. I was busily exterminating dandelion roots when a shout of warning sounded from close by and a heavy body whizzed by my ears and fell at my feet with a repellent squelch. It was a vegetable marrow!

I looked up angrily. Over the wall, to my left, there appeared a face. An egg-shaped head, partially covered with suspiciously black hair, two immense moustaches, and a pair of watchful eyes. It was our mysterious neighbour, Mr. Porrott.

He broke at once into fluent apologies.

“I demand of you a thousand pardons, monsieur. I am without defence. For some months now I cultivate the marrows. This morning suddenly I enrage myself with these marrows. I send them to promenade themselves⁠—alas! not only mentally but physically. I seize the biggest. I hurl him over the wall. Monsieur, I am ashamed. I prostrate myself.”

“Yes. Nobody can overhear; don’t be uneasy.”

“Sheppard, nobody knows what I’ve gone through in the last twenty-four hours. If a man’s house ever fell in ruin about him, mine has about me. This business of Ralph’s is the last straw. But we won’t talk about that now. It’s the other⁠—the other⁠—! I don’t know what to do about it. And I’ve got to make up my mind soon.”

“What’s the trouble?”

Ackroyd remained silent for a minute or two. He seemed curiously averse to begin. When he did speak, the question he asked came as a complete surprise. It was the last thing I expected.

“Sheppard, you attended Ashley Ferrars in his last illness, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

He seemed to find even greater difficulty in framing his next question.

“Did you ever suspect⁠—did it ever enter your head⁠—that⁠—well, that he might have been poisoned?”

I was silent for a minute or two. Then I made up my mind as to what to say. Roger Ackroyd was not Caroline.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” I said. “At the time I had no suspicion whatever, but since⁠—well, it was mere idle talk on my sister’s part that first put the idea into my head. Since then I haven’t been able to get it out again. But mind you, I’ve no foundation whatever for that suspicion.”

“He was poisoned,” said Ackroyd. He spoke in a dull heavy voice.

“Who by?” I asked sharply.

“His wife.”

“How do you know that?”

“She told me so herself.”

“When?”

“Yesterday! My God! Yesterday! It seems ten years ago.”

I waited a minute, and then he went on.

The odd thing was that his voice reminded me of someone’s voice that I knew, but whose it was I could not think.

Ten minutes later I was at home once more. Caroline was full of curiosity to know why I had returned so early. I had to make up a slightly fictitious account of the evening in order to satisfy her, and I had an uneasy feeling that she saw through the transparent device.

At ten o’clock I rose, yawned, and suggested bed. Caroline acquiesced.

It was Friday night, and on Friday night I wind the clocks. I did it as usual, whilst Caroline satisfied herself that the servants had locked up the kitchen properly.

It was a quarter past ten as we went up the stairs. I had just reached the top when the telephone rang in the hall below.

“Mrs. Bates,” said Caroline immediately.

“I’m afraid so,” I said ruefully.

I ran down the stairs and took up the receiver.

“What?” I said. “What? Certainly, I’ll come at once.”

I ran upstairs, caught up my bag, and stuffed a few extra dressings into it.

“Parker telephoning,” I shouted to Caroline, “from Fernly. They’ve just found Roger Ackroyd murdered.”