The Murder of Roger Ackroyd / Убийство Роджера Экройда - стр. 44

‘Oh! That was very simple. You leave Mr Ackroyd at – ten minutes to nine, was it not?’

‘Yes, exactly, I should say.’

‘The window is then closed and bolted and the door unlocked. At a quarter past ten when the body is discovered, the door is locked and the window is open. Who opened it? Clearly only Mr Ackroyd himself could have done so, and for one of two reasons. Either because the room became unbearably hot, but since the fire was nearly out and there was a sharp drop in temperature last night, that cannot be the reason, or because he admitted someone that way. And if he admitted someone that way, it must have been someone well known to him, since he had previously shown himself uneasy on the subject of that same window.’

‘It sounds very simple,’ I said.

‘Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically. We are concerned now with the personality of the person who was with him at nine-thirty last night. everything goes to show that that was the individual admitted by the window, and though Mr Ackroyd was seen alive later by Miss Flora, we cannot approach a solution of the mystery until we know who that visitor was. The window may have been left open after his departure and so afforded entrance to the murderer, or the same person may have returned a second time. Ah! here is the colonel who returns.’

Colonel Melrose entered with an animated manner.

‘That telephone call has been traced at last,’ he said. ‘It did not come from here. It was put through to Dr Sheppard at 10.15 last night from a public call office at king’s Abbot station. And at 10.23 the night mail leaves for Liverpool.’

We looked at each other.

‘You’ll have inquiries made at the station, of course?’ I said.

‘Naturally, but I’m not over sanguine as to the result. you know what that station is like.’

I did. king’s Abbot is a mere village, but its station happens to be an important junction. Most of the big expresses stop there, and trains are shunted, re-sorted, and made up. It has two or three public telephone boxes. At that time of night, three local trains come in close upon each other, to catch the connection with the express for the north which comes in at 10.19 and leaves at 10.23. The whole place is in a bustle, and the chances of one particular person being noticed telephoning or getting into the express are very small indeed.

‘But why telephone at all?’ demanded Melrose. ‘That is what I find so extraordinary. There seems no rhyme or reason in the thing.’