well pulled up and his hat squashed down over his eyes.’
‘H’m,’ said the inspector. ‘Looked as though he wanted to conceal his face. Sure it was no one you know?’
I replied in the negative, but not as decidedly as I might have done. I remembered my impression that the stranger’s voice was not unfamiliar to me. I explained this rather haltingly to the inspector.
‘It was a rough, uneducated voice, you say?’
I agreed, but it occurred to me that the roughness had been of an almost exaggerated quality. If, as the inspector thought, the man had wished to hide his face, he might equally well have tried to disguise his voice.
‘Do you mind coming into the study with me again, doctor? There are one or two things I want to ask you.’
I acquiesced. Inspector Davis unlocked the door of the lobby, we passed through, and he locked the door again behind him.
‘We don’t want to be disturbed,’ he said grimly. ‘And we don’t want any eavesdropping either. What’s all this about blackmail?’
‘Blackmail!’ I exclaimed, very much startled.
‘Is it an effort of Parker’s imagination? Or is there something in it?’
‘If Parker heard anything about blackmail,’ I said slowly, ‘he must have been listening outside this door with his ear glued against the keyhole.’
Davis nodded.
‘Nothing more likely. You see, I’ve been instituting a few inquiries as to what Parker has been doing with himself this evening. To tell the truth, I didn’t like his manner. The man knows something. When I began to question him, he got the wind up, and plumped out some garbled story of blackmail.’
I took an instant decision.
‘I’m rather glad you’ve brought the matter up,’ I said. ‘I’ve been trying to decide whether to make a clean breast of things or not. I’d already practically decided to tell you everything, but I was going to wait for a favourable opportunity. You might as well have it now.’
And then and there I narrated the whole events of the evening as I have set them down here. The inspector listened keenly, occasionally interjecting a question.
‘Most extraordinary story I ever heard,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘And you say that letter has completely disappeared? It looks bad – it looks very bad indeed. It gives us what we’ve been looking for – a motive for the murder.’
I nodded. ‘I realize that.’
‘You say that Mr Ackroyd hinted at a suspicion he had that some member of his household was involved? household’s rather an elastic term.’
‘You don’t think that Parker himself might be the man we’re after?’ I suggested.
‘It looks very like it. He was obviously listening at the door when you came out. Then Miss Ackroyd came across him later bent on entering the study. Say he tried again when she was safely out of the way. He stabbed Ackroyd, locked the door on the inside, opened the window, and got out that way, and went round to a side door which he had previously left open. How’s that?’
‘There’s only one thing against it,’ I said slowly. ‘If Ackroyd went on reading that letter as soon as I left, as he intended to do, I don’t see him continuing to sit on here and turn things over in his mind for another hour. he’d have had Parker in at once, accused him then and there, and there would have been a fine old uproar. remember, Ackroyd was a man of choleric temper.’
‘Mightn’t have had time to go on with the letter just then,’ suggested the inspector. ‘We know someone was with him at half-past nine. If that visitor turned up as soon as you left, and after he went, Miss Ackroyd came in to say goodnight – well, he wouldn’t be able to go on with the letter until close upon ten o’clock.’
‘And the telephone call?’
‘Parker sent that all right – perhaps before he thought of the locked door and open window. Then he changed his mind – or got in a panic – and decided to deny all knowledge of it. That was it, depend upon it.’
‘Ye – es,’ I said rather doubtfully.
‘Anyway, we can find out the truth about the telephone call from the exchange. If it was put through from here, I don’t see how anyone else but Parker could have sent it. depend upon it, he’s our man. But keep it dark – we don’t want to alarm him just yet, till we’ve got all the evidence. I’ll see to it he doesn’t give us the slip. To all appearances we’ll be concentrating on your mysterious stranger.’
He rose from where he had been sitting astride the chair belonging to the desk, and crossed over to the still form in the armchair.
‘The weapon ought to give us a clue,’ he remarked, looking up. ‘It’s something quite unique – a curio, I should think, by the look of it.’
He bent down, surveying the handle attentively, and I heard him give a grunt of satisfaction. Then, very gingerly, he pressed his hands down below the hilt and drew the blade out from the wound. Still carrying it so as not to touch the handle, he placed it in a wide china mug which adorned the mantelpiece.
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding at it. ‘Quite a work of art. There can’t be many of them about.’
It was indeed a beautiful object. A narrow, tapering blade, and a hilt of elaborately intertwined metals of curious and careful workmanship. he touched the blade gingerly with his finger, testing its sharpness, and made an appreciative grimace.
‘Lord, what an edge,’ he exclaimed. ‘A child could drive that into a man – as easy as cutting butter. A dangerous sort of toy to have about.’
‘May I examine the body properly now?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘Go ahead.’
I made a thorough examination.
‘Well?’ said the inspector, when I had finished.
‘I’ll spare you the technical language,’ I said. ‘We’ll keep that for the inquest. The blow was delivered by a righthanded man standing behind him, and death must have been instantaneous. By the expression on the dead man’s face, I should say that the blow was quite unexpected. he may have died without knowing who his assailant was.’
‘Butlers can creep about as soft-footed as cats,’ said inspector Davis. ‘There’s not going to be much mystery about this crime. Take a look at the hilt of that dagger.’
I took the look.
‘I dare say they’re not apparent to you, but I can see them clearly enough.’ he lowered his voice. ‘Fingerprints!’
He stood off a few steps to judge of his effect.
‘Yes,’ I said mildly. ‘I guessed that.’
I do not see why I should be supposed to be totally
