‘you’ll see. Ten to one she’s left a letter confessing everything.’
‘She didn’t leave a letter of any kind,’ I said sharply, and not seeing where the admission was going to land me.
‘Oh!’ said Caroline. ‘So you did inquire about that, did you? I believe, James, that in your heart of hearts, you think very much as I do. you’re a precious old humbug.’
‘One always has to take the possibility of suicide into consideration,’ I said impressively.
‘Will there be an inquest?’
‘There may be. It all depends. If I am able to declare myself absolutely satisfied that the overdose was taken accidentally, an inquest might be dispensed with.’
‘And are you absolutely satisfied?’ asked my sister shrewdly.
I did not answer, but got up from the table.
Chapter 2
Who’s Who in king’s Abbot
Before I proceed further with what I said to Caroline and what Caroline said to me, it might be as well to give some idea of what I should describe as our local geography. Our village, king’s Abbot, is, I imagine, very much like any other village. our big town is Cranchester, nine miles away. We have a large railway station, a small post office, and two rival ‘general Stores’. Able-bodied men are apt to leave the place early in life, but we are rich in unmarried ladies and retired military officers. our hobbies and recreations can be summed up in the one word, ‘gossip’.
There are only two houses of any importance in king’s Abbot. One is king’s Paddock, left to Mrs Ferrars by her late husband. The other, Fernly Park, is owned by roger Ackroyd. Ackroyd has always interested me by being a man more impossibly like a country squire than any country squire could really be. He reminds one of the red-faced sportsmen who always appeared early in the first act of an old-fashioned musical comedy, the setting being the village green. They usually sang a song about going up to London. Nowadays we have revues, and the country squire has died out of musical fashion.
Of course, Ackroyd is not really a country squire. He is an immensely successful manufacturer of (I think) wagon wheels. He is a man of nearly fifty years of age, rubicund of face and genial of manner. He is hand and glove with the vicar, subscribes liberally to parish funds (though rumour has it that he is extremely mean in personal expenditure), encourages cricket matches, Lads’ clubs, and disabled Soldiers’ Institutes. He is, in fact, the life and soul of our peaceful village of king’s Abbot.
Now when Roger Ackroyd was a lad of twenty-one, he fell in love with, and married, a beautiful woman some five or six years his senior. Her name was Paton, and she was a widow with one child. The history of the marriage was short and painful. To put it bluntly, Mrs Ackroyd was a dipsomaniac. She succeeded in drinking herself into her grave four years after her marriage.
In the years that followed, Ackroyd showed no disposition to make a second matrimonial adventure. his wife’s child by her first marriage was only seven years old when his mother died. He is now twenty-five. Ackroyd has always regarded him as his own son, and has brought him up accordingly, but he has been a wild lad and a continual source of worry and trouble to his stepfather. Nevertheless we are all very fond of ralph Paton in king’s Abbot. he is such a good-looking youngster for one thing.
As I said before, we are ready enough to gossip in our village. Everybody noticed from the first that Ackroyd and Mrs Ferrars got on very well together. After her husband’s death, the intimacy became more marked. They were always seen about together, and it was freely conjectured that at the end of her period of mourning, Mrs Ferrars would become Mrs Roger Ackroyd. It was felt, indeed, that there was a certain fitness in the thing. roger Ackroyd’s wife had admittedly died of drink. Ashley Ferrars had been a drunkard for many years before his death. It was only fitting that these two victims of alcoholic excess should make up to each other for all that they had previously endured at the hands of their former spouses.
The Ferrars only came to live here just over a year ago, but a halo of gossip has surrounded Ackroyd for many years past. All the time that ralph Paton was growing up to manhood a series of lady housekeepers presided over Ackroyd’s establishment, and each in turn was regarded with lively suspicion by Caroline and her cronies. It is not too much to say that for at least fifteen years the whole village has confidently expected Ackroyd to marry one of his housekeepers. The last of them, a redoubtable lady called Miss Russell, has reigned undisputed for five years, twice as long as any of her predecessors. It is felt that but for the advent of Mrs Ferrars, Ackroyd could hardly have escaped. That – and one other factor – the unexpected arrival of a widowed sister-in-law with her daughter from Canada. Mrs Cecil Ackroyd, widow of Ackroyd’s ne’er-dowell younger brother, has taken up her residence at Fernly Park, and has succeeded, according to Caroline, in putting Miss Russell in her proper place.
I don’t know exactly what a ‘proper place’ constitutes – it sounds chilly and unpleasant – but I know that Miss Russell goes about with pinched lips, and what I can only describe as an acid smile, and that she professes the utmost sympathy for ‘poor Mrs Ackroyd – dependent on the charity of her husband’s brother. The bread of charity is so bitter, is it not? I should be quite miserable if I did not work for my living.’
I don’t know what Mrs Cecil Ackroyd thought of the Ferrars affair when it came on the tapis. It was clearly to her advantage that Ackroyd should remain unmarried. She was always very charming – not to say gushing – to Mrs Ferrars when they met. Caroline says that proves less than nothing.
Such have been our preoccupations in king’s Abbot for the last few years. We have discussed Ackroyd and his affairs from every standpoint. Mrs Ferrars has fitted into her place in the scheme.
Now there has been a rearrangement of the kaleidoscope. From a mild discussion of probable wedding presents, we had been jerked into the midst of tragedy.
Revolving these and sundry other matters in my mind, I went mechanically on my round. I had no cases of special interest to attend, which was, perhaps, as well, for my thoughts returned again and again to the mystery of Mrs Ferrars’s death. had she taken her own life? Surely, if she had done so, she would have left some word behind to say what she contemplated doing? Women, in my experience, if they once reach the determination to commit suicide, usually wish to reveal the state of mind that led to the fatal action. They covet the limelight.
When had I last seen her? Not for over a week. her manner then had been normal enough considering – well- considering everything.
Then I suddenly remembered that I had seen her, though not to speak to, only yesterday. She had been walking with ralph Paton, and I had been surprised because I had had no idea that he was likely to be in king’s Abbot. I thought, indeed, that he had quarrelled finally with his stepfather. Nothing had been seen of him down here for nearly six months. They had been walking along, side by side, their heads close together, and she had been talking very earnestly.
I think I can safely say that it was at this moment that a foreboding of the future first swept over me. Nothing tangible as yet – but a vague premonition of the way things were setting. That earnest tête-à-tête between ralph Paton and Mrs ferrars the day before struck me disagreeably.
I was still thinking of it when I came face to face with Roger Ackroyd.
‘Sheppard!’ he exclaimed. ‘Just the man I wanted to get hold of. This is a terrible business.’
‘You’ve
