Roger Mystery

Chapter 37 The whole truth
Poirot quietly motioned for me to stay.I did so, and went to the fireplace, kicking the logs in the stove with the toe of my boot, and meditating.

At this moment, I was very confused, and for the first time I was completely confused about Poirot's intentions.The scene just now is probably again Poirot's bravado - "a comedy", as he puts it - that makes one feel that he is both amusing and in control.Even so, the scene just now was so realistic that I couldn't believe it.The deterrence in his words is obvious, and his attitude is beyond doubt.But I still feel that his reasoning is all wrong.

Seeing off the last guest, he closed the door and went to the fireplace.

"Well, my friend," he said calmly, "what do you think?"

"I don't know what to make of it," I said frankly. "What on earth are you up to? Why didn't you just inform Inspector Raglan of the truth instead of warning the criminal with great fanfare?"

Poirot sat down, took out a small Russian cigarette case, smoked in silence for a while, and then said: "Use your little gray cells," he said, "I have a reason for everything I do."

I hesitated for a while before answering slowly: "My first reaction is, you don't know who the murderer is, but he must be among the group tonight. Your purpose of saying that is to force this The unknown murderer surrendered himself."

Poirot nodded appreciatively.

"It's a good idea, but I didn't guess right."

"I guess you want him to believe that you've found out everything, so that you can lure the snake out of the hole and force him to take the initiative-not necessarily to bow his head and confess. Maybe he will try to silence you before you call the police tomorrow morning- Just as he silenced Mr Ackroyd once and for all."

"Take yourself as bait! Thanks, my friend, but I'm not that brave."

"Then I don't understand. Aren't you giving the murderer a warning and giving him a chance to escape?"

Poirot shook his head.

"He cannot escape," he said seriously. "There is only one road ahead of him—and that road does not lead to freedom."

"Do you really believe the murderer is among the crowd tonight?" I was dubious.

"Yes, my friend."

"Which one is it?"

Poirot was silent for a few minutes, threw his cigarette butt into the fireplace, and began to speak in a calm, well-thought-out tone.

"Please revisit the trajectory of my investigation and follow my thoughts step by step. In the end, you will find that all the facts point to one person irrefutably. Well, first of all, there are two facts and a small time conflict. It caught my attention. The first one was the phone call. If the murderer was really Ralph Payton, the phone call would be meaningless. It wouldn't make any sense. So I decided that Ralph Payton was not the murderer. "

"After confirmation, it is impossible for anyone in Finley Manor to make the call, but I firmly believe that the murderer was among the people who appeared in the manor on the night of the murder. From this, I concluded that the caller must be an accomplice. I Not happy with it, so I had to put it aside for the time being."

"Next, I will focus on the motivation for the phone call. This is a big problem, and it can only be deduced in reverse through the judgment result. And the result of this call is-the murder happened on the night of the murder-otherwise it will probably be delayed until the next day. Only found out two days ago. Do you agree with that?"

"Yes—yes," I admitted, "it is true that, as you say, Mr Ackroyd ordered no one to be disturbed, so it is probable that no one will be in the study that night."

"Very good. Isn't this a step forward? But the case is still stalemate. The crime happened that night. Compared with finding the dead the next morning, what advantage did the murderer get? My only inference is: the murderer wanted to control the crime. Time to make sure he was there when the door was broken in - or could have arrived right away. Next to fact number two - a chair was dragged from the wall. Inspector Raglan ignored the Its importance. And I, on the contrary, always think it is extremely critical."

"You drew a clear layout of the study in the manuscript. If you take it with you, you will find it at a glance-the position of the chair pointed out by Parker is exactly at the two points of the door and the window. on a straight line between the

"Cover the windows!" I quickly responded.

"You had the same idea as I did at first. I thought dragging out the chair would block something from the window to prevent people coming in through the door from seeing it. But I quickly overturned that assumption. Because the old chair Although the back of the chair is high, it can only cover a small part of the window-only the part between the window and the ground. No, my friend-remember, there is a desk in front of the window, and the table Books and magazines were piled up. And when this chair was pulled out, it completely covered the table—in an instant, I glimpsed a corner of the truth."

"Did the murderer not want people to see something on the table? Was it something the murderer put there? Although I didn't have a clue at the time, around this point, I can conclude several interesting conditions. For example, the The murderer couldn't take it with him when he committed the crime, and he had to remove it as soon as possible after the crime. So the murderer had to rely on that phone call to have the opportunity to be at the scene when the body was found."

"Before the police arrived, there were four people on the scene: you, Parker, Major Brant, and Mr. Raymond. I immediately ruled out Parker, because he must have been present whenever the incident occurred. And the chair was He also told me what was dragged out, so Parker is innocent (the murder has nothing to do with him, but I still think he is probably the one who blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars). Raymond and Brant's doubts cannot be ruled out, Because if the incident happened early the next morning, they might not be able to arrive in time, and the things on the table would be exposed.”

"So, what is it? Did you understand my analysis of the passage Raymond overheard tonight? As soon as I learned that the salesman from the dictating recorder company had come, I decided that the dictaphone must have played an important role in the case. Did you hear the reasoning I made less than half an hour ago? They all agreed with me, but they all seemed to miss one crucial point: Suppose Mr. Aykroyd The dictaphone was used that night, why did the dictaphone disappear later?"

"I never thought about it," I said.

"We know that Mr. Ackroyd has bought a dictating machine, but there is no trace of it among his belongings. So if something is taken from the table - isn't it the dictating machine? But , it was difficult to remove the thing. While all attention was on the dead man at the time, it should be possible for anyone to approach the desk without attracting attention, but a dictaphone is quite large , not something that can be stuffed into a pocket casually. There must be a container big enough to hold it.”

"Following my train of thought? A murderer is emerging. Someone who wants to get to the scene as soon as possible, who might be out of reach if the crime happens the next morning; someone who carries a container big enough for a dictaphone." -"

I interrupted him: "But why did you take the dictaphone away? For what purpose?"

"You, like Mr. Raymond, take it for granted that the voice heard at 09:30 was Mr. Ackroyd speaking into a dictating recorder. But please consider the utility of this new invention. As long as you use it to dictate, you will later A secretary or a typist can turn on the dictating machine and hear your voice literally."

"You mean—" I gasped.

"Yes, that's what I meant. Mr Ackroyd was dead at 09:30. It was the dictating machine that was speaking - not himself."

"And the man who turned on the dictaphone was the murderer. So he must have been in the room then?"

"Very likely. But it is not ruled out that the murderer used some kind of mechanical device - some kind of timing device or simple alarm clock or something. But then the murderer must meet two conditions: Know that Mr. Aykroyd bought a dictation recorder , and have the necessary mechanical knowledge."

"Before I saw the shoe prints on the window sill, my above thoughts had already taken shape. According to the shoe prints, I can draw three different conclusions: [-]. The shoe prints may indeed be left by Ralph Payton. Having been to Finley Manor, it is possible to climb into the study through the window and find the stepfather dead. This is the first hypothesis. Second, the shoe prints may have been left by someone who happened to have the same rubber studs on the soles. But all People wear plain cloth shoes, and I don't believe that some outsider happened to wear exactly the same shoes as Ralph Paton. As for Charles Kent, according to the testimony of the 'dog whistle' barmaid, he wore A pair of 'very cheap' boots. [-]. Those shoe prints were deliberately left by someone with the intention of blaming Ralph Paton. In order to test this last inference, it is necessary to ascertain certain facts. The police from The 'Three Boars' had a pair of Ralph's shoes which neither Ralph nor anyone else could have worn that night because the soles were clean. The police view is that Ralph was wearing another pair of the same shoes, And I also found out that he did have two pairs of these shoes. Then, according to my line of thinking, the murderer wore Ralph's shoes that night-so Ralph must have worn another pair of shoes. It is difficult to imagine that he would Bring three pairs of shoes of the same type—this third pair is more likely to be boots. I ask your sister to investigate the matter—and, frankly, I have deliberately focused on the color of the boots to conceal my real intentions.”

"You know the results of her investigation. Ralph Paton did bring a pair of boots with him. When he arrived at my house yesterday morning, the first question I asked was what shoes he was wearing on the night of the murder. He Replied without hesitation that he was wearing boots - in fact they were still on his feet - and he had no other shoes to wear."

"And so we're one step closer to who the killer really is - a man who had the opportunity to go to 'The Three Boars' that day and take Ralph Paton's shoes."

He paused for a moment, raising his voice slightly.

"Going one step further, the murderer must have been someone who had had a chance to steal the dagger from the silver table. You may object that anyone in the manor could have done it, but I remind you, Flora Eyre Croyd was so sure that when she checked the silver table, the short sword was gone."

He paused again.

"Let's recap - now the truth is out. Someone who went to 'The Three Wild Boars' earlier in the day; someone who knew Aykroyd well enough to know he bought a dictaphone; a man of principle; a man who had a chance of stealing the short sword from the silver table before Miss Flora's arrival; The man who had had the opportunity to spend a few minutes alone in the study when Parker called the police after the incident. In fact it was—Dr. Shepherd!"

(End of this chapter)