I did what little had to be done. I was careful not to disturb the position of the body, and not to handle the dagger at all. No object was to be attained by moving it.
Ackroyd had clearly been dead some little time.
Then I heard young Raymond's voice, horrorstricken and incredulous, outside.
'What do you say? Oh! impossible! Where's the doctor?' He appeared impetuously in the doorway, then stopped dead, his face very white. A hand put him aside, and Hector Blunt came past him into the room.
'My God!' said Raymond from behind him; 'it's true, then.' Blunt came straight on till he reached the chair. He bent over the body, and I thought that, like Parker, he was going to lay hold of the dagger hilt. I drew him back with one hand.
'Nothing must be moved,' I explained. 'The police must see him exactly as he is now.' Blunt nodded in instant comprehension. His face was expressionless as ever, but I thought I detected signs of emotion beneath the stolid mask. Geoffrey Raymond had joined us now, and stood peering over Blunt's shoulder at the body.
'This is terrible,' he said in a low voice.
He had regained his composure, but as he took off the pince-nez he habitually wore and polished them I observed that his hand was shaking.
'Robbery, I suppose,' he said. 'How did the fellow get in?
Through the window? Has anything been taken?' He went towards the desk.
'You think it's burglary?' I said slowly.
'What else could it be? There's no question of suicide, I suppose?' 'No man could stab himself in such a way,' I said confidently.
'It's murder right enough. But with what motive?' 'Roger hadn't an enemy in the world,' said Blunt quietly.
'Must have been burglars. But what was the thief after?
Nothing seems to be disarranged?' He looked round the room. Raymond was still sorting the papers on the desk.
'There seems nothing missing, and none of the drawers show signs of having been tampered with,' the secretary observed at last. 'It's very mysterious.' Blunt made a slight motion with his head.
'There are some letters on the floor here,' he said.
I looked down. Three or four letters still lay where Ackroyd had dropped them earlier in the evening.
But the blue envelope containing Mrs Ferrars's letter had disappeared. I half opened my mouth to speak, but at that moment the sound of a bell pealed through the house. There was a confused murmur of voices in the hall, and then Parker appeared with our local inspector and a police constable.
'Good evening, gentlemen,' said the inspector. 'I'm terribly sorry for this! A good kind gentleman like Mr Ackroyd. The butler says it's murder. No possibility of accident or suicide, doctor?' 'None whatever,' I said.
'Ah! A bad business.' He came and stood over the body.
'Been moved at all?' he asked sharply.
'Beyond making certain that life was extinct - an easy matter - I have not disturbed the body in any way.' 'Ah! And everything points to the murderer having got clear away - for the moment, that is. Now then, let me hear all about it. Who found the body?' I explained the circumstances carefully.
'A telephone message, you say? From the butler?' 'A message that I never sent,' declared Parker earnestly.
'I've not been near the telephone the whole evening. The others can bear me out that I haven't.' 'Very odd, that. Did it sound like Parker's voice, doctor?' 'Well - I can't say I noticed. I took it for granted, you see.' 'Naturally. Well, you got up here, broke in the door, and found poor Mr Ackroyd like this. How long should you say he had been dead, doctor?' 'Half an hour at least - perhaps longer,' I said.
'The door was locked on the inside, you say? What about the window?' 'I myself closed and bolted it earlier in the evening at Mr Ackroyd's request.' The inspector strode across to it and threw back the curtains.
'Well, it's open now, anyway,' he remarked, True enough, the window was open, the lower sash being raised to its fullest extent.
The inspector produced a pocket torch and flashed it along the sill outside.
'This is the way he went all right,' he remarked, 'and got in.
See here.' In the light of the powerful torch, several clearly defined footmarks could be seen. They seemed to be those of shoes with rubber studs in the soles. One particularly clear one pointed inwards, another, slightly overlapping it, pointed outwards.
'Plain as a pikestaff,' said the inspector. 'Any valuables missing?' Geoffrey Raymond shook his head.
'Not so far that we can discover. Mr Ackroyd never kept anything of particular value in this room.' 'H'm,' said the inspector. 'Man found an open window, climbed in, saw Mr Ackroyd sitting there - maybe he'd fallen asleep. Man stabbed him from behind, then lost his nerve and made off. But he's left his tracks pretty clearly. We ought to get hold of him without much difficulty. No suspicious strangers been hanging about anywhere?' 'Oh!' I said suddenly.
'What is it, doctor?' 'I met a man this evening - just as I was turning out of the gate. He asked me the way to Fernly Park.' 'What time would that be?' 'Just nine o'clock. I heard it chime the hour as I was turning out of the gate.' 'Can you describe him?' I did so to the best of my ability.
The inspector turned to the butler.
'Anyone answering that description come to the front door?' 'No, sir. No one has been to the house at all this evening.' 'What about the back?' 'I don't think so, sir, but I'll make inquiries.' He moved towards the door, but the inspector held up a large hand.
'No, thanks. I'll do my own inquiring. But first of all I want to fix the times a little more clearly. When was Mr Ackroyd last seen alive?' 'Probably by me,' I said, 'when I left at - let me see about ten minutes to nine. He told me that he didn't wish to be disturbed, and I repeated the order to Parker.' 'Just so, sir,' said Parker respectfully.
'Mr Ackroyd was certainly alive at half-past nine,' put in Raymond, 'for I heard his voice in here talking.' 'Who was he talking to?' 'That I don't know. Of course, at the time I took it for granted that it was Dr Sheppard who was with him. I wanted to ask him a question about some papers I was engaged upon, but when I heard the voices I-remembered that he had said he wanted to talk to Dr Sheppard without being disturbed, and I went away again. But now it seems that the doctor had already left?' I nodded.
'I was at home by a quarter past nine,' I said. 'I didn't go out again until I received the telephone call.' 'Who could have been with him at half-past nine?' queried the inspector. 'It wasn't you, Mr - er ' 'Major Blunt,' I said.
'Major Hector Blunt?' asked the inspector, a respectful tone creeping into his voice.
Blunt merely jerked his head affirmatively.
'I think we've seen you down here before, sir,' said the inspector. 'I didn't recognize you for the moment, but you were staying with Mr Ackroyd a year ago last May.' 'June,' corrected Blunt.
'Just so, June it was. Now, as I was saying, it wasn't you with Mr Ackroyd at nine-thirty this evening?' Blunt shook his head.
'Never saw him after dinner,' he volunteered.
The inspector turned once more to Raymond.
'You didn't overhear any of the conversation going on, did you, sir?' 'I did catch just a fragment of it,' said the secretary, 'and, supposing as I did that it was Dr Sheppard who was with Mr Ackroyd, that fragment str
uck me as distinctly odd. As far as I can remember, the exact words were these. Mr Ackroyd was speaking. "The calls on my purse have been so frequent of late" - that is what he was saying - "of late, that I fear it is impossible for me to accede to your request…" I went away again at once, of course, so I did not hear any more. But I rather wondered because Dr Sheppard ' ' - Does not ask for loans for himself or subscriptions for others,' I finished.
'A demand for money,' said the inspector musingly. 'It may be that here we have a very important clue.' He turned to the butler. 'You say, Parker, that nobody was admitted by the front door this evening?' 'That's what I say, sir.' 'Then it seems almost certain that Mr Ackroyd himself must have admitted this stranger. But I don't quite see ' The inspector went into a kind of day-dream for some minutes.
'One thing's clear,' he said at length, rousing himself from his absorption, 'Mr Ackroyd was alive and well at nine-thirty.
That is the last moment at which he is known to have been alive.' Parker gave vent to an apologetic cough which brought the inspector's eyes on him at once.
'Well?' he said sharply.
'If you'll excuse me, sir. Miss Flora saw him after that.' 'Miss Flora?' 'Yes, sir. About a quarter to ten that would be. It was after that that she told me Mr Ackroyd wasn't to be disturbed again tonight.' 'Did he send her to you with that message?' 'Not exactly, sir. I was bringing a tray with soda and whisky when Miss Flora, who was just coming out of this room, stopped me and said her uncle didn't want to be disturbed.' The inspector looked at the butler with rather closer attention than he had bestowed on him up to now.
'You'd already been told that Mr Ackroyd didn't want to be disturbed, hadn't you?' Parker began to stammer. His hands shook.
'Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Quite so, sir.' 'And yet you were proposing to do so?' 'I'd forgotten, sir. At least I mean, I always bring the whisky and soda about that time, sir, and ask if there's anything more, and I thought - well, I was doing as usual without thinking.' It was at this moment that it began to dawn upon me that Parker was most suspiciously flustered. The man was shaking and twitching all over.