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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

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“This is Agatha Christie’s masterpiece, and if she never wrote another word, she’d have still gone down as the Queen.” –LOUISE PENNY, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Ingenious and unexpected.” –NEW YORK TIMES

The official edition of the beloved classic voted by the British Crime Writers’ Association as the "Best Crime Novel of all Time," now featuring a new introduction by Louise Penny, a foreword from Agatha Christie's great grandson, and exclusive content from the Queen of Mystery.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with an apparent drug overdose.

However, the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information, but before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death. Luckily one of Roger’s friends and the newest resident to retire to this normally quiet village takes over—none other than Monsieur Hercule Poirot . . .

Not only beloved by generations of readers, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was one of Agatha Christie’s own favorite works—a brilliant whodunit that firmly established the author’s reputation as the Queen of Mystery.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 17, 2009
ISBN9780061763403
Author

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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Reviews for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Rating: 4.317829457364341 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Christie is such fun and this made for good escapist reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Warning: Contains spoilerA murder is committed in the sleepy village of King's Abbot but, as luck will have it, the famous detective Hercule Poirot has taken up residence there to enjoy his retirement. When the murdered man's niece, Flora Ackroyd, urges him to take on the case, Poirot acquiesces and begins to make enquiries ...This was an enjoyable murder mystery, though in my opinion not Agatha Christie's best: agreed, the murder is committed in the most cunning method, but there's a distinct lack of credible alternative culprits that makes the 'who', if not the 'how', relatively easy to work out. Today considered a classic among Christie's works, this is the earliest example of the stylistic device of an unreliable narrator used that I'm aware of (the novel was published in 1926), and deserves recognition for that fact alone.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Who has never heard of Hercule Poirot? He's almost as popular as Sherlock Holmes. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Poirot emerges from retirement to uncover the killer of Roger Ackroyd, found with a knife in his neck. But, that is not the first death in the story. Mrs. Ferrars commits suicide after admitting she poisoned her husband.It is easy to see why this story is such a classic. It has it all: secrets, romance, murder, suicide, blackmail, and a bevy of suspects (including a butler). The story is told from the perspective of Dr. James Settles, the doctor who was on hand to examine Roger Ackroyd's body after the murder. He is the perfect narrator as he becomes Poirot's right hand man and seems to be involved...in everything.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Without spoilers, this accomplishes something I never expected in terms of structure. It's difficult to get into specifics without ruining the mystery, but there is something done here that I've never seen another mystery author do, and it's done extremely well. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The master. The ending of this mystery was incredibly unique and daring at the time. I don't think you could do it again in a modern book without being ripped to shreds by the critics as a thief.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Like one of Nabokov's narrators, this one is not completely reliable. Hercule Poirot investigates and rules everyone else out. And then we hit the twist at an end. We should have known - after all Hastings wasn't around.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of Agatha Christie's very best, in my view - almost a classic. Hercule Poirot is involved in solving a difficult murder case, and it's one of the cleverest plots I've come across. I managed to guess 'whodunit' about three pages before it was revealed.. so the clues were clearly there, but well-hidden until the end.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Roger Ackroyd has been found dead with a knife in the back of his neck, and there are a bevvy of suspects. Dr. James Sheppard, the doctor who discovers the body, joins Hercule Poirrot in the investigation after Roger's niece convinces Poirrot to come out of retirment. Plenty of twists, but nothing stellar for me, although I did enjoy it.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Evidently, I did myself a great disservice when I read "And Then There Were None" as my first Agatha Christie book. It was so incredibly awesome, shocking and clever that I can't help but compare the rest of her books to it.

    Unfortunately. I read "Mysterious Affair at Styles" and became so bogged down as to dislike the book. However, I gave it three looks based on the fact that it was her first book and written in 1920.

    Not so much with this one. I found this one to be character-heavy, as I supposed all mysteries must be in order to cast cause and guilt on all of them. However, I had trouble keeping the characters separate and distinct. I was never really invested in the story, and didn't care a whit that poor Mr. Ackroyd was dead at all. I must admit that the ending was a huge surprise, so much so that it was completely unbelievable and implausible.

    I will continue to read Agatha Christie books because ... well, because it is Agatha Christie ... but I will hesitate to recommend them.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another Christie classic! Very enjoyable!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A wealthy widow commits suicide, but she sends a letter to Roger Ackroyd telling him that blackmail concerning her late husband’s suspicious death is what drove her to this final act. When he is then found stabbed in his locked study, suspicion quickly falls on his nephew, who is known for his easy life style and mounting debts, and who has disappeared.

    This is a variation on the “locked room” murder – a house full of people with various motives for wanting Ackroyd dead, a missing ne’er-do-well nephew, and clues that don’t quite match up. At least not until the vacationing, retired Hercule Poirot employs his “little gray cells.”

    I thought it was a bit slow to get started, but it certainly kept me guessing right to the end. I’m not a fan of the “confession” reveal, but Poirot had pretty much laid it out for the reader just before that epilogue.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Our car "read" on the drive to and from Delaware this past weekend. I knew the solution to this one (I feel like I've always known, even before ever seeing a movie of it or anything--someone must have spoiled it at some point in the ether of time), and it was great fun to listen to it knowing how it comes out and trying to see how things fit together in light of that knowledge. Very enjoyable story and very well done. Hugh Fraser also did an excellent job reading it (though husbeast and I did have to keep reminding ourselves that the first-person narrator was not Hastings, who Fraser played in the Suchet Poirot series. After a bit, I forgot it was "Hastings" reading, though, as Fraser really was very good at voices and narration.). I look forward to reading this one in print sometime too, to see even better how Christie did it. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    waw, what an ending. Poirot, and thus succeedingly madame Christie herself, are so incredibly clever in this book that as a reader one can only feel silly and stupid for not finding the murderer or Roger Ackroyd before it's plainly laid out in front of your eyes.

    As always, lovely English, great characters, wonderful suspense and interesting from the first to the last page. Agatha Christie is a star.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In the village of King's Abbot, a still-young widow, Mrs. Ferrars, commits suicide, sparking rumours that she did it from remorse over killing her abusive husband a year previously. Roger Ackroyd, the wealthiest man in the district, tells the local physician, Dr. Sheppard, that he asked Mrs. Ferrars to marry him and that she confessed to killing her husband and being blackmailed. A letter arrives posthumously from Mrs. Ferrars to Ackroyd, almost certainly naming the blackmailer. Roger Ackroyd is murdered later that night in his locked study. Hercule Poirot, the fussy little Belgian detective with the trademark moustache and "the little grey cells", without his sidekick, Captain Hastings, this time, has rented the cottage next to Dr. Sheppard. When Flora Ackroyd, Roger's niece, begs Poirot to investigate her uncle's death, he agrees, although he warns her that, if he takes the case, "I shall go through with it to the end. The good dog, he does not leave the scent, remember! You may wish that, after all, you had left it to the local police."The revelation of the murderer was a great shock to readers, and has been since the book was first published in 1926. I remember how stunned I was to learn who it was, when I first read the book as a teen around 1964. One of Agatha Christie's most famous mysteries, and one which still deserves its place as a classic Golden Age detective story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the greatest suspense i had in years
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Told in first person by Dr. Sheppard the village physician regarding the murder of local a local gentlemen investigated by a recently retired Hercules Poirot.I love the ending to this book. It is unusual for Christie to have created a Poirot mystery, fist person narrated. However, she does put forth the clues and you can try to solve the mystery on your own. It does get dry at times with typical over excited English women and overly stuffy English men. The love interests get tiresome to watch. But, the ending is quite grand. I may have to listed to it again just to see if I could have figured it out from the clues presented.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'd forgotten how much fun an old-fashioned British detective story can be.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Typical Christie, totally hoodwinked me on who the murderer was and I'd even read it before!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My boyfriend and I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd together, and we kept a series of google docs of our clues and suspects and timelines. It was really fun, it made me really appreciate why the reveal is so legendary, surprising and controversial. There were plenty of clues to figure it out; logically, it was almost too obvious and did cross my mind... but I won't give it away.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    About 2/3 of the way through, I guessed who the murderer was. But still, an enjoyable story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm glad I read this straight after reading The Big Four, it is really the opposite extreme of Christie's abilities. The twist is just fantastic so if you have read it you must not tell anyone.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very surprising. Well written with a great twist. Enjoyable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie *****Having watched the Tv adaptations of Poirot starring the brilliant David Suchet I thought it was about time I picked up one of the original novels. I have never read anything by Agatha Christie before and if I am perfectly honest have never really fancied the Whodoneit type of novel. So when I came across The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in a second hand bookstore for the sum of 25p I snatched it up and settled down for a read.Firstly, despite the age of the novel (written in 1926) the language used doesn't seem to have aged at all. This surprised me as many other Authors I have read from the era such as Nevil Shute the words sometimes seem slightly archaic. The reader immediately becomes enveloped in the world of small village gossip in the early part of the 20th century with the entire book being narrated by Dr James Sheppard. I assume that he is some sort of stand in for the more regular Captain Hastings. The novel is written so that we, the reader, only know as much as Poirot is willing to divulge to Dr Sheppard, this accompanied by the Doctors own thoughts and feelings keep us guessing all the way. The clues are brilliantly laid out throughout the pages and at the end you cannot help but wonder how you did not come to the same conclusions as the great detective (in fact I may well revisit it one day just to see where I missed all the vital information). As always the entire novel leads up to a final meeting of all suspects and a very unexpected and dramatic conclusion.A really well written book and I am glad I chose this as my introduction to Christie. I am sure that if I come across another Poirot mystery I will pick it up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 starsRoger Ackroyd has a stepson (Ralph) and a nice (Flora), who are planning to marry. Roger himself is a widower and is involved with Mrs. Ferrars (also a widow). Dr. Sheppard is a friend and this is whose viewpoint we are hearing the story from. When Dr. Sheppard receives a phone call, he heads over and finds Roger murdered. Flora brings in M. Poirot to help solve the crime. Most things point to Ralph as the prime suspect. I quite liked it. I found it humourous at times with little quips here and there. This might be one of the ones I've liked better of those I've read by Christie (admittedly not very many). The revelation of the murderer was definitely a surprise
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This has been on my to be read list forever. I have started it more than once in the past and for whatever reason put it down without finishing. Well, I finally finished. Am I happy I read it? I guess. For me it was an easy read of a classic mystery. Not the best or the worst I have read. I wonder if I had read this book first before reading other mysteries if I would have rated it higher?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love Agatha Christie novels, they're so much fun! This one is no exception -- Hercule Poiroit, in retirement is just as smart and observant as he is in the earlier novels.

    This is a fun, light, easy read that's definitely worth it. Good airplane/beach reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Clever - very, very clever. I mean, I know that Agatha Christie has a reputation for being clever, but this is a particularly good one, I think. The key to successful mysteries is being given the clues to the solution, but concealed enough that you're not likely to put them together without help. Too obvious, and the fun is gone. Too much information missing, and the reader feels cheated by the revelations.Hercule Poirot is the detective in this one, assisted by the town doctor and the doctor's sister, who is a town gossip and fancies herself an amateur detective. If you think about it, the qualities required to be an effective gossip are the same as to be a successful detective, so I guess it makes sense. The enjoyment in mysteries is in the hunt, and this book is just about all hunt since the crime is revealed in the title, let alone the first few pages of the book, so it's a tight, fast-paced read. Once I was finished with it, I was interested to read the comments and reviews from contemporary sources. Boy, some of them had serious problems with the book! And they also weren't shy about revealing major plot twists in reviews, so definitely don't read them until you're done. But for me, it was an interesting peek into what people thought at the time.Recommended for: people who love to figure out "whodunnit," people who enjoy logic problems.Quote: ""The English people, they have a mania for the fresh air," declared Poirot. "The big air, it is all very well outside, where it belongs. Why admit it to the house?""
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quite pleased with myself as I managed to work out who the murderer was before it was revealed in the story. The first time I have ever been able to do that with an Agatha Christie mystery!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was amazed to discover that I had not read this, one of Christie's most famous Poirot investigations. And further, that I didn't know the "surprise" that awaits the reader in the solution. So, a real treat to read and try to figure it out. Knowing that the ending WAS meant to be a shocker, I naturally set my mind to working out what could be so surprising, and about half way through I was fairly confident I had it. Then I went forward searching for support for my theory. I didn't pick up the significance of all the clues that led Poirot to figure out how it was done, but I was right about the who and the why, and surmised one or two other less important elements of the plot. Great fun...I had forgotten how delightful Christie can be.Reviewed August 2015

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wish I'd read this without knowing the end, which is a stroke of genius. The story itself is fairly conventional but I could see Christie was getting more comfortable with Poirot. Loved the character of Caroline, who can solve a crime from her dining room, and I was very happy indeed to find out she'd inspired the character of Miss Marple.
    Now craving some poison, the weapon used here (a dagger) bored me a little :D

Book preview

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie

Dedication

To Punkie

who likes an orthodox detective story, murder, inquest, and suspicion falling on everyone in turn!

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword by James Prichard

Introduction by Louise Penny

1: Dr. Sheppard at the Breakfast Table

2: Who’s Who in King’s Abbot

3: The Man Who Grew Vegetable Marrows

4: Dinner at Fernly

5: Murder

6: The Tunisian Dagger

7: I Learn My Neighbour’s Profession

8: Inspector Raglan is Confident

9: The Goldfish Pond

10: The Parlourmaid

11: Poirot Pays a Call

12: Round the Table

13: The Goose Quill

14: Mrs. Ackroyd

15: Geoffrey Raymond

16: An Evening at Mah Jong

17: Parker

18: Charles Kent

19: Flora Ackroyd

20: Miss Russell

21: The Paragraph in the Paper

22: Ursula’s Story

23: Poirot’s Little Reunion

24: Ralph Paton’s Story

25: The Whole Truth

26: And Nothing But The Truth

27: Apologia

Read On

A Letter to My Publisher

Creating Poirot by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie on Poirot’s Favourite Cases

The Hercule Poirot Reading List

The Miss Marple Reading List

About the Author

The Agatha Christie Collection

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword

by James Prichard

She may have written more famous books, she may have even written better books, but it is hard to think that she wrote a more important book than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: both in terms of her own career and within the whole genre of crime fiction. It showed that my great grandmother was a writer with not only special talent, but also the audacity to rip up the rule book and test the boundaries.

The trick has often been copied and may not have been her idea (both Lord Mountbatten and her brother-in-law can lay claim to giving her the idea). But as with the concepts behind Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None, the art is in the execution.

It was the book that took her career to the next level, and is thus the beginning of that chapter of her life. But it was written very much as the previous chapter was ending: in the shadow of the death of her mother and also the breakdown of her marriage to her first husband, Archie Christie. It would have been a time of severe emotional turmoil for her, but somehow she managed to find the space to create one of the most controlled works in the history of crime fiction.

One of the beauties of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is that the first reading blows you away with the twist. But it also, possibly more than any other of her novels, rewards a second reading. A reading that illustrates her supreme ability to misdirect the reader. It is all there in plain sight, but such are her skills at deception—most of us don’t see it.

It is very difficult to write about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd without giving away spoilers, as the novel is perhaps more about the twist than even her other most famous works.

For all intents and purposes, the book starts off as a traditional murder mystery. You have the setting of the village, you have the large house, and you have the typical cast of characters and their various intrigues. But it is not completely typical, because in this cast you have some extraordinary people.

You have Caroline Sheppard (an early model for Miss Marple). There is our narrator, James Sheppard, standing in for Hastings who has emigrated to the Argentine. Roger Ackroyd himself is a model of the older victim, not massively mourned, but whose death is meaningful and matters. And obviously you have Poirot.

This is still early Poirot, and it is amusing (considering he would appear in books for another fifty years) that here he is retired to King’s Abbot, tending his marrows. This illustrates to me clearly the lack of a plan for Poirot in my great-grandmother’s writing. This is not the beginning of a series but a stand-alone book, featuring Poirot. There is no realisation of what he was to become or even an attempt to turn him into it. It is one of his greatest triumphs, but it does not feel like the start of something.

You are presumably reading this because you are about to embark on the joy of reading the story. I apologise for delaying you, but whether this is your first reading or a return to a much-loved favourite, please enjoy.

Introduction

by Louise Penny

What??!!??

That was my reaction when Hercule Poirot reveals Roger Ackroyd’s murderer.

Are you kidding me? How can that be?

It can be, because Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd broke all the rules of traditional mystery writing. In doing so, this book, first published in 1926, would go on to be voted the best crime novel ever.

The reveal of the killer was so shocking it vaulted Agatha Christie head and shoulders above any crime writer of her age, or any other. It was audacious, brilliant, clever to the point of being almost magical. How did she pull it off?

She did it by understanding the contract between reader and writer. By relying on it. And then betraying it.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is considered her masterpiece—and that is saying something, considering it was only her fourth book. Agatha Christie would go on to write sixty more crime novels, plays, and short stories, including the classics Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, Nemesis, Witness for the Prosecution, and The Mousetrap. Many of them could be considered genius. They are master classes in plot, structure, unexpected humour, and insights into the human condition.

Anyone who considers Agatha Christie’s books cozies might not be paying close enough attention. True, there are no gruesome descriptions of the slayings, but they crackle with malevolence and are often far darker than they might first appear. Her works are not about the blood, but the marrow. They can be charming and harrowing at the same time.

I cut my teeth reading Agatha Christie. Indeed, one of her books (I can’t remember which) was the first adult novel my mother and I shared. I remember the moment she finished, closed the book, looked and me and said, I think you’ll like this.

I took it, still warm from her familiar hand.

It changed my life. I grew to love crime fiction and then write it. I owe a great debt to Dame Agatha for entertaining me as a reader and teaching me as a writer that there is no formula. A crime novel can be warm, funny, comforting even, and still harrowing. It can be reassuring and deeply disturbing at the same time.

No rules. No formulae. If anyone tells you there are, don’t listen.

Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime, broke the mould over and over. And with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, she shattered it.

How?

By playing with our minds, our perceptions. By twisting what had been an immutable agreement between writer and reader about who in fiction can be trusted.

Dame Agatha once described her struggle in structuring the book. Her angst as she went over and over it, trying to work out how to tell the story without outright lying to the reader. To misdirect, yes. To be coy, absolutely. At worst, to omit certain details. But to never actually lie.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was both lauded and hated when it first came out, with some critics decrying the fact she’d broken a cardinal rule and committed a literary sin. I sometimes wonder if they ever revisited the novel and changed their minds.

In preparation for writing this, I reread the book. I will sometimes return to Christies, mostly for comfort in distressing times. But I’d never reread Ackroyd, because once read it’s impossible to forget who killed the man.

It came as a wonderful surprise to rediscover not only how brilliant the book really is, but how well written. Every line hides a secret that can only be revealed once we know who murdered Roger Ackroyd. The first time through, a reader might idly wonder about a character’s curious reaction or comment. On the second reading, we know why. What might initially seem like an innocuous moment becomes thrilling once we know the twist. There Dame Agatha was, practically admitting the truth to us.

This is Agatha Christie’s masterpiece, and if she never wrote another word, she’d have still gone down as the Queen. As it is, we are blessed with a trove of brilliant works, though none quite equals The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

One

Dr. Sheppard at the Breakfast Table

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th–17th September—a Thursday. I was sent for at eight o’clock on the morning of Friday the 17th. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours.

It was just a few minutes after nine when I reached home once more. I opened the front door with my latchkey, and purposely delayed a few moments in the hall, hanging up my hat and the light overcoat that I had deemed a wise precaution against the chill of an early autumn morning. To tell the truth, I was considerably upset and worried. I am not going to pretend that at that moment I foresaw the events of the next few weeks. I emphatically did not do so. But my instinct told me that there were stirring times ahead.

From the dining room on my left there came the rattle of tea-cups and the short, dry cough of my sister Caroline.

Is that you, James? she called.

An unnecessary question, since who else could it be? To tell the truth, it was precisely my sister Caroline who was the cause of my few minutes’ delay. The motto of the mongoose family, so Mr. Kipling tells us, is: Go and find out. If Caroline ever adopts a crest, I should certainly suggest a mongoose rampant. One might omit the first part of the motto. Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home. I don’t know how she manages it, but there it is. I suspect that the servants and the tradesmen constitute her Intelligence Corps. When she goes out, it is not to gather in information, but to spread it. At that, too, she is amazingly expert.

It was really this last named trait of hers which was causing me these pangs of indecision. Whatever I told Caroline now concerning the demise of Mrs. Ferrars would be common knowledge all over the village within the space of an hour and a half. As a professional man, I naturally aim at discretion. Therefore I have got into the habit of continually withholding all information possible from my sister. She usually finds out just the same, but I have the moral satisfaction of knowing that I am in no way to blame.

Mrs. Ferrars’ husband died just over a year ago, and Caroline has constantly asserted, without the least foundation for the assertion, that his wife poisoned him.

She scorns my invariable rejoinder that Mr. Ferrars died of acute gastritis, helped on by habitual overindulgence in alcoholic beverages. The symptoms of gastritis and arsenical poisoning are not, I agree, unlike, but Caroline bases her accusation on quite different lines.

You’ve only got to look at her, I have heard her say.

Mrs. Ferrars, though not in her first youth, was a very attractive woman, and her clothes, though simple, always seemed to fit her very well, but all the same, lots of women buy their clothes in Paris, and have not, on that account, necessarily poisoned their husbands.

As I stood hesitating in the hall, with all this passing through my mind, Caroline’s voice came again, with a sharper note in it.

What on earth are you doing out there, James? Why don’t you come and get your breakfast?

Just coming, my dear, I said hastily. I’ve been hanging up my overcoat.

You could have hung up half a dozen overcoats in this time.

She was quite right. I could have.

I walked into the dining room, gave Caroline the accustomed peck on the cheek, and sat down to eggs and bacon. The bacon was rather cold.

You’ve had an early call, remarked Caroline.

Yes, I said. King’s Paddock. Mrs. Ferrars.

I know, said my sister.

How did you know?

Annie told me.

Annie is the house parlourmaid. A nice girl, but an inveterate talker.

There was a pause. I continued to eat eggs and bacon. My sister’s nose, which is long and thin, quivered a little at the tip, as it always does when she is interested or excited over anything.

Well? she demanded.

A sad business. Nothing to be done. Must have died in her sleep.

I know, said my sister again.

This time I was annoyed.

You can’t know, I snapped. I didn’t know myself until I got there, and haven’t mentioned it to a soul yet. If that girl Annie knows, she must be a clairvoyant.

It wasn’t Annie who told me. It was the milkman. He had it from the Ferrarses’ cook.

As I say, there is no need for Caroline to go out to get information. She sits at home and it comes to her.

My sister continued:

What did she die of? Heart failure?

Didn’t the milkman tell you that? I inquired sarcastically.

Sarcasm is wasted on Caroline. She takes it seriously and answers accordingly.

He didn’t know, she explained.

After all, Caroline was bound to hear sooner or later. She might as well hear from me.

She died of an overdose of Veronal. She’s been taking it lately for sleeplessness. Must have taken too much.

Nonsense, said Caroline immediately. She took it on purpose. Don’t tell me!

It is odd, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial. I burst immediately into indignant speech.

There you go again, I said. Rushing along without rhyme or reason. Why on earth should Mrs. Ferrars wish to commit suicide? A widow, fairly young still, very well off, good health, and nothing to do but enjoy life. It’s absurd.

Not at all. Even you must have noticed how different she has been looking lately. It’s been coming on for the last six months. She’s looked positively hag-ridden. And you have just admitted that she hasn’t been able to sleep.

What is your diagnosis? I demanded coldly. An unfortunate love affair, I suppose?

My sister shook her head.

Remorse, she said, with great gusto.

Remorse?

Yes. You never would believe me when I told you she poisoned her husband. I’m more than ever convinced of it now.

I don’t think you’re very logical, I objected. Surely if a woman committed a crime like murder, she’d be sufficiently cold-blooded to enjoy the fruits of it without any weak-minded sentimentality such as repentance.

Caroline shook her head.

There probably are women like that—but Mrs. Ferrars wasn’t one of them. She was a mass of nerves. An overmastering impulse drove her on to get rid of her husband because she was the sort of person who simply can’t endure suffering of any kind, and there’s no doubt that the wife of a man like Ashley Ferrars must have had to suffer a good deal—

I nodded.

And ever since she’s been haunted by what she did. I can’t help feeling sorry for her.

I don’t think Caroline ever felt sorry for Mrs. Ferrars whilst she was alive. Now that she has gone where (presumably) Paris frocks can no longer be worn, Caroline is prepared to indulge in the softer emotions of pity and comprehension.

I told her firmly that her whole idea was nonsense. I was all the more firm because I secretly agreed with some part, at least, of what she had said. But it is all wrong that Caroline should arrive at the truth simply by a kind of inspired guesswork. I wasn’t going to encourage that sort of thing. She will go round the village airing her views, and everyone will think that she is doing so on medical data supplied by me. Life is very trying.

Nonsense, said Caroline, in reply to my strictures. 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.

Two

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-do-well younger brother, has taken up her residence at Fernley 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

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