‘This gentleman wants to ask you something.’
Parker transferred a respectful attention to Poirot.
‘Parker,’ said the little man, ‘when you broke down the door with Dr Sheppard last night, and found your master dead, what was the state of the fire?’
Parker replied without a pause. ‘It had burned very low, sir.’ It was almost out.’
‘Ah!’ said Poirot. The exclamation sounded almost triumphant.
He went on: ‘Look round you, my good Parker. Is this room exactly as it was then?’
The butler’s eye swept round. It came to rest on the windows.
‘The curtains were drawn, sir, and the electric light was on.’
Poirot nodded approval.
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, sir, this chair was drawn out a little more.’
He indicated a big grandfather chair to the left of the door between it and the window. I append a plan of the room with the chair in question marked with an X.
‘Just show me,’ said Poirot.
The butler drew the chair in question out a good two feet from the wall, turning it so that the seat faced the door.
‘Voila ce qui est curieux,’ murmured Poirot.
‘No one would want to sit in a chair in such a position, I fancy.
Now who pushed it back into place again, I wonder?
Did you, my friend?’
‘No, sir,’ said Parker.
‘I was too upset with seeing the master and all.’
Poirot looked across at me. ‘Did you, doctor?’
I shook my head.
‘It was back in position when I arrived with the police, sir,’ put in Parker.
‘I’m sure of that.’
‘Curious,’ said Poirot again.
‘Raymond or Blunt must have pushed it back,’ I suggested.
‘Surely it isn’t important?’
‘It is completely unimportant,’ said Poirot.
‘That is why it is so interesting,’ he added softly.
‘Excuse me a minute,’ said Colonel Melrose. He left the room with Parker.
‘Do you think Parker is speaking the truth?’ I asked.
‘About the chair, yes.
Otherwise I do not know.
You will find, M. Ie docteur, if you have much to do with cases of this kind, that they all resemble each other in one thing.’
‘What is that?’ I asked curiously.
‘Everyone concerned in them has something to hide.’
‘Have I?’ I asked, smiling.
Poirot looked at me attentively.
‘I think you have,’ he said quietly.
‘But-’ ‘Have you told me everything known to you about this young man Paton?’
He smiled as I grew red.
‘Oh! do not fear. I will not press you.
I shall learn it in good time.’
‘I wish you’d tell me something of your methods,’ I said hastily, to cover my confusion.
‘The point about the fire, for instance?’
‘Oh! that was very simple.
You leave Mr Ackroyd at - ten minutes to nine, was it not?’
‘Yes, exactly, I should say.’
‘The window is then closed and bolted and the door unlocked.
At a quater past ten when the body is discovered, the door is locked and the window is open.