Poirot all the time, weren’t you?”

 

“I was.”

 

“Then of course you know. It was that girl, Ursula Bourne, wasn’t it?

 

Naturally—she’s leaving. She _would_ want to make all the trouble she could.

Spiteful, that’s what they are. They’re all alike. Now, you being there, doctor,

you must know exactly what she did say? I’m most anxious that no wrong

impression should get about. After all, you don’t repeat every little detail to

the police, do you? There are family matters sometimes—nothing to do with the

question of the murder.

 

But if the girl was spiteful, she may have made out all sorts of things.”

 

I was shrewd enough to see that a very real anxiety lay behind these

outpourings. Poirot had been justified in his premises. Of the six people round

the table yesterday, Mrs. Ackroyd at least had had something to hide. It was for

me to discover what that something might be.

 

“If I were you, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said brusquely, “I should make a clean breast

of things.”

 

She gave a little scream.