Pierre Bayard, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?

Editions de Minuit 1998 / The New Press 2000, pp. 59-65

Part IV

Chapter 2: The Truth

We have identified two likely killers. The first is the person the book denounces and who has been passed on to posterity as such: Dr. Sheppard. The second is the person who looks most guilty before Poirot produces his solution: Ralph Paton.

Each of these solutions has its pros and cons. We are famil­iar with the novelistic advantage of Dr. Sheppard as killer: His identification creates the effect of surprise in numerous read­ers. But the drawbacks are not trivial: He hardly has a crimi­nal's psychology, his motives are dubious, it is rather unlikely that he could have physically committed the murder, and his attitude during and after the investigation is strange.

With Ralph Paton, the situation is reversed. He has the necessary psychological profile, his motive is solid, and he was remarkably well positioned to kill Ackroyd, as he readily ac­knowledges. But a solution that would lead to accusing him is disappointing from a narrative viewpoint, since from the be­ginning of the book Paton seemed the most likely killer.

Hence the temptation to seek out a character who would combine the advantages of both Sheppard and Paton without their disadvantages. Who would (or could) surprise the reader as much as Sheppard, have a more solid motive, a psychology more in line with the act, and, above all, the physical possibil­ity of committing the murder?

We are going to review the different elements of the inves­tigation, demonstrating, as Poirot does, that all the facts lead irresistibly toward the same conclusion. And so we will be in a position to say, like him: "I will take you the way I have traveled myself. Step by step you shall accompany me, and see for yourself that all the facts point indisputably to one person"

 

The search for the murderer can be made in two general di­rections represented by the two suspects mentioned. Either the murder is linked to the death of Mrs. Ferrars, or it has nothing to do with it. Sheppard is emblematic of the first solution, Ralph Paton of the second, since he cannot be accused of blackmailing Mrs. Ferrars.

There is one compelling reason why we, like Poirot, judge that Ackroyd's murder is indeed linked to the death of Mrs. Ferrars: the disappearance from Ackroyd's study of the letter, whose existence is confirmed by two witnesses, Sheppard and Parker. Like Poirot, even if we think that he is mistaken in his reasoning, we shall infer that the goal of the murder was the disappearance of the letter and the person who had read it.

A first feature of our murderer begins to emerge: It is some­one close to Ferrars - in other words, someone from the vil­lage. This immediately eliminates potential suspects like Charles Kent (the son of Elizabeth Russell) or Major Blunt. Since neither of them lives in the region, it seems difficult to imagine that they would have known the circumstances of Mrs. Ferrars' death and had the physical means to blackmail her over a long period of time. This also exonerates Hercule Poirot (who, as we have just seen, is capable of murder), who has just settled in the village.

 

Another direction of inquiry concerns the personality of the murderer. Obviously, we are dealing with someone very deter­mined, the complete opposite of the insipid Dr. Sheppard. The speed -  less than a day- with which the murder was planned and executed suggests someone deliberate, implacable, and sure of himself. Naturally, this portrait is valid only if we fol­low the hypothesis that the murder is linked to the blackmail of Mrs. Ferrars, but this is the hypothesis we have chosen to adopt.

These psychological elements are not adequate to identify the murderer, but they allow us to eliminate characters from the list of suspects who do not fit this description, such as Flora Ackroyd, her mother Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, or Geoffrey Ray­mond, Ackroyd's secretary. On the other hand, we are left with a number of characters who do fit, such as Parker, who is already a proven blackmailer. As for Major Blunt, the big ­game hunter and adventurer, he would correspond nicely to this profile, but since he was already eliminated above, he no longer figures among our suspects.

* * *

The third direction of inquiry concerns the performance of the murder itself. First, the killer must have been in a position to take the weapon from Ackroyd's silver table. In fact, the cir­cumstances of its disappearance remain vague, and our chief testimony, namely Sheppard's, is subject to caution. The theft of the dagger therefore does not seem to be a decisive factor in trapping the murderer.

Did the murderer come from inside or outside the house? This question is crucial. Remember, we have adopted a hy­pothesis in which Sheppard is not the killer. So a basic piece of information to which Poirot - for good reason - attaches little importance becomes central: On the evening of the murder, Ackroyd does not want to be disturbed. He gives instructions to this effect to Parker, indirectly through Shep­pard, and Ackroyd is no doubt the person who locks his study door.

Several supplementary pieces of information then emerge. First of all, the person whom Ackroyd receives that evening~ and who leaves his footprints behind, comes from outside the house: It cannot be someone from inside the house, since Ack­royd would be unlikely to open the window trustingly to some­one living under his own roof. Our portrait is therefore enriched by an additional decisive feature, which this time eliminates in one fell swoop almost all the characters in the book gathered this evening in Ackroyd's house: The murderer does not live in Ackroyd's house and is not present at dinner. It is possible, but not certain, that Ackroyd has agreed to meet him. In any case, it is someone whom he has every reason to trust or whom he considers harmless.

What time was the murder committed? If Sheppard is inno­cent, Ackroyd was still alive at around nine o'clock. In any case, the murder takes place much later, since - the hypothesis of the dictaphone vanishes with the guilt of Dr. Sheppard - it is really Ackroyd's voice that the witnesses hear. In fact, the exact time of the crime ceases in our view to be a decisive element in identifying the murderer, who, in any case, has plenty of time to act.

 

A fourth avenue of inquiry concerns the question of informa­tion. If we follow the hypothesis of a link between the black­mail of the victimized Mrs. Ferrars and the murder, then information - as in every case of blackmail - is the major key.

This comes into play on several levels. First, the blackmailer, whether he is the murderer or not, knows that Mrs. Ferrars has poisoned her husband. On this point, as Poirot notes, Shep­pard is the best placed: "Who could have had a better knowl­edge of what killed Mr. Ferrars than the doctor who was attending him?" Even so, Sheppard is not the only villager to procure such information.

Information comes into play on a second point. How could the murderer know that Mrs. Ferrars had sent a letter to Ack­royd? This is a crucial question, for the killer - who certainly planned his crime - could only do so by knowing that a threat was to come from Mrs. Ferrars. Sheppard was not aware of this, even if he says he suspected it.

On the other hand, what Sheppard could not know - and here lies the major fault in Poirot's argument - is that Mrs. Ferrars sent only one letter (and did not warn the police, for example) and that killing Ackroyd therefore makes sense. We can be sure that the person who possesses this crucial infor­mation is the murderer.

 

A fifth direction of inquiry concerns the reader and the revela­tion of the truth. As in every detective story of this type, the discovery of the murderer must be a surprise. Our task, then, is to find someone whom no one suspects, even when - and we refer here again to the Van Dine principle - this murderer is always in plain view.

Few characters in the book conform to this description. According to this criterion, and for reasons stated above, it is clear that after Sheppard, Hercule Poirot himself is next on the list. This hypothesis is not impossible, but it is quite implau­sible since, unlike the scenario in Curtain, he has no motive (clearly, as we have seen, he cannot be the blackmailer). As for the other investigators, such as Inspector Raglan, they are too dull to rise to the level of the Machiavellian killer who has conceived and executed Ackroyd's murder. We can, however, assume that without really being an investigator, the murderer is closely involved in the investigation.

 

Now for a recapitulation: It is clear that the murderer is some­one who is part of the story although no one suspects him; someone with great inner strength who, not being present at Ackroyd's dinner party, could go looking for the dagger in the silver table, then knock on Ackroyd's French door for him to open up; someone remarkably well informed about village life, capable, for example - thanks to a private network of connec­tions - of knowing everything about the death of Ferrars and his wife, and of observing their postman. In a name: Caroline Sheppard.

Chapter 3: Nothing but the Truth

One immediate objection comes to mind. In our hypothesis, even if Caroline Sheppard were in a position to commit the murder, she has no apparent motive. Unless we assume, which is rather unlikely for anyone who knows her psychology and her way of life, that she herself was blackmailing Mrs. Ferrars.

To understand what has happened, we must add two details that perceptibly modify our point of view. First, there is no indication - if we assume a plot twist - that the murderer and the blackmailer are one and the same person. That Dr. Shep­pard may have blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars does not prove that he is the murderer. This hypothesis, moreover, is evoked sev­eral times during the investigation, even by Poirot himself, who declares that he is prepared to disconnect the two transgres­sions but finally attributes them both to the same criminal.

Second, all indications suggest that this murder is what we call an altruistic murder: a murder that is not committed for the direct benefit of the killer, but for the benefit of someone whom the killer is protecting. In short, in the hypothesis we are now going to elaborate, Caroline Sheppard killed to protect her brother, who was the blackmailer.

 

To understand exactly what happened, we have to look at the whole text - something Hercule Poirot does not do, focusing as he does on a few secondary, even anecdotal elements - and what it is telling us when we are repeatedly informed that Caroline Sheppard knows everything that happens in the vil­lage.

If this is true, she is certainly informed of the circumstances of Ferrars' death and of her brother's blackmail operation. How could it be otherwise? How could this woman, who dur­ing the investigation had all the details at hand and kept track of everyone's movements, possibly be unaware that her brother was seeing Mrs. Ferrars regularly and blackmailing her for at least a year? And how could she fail to be surprised by the considerable sums of money that her brother, according to Poirot, has lost in speculations? Similarly, it is unlikely that Sheppard could work out the practical details of Ackroyd's death without his sister, who spends her days spying on him, noticing what he is up to.

Caroline learns of Mrs. Ferrars' death before anyone else. Most important, she alone knows that Mrs. Ferrars had sent a letter - and only one letter - before her death (the book even provides the identity of her informant: the milkman who visits Mrs. Ferrars' cook. We have insisted on this major point: Only the person who has access to this information, which Sheppard would never have in his possession, has real reasons for killing.

What Caroline Sheppard may also guess is that her brother would never have the courage to commit a murder; even if the idea has crossed his mind. So she follows him that evening, or; more probably, she goes walking in the vicinity of Fernly Park. Concealing herself, she witnesses the conversation between her brother and Ackroyd from outside the house. It is her presence to which the text alludes when Ackroyd says that he feels watched, spied upon, a phrase that remains strangely forgotten in the final explanation: No one feels spied upon by someone standing beside him.

Perhaps Sheppard really did intend to kill Ackroyd, as he says in the last chapter of his manuscript ("I suppose I must have meant to murder him all along. As soon as I heard of Mrs. Ferrars' death . . .", and was even carrying a weapon ("I'd brought a handy little weapon of my own, but when I saw the dagger lying in the silver table, it occurred to me at once how much better it would be to use a weapon that couldn't be traced to me". But he certainly did not have the courage to use it - both for psychological reasons and because he could not be certain that this murder would serve its purpose - and Caroline, hidden near Ackroyd's study, helplessly witnesses his failure.

So she knocks at the French door. Ackroyd has no reason not to open it up for her, as she is coming from outside the house, and no reason to mistrust her, as it is not her name but her brother's that figures in the letter of denunciation. Quite the contrary, reeling from the shock of his new discovery, he has every reason to welcome her and no thought that she is coming to kill him, now that he knows the guilty party.

Caroline is therefore the mysterious visitor whom some resi­dents of the house heard speaking with Ackroyd, and the woman glimpsed in the park by Major Blunt. This hypothesis is altogether simpler and more satisfying than that of a dictaphone rigged to play automatically. Even more because the tenor of the statements overheard by the witnesses - the refusal to grant a request (to hush up the black­mail business) - entirely squares with the conversation we can imagine taking place between Ackroyd and Caroline.

 

What happens next? It is difficult to choose between two dif­ferent hypotheses that allow both facts to coexist: Dr. Shep­pard leaves Ackroyd alive and goes home around nine o'clock. One hour later, he has the feeling, even the conviction, that Ackroyd is dead and decides to return to the scene of the crime.

The telephone call is clearly not how Sheppard learns of Ackroyd's death. The investigation, whose conclusions must be respected in such cases, has shown that it was made by the steward. But the expected telephone call allows Sheppard to find a pretext for going back to Ackroyd's house, where he thinks that a murder has been committed, a murder for which he is not responsible. He wants to verify it or to eliminate its traces. Above all, the phone call allows him to observe Caro­line's reactions and confirm whether there are any grounds for his fears. How does he know? We can think of several hypotheses, some of which are compatible. The simplest is that Shep­pard, upon leaving Ackroyd's house, catches a glimpse of Caroline in the park or ponders the identity of the mysterious feminine shadow (also glimpsed by Major Blunt), and then stops or tries to approach her - which would explain the slight difference in chronology raised by Poirot.

Another solution: If Caroline truly committed the murder, she would not be at home when Sheppard returns, and he would be rightly surprised by this. The text certainly does not proscribe such a reading: "Ten minutes later I was at home once more. Caroline was full of curiosity to know why I had returned so early. I had to make up a slightly fictitious account of the evening in order to satisfy her, and I had an uneasy feeling that she saw through the transparent device". Granting the prevalence throughout the narrative of the lie by omission, why not assume that the ellipses to which Sheppard refers might be situated between "I was at home once more" and "Caroline was full of curiosity"? Her surprise at seeing her brother come home so early is more understandable if she herself was out.

If Sheppard's attention was quite reasonably drawn to the fact that Caroline was late, another element could have sug­gested to him that Ackroyd was dead. As in the hypothesis in which Paton is the murderer, this is a matter not of a fact but of the absence of a fact, namely that Ackroyd does not tele­phone. How do we explain this if Sheppard, who is his best friend, is innocent? How can we fail to connect Ackroyd's strange telephonic silence with Caroline's lateness?

Finally, a last hypothesis: Sheppard knows that Ackroyd is dead because his sister tells him, admitting that she has com­mitted the murder and explaining why she judged it necessary to get rid of Ackroyd. However, this hypothesis is less likely than the other three, for nothing in the numerous conversa­tions between brother and sister suggests the existence of a shared secret.

In order to understand why Sheppard then rushes off to Ackroyd's, we must imagine that he is motivated by the same reasons as Caroline. This is the secret at the heart of the work:

Sheppard and his sister are entirely devoted to one another and will do anything to protect each other. Without this hypoth­esis, numerous oddities of the text remain unexplained. Mu­tual protection leads them a great distance, to what can be called a double altruistic murder: Caroline kills to protect her brother; and he kills himself to save his sister.

 

As we might expect, this proposal contradicts Poirot's solution since it is constructed against it. The most important thing is whether or not it contradicts Sheppard's manuscript.

Let us remember, first of all, that Sheppard never confesses to the murder. On the contrary, the different formulas that allude to it seem deliberately chosen for their ambiguity. Men­tion is made of the intention to kill Ackroyd, or the respective merits of different weapons, but never the murder itself. Most of these statements can be read as having a double meaning, following the same principle that leads to the accusation of Sheppard as the killer, only in reverse. The sentence: "I'm al­ways glad that I gave him a chance. I urged him to read that letter before it was too late"  is just as significant if Caroline is the murderer. That is even truer for this line, which insists on Sheppard's innocence: "He knew danger was close at hand. And yet he never suspected me.',

In fact, the only statements that radically contradict our solution have to do with the dictaphone. After his meeting with Ackroyd, Sheppard says he went home after taking "pre­cautions". He then explains that Ackroyd, knowing his mechanical skill, had given him the device to repair: "I did what I wanted to it, and took it up with me in my bag that evening." These preparations announce the narrative of the murder, in which Sheppard returns to the dictaphone:

"When I looked around the room from the door, I was quite satisfied. Nothing had been left undone. The dictaphone was on the table by the window, timed to go off at nine-thirty (the mechanism of that little device was rather clever - based on the principle of an alarm clock), and the arm-chair was pulled out so as to hide it from the door."

Finally, the dictaphone appears a third time in the narrative after the crime's discovery: "'I did what little had to he done!' It was quite little - just to shove the dictaphone into my bag and push back the chair against the wall in its proper place".

Without any proof of bad faith, it is undeniable that we come very close here to a confession. But these statements, as overwhelming as they seem at first glance, cannot be examined independently of the whole set of structural problems that the book poses, the chief one being our inclination to discredit the statements of a confessed liar. Above all, these statements con­cern the improbable hypothesis of the dictaphone - the most ridiculous part of Poirot's solution. If we regard Sheppard as innocent, it is tempting to see in his remarks an ironic missile aimed at the detective's intention.

 

If this reading has some drawbacks, it also offers certain ad­vantages. One is that it is much simpler than the reading pro­posed by the novel. No need here to deal with a dictaphone, to move an armchair, or to steal a pair of shoes from an inn in the presence of their owner.

It also offers a more coherent detective story. It avoids sad­dling someone with the crime who has no interest in commit­ting it, who is physically unable to do it, who does not have the psychological capability, and who does everything possible to implicate himself.

This reading has - it is hoped - a certain beauty, since it transforms a sordid story of money into a story of love. For the whole murderous mechanism leading to the double demise of Ackroyd and Sheppard rests entirely on the passionate love between a brother and sister, each ready to do anything, even to kill, to save the other.