THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
case. She never said a word to me about it. Just went off and did it on her own. Flora is too independent. I am a woman of the world and her mother. She should have come to me for advice first."
I listened to all this in silence.
"What does he think? That's what I want to know. Does he actually imagine I'm hiding something? He—he—positively accused me yesterday."
I shrugged my shoulders.
"It is surely of no consequence, Mrs. Ackroyd," I said. "Since you are not concealing anything, any remarks he may have made do not apply to you."
Mrs. Ackroyd went off at a tangent, after her usual fashion.
"Servants are so tiresome," she said. "They gossip, and talk amongst themselves. And then it gets round—and all the time there's probably nothing in it at all."
"Have the servants been talking?" I asked. "What about?"
Mrs. Ackroyd cast a very shrewd glance at me. It quite threw me off my balance.
"I was sure you'd know, doctor, if any one did. You were with M. 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.
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