THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
is a suggestion of cast iron about Miss Russell, a something that is above the ills of the flesh.
Ackroyd's housekeeper is a tall woman, handsome but forbidding in appearance. She has a stern eye, and lips that shut tightly, and I feel that if I were an under housemaid or a kitchenmaid I should run for my life whenever I heard her coming.
"Good morning, Dr. Sheppard," said Miss Russell. "I should be much obliged if would take a look at my knee."
I took a look, but, truth to tell, I was very little wiser when I had done so. Miss Russell’s account of vague pains was so unconvincing that with a woman of less integrity of character I should have suspected a trumped-up tale. It did cross my mind for one moment that Miss Russell might have deliberately invented this affection of the knee in order to pump me on the subject of Mrs. Ferrars's death, but I soon saw that there, at least, I had misjudged her. She made a brief reference to the tragedy, nothing more. Yet she certainly seemed disposed to linger and chat.
"Well, thank you very much for this bottle of liniment, doctor," she said at last. "Not that I believe it will do the least good."
I didn't think it would either, but I protested in duty bound. After all, it couldn’t do any harm, and one must stick up for the tools of one's trade.
"I don't believe in all these drugs," said Russell, her eyes sweeping over my array of bottles disparagingly.
[14]
