Agatha Christie - The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd - Chapter 1

Sit back and relax as I begin reading Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This is chapter one.
The story: The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his career.

Transcript

Welcome to Restful Journeys.

In this track we will begin the story of the murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

This will be chapter 1.

Please find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and relax.

Clear your mind and allow yourself to focus on the story in hopes to help you fall asleep.

Let's begin with chapter 1,

Dr.

Shepard at the breakfast table.

Mrs.

Ferraris died on the night of the 16th-17th September,

A Thursday.

I was sent for at 8 o'clock in the morning of Friday the 17th.

There was nothing to be done.

She had been dead some hours.

It was a few minutes after 9 when I reached home once more.

I opened the front door with my latch key and purposely delayed a few moments in the hall,

Hanging up my hat and the light overcoat that I had deemed a wise precaution against the chill of an early autumn morning.

To tell the truth,

I was considerably upset and worried.

I am NOT going to pretend that at that moment I foresaw the events of the next few weeks.

I emphatically did not do so,

But my instincts told me that there were stirring times ahead.

From the dining room on my left,

There came a rattle of teacups and the short dry cough of my sister,

Caroline.

Is that you,

James?

She called out.

An unnecessary question,

Since who else could it be?

To tell the truth,

It was precisely my sister Caroline who was the cause of my few minutes delay.

The motto of the Mongoose family,

So Mr.

Kipling tells us,

Is,

Go and find out.

If Caroline ever adopts a crest,

I should certainly suggest a mongoose rampant.

One might omit the first part of the motto.

Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home.

I don't know how she manages it,

But there it is.

I suspect that the servants and the tradesmen constitute her intelligence core.

When she goes out,

It is not to gather an information,

But to spread it.

And that,

Too,

She is amazingly expert.

It was really this last name trait of hers which was causing me these pains of indecision.

Whatever I told Caroline now concerning the demise of Mrs.

Farris would be common knowledge all over the village within the space of an hour and a half.

As a professional man,

I naturally aim at discretion.

Therefore,

I have got into the habit of continually withholding all information possible from my sister.

She usually finds out just the same,

But I have the moral satisfaction of knowing that I am in no way to blame.

Mrs.

Farris husband died just over a year ago,

And Caroline has constantly asserted,

Without the least foundation for the assertion,

That his wife poisoned him.

She scorns my invariable rejoinder that Mr.

Farris died of acute gastritis,

Helped on by habitual overindulgence and alcoholic beverages.

The symptoms of gastritis and arsenical poisoning are not,

I agree,

Unlike,

But Caroline bases her accusation on quite different lines.

You've only got to look at her,

I have heard her say.

Mrs.

Farris,

Though not in her first youth,

Was a very attractive woman,

And her clothes,

Though simple,

Always seemed to fit her very well.

But all the same,

Lots of women's buy their clothes in Paris,

And have not,

On that account,

Necessarily poisoned their husbands.

As I stood hesitating in the hall,

With all this passing through my mind,

Caroline's voice came again with a sharper note in it.

What on earth are you doing out there,

James?

Why don't you come and get your breakfast?

Just coming,

My dear,

I said hastily.

I've been hanging up my overcoat.

You could have hung up a half a dozen overcoats in this time.

She was quite right,

I could have.

I walked into the dining room,

Gave Caroline the accustomed peck on the cheek,

And sat down to eggs and bacon.

The bacon was rather cold.

You've had an early call,

Remarked Caroline.

Yes,

I said.

King's Paddock,

Mrs.

Farris.

I know,

Said my sister.

How did you know?

Andy told me.

Andy is the house parlor maid.

A nice girl,

But an inveterate talker.

There was a pause.

I continued to eat eggs and bacon.

My sister's nose,

Which is long and thin,

Quivered a little at the tip,

As it always does when she is interested or excited over anything.

Well,

She demanded.

A bad business,

Nothing to be done,

Must have died in her sleep.

I know,

Said my sister again.

This time I was annoyed.

You can't know,

I snapped.

I didn't know myself until I got there,

And I haven't mentioned it to a soul yet.

If that girl Annie knows,

She must be clairvoyant.

It wasn't Annie who told me.

It was the milkman.

He heard it from the Farris' cook.

As I say,

There is no need for Caroline to go out and get her information.

She sits at home and it comes to her.

My sister continued.

What did she die of?

Heart failure?

Didn't the milkman tell you that?

I inquired sarcastically.

Sarcasm is wasted on Caroline.

She takes it seriously and answers accordingly.

He didn't know,

She explained.

After all,

Caroline was bound to hear sooner or later.

She might as well hear it from me.

She died of an overdose of Veronal.

She's been taking it lately for sleeplessness.

Must have taken too much.

Nonsense,

Said Caroline immediately.

She took it on purpose.

Don't tell me.

It is odd,

Hal,

When you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge.

The voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.

I burst immediately into indignant speech.

There you go again,

I said,

Rushing along without rhyme or reason.

Why on earth would Mrs.

Farris wish to commit suicide?

A widow,

Fairly still young,

Very well off,

Good health and nothing to do but enjoy life.

That's absurd.

Not at all.

Even you must have noticed how different she has been looking lately.

It's been coming on for the last six months.

She looks positively hag-ridden and you have just admitted that she hasn't been able to sleep.

What is your diagnosis?

I demanded coldly.

An unfortunate love affair,

I suppose.

My sister shook her head.

Remorse,

She said with great gusto.

Remorse?

Yes.

You never would believe me when I told you she poisoned her husband.

I'm more than ever convinced of it now.

I don't think you're very logical,

I objected.

Surely if a woman committed a crime like murder she'd be sufficiently cold-blooded to enjoy the fruits of it without any weak-minded sentimentality such as repentance.

Caroline shook her head.

There probably are women like that but Mrs.

Farris wasn't one of them.

She was a mass of nerves.

An overmastering impulsive drove her on to get rid of her husband because she was the sort of person who simply can't endure suffering of any kind and there's no doubt that the wife of a man like Ashley Farris must have had to suffer a good deal.

I nodded and ever since she's been haunted by what she did,

I can't help feeling sorry for her.

I don't think Caroline ever felt sorry for Mrs.

Farris while she was alive.

Now that she's gone where presumably Paris Frocks can no longer be worn,

Caroline is prepared to indulge in the softer emotions of pity and comprehension.

I told her firmly that her whole idea was nonsense.

I was all the more firm because I secretly agreed with some part,

At least,

Of what she had said.

But it is all wrong that Caroline should arrive at the truth simply by a kind of inspired guesswork.

I wasn't going to encourage that sort of thing.

She will go around the village airing her views and everyone will think that she is doing so on the medical data supplied by me.

Life is very trying.

Nonsense,

Said Caroline and replied to my strictures.

You'll see,

Ten to one she's left a letter confessing everything.

She didn't leave a letter of any kind,

I said sharply,

And not seeing where the admission was going to land me.

Oh,

Said Caroline,

So you did inquire about that,

Did you?

I believe,

James,

That in your heart of hearts you think very much as I do.

You're a precious old humbug.

One always has to take the possibility of suicide into consideration,

I said repressively.

Will there be an inquest?

There may be.

It all depends.

If I am able to declare myself absolutely satisfied that the overdose was taken accidentally,

An inquest might be And are you absolutely satisfied,

Asked my sister shrewdly.

I did not answer,

But got up from the table.

This concludes chapter 1,

Dr.

Shepherd at the Breakfast Table in the story of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

I hope that this story was able to help you relax and hopefully fall asleep.