Читать книгу The Murder of Roger Ackroyd / Убийство Роджера Экройда онлайн

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The housekeeper bade us a dry good afternoon, and we took our leave.

I left the house with Poirot.

‘I wonder,’ I said, breaking the silence, ‘what the papers the girl disarranged could have been for Ackroyd to have got into such a state about them? I wonder if there is any clue there to the mystery.’

‘The secretary said there were no papers of particular importance on the desk,’ said Poirot quietly.

‘Yes, but-’ I paused.

‘It strikes you as odd that Ackroyd should have flown into a rage about so trivial a matter?’

‘Yes, it does rather.’

‘But was it a trivial matter?’

‘Of course,’ I admitted, ‘we don’t know what those papers may have been. But Raymond certainly said-’

‘Leave M. Raymond out of it for a minute. What did you think of that girl?’

‘Which girl? The parlourmaid?’

‘Yes, the parlourmaid. Ursula Bourne.’

‘She seemed a nice girl,’ I said hesitatingly.

Poirot repeated my words, but whereas I had laid a slight stress on the fourth word, he put it on the second.

‘She seemed a nice girl – yes.’