For a moment Raymond seemed taken aback. Then he recovered himself.
“Blunt knows now that he was mistaken,” he said.
“Exactly,” agreed the other man.
“Yet there must have been some reason for his thinking so,” mused Poirot. “Oh! no,” he held up his hand in protest, “I know the reason you will give—but it is not enough. We must seek elsewhere. I will put it this way. From the beginning of the case I have been struck by one thing—the nature of those words which Mr. Raymond overheard. It has been amazing to me that no one has commented on them, has seen anything odd about them.”
He paused a minute, and then quoted softly:—
“ … the calls on my purse have been so frequent of late that I fear it is impossible for me to accede to your request. Does nothing strike you as odd about that?”
“I don’t think so,” said Raymond. “He has frequently dictated letters to me, using almost exactly those same words.”
“Exactly,” cried Poirot. “That is what I seek to arrive at. Would any man use such a phrase in talking to another? Impossible that that should be part of a real conversation. Now, if he had been dictating a letter—”
“You mean he was reading a letter aloud,” said Raymond slowly. “Even so, he must have been reading to someone.”
“But why? We have no evidence that there was anyone else in the room. No other voice but Mr. Ackroyd’s was heard, remember.”
“Surely a man wouldn’t read letters of that type aloud to himself—not unless he was—well—going balmy.”