Five a.m. I am very tired—but I have finished my task. My arm aches from writing.

 

A strange end to my manuscript. I meant it to be published some day as the history of one of Poirot’s failures! Odd, how things pan out.

 

All along I’ve had a premonition of disaster, from the moment I saw Ralph Paton and Mrs. Ferrars with their heads together. I thought then that she was confiding¹ in him; as it happened I was quite wrong there, but the idea persisted even after I went into the study with Ackroyd that night, until he told me the truth.

 

Poor old Ackroyd. I’m always glad that I gave him a chance. I urged him to read that letter before it was too late. Or let me be honest—didn’t I subconsciously² realize that with a pig-headed chap like him, it was my best chance of getting him not to read it? His nervousness that night was interesting psychologically. He knew danger was close at hand. And yet he never suspected me.

 

The dagger³ was an afterthought. I’d brought up a very handy little weapon of my own, but when I saw the dagger lying in the silver table, it occurred to me at once how much better it would be to use a weapon that couldn’t be traced to me.

 

304

 

I suppose I must have meant to murder him all along. As soon as I heard of Mrs. Ferrars’s death, I felt convinced that she would have told him everything before she died. When I met him and he seemed so agitated⁴, I thought that perhaps he knew the truth, but that he couldn’t bring himself to believe it, and was going to give me the chance of refuting it.

 

So I went home and took my precautions. If the trouble were after all only something to do with Ralph—well, no harm would have been done. The dictaphone he had given me two days before to adjust. Something had gone a little wrong with it, and I persuaded him to let me have a go at it, instead of sending it back. I did what I wanted to it, and took it up with me in my bag that evening.

 

I am rather pleased with myself as a writer. What could be neater, for instance, than the following:—

 

“The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitated with my hand on the door handle, looking back and wondering if there was anything I had left

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