The police everywhere were on the alert. His rooms in town were watched, and any houses he had been known to be in the habit of frequenting.

With such a cordon it seemed impossible that Ralph should be able to evade detection. He had no luggage, and, as far as anyone knew, no money.

'I can't find anyone who saw him at the station that right,' continued the inspector. 'And yet he's well known down here, and you'd think somebody would have noticed him. There's no news from Liverpool either.' 'You think he went to Liverpool?' queried Poirot. fc 117 'Well, it's on the cards. That telephone message from the station, just three minutes before the Liverpool express left there ought to be something in that.' 'Unless it was deliberately intended to throw you off the scent. That might just possibly be the point of the telephone message.' 'That's an idea,' said the inspector eagerly. 'Do you really think that's the explanation of the telephone call?' 'My friend,' said Poirot gravely, 'I do not know. But I will tell you this: I believe that when we find the explanation of that telephone call we shall find the explanation of the murder.' 'You said something like that before, I remember,' I observed, looking at him curiously.

Poirot nodded.

'I always come back to it,' he said seriously.

'It seems to me utterly irrelevant,' I declared.

'I wouldn't say that,' demurred the inspector. 'But I must confess I think Mr Poirot here harps on it a little too much.

We've better clues than that. The fingerprints on the dagger, for instance.' Poirot became suddenly very foreign in manner, as he often did when excited over anything.

'M. rinspecteur,' he said, 'beware of the blind - the blind comment dire? - the little street that has no end to it.' Inspector Raglan stared, but I was quicker.

'You mean a blind alley?' I said.

'That is it - the blind street that leads nowhere. So it may be with those fingerprints - they may lead you nowhere.' 'I don't see how that can well be,' said the police officer. 'I suppose you're hinting that they're faked? I've read of such things being done, though I can't say I've ever come across it in my experience. But fake or true - they're bound to lead somewhere.' Poirot merely shrugged his shoulders, flinging out his arms wide.

The inspector then showed us various enlarged photographs of the fingerprints, and proceeded to become technical on the subject of loops and whorls.

'Come now,' he said at last, annoyed by Poirot's detached manner, 'you've got to admit that those prints were made by someone who was in the house that night?' 'Bien entendu,' said Poirot, nodding his head.

'Well, I've taken the prints of every member of the household, everyone, mind you, from the old lady down to the kitchenmaid.' I don't think Mrs Ackroyd would enjoy being referred to as the old lady. She must spend a considerable amount on cosmetics.

'Everyone's,' repeated the inspector fussily.

'Including mine,' I said drily.

'Very well.