The Story
Good evening. This is Dr. Sheppard, the local physician of King’s Abbot. If you have never visited, allow me to give an account. We sit nine miles from the town of Cranchester. We are very much like any other village. Able-bodied men are apt to leave the place early in life, leaving us rich in unmarried ladies and retired military officers. Our chief export? Gossip.
Over our village loomed Fernly Park, the estate of Roger Ackroyd. Mr. Ackroyd was a titan of manufacturing, and his factory encapsulated our lives — drudgery and turmoil. Ackroyd was a widower, and word was that he and Mrs. Ferrars, a widow herself, were due to be married. Preemptive discussions of possible wedding presents turned tragic when Mrs. Ferrars was found dead in her home under suspicious circumstances. Very soon after we found Ackroyd himself disposed far more violently — stabbed to death in his own locked study.
Everyone here is lying about something. The trick, monsieur, is to find the one who is lying about the right thing.
That was what I was told by my newly arrived neighbor, Hercule Poirot, the world-famous Belgian detective. I had little idea of the secrets he would divulge from the residents of Fernly Park. I also had little idea of how deeply entrenched in the investigation I myself would become. Solving this case with him was such a unique opportunity in my ordinarily dull life, that I recorded the whole affair. I now present to you the chance to learn the whole truth.