This is a metaphor that seems to continue throughout the novel and the narrator has successfully withheld the major information from the readers as well as from all the other characters in the text. Ferrars with Caroline and while discussing he says that he has got into the “habit of continually withholding all information from [his sister”(Murder 2). Then he went on to discuss the death of Mrs. The novel opens with James returning home “just a few minutes after nine” and he was late for breakfast.

Hence, when Ralph was missing from the night when Ackroyd was murdered, it was inevitable that each and every one and even the readers would suspect him to be the possible murderer. Normally what happens in a murder mystery is that the clues of the murder are generally sought in the love story. Ralph and Flora came close not out of any emotional attachment but due to their situational conditions as both of them were surviving under the patronage of Roger Ackroyd and both of them lacked financial credibility. It is not that the plot of the novel doesn’t entail love story but instead of one there exists two love affairs-one between Ralph and Ursula, the parlour maid and the other between Flora and Hector. But interestingly enough, it was discovered later that the story of their love is also partially true. This entire thing is veiled by the presence of a love story between Ralph Paton and Flora Ackroyd. Firstly, the element of timing and a measured reticence or what we may say half-truth in the narrative. There are two major issues apart from the question “who did it” that is to say who is the murderer of Roger Ackroyd that looms large throughout the text.

The murder of the roger ackroyd