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A character in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Captain Ralph Paton

Ackroyd's stepson, handsome, in debt and missing from the night of the murder, with his shoes' prints under the study window.

What they want

To get out from under his debts and his stepfather, and to keep a secret he has promised to keep.

The book

The Murder of Roger AckroydAgatha Christie, 1926

A village doctor tells the story of his neighbour's murder, and tells it honestly. That is the trick.

View the book

At a glance

In the book
Ackroyd's stepson, a captain
Where he appears
In talk throughout; in person in Chapters 23 and 24

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Ralph Paton is the obvious suspect and the book keeps him that way. He is the stepson Ackroyd raised and paid for, engaged at his stepfather's wish to his cousin Flora, in debt, and in the village on the night of the murder without telling anyone. He disappears that night and stays disappeared, which is why Flora goes to Poirot.

He is barely on the page. What the reader knows of him comes from Caroline's gossip, Flora's loyalty and Ursula Bourne's silence. Christie uses his absence as the case's shape: everyone protects him, and nobody knows where he is.

How Captain Ralph Paton Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The looksDark, handsome and charming, the village's favourite, seen at the Three Boars inn the night of the murder.
  • The engagementTo Flora Ackroyd, arranged by Ackroyd, and not what it seems.
  • The shoesPrints outside the study window match a pair of his; the prints are real and the conclusion is not.
  • The absenceGone after the murder, sought by the police in Liverpool and elsewhere.
  • The other womanSeen in the woods with a girl who is not Flora, by Caroline's mongoose instinct.
  • The entranceWalks into Poirot's reunion in Chapter 23, produced like a card from a sleeve.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Ralph was secretly married to the parlourmaid Ursula Bourne, and it was to her that Ackroyd's plans for him were the obstacle. He had been hidden in a nursing home in Cranchester by Dr Sheppard, on the doctor's advice, which kept suspicion on him until Poirot found him.

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