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Peril at End House
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie’s ingenious murder mystery, reissued with a striking cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed.Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick’s sun hat, Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn’t been committed. Yet.
Peril at End House
Copyright (#u103a12f1-b330-5e08-9a43-f39a6c8349fd)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1932
Agatha Christie® Poirot® Peril at End House™
Copyright © 1932 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2015
Title lettering by Ghost Design
Cover photograph © Michael Trevillion/Trevillion Images
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780008129521
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780007422692
Version: 2017-04-12
To EDEN PHILLPOTTS
To whom I shall always be grateful for his friendship and the encouragement he gave me many years ago
Contents
Cover (#udc18ba33-b1e2-5be2-9e7e-105ca0400df3)
Title Page (#u90a97840-7149-544b-bf0b-06ab6f7ffbb8)
Copyright (#u6488d2b1-18f3-5677-befa-5d8750812c03)
Dedication (#ub1c1d17a-ecc9-50ba-a11b-f4b07a79af5e)
CHAPTER 1: The Majestic Hotel (#ud79b9df7-2ef6-5674-aca9-00385e9b5b01)
CHAPTER 2: End House (#u358e8230-3b6e-5d39-97ee-2eab7cea78d6)
CHAPTER 3: Accidents? (#u1acadbed-89bf-5678-8ddc-b4abd369a666)
CHAPTER 4: There Must Be Something! (#u04604ac7-a5d9-5dc5-b0d7-dd8f43c3874f)
CHAPTER 5: Mr and Mrs Croft (#u92b70b6e-fdd9-5d6a-a41a-e390d02d0b89)
CHAPTER 6: A Call Upon Mr Vyse (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 7: Tragedy (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 8: The Fatal Shawl (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 9: A. to J. (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 10: Nick’s Secret (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 11: The Motive (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12: Ellen (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13: Letters (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14: The Mystery of the Missing Will (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15: Strange Behaviour of Frederica (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16: Interview With Mr Whitfield (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17: A Box of Chocolates (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18: The Face at the Window (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19: Poirot Produces a Play (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20: J. (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21: The Person—K. (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22: The End of the Story (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Agatha Christie (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 1 (#u103a12f1-b330-5e08-9a43-f39a6c8349fd)
The Majestic Hotel (#u103a12f1-b330-5e08-9a43-f39a6c8349fd)
No seaside town in the south of England is, I think, as attractive as St Loo. It is well named the Queen of Watering Places and reminds one forcibly of the Riviera. The Cornish coast is to my mind every bit as fascinating as that of the south of France.
I remarked as much to my friend, Hercule Poirot.
‘So it said on our menu in the restaurant car yesterday, mon ami. Your remark is not original.’
‘But don’t you agree?’
He was smiling to himself and did not at once answer my question. I repeated it.
‘A thousand pardons, Hastings. My thoughts were wandering. Wandering indeed to that part of the world you mentioned just now.’
‘The south of France?’
‘Yes. I was thinking of that last winter that I spent there and of the events which occurred.’
I remembered. A murder had been committed on the Blue Train, and the mystery—a complicated and baffling one—had been solved by Poirot with his usual unerring acumen.
‘How I wish I had been with you,’ I said with deep regret.
‘I too,’ said Poirot. ‘Your experience would have been invaluable to me.’
I looked at him sideways. As a result of long habit, I distrust his compliments, but he appeared perfectly serious. And after all, why not? I have a very long experience of the methods he employs.
‘What I particularly missed was your vivid imagination, Hastings,’ he went on dreamily. ‘One needs a certain amount of light relief. My valet, Georges, an admirable man with whom I sometimes permitted myself to discuss a point, has no imagination whatever.’
This remark seemed to me quite irrelevant.
‘Tell me, Poirot,’ I said. ‘Are you never tempted to renew your activities? This passive life—’
‘Suits me admirably, my friend. To sit in the sun—what could be more charming? To step from your pedestal at the zenith of your fame—what could be a grander gesture? They say of me: “That is Hercule Poirot!—The great—the unique!—There was never any one like him, there never will be!” Eh bien—I am satisfied. I ask no more. I am modest.’
I should not myself have used the word modest. It seemed to me that my little friend’s egotism had certainly not declined with his years. He leaned back in his chair, caressing his moustache and almost purring with self-satisfaction.
We were sitting on one of the terraces of the Majestic Hotel. It is the biggest hotel in St Loo and stands in its own grounds on a headland overlooking the sea. The gardens of the hotel lay below us freely interspersed with palm trees. The sea was of a deep and lovely blue, the sky clear and the sun shining with all the single-hearted fervour an August sun should (but in England so often does not) have. There was a vigorous humming of bees, a pleasant sound—and altogether nothing could have been more ideal.
We had only arrived last night, and this was the first morning of what we proposed should be a week’s stay. If only these weather conditions continued, we should indeed have a perfect holiday.
I picked up the morning paper which had fallen from my hand and resumed my perusal of the morning’s news. The political situation seemed unsatisfactory, but uninteresting, there was trouble in China, there was a long account of a rumoured City swindle, but on the whole there was no news of a very thrilling order.
‘Curious thing this parrot disease,’ I remarked, as I turned the sheet.
‘Very curious.’
‘Two more deaths at Leeds, I see.’
‘Most regrettable.’
I turned a page.
‘Still no news of that flying fellow, Seton, in his round-the-world flight. Pretty plucky, these fellows. That amphibian machine of his, the Albatross, must be a great invention. Too bad if he’s gone west. Not that they’ve given up hope yet. He may have made one of the Pacific islands.’
‘The Solomon islanders are still cannibals, are they not?’ inquired Poirot pleasantly.
‘Must be a fine fellow. That sort of thing makes one feel it’s a good thing to be an Englishman after all.’
‘It consoles for the defeats at Wimbledon,’ said Poirot.
‘I—I didn’t mean,’ I began.
My friend waved my attempted apology aside gracefully.
‘Me,’ he announced. ‘I am not amphibian, like the machine of the poor Captain Seton, but I am cosmopolitan. And for the English I have always had, as you know, a great admiration. The thorough way, for instance, in which they read the daily paper.’
My attention had strayed to political news.
‘They seem to be giving the Home Secretary a pretty bad time of it,’ I remarked with a chuckle.
‘The poor man. He has his troubles, that one. Ah! yes. So much so that he seeks for help in the most improbable quarters.’
I stared at him.
With a slight smile, Poirot drew from his pocket his morning’s correspondence, neatly secured by a rubber band. From this he selected one letter which he tossed across to me.
‘It must have missed us yesterday,’ he said.
I read the letter with a pleasurable feeling of excitement.
‘But, Poirot,’ I cried. ‘This is most flattering!’
‘You think so, my friend?’
‘He speaks in the warmest terms of your ability.’
‘He is right,’ said Poirot, modestly averting his eyes.
‘He begs you to investigate this matter for him—puts it as a personal favour.’
