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The ABC Murders
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie’s world-famous serial killer mystery, reissued with a striking cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.There’s a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way through the alphabet. And as a macabre calling card he leaves beside each victim’s corpe the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place.Having begun with Andover, Bexhill and then Churston, there seems little chance of the murderer being caught – until he makes the crucial and vain mistake of challenging Hercule Poirot to frustrate his plans…
The ABC Murders
Copyright (#ulink_c4c934e0-e4f3-5ab6-b6cd-7b1148c07063)
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 1936
Copyright © 1936 Agatha Christie Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Photographers: Charlie Gray and Ben Blackall
Photography and title typography © Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited 2018.
BBC and the BBC logo are trade marks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. Logo © BBC 1996
www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com/)
Agatha Chrisie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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: 9780007119295
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN 9780007421893
Version: 2018-11-23
Dedication (#ulink_3abb3eb3-d3e1-566a-9367-f2aba59326e8)
To James Watts
One of my most sympathetic readers
Contents
Cover (#u3a46b63b-9036-5ea0-ae7b-1d70f419d9f4)
Title Page (#uad8bd50a-0891-52d7-83f0-ba5ac1844163)
Copyright
Dedication (#uea6c04b6-898c-55d7-a455-25bbb501a91b)
Foreword
1 The Letter
2 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
3 Andover
4 Mrs Ascher
5 Mary Drower
6 The Scene of the Crime
7 Mr Partridge and Mr Riddell
8 The Second Letter
9 The Bexhill-on-Sea Murder
10 The Barnards
11 Megan Barnard
12 Donald Fraser
13 A Conference
14 The Third Letter
15 Sir Carmichael Clarke
16 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
17 Marking Time
18 Poirot Makes a Speech
19 By Way of Sweden
20 Lady Clarke
21 Description of a Murderer
22 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
23 September 11th. Doncaster
24 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
25 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
26 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
27 The Doncaster Murder
28 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
29 At Scotland Yard
30 Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative
31 Hercule Poirot Asks Questions
32 And Catch a Fox
33 Alexander Bonaparte Cust
34 Poirot Explains
35 Finale
About Agatha Christie
The Agatha Christie Collection
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Foreword (#ulink_d4cb2944-2167-542d-9210-c755007943c2)
By Captain Arthur Hastings, O.B.E.
In this narrative of mine I have departed from my usual practice of relating only those incidents and scenes at which I myself was present. Certain chapters, therefore, are written in the third person.
I wish to assure my readers that I can vouch for the occurrences related in these chapters. If I have taken a certain poetic licence in describing the thoughts and feelings of various persons, it is because I believe I have set them down with a reasonable amount of accuracy. I may add that they have been ‘vetted’ by my friend Hercule Poirot himself.
In conclusion, I will say that if I have described at too great length some of the secondary personal relationships which arose as a consequence of this strange series of crimes, it is because the human and personal elements can never be ignored. Hercule Poirot once taught me in a very dramatic manner that romance can be a by-product of crime.
As to the solving of the ABC mystery, I can only say that in my opinion Poirot showed real genius in the way he tackled a problem entirely unlike any which had previously come his way.
Chapter 1 (#ulink_eff14b10-3299-5073-a2f6-d62ade1e7e1e)
The Letter (#ulink_eff14b10-3299-5073-a2f6-d62ade1e7e1e)
It was in June of 1935 that I came home from my ranch in South America for a stay of about six months. It had been a difficult time for us out there. Like everyone else, we had suffered from world depression. I had various affairs to see to in England that I felt could only be successful if a personal touch was introduced. My wife remained to manage the ranch.
I need hardly say that one of my first actions on reaching England was to look up my old friend, Hercule Poirot.
I found him installed in one of the newest type of service flats in London. I accused him (and he admitted the fact) of having chosen this particular building entirely on account of its strictly geometrical appearance and proportions.
‘But yes, my friend, it is of a most pleasing symmetry, do you not find it so?’
I said that I thought there could be too much squareness and, alluding to an old joke, I asked if in this super-modern hostelry they managed to induce hens to lay square eggs.
Poirot laughed heartily.
‘Ah, you remember that? Alas! no—science has not yet induced the hens to conform to modern tastes, they still lay eggs of different sizes and colours!’
I examined my old friend with an affectionate eye. He was looking wonderfully well—hardly a day older than when I had last seen him.
‘You’re looking in fine fettle, Poirot,’ I said. ‘You’ve hardly aged at all. In fact, if it were possible, I should say that you had fewer grey hairs than when I saw you last.’
Poirot beamed on me.
‘And why is that not possible? It is quite true.’
‘Do you mean your hair is turning from grey to black instead of from black to grey?’
‘Precisely.’
‘But surely that’s a scientific impossibility!’
‘Not at all.’
‘But that’s very extraordinary. It seems against nature.’
‘As usual, Hastings, you have the beautiful and unsuspicious mind. Years do not change that in you! You perceive a fact and mention the solution of it in the same breath without noticing that you are doing so!’
I stared at him, puzzled.
Without a word he walked into his bedroom and returned with a bottle in his hand which he handed to me.
I took it, for the moment uncomprehending.
It bore the words:
Revivit.—To bring back the natural tone of the hair. Revivit is not a dye. In five shades, Ash, Chestnut, Titian, Brown, Black.
