Death Comes as End - Agatha Christie [0]
Death Comes As the End
TO PROFESSOR S.R.K. GLANVILLE
Dear Stephen,
It was you who originally suggested to me the idea of a detective story set in Ancient Egypt, and but for your active help and encouragement this book would never have been written.
I want to say here how much I have enjoyed all the interesting literature you have lent me and to thank you once more for the patience with which you have answered my questions and for the time and trouble you have expended. The pleasure and interest which the writing of the book has brought to me you already know.
Your affectionate and grateful friend,
Contents
Author’s Note
Part One: Inundation
1 Second Month–20th Day
2 Third Month–4th Day
3 Third Month–14th Day
4 Third Month–15th Day
5 Fourth Month–5th Day
Part Two: Winter
6 First Month–4th Day
7 First Month–5th Day
8 Second Month–10th Day
9 Fourth Month–6th Day
Part Three: Summer
10 First Month–11th Day
11 First Month–12th Day
12 First Month–23rd Day
13 First Month–25th Day
14 First Month–30th Day
15 Second Month–1st Day
16 Second Month–10th Day
17 Second Month–15th Day
18 Second Month–16th Day
19 Second Month–17th Day
About the Author
Other Books by Agatha Christie
Copyright
About the Publisher
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The action of this book takes place on the West bank of the Nile at Thebes in Egypt about 2000 BC. Both place and time are incidental to the story. Any other place at any other time would have served as well: but it so happened that the inspiration of both characters and plot was derived from two or three Egyptian letters of the XI Dynasty, found about 20 years ago by the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in a rock tomb opposite Luxor, and translated by Professor (then Mr) Battiscombe Gunn in the Museum’s Bulletin.
It may be of interest to the reader to note that an endowment for ka-service–an everyday feature of ancient Egyptian civilization–was very similar in principle to a mediæval chantry bequest. Property was bequeathed to the ka-priest in return for which he was expected to maintain the tomb of the testator, and to provide offerings at the tomb on certain feast days throughout the year for the repose of the deceased’s soul.
The terms ‘Brother’, ‘Sister’ in Egyptian texts, regularly mean ‘Lover’ and are frequently interchangeable with ‘Husband’, ‘Wife’. They are so used on occasion in this book.
The Agricultural calendar of Ancient Egypt, consisting of three seasons of four months of thirty days, formed the background of peasant life, and with the addition of five intercalary days at the end of the year was used as the official calendar of 365 days to the year. This ‘Year’ originally began with the arrival in Egypt of the flood-water of the Nile in the third week of July by our reckoning; but the absence of a Leap Year caused it to lag through the centuries, so that, at the time of our story, the official New Year’s Day fell about six months earlier than the opening of the agricultural year, i.e. in January instead of July. To save the reader from continually having to make allowance for this six months, however, the dates here used as Chapter headings are stated in terms of the agricultural year of the time, i.e. Inundation–late July to late November; Winter–late November to late March; and Summer–late March to late July.
A.C. 1944
PART ONE
INUNDATION
CHAPTER ONE
SECOND MONTH OF INUNDATION 20TH DAY
Renisenb stood looking over the Nile.
In the distance she could hear faintly the upraised voices of her brothers, Yahmose and Sobek, disputing as to whether or no the dykes in a certain place needed strengthening or not. Sobek’s voice was high and confident as always. He had the habit of asserting his views with easy certainty. Yahmose’s voice was low and grumbling in tone, it expressed doubt and anxiety. Yahmose was always in a state of anxiety over something or other. He was the eldest son, and during his father’s absence on the Northern Estates the management of the farmlands was more