Listerdale Mystery - Agatha Christie [87]
‘It was not an accident,’ the girl was saying. ‘I am sure it was not an accident. Didn’t you hear, just before dinner, that story he was telling about the girl in Italy? That girl was Paula Nazorkoff. Just after, she said something about being Russian, and I saw Mr Cowan look amazed. She may have taken a Russian name, but he knows well enough that she is Italian.’
‘My dear Blanche,’ said Lord Leconmere.
‘I tell you I am sure of it. She had a picture paper in her bedroom opened at the page showing M. Bréon in his English country home. She knew before she came down here. I believe she gave something to that poor little Italian man to make him ill.’
‘But why?’ cried Lord Leconmere. ‘Why?’
‘Don’t you see? It’s the story of Tosca all over again. He wanted her in Italy, but she was faithful to her lover, and she went to him to try to get him to save her lover, and he pretended he would. Instead he let him die. And now at last her revenge has come. Didn’t you hear the way she hissed “I am Tosca”? And I saw Bréon’s face when she said it, he knew then–he recognized her!’
In her dressing-room, Paula Nazorkoff sat motionless, a white ermine cloak held round her. There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ said the prima donna.
Elise entered. She was sobbing.
‘Madame, Madame, he is dead! And–’
‘Yes?’
‘Madame, how can I tell you? There are two gentlemen of the police there, they want to speak to you.’
Paula Nazorkoff rose to her full height.
‘I will go to them,’ she said quietly.
She untwisted a collar of pearls from her neck, and put them into the French girl’s hands.
‘Those are for you, Elise, you have been a good girl. I shall not need them now where I am going. You understand, Elise? I shall not sing “Tosca” again.’
She stood a moment by the door, her eyes sweeping over the dressing-room, as though she looked back over the past thirty years of her career.
Then softly between her teeth, she murmured the last line of another opera:
‘La commedia è finita!’
The Murder at the Vicarage
MARPLE
Agatha Christie
‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’
It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later–when the Colonel is found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.
The first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction.
‘When she really hits her stride, as she does here, Agatha Christie is hard to surpass.’ Saturday Review of Literature
ISBN-13 978-0-00-712085-7
A Murder Is Announced
MARPLE
Agatha Christie
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, are agog with curiosity when the Gazette advertises: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’
A childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare the hostess; poor Letitia Blacklock? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, the villagers arrive at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out and a gun is fired. When they come back on, a gruesome scene is revealed.
An impossible crime? Only Miss Marple can unravel it.
‘Established firmly her claim to the throne of detection. the plot is as ingenious as ever…’
A. A. MILNE
ISBN-13 978-0-00-712096-3
4.50 From Paddington
MARPLE
Agatha Christie
For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman’s throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away.
But who, apart from Jane Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there were no suspects, no other witnesses…and no corpse.
‘Never a dull moment.’
The Times
ISBN-13 978-0-00-712082-6