Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [109]
‘The maid didn’t see me.’
‘But I did. Why was that?’
‘Perhaps, as a result of the price you have paid, you see things that other people–do not.’
Mr Satterthwaite looked at him uncomprehendingly for a minute or two. Then he began suddenly to quiver all over like an aspen leaf.
‘What is this place?’ he whispered. ‘What is this place?’
‘I told you earlier today. It is My lane.’
‘A Lovers’ Lane,’ murmured Mr Satterthwaite. ‘And people pass along it.’
‘Most people, sooner or later.’
‘And at the end of it–what do they find?’
Mr Quin smiled. His voice was very gentle. He pointed at the ruined cottage above them.
‘The house of their dreams–or a rubbish heap–who shall say?’
Mr Satterthwaite looked up at him suddenly. A wild rebellion surged over him. He felt cheated, defrauded.
‘But I–’ His voice shook. ‘I have never passed down your lane…’
‘And do you regret?’
Mr Satterthwaite quailed. Mr Quin seemed to have loomed to enormous proportions…Mr Satterthwaite had a vista of something at once menacing and terrifying…Joy, Sorrow, Despair.
And his comfortable little soul shrank back appalled.
‘Do you regret?’ Mr Quin repeated his question. There was something terrible about him.
‘No,’ Mr Satterthwaite stammered. ‘N-no.’
And then suddenly he rallied.
‘But I see things,’ he cried. ‘I may have been only a looker-on at Life–but I see things that other people do not. You said so yourself, Mr Quin…’
But Mr Quin had vanished.
And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie
THE WORLD’S BEST-SELLING MYSTERY, OVER 100 MILLION COPIES SOLD
‘Ten…’
Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious ‘U.N.Owen’.
‘Nine…’
At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead.
‘Eight…’
Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by an ancient nursery rhyme counting down one by one…as one by one…they begin to die.
‘Seven…’
Which amongst them is the killer and will any of them survive?
‘One of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies.’
Observer
‘Agatha Christie’s masterpiece.’
Spectator
ISBN-13 978-0-00-713683-4
Endless Night
Agatha Christie
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night
When penniless Michael Rogers discovered the beautiful house at Gypsy’s Acre and then meets the heiress Ellie, it seems that all his dreams have come true at once. But he ignores an old woman warning of an ancient curse, and evil begins to stir in paradise.
As Michael soon learns: Gypsy’s Acre is the place where fatal ‘accidents’ happen…
‘One of the best things Agatha Christie has ever done.’
Sunday Times
ISBN-13 978-0-00-715167-7
About the Author
Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in 100 foreign countries. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.
Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was written towards the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. In it she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. It was eventually published by The Bodley Head in 1920.
In 1926, after averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote her masterpiece. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of her books to be published by Collins and marked the beginning of an author-publisher relationship which lasted for 50 years and well over 70 books. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie’s books to be dramatised–under the name Alibi–and to have a successful run in London’s West End. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history.