HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Heinemann 1956
Copyright © 1956 Rosalind Hicks Charitable Trust. All rights reserved.
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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.
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.
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Source ISBN: 9780008131456
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780007534999
Version: 2018-04-11
‘For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’
ST MATTHEW, Ch. 11, v.30
‘Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose Thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in!’
R. L. STEVENSON
Contents
PART IV. As it was in the Beginning—1956
The church was cold. It was October, too early for the heating to be on. Outside, the sun gave a watery promise of warmth and good cheer, but here within the chill grey stone there was only dampness and a sure foreknowledge of winter.
Laura stood between Nannie, resplendent in crackling collars and cuffs, and Mr Henson, the curate. The vicar was in bed with mild influenza. Mr Henson was young and thin, with an Adam’s apple and a high nasal voice.
Mrs Franklin,