Hercule Poirot 3-Book Collection 1: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder on the Links, Poirot Investigates. Agatha Christie. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Agatha Christie
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Ужасы и Мистика
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007431731
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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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      London SE1 9GF

      

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      The Mysterious Affair At Styles first published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head 1921

      

      Murder On The Links first published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head 1923

      

      Poirot Investigates first published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head 1924

      

      Copyright © 1921, 1923, 1924 Agatha Christie Ltd. All rights reserved.

      

       www.agathachristie.com

      “Essay by Charles Osborne” excerpted from The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. Copyright © 1982, 1999 by Charles Osborne. Reprinted with permission.

      

      Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      

      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

      Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007431731

      Version: 2017-04-11

      Contents

       The Murder on the Links

       Poirot Investigates

      About Agatha Christie

      The Agatha Christie Collection

      www.agathachristie.com

      About the Publisher

       The Mysterious Affair at Styles

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      To my mother

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      10 The Arrest

      11 The Case for the Prosecution

      12 The Last Link

      13 Poirot Explains

      Credits

       Chapter 1

       I Go to Styles

      The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as ‘The Styles Case’ has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.

      I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the affair.

      I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some months in a rather depressing Convalescent Home, was given a month’s sick leave. Having no near relations or friends, I was trying to make up my mind what to do, when I ran across John Cavendish. I had seen very little of him for some years. Indeed, I had never known him particularly well. He was a good fifteen years my senior, for one thing, though he hardly looked his forty-five years. As a boy, though, I had often stayed at Styles, his mother’s place in Essex.

      We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting me down to Styles to spend my leave there.

      ‘The mater will be delighted to see you again—after all those years,’ he added.

      ‘Your mother keeps well?’ I asked.

      ‘Oh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?’

      I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs Cavendish, who had married John’s father when he was a widower with two sons, had been a handsome woman of middle-age as I remembered her. She certainly could not be a day less than seventy now. I recalled her as an energetic, autocratic personality, somewhat inclined to charitable and social notoriety, with a fondness for opening bazaars and playing the Lady Bountiful. She was a most generous woman, and possessed a considerable fortune of her own.

      Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr Cavendish early in their married life. He had been completely under his wife’s ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that was distinctly unfair to his two sons. Their stepmother, however, had always been most generous to them; indeed, they were so young at the time of their father’s remarriage that they always thought of her as their own mother.

      Lawrence, the younger, had been a delicate youth. He had qualified as a doctor but early relinquished the profession of medicine, and lived at home while pursuing literary ambitions; though his verses never had any marked success.

      John practised for some time as a barrister, but had finally settled down to the more congenial life of a country squire. He had married two years ago, and had taken his wife to live at Styles, though I entertained a shrewd suspicion that