Third Girl
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
Collins 1966
Agatha Christie® Poirot® Third Girl™
Copyright © 1966 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Title lettering by Ghost Design
Cover photograph © Morgan Norman/Gallery Stock
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: 9780008129606
Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780007422869
Version: 2017-04-13
To Nora Blackborow
Contents
Hercule Poirot was sitting at the breakfast table. At his right hand was a steaming cup of chocolate. He had always had a sweet tooth. To accompany the chocolate was a brioche. It went agreeably with chocolate. He nodded his approval. This was from the fourth shop he had tried. It was a Danish pâtisserie but infinitely superior to the so-called French one nearby. That had been nothing less than a fraud.
He was satisfied gastronomically. His stomach was at peace. His mind also was at peace, perhaps somewhat too much so. He had finished his Magnum Opus, an analysis of great writers of detective fiction. He had dared to speak scathingly of Edgar Allan Poe,