SINISTER SPRING Read online

  SINISTER SPRING

  MURDER AND MYSTERY FROM THE QUEEN OF CRIME

  Agatha Christie

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street,

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2023

  Sinister Spring © 2023 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved

  AGATHA CHRISTIE, MARPLE, POIROT, the Agatha Christie

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  Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere.

  www.agathachristie.com

  Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023

  Cover illustrations: Shutterstock.com

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008470890

  Ebook Edition © March 2023 ISBN: 9780008470906

  Version: 2022-10-12

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction: The Gunman

  The Market Basing Mystery

  The Case of the Missing Lady

  The Herb of Death

  How Does Your Garden Grow?

  Swan Song

  Miss Marple Tells a Story

  Have You Got Everything You Want?

  The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan

  Ingots of Gold

  The Soul of the Croupier

  The Girl in the Train

  Greenshaw’s Folly

  Bibliography

  Keep Reading …

  Also by Agatha Christie

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  The Gunman

  It was just before I was five years old that I first met fear. Nursie and I were primrosing one spring day. We had crossed the railway line and gone up Shiphay lane, picking primroses from the hedges, where they grew thickly. We turned in through an open gate and went on picking. Our basket was growing full when a voice shouted at us, angry and rough:

  ‘Wot d’you think you’re doing ’ere?’

  He seemed to me a giant of a man, angry and red-faced.

  Nursie said we were doing no harm, only primrosing.

  ‘Trespassing, that’s what you’re at. Get out of it. If you’re not out of that gate in one minute, I’ll boil you alive, see?’

  I tugged desperately at Nursie’s hand as we went. Nursie could not go fast, and indeed did not try to do so. My fear mounted. When we were at last safely in the lane I almost collapsed with relief. I was white and sick, as Nursie suddenly noticed.

  ‘Dearie,’ she said gently, ‘you didn’t think he meant it, did you? Not to boil you or whatever it was?’

  I nodded dumbly. I had visualised it. A great steaming cauldron on a fire, myself being thrust into it. My agonised screams. It was all deadly real to me.

  Nursie talked soothingly. It was a way people had of speaking. A kind of joke, as it were. Not a nice man, a very rude, unpleasant man, but he hadn’t meant what he said. It was a joke.

  It had been no joke to me, and even now when I go into a field a slight tremor goes down my spine. From that day to this I have never known so real a terror.

  Yet in nightmares I never relived this particular experience. All children have nightmares, and I doubt if they are a result of nursemaids or others ‘frightening’ them, or of any happening in real life. My own particular nightmare centred round someone I called ‘The Gunman’. I never read a story about anyone of the kind. I called him The Gunman because he carried a gun, not because I was frightened of his shooting me, or for any reason connected with the gun. The gun was part of his appearance, which seems to me now to have been that of a Frenchman in grey-blue uniform, powdered hair in a queue and a kind of three-cornered hat, and the gun was some old-fashioned kind of musket. It was his mere presence that was frightening. The dream would be quite ordinary—a tea-party, or a walk with various people, usually a mild festivity of some kind. Then suddenly a feeling of uneasiness would come. There was someone—someone who ought not to be there—a horrid feeling of fear: and then I would see him—sitting at the tea-table, walking along the beach, joining in the game. His pale blue eyes would meet mine, and I would wake up shrieking: ‘The Gunman, the Gunman!’

  ‘Miss Agatha had one of her gunman dreams last night,’ Nursie would report in her placid voice.

  ‘Why is he so frightening, darling?’ my mother would ask. ‘What do you think he will do to you?’

  I didn’t know why he was frightening. Later the dream varied. The Gunman was not always in costume. Sometimes, as we sat round a tea-table, I would look across at a friend, or a member of the family, and I would suddenly realise that it was not Dorothy or Phyllis or Monty, or my mother or whoever it might be. The pale blue eyes in the familiar face met mine—under the familiar appearance. It was really the Gunman.

  The Market Basing Mystery

  ‘After all, there’s nothing like the country, is there?’ said Inspector Japp, breathing in heavily through his nose and out through his mouth in the most approved fashion.

  Poirot and I applauded the sentiment heartily. It had been the Scotland Yard inspector’s idea that we should all go for the weekend to the little country town of Market Basing. When off duty, Japp was an ardent botanist, and discoursed upon minute flowers possessed of unbelievably lengthy Latin names (somewhat strangely pronounced) with an enthusiasm even greater than that he gave to his cases.

  ‘Nobody knows us, and we know nobody,’ explained Japp. ‘That’s the idea.’

  This was not to prove quite the case, however, for the local constable happened to have been transferred from a village fifteen miles away where a case of arsenical poisoning had brought him into contact with the Scotland Yard man. However, his delighted recognition of the great man only enhanced Japp’s sense of well-being, and as we sat down to breakfast on Sunday morning in the parlour of the village inn, with the sun shining, and tendrils of honeysuckle thrusting themselves in at the window, we were all in the best of spirits. The bacon and eggs were excellent, the coffee not so good, but passable and boiling hot.

  ‘This is the life,’ said Japp. ‘When I retire, I shall have a little place in the country. Far from crime, like this!’

  ‘Le crime, il est partout,’ remarked Poirot, helping himself to a neat square of bread, and frowning at a sparrow which had balanced itself impertinently on the windowsill.

  I quoted lightly:

  ‘That rabbit has a pleasant face,

  His private life is a disgrace

  I really could not tell to you

  The awful things that rabbits do.’

  ‘Lord,’ said Japp, stretching himself backward, ‘I believe I could manage another egg, and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon. What do you say, Captain?’

  ‘I’m with you,’ I returned heartily. ‘What about you, Poirot?’

  Poirot shook his head.

  ‘One must not so replenish the stomach that the brain refuses to function,’ he remarked.

  ‘I’ll risk replenishing the stomach a bit more,’ laughed Japp. ‘I take a large size in stom
achs; and by the way, you’re getting stout yourself, M. Poirot. Here, miss, eggs and bacon twice.’

  At that moment, however, an imposing form blocked the doorway. It was Constable Pollard.

  ‘I hope you’ll excuse me troubling the inspector, gentlemen, but I’d be glad of his advice.’

  ‘I’m on holiday,’ said Japp hastily. ‘No work for me. What is the case?’

  ‘Gentleman up at Leigh House—shot himself—through the head.’

  ‘Well, they will do it,’ said Japp prosaically. ‘Debt, or a woman, I suppose. Sorry I can’t help you, Pollard.’

  ‘The point is,’ said the constable, ‘that he can’t have shot himself. Leastways, that’s what Dr Giles says.’

  Japp put down his cup.

  ‘Can’t have shot himself? What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s what Dr Giles says,’ repeated Pollard. ‘He says it’s plumb impossible. He’s puzzled to death, the door being locked on the inside and the windows bolted; but he sticks to it that the man couldn’t have committed suicide.’

  That settled it. The further supply of bacon and eggs was waved aside, and a few minutes later we were all walking as fast as we could in the direction of Leigh House, Japp eagerly questioning the constable.

  The name of the deceased was Walter Protheroe; he was a man of middle age and something of a recluse. He had come to Market Basing eight years ago and rented Leigh House, a rambling, dilapidated old mansion fast falling into ruin. He lived in a corner of it, his wants attended to by a housekeeper whom he had brought with him. Miss Clegg was her name, and she was a very superior woman and highly thought of in the village. Just lately Mr Protheroe had had visitors staying with him, a Mr and Mrs Parker from London. This morning, unable to get a reply when she went to call her master, and finding the door locked, Miss Clegg became alarmed, and telephoned for the police and the doctor. Constable Pollard and Dr Giles had arrived at the same moment. Their united efforts had succeeded in breaking down the oak door of his bedroom.

  Mr Protheroe was lying on the floor, shot through the head, and the pistol was clasped in his right hand. It looked a clear case of suicide.

  After examining the body, however, Dr Giles became clearly perplexed, and finally he drew the constable aside, and communicated his perplexities to him; whereupon Pollard had at once thought of Japp. Leaving the doctor in charge, he had hurried down to the inn.

  By the time the constable’s recital was over, we had arrived at Leigh House, a big, desolate house surrounded by an unkempt, weed-ridden garden. The front door was open, and we passed at once into the hall and from there into a small morning-room whence proceeded the sound of voices. Four people were in the room: a somewhat flashily dressed man with a shifty, unpleasant face to whom I took an immediate dislike; a woman of much the same type, though handsome in a coarse fashion; another woman dressed in neat black who stood apart from the rest, and whom I took to be the housekeeper; and a tall man dressed in sporting tweeds, with a clever, capable face, and who was clearly in command of the situation.

  ‘Dr Giles,’ said the constable, ‘this is Detective-Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, and his two friends.’

  The doctor greeted us and made us known to Mr and Mrs Parker. Then we accompanied them upstairs. Pollard, in obedience to a sign from Japp, remained below, as it were on guard over the household. The doctor led us upstairs and along a passage. A door was open at the end; splinters hung from the hinges, and the door itself had crashed to the floor inside the room.

  We went in. The body was still lying on the floor. Mr Protheroe had been a man of middle age, bearded, with hair grey at the temples. Japp went and knelt by the body.

  ‘Why couldn’t you leave it as you found it?’ he grumbled.

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘We thought it a clear case of suicide.’

  ‘H’m!’ said Japp. ‘Bullet entered the head behind the left ear.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the doctor. ‘Clearly impossible for him to have fired it himself. He’d have had to twist his hand right round his head. It couldn’t have been done.’

  ‘Yet you found the pistol clasped in his hand? Where is it, by the way?’

  The doctor nodded to the table.

  ‘But it wasn’t clasped in his hand,’ he said. ‘It was inside the hand, but the fingers weren’t closed over it.’

  ‘Put there afterwards,’ said Japp; ‘that’s clear enough.’ He was examining the weapon. ‘One cartridge fired. We’ll test it for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll find any but yours, Dr Giles. How long has he been dead?’

  ‘Some time last night. I can’t give the time to an hour or so, as those wonderful doctors in detective stories do. Roughly, he’s been dead about twelve hours.’

  So far, Poirot had not made a move of any kind. He had remained by my side, watching Japp at work and listening to his questions. Only, from time to time, he had sniffed the air very delicately, and as if puzzled. I too had sniffed, but could detect nothing to arouse interest. The air seemed perfectly fresh and devoid of odour. And yet, from time to time, Poirot continued to sniff it dubiously, as though his keener nose detected something I had missed.

  Now, as Japp moved away from the body, Poirot knelt down by it. He took no interest in the wound. I thought at first that he was examining the fingers of the hand that had held the pistol, but in a minute I saw that it was a handkerchief carried in the coat-sleeve that interested him. Mr Protheroe was dressed in a dark grey lounge-suit. Finally Poirot got up from his knees, but his eyes still strayed back to the handkerchief as though puzzled.

  Japp called to him to come and help to lift the door. Seizing my opportunity, I too knelt down, and taking the handkerchief from the sleeve, scrutinized it minutely. It was a perfectly plain handkerchief of white cambric; there was no mark or stain on it of any kind. I replaced it, shaking my head and confessing myself baffled.

  The others had raised the door. I realized that they were hunting for the key. They looked in vain.

  ‘That settles it,’ said Japp. ‘The window’s shut and bolted. The murderer left by the door, locking it and taking the key with him. He thought it would be accepted that Protheroe had locked himself in and shot himself, and that the absence of the key would not be noticed. You agree, M. Poirot?’

  ‘I agree, yes; but it would have been simpler and better to slip the key back inside the room under the door. Then it would look as though it had fallen from the lock.’

  ‘Ah, well, you can’t expect everybody to have the bright ideas that you have. You’d have been a holy terror if you’d taken to crime. Any remarks to make, M. Poirot?’

  Poirot, it seemed to me, was somewhat at a loss. He looked round the room and remarked mildly and almost apologetically: ‘He smoked a lot, this monsieur.’

  True enough, the grate was filled with cigarette-stubs, as was an ashtray that stood on a small table near the big armchair.

  ‘He must have got through about twenty cigarettes last night,’ remarked Japp. Stooping down, he examined the contents of the grate carefully, then transferred his attention to the ashtray. ‘They’re all the same kind,’ he announced, ‘and smoked by the same man. There’s nothing there, M. Poirot.’

  ‘I did not suggest that there was,’ murmured my friend.

  ‘Ha,’ cried Japp, ‘what’s this?’ He pounced on something bright and glittering that lay on the floor near the dead man. ‘A broken cuff-link. I wonder who this belongs to. Dr Giles, I’d be obliged if you’d go down and send up the housekeeper.’

  ‘What about the Parkers? He’s very anxious to leave the house—says he’s got urgent business in London.’

  ‘I dare say. It’ll have to get on without him. By the way things are going, it’s likely that there’ll be some urgent business down here for him to attend to! Send up the housekeeper, and don’t let either of the Parkers give you and Pollard the slip. Did any of the household come in here this morning?’

  The doctor reflected
.

  ‘No, they stood outside in the corridor while Pollard and I came in.’

  ‘Sure of that?’

  ‘Absolutely certain.’

  The doctor departed on his mission.

  ‘Good man, that,’ said Japp approvingly. ‘Some of these sporting doctors are first-class fellows. Well, I wonder who shot this chap. It looks like one of the three in the house. I hardly suspect the housekeeper. She’s had eight years to shoot him in if she wanted to. I wonder who these Parkers are? They’re not a prepossessing-looking couple.’

  Miss Clegg appeared at this juncture. She was a thin, gaunt woman with neat grey hair parted in the middle, very staid and calm in manner. Nevertheless there was an air of efficiency about her which commanded respect. In answer to Japp’s questions, she explained that she had been with the dead man for fourteen years. He had been a generous and considerate master. She had never seen Mr and Mrs Parker until three days ago, when they arrived unexpectedly to stay. She was of the opinion that they had asked themselves—the master had certainly not seemed pleased to see them. The cuff-links which Japp showed her had not belonged to Mr Protheroe—she was sure of that. Questioned about the pistol, she said that she believed her master had a weapon of that kind. He kept it locked up. She had seen it once some years ago, but could not say whether this was the same one. She had heard no shot last night, but that was not surprising, as it was a big, rambling house, and her rooms and those prepared for the Parkers were at the other end of the building. She did not know what time Mr Protheroe had gone to bed—he was still up when she retired at half past nine. It was not his habit to go at once to bed when he went to his room. Usually he would sit up half the night, reading and smoking. He was a great smoker.

  Then Poirot interposed a question:

  ‘Did your master sleep with his window open or shut, as a rule?’ Miss Clegg considered.

  ‘It was usually open, at any rate at the top.’

  ‘Yet now it is closed. Can you explain that?’