A Caribbean Mystery
An exotic holiday for Miss Marple is ruined when a retired major is killed…As Jane Marple sat basking in the Caribbean sunshine she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened.Eventually, her interest was aroused by an old soldier’s yarn about a strange coincidence. Infuriatingly, just as he was about to show her an astonishing photograph, the Major’s attention wandered. He never did finished the story…
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1964
A Caribbean Mystery⢠is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited
and Agatha Christie® Marple® and the Agatha Christie Signature are
registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere.
Copyright © 1964 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
Cover by designedbydavid.co.uk © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2016
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 authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008196608
Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422203
Version 2017-04-11
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Major Palgrave Tells a Story
Chapter 2: Miss Marple Makes Comparisons
Chapter 3: A Death in the Hotel
Chapter 4: Miss Marple Seeks Medical Attention
Chapter 5: Miss Marple Makes a Decision
Chapter 7: Morning on the Beach
Chapter 8: A Talk with Esther Walters
Chapter 9: Miss Prescott and Others
Chapter 10: A Decision in Jamestown
Chapter 11: Evening at the Golden Palm
Chapter 12: Old Sins Cast Long Shadows
Chapter 13: Exit Victoria Johnson
Chapter 16: Miss Marple Seeks Assistance
Chapter 17: Mr Rafiel Takes Charge
Chapter 18: Without Benefit of Clergy
Chapter 21: Jackson on Cosmetics
Chapter 22: A Man in Her Life?
âTake all this business about Kenya,â said Major Palgrave. âLots of chaps gabbing away who know nothing about the place! Now I spent fourteen years of my life there. Some of the best years of my life, tooââ
Old Miss Marple inclined her head.
It was a gentle gesture of courtesy. Whilst Major Palgrave proceeded with the somewhat uninteresting recollections of a lifetime, Miss Marple peacefully pursued her own thoughts. It was a routine with which she was well acquainted. The locale varied. In the past, it had been predominantly India. Majors, Colonels, Lieutenant-Generalsâand a familiar series of words: Simla. Bearers. Tigers. Chota HazriâTiffin. Khitmagars, and so on. With Major Palgrave the terms were slightly different. Safari. Kikuyu. Elephants. Swahili. But the pattern was essentially the same. An elderly man who needed a listener so that he could, in memory, relive days in which he had been happy. Days when his back had been straight, his eyesight keen, his hearing acute. Some of these talkers had been handsome soldierly old boys, some again had been regrettably unattractive; and Major Palgrave, purple of face, with a glass eye, and the general appearance of a stuffed frog, belonged in the latter category.
Miss Marple had bestowed on all of them the same gentle charity. She had sat attentively, inclining her head from time to time in gentle agreement, thinking her own thoughts and enjoying what there was to enjoy: in this case the deep blue of a Caribbean Sea.
So kind of dear Raymondâshe was thinking gratefully, so really and truly kind ⦠Why he should take so much trouble about his old aunt, she really did not know. Conscience, perhaps; family feeling? Or possibly he was truly fond of her â¦
She thought, on the whole, that he was fond of herâhe always had beenâin a slightly exasperated and contemptuous way! Always trying to bring her up to date. Sending her books to read. Modern novels. So difficultâall about such unpleasant people, doing such very odd things and not, apparently, even enjoying them. âSexâ as a word had not been mentioned in Miss Marpleâs young days; but there had been plenty of itânot talked about so muchâbut enjoyed far more than nowadays, or so it seemed to her. Though usually labelled Sin, she couldnât help feeling that that was preferable to what it seemed to be nowadaysâa kind of Duty.
