A Pocket Full of Rye
A handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman…Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his ‘counting house’ when he suffered an agonising and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals.Yet, it was the incident in the parlour which confirmed Jane Marple’s suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme…
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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1953
A Pocket Full of Rye⢠is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited
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registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere.
Copyright © 1953 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
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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: 9780008196578
Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422708
Version: 2017-04-11
Table of Contents
It was Miss Somersâs turn to make the tea. Miss Somers was the newest and the most inefficient of the typists. She was no longer young and had a mild worried face like a sheep. The kettle was not quite boiling when Miss Somers poured the water on to the tea, but poor Miss Somers was never quite sure when a kettle was boiling. It was one of the many worries that afflicted her in life.
She poured out the tea and took the cups round with a couple of limp, sweet biscuits in each saucer.
Miss Griffith, the efficient head typist, a grey-haired martinet who had been with Consolidated Investments Trust for sixteen years, said sharply: âWater not boiling again, Somers!â and Miss Somersâs worried meek face went pink and she said, âOh dear, I did think it was boiling this time.â
Miss Griffith thought to herself: âSheâll last for another month, perhaps, just while weâre so busy ⦠But really! The mess the silly idiot made of that letter to Eastern Developmentsâa perfectly straightforward job, and always so stupid over the tea. If it werenât so difficult to get hold of any intelligent typistsâand the biscuit tin lid wasnât shut tightly last time, either. Reallyââ
Like so many of Miss Griffithâs indignant inner communings the sentence went unfinished.
At that moment Miss Grosvenor sailed in to make Mr Fortescueâs sacred tea. Mr Fortescue had different tea, and different china and special biscuits. Only the kettle and the water from the cloakroom tap were the same. But on this occasion, being Mr Fortescueâs tea, the water boiled. Miss Grosvenor saw to that.
Miss Grosvenor was an incredibly glamorous blonde. She wore an expensively cut little black suit and her shapely legs were encased in the very best and most expensive black-market nylons.
She sailed back through the typistsâ room without deigning to give anyone a word or a glance. The typists might have been so many blackbeetles. Miss Grosvenor was Mr Fortescueâs own special personal secretary; unkind rumour always hinted that she was something more, but actually this was not true. Mr Fortescue had recently married a second wife, both glamorous and expensive, and fully capable of absorbing all his attention. Miss Grosvenor was to Mr Fortescue just a necessary part of the office décorâwhich was all very luxurious and very expensive.
Miss Grosvenor sailed back with the tray held out in front of her like a ritual offering. Through the inner office and through the waiting-room, where the more important clients were allowed to sit, and through her own ante-room, and finally with a light tap on the door she entered the holy of holies, Mr Fortescueâs office.
It was a large room with a gleaming expanse of parquet floor on which were dotted expensive oriental rugs. It was delicately panelled in pale wood and there were some enormous stuffed chairs upholstered in pale buff leather. Behind a colossal sycamore desk, the centre and focus of the room, sat Mr Fortescue himself.
