Cards on the Table
A flamboyant party host is murdered in full view of a roomful of bridge players…Mr Shaitana was famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he was a man of whom everybody was a little afraid. So, when he boasted to Poirot that he considered murder an art form, the detective had some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana’s private collection.Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether…
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Cards on the Table
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
Collins 1936
Agatha Christie® Poirot® Cards on the Tableâ¢
Copyright © 1936 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Title lettering by Ghost Design
Cover layout design © HarperCollâinsPublishers Ltd 2016. Title lettering by Ghost Design. Cover photograph © Valentino Sani/Arcangel images
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: 9780008164898
Ebook Edition © September 2016 ISBN: 9780007422197
Version: 2017-04-13
Contents
CHAPTER 2: Dinner at Mr Shaitanaâs
CHAPTER 10: Dr Roberts (Continued)
CHAPTER 16: The Evidence of Elsie Batt
CHAPTER 17: The Evidence of Rhoda Dawes
CHAPTER 20: The Evidence of Mrs Luxmore
CHAPTER 22: Evidence From Combeacre
CHAPTER 23: The Evidence of a Pair of Silk Stockings
CHAPTER 24: Elimination of Three Murderers?
CHAPTER 25: Mrs Lorrimer Speaks
There is an idea prevalent that a detective story is rather like a big raceâa number of startersâlikely horses and jockeys. âYou pays your money and you takes your choice!â The favourite is by common consent the opposite of a favourite on the race-course. In other words he is likely to be a complete outsider! Spot the least likely person to have committed the crime and in nine times out of ten your task is finished.
Since I do not want my faithful readers to fling away this book in disgust, I prefer to warn them beforehand that this is not that kind of book. There are only four starters and any one of them, given the right circumstances, might have committed the crime. That knocks out forcibly the element of surprise. Nevertheless there should be, I think, an equal interest attached to four persons, each of whom has committed murder and is capable of committing further murders. They are four widely divergent types, the motive that drives each one of them to crime is peculiar to that person, and each one would employ a different method. The deduction must, therefore, be entirely psychological, but it is none the less interesting for that, because when all is said and done it is the mind of the murderer that is of supreme interest.
I may say, as an additional argument in favour of this story, that it was one of Hercule Poirotâs favourite cases. His friend, Captain Hastings, however, when Poirot described it to him, considered it very dull! I wonder with which of them my readers will agree.
âMy dear M. Poirot!â
It was a soft purring voiceâa voice used deliberately as an instrumentânothing impulsive or premeditated about it.
Hercule Poirot swung round.
He bowed.
He shook hands ceremoniously.
There was something in his eye that was unusual. One would have said that this chance encounter awakened in him an emotion that he seldom had occasion to feel.
âMy dear Mr Shaitana,â he said.
They both paused. They were like duellists en garde.
Around them a well-dressed languid London crowd eddied mildly. Voices drawled or murmured.
âDarlingâexquisite!â
âSimply divine, arenât they, my dear?â
It was the Exhibition of Snuff-Boxes at Wessex House. Admission one guinea, in aid of the London hospitals.
âMy dear man,â said Mr Shaitana, âhow nice to see you! Not hanging or guillotining much just at present? Slack season in the criminal world? Or is there to be a robbery here this afternoonâthat would be too delicious.â
