Peril at End House

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.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by Collins 1932

Agatha Christie® Poirot® Peril at End House™

Copyright © 1932 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

www.agathachristie.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2015

Title lettering by Ghost Design

Cover photograph © Michael Trevillion/Trevillion 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

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Source ISBN: 9780008129521

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780007422692

Version: 2017-04-12

To EDEN PHILLPOTTS

To whom I shall always be grateful for his friendship and the encouragement he gave me many years ago

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER 1: The Majestic Hotel

CHAPTER 2: End House

CHAPTER 3: Accidents?

CHAPTER 4: There Must Be Something!

CHAPTER 5: Mr and Mrs Croft

CHAPTER 6: A Call Upon Mr Vyse

CHAPTER 7: Tragedy

CHAPTER 8: The Fatal Shawl

CHAPTER 9: A. to J.

CHAPTER 10: Nick’s Secret

CHAPTER 11: The Motive

CHAPTER 12: Ellen

CHAPTER 13: Letters

CHAPTER 14: The Mystery of the Missing Will

CHAPTER 15: Strange Behaviour of Frederica

CHAPTER 16: Interview With Mr Whitfield

CHAPTER 17: A Box of Chocolates

CHAPTER 18: The Face at the Window

CHAPTER 19: Poirot Produces a Play

CHAPTER 20: J.

CHAPTER 21: The Person—K.

CHAPTER 22: The End of the Story

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

No seaside town in the south of England is, I think, as attractive as St Loo. It is well named the Queen of Watering Places and reminds one forcibly of the Riviera. The Cornish coast is to my mind every bit as fascinating as that of the south of France.

I remarked as much to my friend, Hercule Poirot.

‘So it said on our menu in the restaurant car yesterday, mon ami. Your remark is not original.’

‘But don’t you agree?’

He was smiling to himself and did not at once answer my question. I repeated it.

‘A thousand pardons, Hastings. My thoughts were wandering. Wandering indeed to that part of the world you mentioned just now.’

‘The south of France?’

‘Yes. I was thinking of that last winter that I spent there and of the events which occurred.’

I remembered. A murder had been committed on the Blue Train, and the mystery—a complicated and baffling one—had been solved by Poirot with his usual unerring acumen.

‘How I wish I had been with you,’ I said with deep regret.

‘I too,’ said Poirot. ‘Your experience would have been invaluable to me.’

I looked at him sideways. As a result of long habit, I distrust his compliments, but he appeared perfectly serious. And after all, why not? I have a very long experience of the methods he employs.

‘What I particularly missed was your vivid imagination, Hastings,’ he went on dreamily. ‘One needs a certain amount of light relief. My valet, Georges, an admirable man with whom I sometimes permitted myself to discuss a point, has no imagination whatever.’

This remark seemed to me quite irrelevant.

‘Tell me, Poirot,’ I said. ‘Are you never tempted to renew your activities? This passive life—’

‘Suits me admirably, my friend. To sit in the sun—what could be more charming? To step from your pedestal at the zenith of your fame—what could be a grander gesture? They say of me: “That is Hercule Poirot!—The great—the unique!—There was never any one like him, there never will be!” Eh bien—I am satisfied. I ask no more. I am modest.’

I should not myself have used the word modest. It seemed to me that my little friend’s egotism had certainly not declined with his years. He leaned back in his chair, caressing his moustache and almost purring with self-satisfaction.

We were sitting on one of the terraces of the Majestic Hotel. It is the biggest hotel in St Loo and stands in its own grounds on a headland overlooking the sea. The gardens of the hotel lay below us freely interspersed with palm trees. The sea was of a deep and lovely blue, the sky clear and the sun shining with all the single-hearted fervour an August sun should (but in England so often does not) have. There was a vigorous humming of bees, a pleasant sound—and altogether nothing could have been more ideal.