The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite
A brand new ebook omnibus featuring Agatha Christie’s favourite characters: Messrs Quin and Satterthwaite.Harley Quin is an enigma. He appears and disappears unexpectedly – and usually by strange tricks of the light caused by stained-glass windows or flickering firelight. His background, family and friends are all a mystery – his almost supernatural powers of detection are, however, very real.Mr Satterthwaite is altogether more normal – fundamentally a snob, he lives the carefree lifestyle of a bachelor whilst indulging his hobbies. Yet, beneath this facade is a deep vein of loneliness that compels him to observe everyone and everything.Together they are an unstoppable, crime-fighting tour de force – Sattherthwaite’s skills of observation are honed by Quin’s subtle questioning, bringing to light the most pertinent clues in any crime. With each acting as a catalyst for the other, the criminal fraternity had best beware…This volume brings all the Quin and Satterthwaite novels and short stories together for the first time, and showcases the pair’s talents in a way that clearly explains why Agatha Christie herself was so fond of her creations: ‘The Love Detectives’.Contains:The Mysterious Mr QuinThree-Act TragedyDead Man’s MirrorThe Love DetectivesThe Harlequin Tea Set
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AGATHA CHRISTIE
The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This collection © Agatha Christie Limited 2004
The Mysterious Mr. Quin © Agatha Christie Limited 1930
Three Act Tragedy © Agatha Christie Limited 1934
Dead Man’s Mirror © Agatha Christie Limited 1937
The Love Detectives © Agatha Christie Limited 1926,1950
The Harlequin Tea Set © Agatha Christie Limited 1971
Cover photograph © Johner/Photonica
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 author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007171156
Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007562657
Version: 2017-04-13
Contents
The Mr Quin stories were not written as a series. They were written one at a time at rare intervals. Mr Quin, I consider, is an epicure’s taste.
A set of Dresden figures on my mother’s mantelpiece fascinated me as a child and afterwards. They represented the Italian commedia dell’arte: Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, Pierette, Punchinello, and Punchinella. As a girl I wrote a series of poems about them, and I rather think that one of the poems, Harlequin’s Song, was my first appearance in print. It was in the Poetry Review, and I got a guinea for it!
After I turned from poetry and ghost stories to crime, Harlequin finally reappeared; a figure invisible except when he chose, not quite human, yet concerned with the affairs of human beings and particularly of lovers. He is also the advocate for the dead.
Though each story about him is quite separate, yet the collection, written over a considerable period of years, outlines in the end the story of Harlequin himself.
With Mr Quin there has been created little Mr Satterthwaite, Mr Quin’s friend in this mortal world: Mr Satterthwaite, the gossip, the looker-on at life, the little man who without ever touching the depths of joy and sorrow himself, recognizes drama when he sees it, and is conscious that he has a part to play.
Of the Mr Quin stories, my favourites are: World’s End, The Man from the Sea, and Harlequin’s Lane.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
1953
‘The Coming of Mr Quin’ was first published as ‘The Passing of Mr Quinn’ in Grand Magazine, March 1923.
It was New Year’s Eve.
The elder members of the house party at Royston were assembled in the big hall.
Mr Satterthwaite was glad that the young people had gone to bed. He was not fond of young people in herds. He thought them uninteresting and crude. They lacked subtlety and as life went on he had become increasingly fond of subtleties.
Mr Satterthwaite was sixty-two – a little bent, dried-up man with a peering face oddly elflike, and an intense and inordinate interest in other people’s lives. All his life, so to speak, he had sat in the front row of the stalls watching various dramas of human nature unfold before him. His role had always been that of the onlooker. Only now, with old age holding him in its clutch, he found himself increasingly critical of the drama submitted to him. He demanded now something a little out of the common.
There was no doubt that he had a flair for these things. He knew instinctively when the elements of drama were at hand. Like a war horse, he sniffed the scent. Since his arrival at Royston this afternoon, that strange inner sense of his had stirred and bid him be ready. Something interesting was happening or going to happen.
