The Thirteen Problems
The Tuesday Night Club is a venue where locals challenge Miss Marple to solve recent crimes…One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes…The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…Now pit your wits against the powers of deduction of the ‘Tuesday Night Club’.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1932
The Thirteen Problems⢠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 © 1932 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
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Source ISBN: 9780008196523
Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422876
Version: 2017-04-12
To Leonard and Katharine Woolley
Contents
These problems were Miss Marpleâs first introduction to the world of detective story readers. Miss Marple has some faint affinity with my own grandmother, also a pink and white pretty old lady who, although having led the most sheltered and Victorian of lives, nevertheless always appeared to be intimately acquainted with all the depths of human depravity. One could be made to feel incredibly naïve and credulous by her reproachful remark: âBut did you believe what they said to you? You shouldnât do that. I never do!â
I enjoyed writing the Miss Marple stories very much, conceived a great affection for my fluffy old lady, and hoped that she might be a success. She was. After the first six stories had appeared, six more were requested. Miss Marple had definitely come to stay.
She has appeared now in several books and also in a playâand actually rivals Hercule Poirot in popularity. I get about an equal number of letters, one lot saying: âI wish you would always have Miss Marple and not Poirot,â and the other âI wish you would have Poirot and not Miss Marple.â I myself incline to her side. I think that she is at her best in the solving of short problems; they suit her more intimate style. Poirot, on the other hand, insists on a full length book to display his talents.
These Thirteen Problems contain, I consider, the real essence of Miss Marple for those who like her.
1953
âUnsolved mysteries.â
Raymond West blew out a cloud of smoke and repeated the words with a kind of deliberate self-conscious pleasure.
âUnsolved mysteries.â
He looked round him with satisfaction. The room was an old one with broad black beams across the ceiling and it was furnished with good old furniture that belonged to it. Hence Raymond Westâs approving glance. By profession he was a writer and he liked the atmosphere to be flawless. His Aunt Janeâs house always pleased him as the right setting for her personality. He looked across the hearth to where she sat erect in the big grandfather chair. Miss Marple wore a black brocade dress, very much pinched in round the waist. Mechlin lace was arranged in a cascade down the front of the bodice. She had on black lace mittens, and a black lace cap surmounted the piled-up masses of her snowy hair. She was knittingâsomething white and soft and fleecy. Her faded blue eyes, benignant and kindly, surveyed her nephew and her nephewâs guests with gentle pleasure. They rested first on Raymond himself, self-consciously debonair, then on Joyce Lemprière, the artist, with her close-cropped black head and queer hazel-green eyes, then on that well-groomed man of the world, Sir Henry Clithering. There were two other people in the room, Dr Pender, the elderly clergyman of the parish, and Mr Petherick, the solicitor, a dried-up little man with eyeglasses which he looked over and not through. Miss Marple gave a brief moment of attention to all these people and returned to her knitting with a gentle smile upon her lips.
