They Do It With Mirrors
A man is shot at in a juvenile reform home – but someone else dies…Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitiation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gilbrandsen, is less fortunate – shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building.Pure coincidence? Miss Marple thinks not, and vows to discover the real reason for Mr Gilbrandsen’s visit.
Читать They Do It With Mirrors онлайн беплатно
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Collins, The Crime Club 1952
They Do It With Mirrors⢠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 © 1952 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
Cover by www.juliejenkinsdesign.com © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2016
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.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008196561
Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422852
Version: 2017-04-12
To Mathew Prichard
Contents
Mrs Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed.
âWell, thatâll have to do,â she murmured. âThink itâs all right, Jane?â
Miss Marple eyed the Lanvanelli creation appraisingly.
âIt seems to me a very beautiful gown,â she said.
âThe gownâs all right,â said Mrs Van Rydock and sighed.
âTake it off, Stephanie,â she said.
The elderly maid with the grey hair and the small pinched mouth eased the gown carefully up over Mrs Van Rydockâs upstretched arms.
Mrs Van Rydock stood in front of the glass in her peach satin slip. She was exquisitely corseted. Her still shapely legs were encased in fine nylon stockings. Her face, beneath a layer of cosmetics and constantly toned up by massage, appeared almost girlish at a slight distance. Her hair was less grey than tending to hydrangea blue and was perfectly set. It was practically impossible when looking at Mrs Van Rydock to imagine what she would be like in a natural state. Everything that money could do had been done for herâreinforced by diet, massage, and constant exercises.
Ruth Van Rydock looked humorously at her friend.
âDo you think most people would guess, Jane, that you and I are practically the same age?â
Miss Marple responded loyally.
âNot for a moment, Iâm sure,â she said reassuringly. âIâm afraid, you know, that I look every minute of my age!â
Miss Marple was white-haired, with a soft pink and white wrinkled face and innocent china blue eyes. She looked a very sweet old lady. Nobody would have called Mrs Van Rydock a sweet old lady.
âI guess you do, Jane,â said Mrs Van Rydock. She grinned suddenly, âAnd so do I. Only not in the same way. âWonderful how that old hag keeps her figure.â Thatâs what they say of me. But they know Iâm an old hag all right! And, my God, do I feel like one!â
She dropped heavily on to the satin quilted chair.
âThatâs all right, Stephanie,â she said. âYou can go.â
Stephanie gathered up the dress and went out.
âGood old Stephanie,â said Ruth Van Rydock. âSheâs been with me for over thirty years now. Sheâs the only woman who knows what I really look like! Jane, I want to talk to you.â
Miss Marple leant forward a little. Her face took on a receptive expression. She looked, somehow, an incongruous figure in the ornate bedroom of the expensive hotel suite. She was dressed in rather dowdy black, carried a large shopping bag and looked every inch a lady.
âIâm worried, Jane. About Carrie Louise.â
âCarrie Louise?â Miss Marple repeated the name musingly. The sound of it took her a long way back.
The pensionnat in Florence. Herself, the pink and white English girl from a Cathedral Close. The two Martin girls, Americans, exciting to the English girl because of their quaint ways of speech and their forthright manner and vitality. Ruth, tall, eager, on top of the world; Carrie Louise, small, dainty, wistful.
âWhen did you see her last, Jane?â
âOh! not for many many years. It must be twenty-five at least. Of course we still send cards at Christmas.â
