“It’s curious,” said Bill, “but Pongo always is right. It’s maddening.”
“Well, as I say,” went on Superintendent Battle, “we got Mr. Thesiger fairly on the run, badly rattled over this Seven Dials business and uncertain just where the danger lay. That we got him in the end was solely through Mr. Eversleigh. He knew what he was up against, and he risked his life cheerfully. But he never dreamt that you would be dragged into it, Lady Eileen.”
“My God, no,” said Bill with feeling.
“He went round to Mr. Thesiger’s rooms with a cooked-up tale,” continued Battle. “He was to pretend that certain papers of Mr. Devereux’s had come into his hands. Those papers were to suggest a suspicion of Mr. Thesiger. Naturally, as the honest friend, Mr. Eversleigh rushed round, sure that Mr. Thesiger would have an explanation. We calculated that if we were right, Mr. Thesiger would try and put Mr. Eversleigh out of the way, and we were fairly certain as to the way he’d do it. Sure enough, Mr. Thesiger gave his guest a whisky and soda. During the minute or two that his host was out of the room. Mr. Eversleigh poured that into a jar on the mantelpiece, but he had to pretend, of course, that the drug was taking effect. It would be slow, he knew, not sudden. He began his story, and Mr. Thesiger at first denied it all indignantly, but as soon as he saw (or thought he saw) that the drug was taking effect, he admitted everything and told Mr. Eversleigh that he was the third victim.
“When Mr. Eversleigh was nearly unconscious, Mr. Thesiger took him down to the car and helped him in. The hood was up. He must already have telephoned to you unknown to Mr. Eversleigh. He made a clever suggestion to you. You were to say that you were taking Miss Wade home.
“You made no mention of a message from him. Later when your body was found here, Miss Wade would swear that you had driven her home and gone up to London with the idea of penetrating into this house by yourself.
“Mr. Eversleigh continued to play his part, that of the unconscious man. I may say that as soon as the two young men had left Jermyn Street, one of my men gained admission and found the doctored whisky, which contained enough hydrochloride of morphia to kill two men. Also the car they were in was followed. Mr. Thesiger drove out of town to a well-known golf course, where he showed himself for a few minutes, speaking of playing a round. That, of course, was for an alibi, should one be needed. He left the car with Mr. Eversleigh in it a little way down the road. Then he drove back to town and to the Seven Dials Club. As soon as he saw Alfred leave, he drove up to the door, spoke to Mr. Eversleigh as he got out in case you might be listening and came into the house and played his little comedy.
“When he pretended to go for a doctor, he really only slammed the door and then crept quietly upstairs and hid behind the door of this room, where Miss Wade would presently send you up on some excuse. Mr. Eversleigh, of course, was horror-struck when he saw you, but he thought it best to keep up the part he was playing. He knew our people were watching the house, and he imagined that there was no immediate danger intended to you. He could always ‘come to life’ at any moment. When Mr. Thesiger threw his revolver on the table and apparently left the house it seemed safer than ever. As for the next bit—” He paused, looking at Bill. “Perhaps you’d like to tell that, sir.”
“I was still lying on that bally sofa,” said Bill, “trying to look done in and getting the fidgets worse and worse. Then I heard someone run down the stairs, and Loraine got up and went to the door. I heard Thesiger’s voice, but not what he said. I heard Loraine say: ‘That’s all right—it’s gone splendidly.’ Then he said: ‘Help me carry him up. It will be a bit of a job, but I want them both together there—a nice little surprise for No 7.’ I didn’t quite understand what they were jawing about, but they hauled me up the stairs somehow or other. It was a bit of a job for them. I made myself a dead weight all right. They heaved me in here, and then I heard Loraine say: ‘You’re sure it’s all right? She won’t come round?’ And Jimmy said—the damned blackguard: ‘No fear. I hit her with all my might.’
“They went away and locked the door, and then I opened my eyes and saw you. My God, Bundle, I shall never feel so perfectly awful again. I thought you were dead.”
“I suppose my hat saved me,” said Bundle.
“Partly,” said Superintendent Battle. “But partly it was Mr. Thesiger’s wounded arm. He didn’t realize it himself—but it had only half its usual strength. Still, that’s all no credit to the Department. We didn’t take the care of you we ought to have done, Lady Eileen—and it’s a black blot on the whole business.”
“I’m very tough,” said Bundle. “And also rather lucky. What I can’t get over is Loraine being in it. She was such a gentle little thing.”
“Ah!” said the Superintendent. “So was the Pentonville murderess that killed five children. You can’t go by that. She’s got bad blood in her—her father ought to have seen the inside of a prison more than once.”
“You’ve got her too?”
Superintendent Battle nodded.
“I daresay they won’t hang her—juries are softhearted. But young Thesiger will swing all right—and a good thing too—a more utterly depraved and callous criminal I never met.”
“And now,” he added, “if your head isn’t aching too badly, Lady Eileen, what about a little celebration? There’s a nice little restaurant round the corner.”
Bundle heartily agreed.
“I’m starving, Superintendent Battle. Besides,” she looked round. “I’ve got to get to know all my colleagues.”
“The Seven Dials,” said Bill. “Hurrah! Some fizz is what we need. Do they run to fizz at this place, Battle?”
“You won’t have anything to complain of, sir. You leave it to me.”
“Superintendent Battle,” said Bundle, “you are a wonderful man. I’m sorry you’re married already. As it is, I shall have to put up with Bill.”
Thirty-four
LORD CATERHAM APPROVES
“Father,” said Bundle, “I’ve got to break a piece of news to you. You’re going to lose me.”
“Nonsense,” said Lord Caterham. “Don’t tell me that you’re suffering from galloping consumption or a weak heart or anything like that, because I simply don’t believe it.”
“It’s not death,” said Bundle. “It’s marriage.”
“Very nearly as bad,” said Lord Caterham. “I suppose I shall have to come to the wedding, all dressed up in tight uncomfortable clothes, and give you away. And Lomax may think it necessary to kiss me in the vestry.”
“Good heavens! You don’t think I’m going to marry George, do you?” cried Bundle.
“Well, something like that seemed to be in the wind last time I saw you,” said her father. “Yesterday morning, you know.”
“I’m going to be married to someone a hundred times nicer than George,” said Bundle.
“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Lord Caterham. “But one never knows. I don’t feel you’re really a good judge of character, Bundle. You told me that young Thesiger was a cheerful inefficient, and from all I hear now it seems that he was one of the most efficient criminals of the day. The sad thing is that I never met him. I was thinking of writing my reminiscences soon—with a special chapter on murderers I have met—and by a purely technical oversight, I never met this young man.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Bundle. “You know you haven’t got the energy to write reminiscences or anything else.”
“I wasn’t actually going to write them myself,” said Lord Caterham. “I believe that’s never done. But I met a very charming girl the other day and that’s her special job. She collects the material and does all the actual writing.”
“And what do you do?”
“Oh, just give her a few facts for half an hour every day. Nothing more than that.” After a slight pause, Lord Catherham said: “She was a nice-looking girl—very restful and sympathetic.”
“Father,” said Bundle, “I have a feeling that without me you will run into deadly dange
r.”
“Different kinds of danger suit different kinds of people,” said Lord Caterham.
He was moving away, when he turned back and said over his shoulder:
“By the way, Bundle, who are you marrying?”
“I was wondering,” said Bundle, “when you were going to ask me that. I’m going to marry Bill Eversleigh.”
The egoist thought it over for a minute. Then he nodded in complete satisfaction.
“Excellent,” he said. “He’s scratch, isn’t he? He and I can play together in the foursomes in the Autumn Meeting.”
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.
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www.AgathaChristie.com
THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories
Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories
The Hercule Poirot Mysteries
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Under Dog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Hallowe’en Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
The Miss Marple Mysteries
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder Is Announced
They Do It with Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
4:50 from Paddington
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
Memoirs
An Autobiography
Come, Tell Me How You Live
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AGATHA CHRISTIE® THE SEVEN DIALS MYSTERY™. Copyright © 1929 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.
THE SEVEN DIALS MYSTERY © 1929. Published by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 ebooks. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
For more information about educational use, teachers should visit www.HarperAcademic.com.
FIRST WILLIAM MORROW PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2012.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-06-207416-4
Epub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 978-0-06-200674-5
12 13 14 15 16 DIX/BVG 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery
(Series: Superintendent Battle # 2)
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