Agatha Christie - Double Sin and Other Stories

“Definitely,” said Inspector Craddock. . . .

Miss Marple looked from Inspector Craddock’s face to the eager face of Bunch Harmon. The suitcase lay on the table. “Of course, I haven’t opened it,” the old lady said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing till somebody official arrived. Besides,” she added, with a demurely mischievous Victorian smile, “it’s locked.”

“Like to make a guess at what’s inside, Miss Marple?” asked the inspector.

“I should imagine, you know,” said Miss Marple, “that it would be Zobeida’s theatrical costumes. Would you like a chisel, Inspector?”

The chisel soon did its work. Both women gave a slight gasp as the lid flew up. The sunlight coming through the window lit up what seemed like an inexhaustible treasure of sparkling jewels, red, blue, green, orange.

“Aladdin’s Cave,” said Miss Marple. “The flashing jewels the girl wore to dance.”

“Ah,” said Inspector Craddock. “Now, what’s so precious about it, do you think, that a man was murdered to get hold of it?”

“She was a shrewd girl, I expect,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully. “She’s dead, isn’t she, Inspector?”

“Yes, died three years ago.”

“She had this valuable emerald necklace,” said Miss Marple, musingly. “Had the stones taken out of their setting and fastened here and there on her theatrical costume, where everyone would take them for merely coloured rhinestones. Then she had a replica made of the real necklace, and that, of course, was what was stolen. No wonder it never came on the market. The thief soon discovered the stones were false.”

“Here is an envelope,” said Bunch, pulling aside some of the glittering stones.

Inspector Craddock took it from her and extracted two official-looking papers from it. He read aloud, “ ‘Marriage Certificate between Walter Edmund St. John and Mary Moss.’ That was Zobeida’s real name.”

“So they were married,” said Miss Marple. “I see.”

“What’s the other?” asked Bunch.

“A birth certificate of a daughter, Jewel.”

“Jewel?” cried Bunch. “Why, of course. Jewel! Jill! That’s it. I see now why he came to Chipping Cleghorn. That’s what he was trying to say to me. Jewel. The Mundys, you know. Laburnum Cottage. They look after a little girl for someone. They’re devoted to her. She’s been like their own granddaughter. Yes, I remember now, her name was Jewel, only, of course, they call her Jill.

“Mrs. Mundy had a stroke about a week ago, and the old man’s been very ill with pneumonia. They were both going to go to the infirmary. I’ve been trying hard to find a good home for Jill somewhere. I didn’t want her taken away to an institution.

“I suppose her father heard about it in prison and he managed to break away and get hold of this suitcase from the old dresser he or his wife left it with. I suppose if the jewels really belonged to her mother, they can be used for the child now.”

“I should imagine so, Mrs. Harmon. If they’re here.”

“Oh, they’ll be here all right,” said Miss Marple cheerfully. . . .

“Thank goodness you’re back, dear,” said the Reverend Julian Harmon, greeting his wife with affection and a sigh of content. “Mrs. Burt always tries to do her best when you’re away, but she really gave me some very peculiar fish-cakes for lunch. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I gave them to Tiglath Pileser, but even he wouldn’t eat them so I had to throw them out of the window.”

“Tiglath Pileser,” said Bunch, stroking the vicarage cat, who was purring against her knee, “is very particular about what fish he eats. I often tell him he’s got a proud stomach!”

“And your tooth, dear? Did you have it seen to?”

“Yes,” said Bunch. “It didn’t hurt much, and I went to see Aunt Jane again, too. . . .”

“Dear old thing,” said Julian. “I hope she’s not failing at all.”

“Not in the least,” said Bunch, with a grin.

The following morning Bunch took a fresh supply of chrysanthemums to the church. The sun was once more pouring through the east window, and Bunch stood in the jewelled light on the chancel steps. She said very softly under her breath, “Your little girl will be all right. I’ll see that she is. I promise.”

Then she tidied up the church, slipped into a pew and knelt for a few moments to say her prayers before returning to the vicarage to attack the piled-up chores of two neglected days.

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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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