The Sittaford Mystery. Agatha Christie

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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Collins 1931

      Copyright © 1931 Agatha Christie Ltd.

      All rights reserved.

       www.agathachristie.com

      The moral right of the author is asserted

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technogolical constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780007136841

      Ebook Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780007422807 Version: 2018-09-05

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

1. Sittaford House

2. The Message

3. Five and Twenty Past Five

4. Inspector Narracott

5. Evans

6. At the Three Crowns

7. The Will

8. Mr Charles Enderby

       9. The Laurels

       10. The Pearson Family

       11. Emily Sets to Work

       12. The Arrest

       13. Sittaford

       14. The Willetts

       15. Visit to Major Burnaby

       16. Mr Rycroft

       17. Miss Percehouse

       18. Emily Visits Sittaford House

       19. Theories

       20. Visit to Aunt Jennifer

       21. Conversations

       22. Nocturnal Adventures of Charles

       23. At Hazelmoor

       24. Inspector Narracott Discusses the Case

       25. At Deller’s Café

       26. Robert Gardner

       27. Narracott Acts

       28. Boots

       29. The Second Séance

       30. Emily Explains

       31. The Lucky Man

       Keep Reading

       About Agatha Christie

       The Agatha Christie Collection

       Essay by Charles Osborne

       www.agathachristie.com

       About the Publisher

       Chapter 1

       Sittaford House

      Major Burnaby drew on his gum boots, buttoned his overcoat collar round his neck, took from a shelf near the door a hurricane lantern, and cautiously opened the front door of his little bungalow and peered out.

      The scene that met his eyes was typical of the English countryside as depicted on Xmas cards and in old-fashioned melodramas. Everywhere was snow, deep drifts of it—no mere powdering an inch or two thick. Snow had fallen all over England for the last four days, and up here on the fringe of Dartmoor it had attained a depth of several feet. All over England householders were groaning over burst pipes, and to have a plumber friend (or even a plumber’s mate) was the most coveted of all distinctions.

      Up here, in the tiny village of Sittaford, at all times remote from the world, and now almost completely cut off, the rigours of winter were a very real problem.

      Major Burnaby, however, was a hardy soul. He snorted twice, grunted once, and marched resolutely out into the snow.

      His destination was not far away. A few paces along a winding lane, then in at a gate, and so up a drive partially swept clear of snow to a house of some considerable size built of granite.

      The door was opened by a neatly clad parlourmaid. The Major was divested of his British Warm, his gum boots and his aged scarf.