Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie’s seasonal mystery thriller, reissued with a striking cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man…

Copyright (#ulink_7553eae0-8d57-5417-839f-ac9777b0727c)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1939

Copyright © 1939 Agatha Christie Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013

Cover design by Ghost Design

Cover photograph © Yolande de Kort / Trevillion Images

www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com/)

Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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 technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007120697

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007422371

Version: 2018-03-08

My dear James

You have always been one of the most faithful and kindly of my readers, and I was therefore seriously perturbed when I received from you a word of criticism.

You complained that my murders were getting too refined—anaemic, in fact. You yearned for a ‘good violent murder with lots of blood’. A murder where there was no doubt about its being murder!

So this is your special story—written for you. I hope it may please.

Your affectionate sister-in-law

Agatha

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Macbeth

Contents

Title Page (#u0d062b2a-6f88-52f7-87b3-155ff7280c0a)

Copyright (#ulink_cfdfdb48-389e-57e9-9967-020c163d970f)

Part 1 December 22nd

Part 2 December 23rd

Part 3 December 24th

Part 4 December 25th

Part 5 December 26th

Part 6 December 27th

Part 7 December 28th

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About Agatha Christie

The Agatha Christie Collection

About the Publisher

Part 1 (#ulink_d3fe098b-7918-5961-a6e1-819fd0b000e0)

December 22nd (#ulink_d3fe098b-7918-5961-a6e1-819fd0b000e0)

Stephen pulled up the collar of his coat as he walked briskly along the platform. Overhead a dim fog clouded the station. Large engines hissed superbly, throwing off clouds of steam into the cold raw air. Everything was dirty and smoke-grimed.

Stephen thought with revulsion:

‘What a foul country—what a foul city!’

His first excited reaction to London, its shops, its restaurants, its well-dressed, attractive women, had faded. He saw it now as a glittering rhinestone set in a dingy setting.

Supposing he were back in South Africa now…He felt a quick pang of homesickness. Sunshine—blue skies—gardens of flowers—cool blue flowers—hedges of plumbago—blue convolvulus clinging to every little shanty.