The Body in the Library

The Body in the Library
Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie’s world-famous Miss Marple mystery, reissued with a striking cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.It’s seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cheeks.But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple to solve the mystery… before tongues start to wag.

Copyright (#u2cce7421-31e6-5e80-8586-e223aa9ca429)

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, The Crime Club 1942

The Body in the Library™ 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 © 1942 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

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

Cover by juliejenkinsdesign.com (http://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 author’s 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: 9780008196530

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007422173

Version: 2017-04-12

Dedication (#u2cce7421-31e6-5e80-8586-e223aa9ca429)

To My Friend Nan

Contents

Cover (#uec174fca-baa6-5974-b6e4-90855a458579)

Title Page (#u5c5f81d6-a9f6-53a4-bb39-8b0ac546b16e)

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Also by Agatha Christie

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1 (#u2cce7421-31e6-5e80-8586-e223aa9ca429)

Mrs Bantry was dreaming. Her sweet peas had just taken a First at the flower show. The vicar, dressed in cassock and surplice, was giving out the prizes in church. His wife wandered past, dressed in a bathing-suit, but as is the blessed habit of dreams this fact did not arouse the disapproval of the parish in the way it would assuredly have done in real life …

Mrs Bantry was enjoying her dream a good deal. She usually did enjoy those early-morning dreams that were terminated by the arrival of early-morning tea. Somewhere in her inner consciousness was an awareness of the usual early-morning noises of the household. The rattle of the curtain-rings on the stairs as the housemaid drew them, the noises of the second housemaid’s dustpan and brush in the passage outside. In the distance the heavy noise of the front-door bolt being drawn back.