I just felt it was no good. You can’t fight against luck. It was bad luck, wasn’t it? I wonder if you are ever sorry for what you did. After all, I only wanted to be happy in my own way. And if it hadn’t been for me you would never have had anything to do with the case. I never thought you’d be so horribly clever. You didn’t look clever.
It’s funny, but I haven’t lost my looks a bit. In spite of all that dreadful trial and the horrid things that man on the other side said to me, and the way he battered me with questions.
I look much paler and thinner, but it suits me somehow. They all say I’m wonderfully brave. They don’t hang you in public any more, do they? I think that’s a pity.
I’m sure there’s never been a murderess like me before.
I suppose I must say goodbye now. It’s very queer. I don’t seem to realize things a bit. I’m going to see the chaplain tomorrow.
Yours forgivingly (because I must forgive my enemies, mustn’t I?).
Jane Wilkinson.
P.S. Do you think they will put me in Madame Tussauds?
E-Book Extras
The Poirots
Essay by Charles Osborne
The Poirots
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 ; Black Coffee ; Peril at End House ; Lord Edgware Dies ; Murder on the Orient Express ; Three-Act Tragedy ; Death in the Clouds ; The ABC 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 Labours of Hercules ; Taken at the Flood ; Mrs McGinty’s Dead ; After the Funeral ; Hickory Dickory Dock ; Dead Man’s Folly ; Cat Among the Pigeons ; The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding ; The Clocks ; Third Girl ; Hallowe’en Party ; Elephants Can Remember ; Poirot’s Early Cases ; Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the ‘country-place’ of John’s autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe—she of a sizeable fortune, and so recently remarried to a man twenty years her junior. When Emily’s sudden heart attack is found to be attributable to strychnine, Hastings recruits an old friend, now retired, to aid in the local investigation. With impeccable timing, Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance into the pages of crime literature.
Of note: Written in 1916, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first published work. Six houses rejected the novel before it was finally published—after puzzling over it for eighteen months before deciding to go ahead—by The Bodley Head.
Times Literary Supplement: ‘Almost too ingenious…very clearly and brightly told.’
2. The Murder on the Links (1923)
“For God’s sake, come!” But by the time Hercule Poirot can respond to Monsieur Renauld’s plea, the millionaire is already dead—stabbed in the back, and lying in a freshly dug grave on the golf course adjoining his estate. There is no lack of suspects: his wife, whose dagger did the deed; his embittered son; Renauld’s mistress—and each feels deserving of the dead man’s fortune. The police think they’ve found the culprit. Poirot has his doubts. And the discovery of a second, identically murdered corpse complicates matters considerably. (However, on a bright note, Captain Arthur Hastings does meet his future wife.)
The New York Times: ‘A remarkably good detective story…warmly recommended.’
Literary Review: ‘Really clever.’
Sketch: ‘Agatha Christie never lets you down.’
3. Poirot Investigates (1924)
A movie star, a diamond; a murderous ‘suicide’; a pharaoh’s curse upon his tomb; a prime minister abducted…What links these fascinating cases? The brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot in…‘The Adventure of the Western Star’; ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’; ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’; ‘The Mystery of the Hunter’s Lodge’; ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’; ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’; ‘The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’; ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’; ‘The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim’; ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’; ‘The Case of the Missing Will.’