Book: The Case of the Discontented Soldier by Agatha Christie

[Krishna]

This is by no means the first book of this author we have reviewed (for example, see the reviews of The Seven Dials Mystery or The Cards on The Table. But this is the first one featuring Parker Pyne as the detective. 

What is odd is that all the books written by the author featuring Parker Pyne are short stories! This book, of course, is no exception. 

Major Wilbraham comes to the office of Parker Pyne as he is unhappy after returning from East Africa back home. The adventure is what he misses. Parker Pyne assures him that there is excitement to be had in London, if only the Major knows where to look. Then he calmly calls a young lady – Madeleine de Sara – and asks the Major to take her out to lunch!

When she returns, Madeleine says that the major likes girls who are blond, blue-eyed, thin and not too tall. He decides on Freda Clegg. 

The next day the major receives a note asking him to go to Eaglemont in Hampstead and ask for Mr Jones. Tell Jones that you are from Guava Shipping Company, adds the note. 

When he is walking, he walks past an empty house and hears a damsel in distress. Two black people are trying to force themselves on her and the Major rescues her, much to her admiration afterwards. 

He suspects that she has been gotten out of the way to be waylaid and they go to her house and find it already ransacked. However, he comes across a letter written in Swahili from a secret compartment and keeps it. He plans to meet her the next day but she is not home. Instead he gets an odd note to come see her at the same (?) abandoned building. Suspicious, he sneaks into the house. 

Her father’s frined, known to them as Reid was behind all this. He says ‘he abhors bloodshed’ and then takes the swahili map and leaves. The plan is to drown them very slowly with water seeping in. 

Of course they escape and Wilbraham reveals that what Reid got was a fake copy he had made and the real copy has been mailed to someone. He then (abruptly?) declares his love for the pretty Freda. She accepts. 

Thus the drama planned by Pyne not only gives Wilbraham the excitement he craved for, but also a wife. He and his wife still think that he did not go through the enactment because he never completed his journey to meet “Jones” and they still do not know that the “original” Swahili note about the treasure in ivory was also fake!

Nice. Short but sweet. 

7/10

— Krishna