Krishna
We have reviewed many of this author’s book earlier. Just to select two, see the reviews of The Mysterious Affair At Styles or Murder At The Vicarage which is the first book where Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple appear.
This too is the first book where a lesser known central character, Colonel Race but he is not as famous as the two mentioned above.
Let us dive straight into the story.
Dancer Nadin, after a stellar performance, is met in her private room by Count Sergius Paulovitch. When they are both alone, we realize they are both fellow Russians and are working for ‘their chief, the Colonel’. He is a shadowy boss of a crime syndicate. (In true Agatha Chtistie style).
Nadina reveals that she had hidden a few of the unique diamonds that passed through her hands for the Colonel and intends to blackmail the Colonel for a large sum at the right time. When the count warns her not to underestimate the ‘Colonel’ she just laughs. She reveals that she is originally from South Africa and that she had a lover of whom she was afraid but thankfully, he died in a local war.
The story shifts to a young girl, the daughter of a paleo archaeologist. As an aside, it is interesting to see how many stories feature either an archeologist or a scientist who digs for his life – Agatha Christie’s real life husband was an archeologist! She accompanied him on many of his trips, not least to Egypt. Back to the story. The father was clueless about money and when he died, she is left nearly penniless and decides to go to London to make what she can of her life. As is the custom in many of Christie’s story, she resolves to go to London in search of ‘adventure’.
Anna Beddingfield, the girl, goes to London and on the platform happens to pass by a man who saw something behind her and frightened, fell on to the high voltage rails and died. The doctor who examined him ran to catch a lift and let drop a paper which Anna got. She could not return it to him as the lift doors (yes, elevators are lifts in England) before she could reach them. The paper only contained a cryptic ‘171.22 Kilmorden Castle’ written on it. The man was wearing a brown suit.
She later learns that the man who died was L B Carton.
She goes to the cops to explain her suspicions. What did the man see that frightened him? (Whatever he saw was behind Anna and she did not notice). The ‘doctor’ who examined him did not seem to be a real doctor. Anna had seen enough doctors in action as a nurse to know that. In addition, the man who died had no ticket in his pocket nor a suitcase was found on him! In addition, “the doctor” had a beard, glasses, overcoat and a hat, great devices to change his appearance completely afterwards. In addition though he seemed to be of middle age, he moved and bent over the victim with all the energy of a much younger man.
She goes to the editor of a famous newspaper (The Daily Budget) and wants to be an official reporter on the case but he is not interested.
She then hears of a (probably related) death in another building called Mill House that was out for rent. Why probably related? Because the order to visit the same house was found in the dead man’s pocket. She makes a visit there as a prospective tenant and realizes that the same ‘doctor’ had visited the property when the lady was killed. (By guessing that since he had to remove the beard in a hurry, his chin would have been shiny, as confirmed by the agent to whom she went to collect the keys for viewing the house as a ‘prospective tenant’). Her suspicions increase. She finds a film roll in the room and like the victim at the station, this also smelt (but faintly) of mothballs. Hm…
When she hears that the Kilmorden Castle is a ship, she books a berth on the ship and is sea sick most of the time.
Meanwhile the very owner of Mill House, Sir Eustace Pedler an MP, is going to Africa and a friend and fellow MP gives him a parcel to be delivered to General Smuts when he is there. He seems to be a Bertie Wooster kind of guy, who wants to do as little as possible, and does not want to be anywhere near trouble. He loathes his longtime secretary, Paget, who is efficient.
Next morning, a tough looking man comes and tells him that he is going to accompany Pedler for protection and the man, perhaps too credulous, agrees. He gives his name as Harry Rayburn.
Anna meanwhile comes across Mrs Blair, a rich woman who is sought after by everyone as she is a celebrity. Anns is too seasick to care but Mrs Blair makes her acquaintance. She introduces Colonel Race, who looks the picture of an army man (abroad in Rhodesia, she theorizes). Mrs Blair encourages her to take an outside room and Anna is given Cabin 17. When she goes there, she finds that two other people are there, claiming to have been assigned Cabin 17 and being quite rude about other claims. That puts Anna’s back up and she fights and gets the Cabin to herself. The two people who wanted it were Pagett, who had reserved another room for Pedlar’s things, and a reverend called Edward Chichester.
When she leaves it next and comes back, there seems to have been ‘suddenly’ a terrible smell in the cabin. She now is adamant and refuses to move out as ‘offered’ by the stewardess. (The strong smell was that of asafoetida – a ‘nauseous drug’ as the author describes it. Really? Many of us have been cooking with nauseous drugs! ).
She now knows that someone is trying to get Cabin 17 desperately. Why? She has an epiphany! The 17.1.22 in the slip was probably Cabin 17 and time of 1 on the 22nd! And that was the next day!
At 1 AM, a handsome man gets into the cabin, saying that he is being pursued. She hides him and a night stewardess comes asking if she heard a noise. Anna sends her away, finds that the man, with close cropped hair and a scar on the cheek, was stabbed and bandages him. He goes away, showing that he hated to be in anyone’s debt, especially a woman’s.
Someone had been searching her cabin surreptitiously! And she notices other strange things. Pagett seems to not know Florence even as he talked about having lived there. Colonel Race, being a self proclaimed ‘expert on archeology’ made some elementary mistakes in his talks.
When she talks to the Reverend the next day, he drops a piece of paper and Eustace picks it up and hands it to him. Eustace sees that the paper has one sentence ‘Don’t try to play a lone hand or it will be the worse for you’. He is intrigued but he is no great detective.
Anna decides to let Mrs Blair (‘Call me Suzanne, Anna’) into her secrets and they both are excited. They decide that Suzanne will trail Pedlar, Pagette and the ‘other secretary’ and Colonel Race. In the meanwhile they discover that in the film roll that Anna had picked up, there were rough diamonds, worth quite a fortune.
The story told by Race is of a gold mine magnate Laurence Eardsley. His son John claimed to have found a diamond mine but the diamonds he showed were the ones stolen from De Beers. He was in partnership with another young man called Lucas. That theft was unexplainable as it bypassed all the security processes. Anyway, John was saved by Laurence offering money. Laurence was never the same man, and passed away soon after John joined in the army and was killed in battle. The fortune of Laurence went to the nearest kin, Race himself!
Then they have another epiphany. The 171.22 could also mean Cabin 71 at 1 PM! Cabin 71 was initially supposed to have been booked for Nadina but she never turned up and so it was given to Suzanne herself! She had a roll of film returned to her at 1 PM via ventilator – the ones she thought she had dropped earlier. But in it were rough diamonds!
Anna finds that Lucas was let go as the case could not be brought against John, and that he joined the army and was discharged honorably after being wounded. She also learns that Carton, who was killed, had arranged for a purser to drop the film roll at 1 PM on Cabin 71 on 22nd. Lose strings were being tied up slowly.
Anna was attacked in the night one day when she foolishly went to the upper deck and was saved by Rayburn. The attacker turned out to be Pagett. Rayburn is astounded to realize that Anna knows he is Lucas, as well as the fact that he had gone to Mill House and he is the man who played ‘doctor’.
When they finally land, Anna fakes her trip to Rhodesia to fool Pagett who seems to be trailing her, but cannot shake him off. In desperation, she joins the party (Suzanne, Colonel Rice, Eustace Pedler, and a new secretary, the obnoxious Mrs Pettigrew who is even more hated by Eustace than Pagett was!)
Then the twists and turns start. Anne does a foolish thing and goes to the terrace in the villa when she is pushed by a stranger. She dislocates her hand but survives because she got caught by a branch. When she comes to, she sees that she is in the hands of Harry Rathburn (or Harry Lucas). They are almost found by Colonel Race but manage to escape in the last minute.
Anne goes back to Suzanne but then sees Pagett and confronts him about his not having been ever to France. When he finally tells her the truth, she realizes who the Colonel is. She goes and confronts him and we find out that it is the least suspicious person. If you have been reading Agatha Christie you learn to suspect who that person might be, but not specifically with evidence.
The story goes back and forth, and the reality of who Harry Rathburn is (and he is not Lucas) revealed and the end of the story is a bit strange for me.
However, it is a romp of a novel and Agatha Christie stands up several suspicious characters and several motives and manages to lead you, the reader, astray most of the time.
Really a good (but old fashioned book where even criminals are polished, a la Alistair MacLean) and the story moves at its own entertaining pace. Just don’t look for depth, though. These days it would have been classified as a ‘cozy mystery’.
7/10
== Krishna