‘Are you joking, Mr Parker Pyne?’
‘I never joke on professional matters, my dear sir. It would occasion distrust in my clients. Shall we say Friday at eleven-thirty? Thank you.’
III
Evan entered Mr Parker Pyne’s office on the Friday morning in a considerable turmoil. Hope and scepticism fought for mastery.
Mr Parker Pyne rose to meet him with a beaming smile.
‘Good morning, Mr Llewellyn. Sit down. Have a cigarette?’
Llewellyn waved aside the proffered box.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Very well indeed,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘The police arrested the gang last night.’
‘The gang? What gang?’
‘The Amalfi gang. I thought of them at once when you told me your story. I recognized their methods and once you had described the guests, well, there was no doubt at all in my mind.’
‘Who are the Amalfi gang?’
‘Father, son and daughter-in-law–that is if Pietro and Maria are really married–which some doubt.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s quite simple. The name is Italian and no doubt the origin is Italian, but old Amalfi was born in America. His methods are usually the same. He impersonates a real business man, introduces himself to some prominent figure in the jewel business in some European country and then plays his little trick. In this case he was deliberately on the track of the Morning Star. Pointz’ idiosyncrasy was well known in the trade. Maria Amalfi played the part of his daughter (amazing creature, twenty-seven at least, and nearly always plays a part of sixteen).’
‘Not Eve!’ gasped Llewellyn.
‘Exactly. The third member of the gang got himself taken on as an extra waiter at the Royal George–it was holiday time, remember, and they would need extra staff. He may even have bribed a regular man to stay away. The scene is set. Eve challenges old Pointz and he takes on the bet. He passes round the diamond as he had done the night before. The waiters enter the room and Leathern retains the stone until they have left the room. When they do leave, the diamond leaves also, neatly attached with a morsel of chewing gum to the underside of the plate that Pietro bears away. So simple!’
‘But I saw it after that.’
‘No, no, you saw a paste replica, good enough to deceive a casual glance. Stein, you told me, hardly looked at it. Eve drops it, sweeps off a glass too and steps firmly on stone and glass together. Miraculous disappearance of diamond. Both Eve and Leathern can submit to as much searching as anyone pleases.’
‘Well–I’m–’ Evan shook his head, at a loss for words.
‘You say you recognized the gang from my description. Had they worked this trick before?’
‘Not exactly–but it was their kind of business. Naturally my attention was at once directed to the girl Eve.’
‘Why? I didn’t suspect her–nobody did. She seemed such a–such a child.’
‘That is the peculiar genius of Maria Amalfi. She is more like a child than any child could possibly be! And then the plasticine! This bet was supposed to have arisen quite spontaneously–yet the little lady had some plasticine with her all handy. That spoke of premeditation. My suspicions fastened on her at once.’
Llewellyn rose to his feet.
‘Well, Mr Parker Pyne, I’m no end obliged to you.’
‘Classification,’ murmured Mr Parker Pyne. ‘The classification of criminal types–it interests me.’
‘You’ll let me know how much–er–’
‘My fee will be quite moderate,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘It will not make too big a hole in the–er–horse racing profits. All the same, young man, I should, I think, leave the horses alone in future. Very uncertain animal, the horse.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Evan.
He shook Mr Parker Pyne by the hand and strode from the office.
He hailed a taxi and gave the address of Janet Rustington’s flat.
He felt in a mood to carry all before him.
About the Author
Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in 100 foreign countries. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.
Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was written towards the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. In it she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. It was eventually published by The Bodley Head in 1920.
In 1926, after averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote her masterpiece. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of her books to be published by Collins and marked the beginning of an author-publisher relationship which lasted for 50 years and well over 70 books. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie’s books to be dramatised–under the name Alibi–and to have a successful run in London’s West End. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history.
Agatha Christie was made a Dame in 1971. She died in 1976, since when a number of books have been published posthumously: the bestselling novel Sleeping Murder appeared later that year, followed by her autobiography and the short story collections Miss Marple’s Final Cases, Problem at Pollensa Bay and While the Light Lasts. In 1998 Black Coffee was the first of her plays to be novelised by another author, Charles Osborne.
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The Agatha Christie Collection
The Man In The Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
The Listerdale Mystery
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Parker Pyne Investigates
Murder Is Easy
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
Crooked House
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Spider’s Web *
The Unexpected Guest *
Ordeal by Innocence
The Pale Horse
Endless Night
Passenger To Frankfurt
Problem at Pollensa Bay
While the Light Lasts
Poirot
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 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
Elephant
s Can Remember
Poirot’s Early Cases
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
Marple
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Thirteen Problems
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder is Announced
They Do It With Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
The 4.50 from Paddington
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple’s Final Cases
Tommy & Tuppence
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
Published as Mary Westmacott
Giant’s Bread
Unfinished Portrait
Absent in the Spring
The Rose and the Yew Tree
A Daughter’s a Daughter
The Burden
Memoirs
An Autobiography
Come, Tell Me How You Live
Play Collections
The Mousetrap and Selected Plays
Witness for the Prosecution and Selected Plays
Credits
Cover by crushed.co.uk © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2008
Copyright
PARKER PYNE INVESTIGATES. Copyright © 1934 Agatha Christie Limited; ‘Problem at Pollensa Bay’ and ‘The Regatta Mystery’ copyright © 1936 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). 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 e-books.
EPub Edition © January 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-200671-4
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* novelised by Charles Osborne
* novelised by Charles Osborne
* novelised by Charles Osborne