Copyist, 1938, 1939, by Agatha Christie MaUowan.
Copyn^t renewed 1966, 1967 by Agatha Christie
Mallow^
All "Ats reserved.
PubusQ^ m Large Print by arrangement with
The I"inam Publishing Group, Inc.
G.K. H:gu Large p^ ^yo^ Senes. Set in 1^ p^ piantin.
Library i^f Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Christie Agatha, 18901976.
Eas^ to kill / Agatha Christie.
A>. cm--(G.K. Hall large print book series) Isp^ 0-8161-4543-1 (Ig. print). Isp^ 0-8161-4544-X (pbk. : Ig. print)
"^arge type books. I. Tide. tpR6"^)5.H66E2 1990]
823'.9^2_dc20 8924617
Also available in Large Print
by Agatha Christie:
* The A.B.C. Murders
* The Body in the Library
* The Boomerang Clue
A Caribbean Mystery
* Crooked House
Double Sin and Other Stones
Elephants Can Remember
* Endless Night
* Evil Under the Sun
* Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
* Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective
* The Moving Finger
* The Murder at the Vicarage
* Murder in Three Acts
* A Murder is Announced
* The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder on the Links
Ordeal by Innocence
* The Patriotic Murders
* Peril at End House
* The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
* dip. .^prrpt A/1'J^pvvnvM
Sleeping Murder
They Came to Baghdad
Thirteen at Dinner
* Three Blind Mice and Other Stones
* Towards Zero
What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
* Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
* Available in hardcover and paperback
Cast of Characters
luke fitzwilliam--Just retired from a police
career in Asia, he ran smack into multiple
murders before he'd been back in
England a day.
lavinia fullerton--Ostensibly she was a
woolly-minded old lamb, but the wolf
feared she knew too much.
bridget conway--A devilishly clever beauty
who'd decided to marry her boss because
the salary was higher.
lord easterfield--Bridget's fiance, a potbellied,
moralistic newspaper magnate who
believed what he read in his own papers.
alfred wake--The vicar of Wychwood under
Ashe, he gossiped of many deaths and
obscure feuds and weird witchcraft.
mr. abbot--The village lawyer--too genial, too florid, too hot-tempered and, perhaps, too indiscreet with his lady friends.
honoria waynflete--Another elderly but
sharp-witted spinster who suspected more
than she mentioned about the strange accidents
in Wychwood.
mr. ellsworthy--The arty and disreputable
keeper of an antique shop whose odd tastes
included strange midnight rites in the
Witches5 Meadow.
major horton--A retired military man. His
wife's death had released him and his beloved
dogs from unrelenting henpecking.
doctor geoffrey thomas--An affable
young chap who remarked how surprisingly
easy it was to get away with murder.
rose humbleby--Lovely, timid daughter of
Doctor Thomas" late senior partner, whose
death cleared the way for Rose to become
Mrs. Thomas.
mrs. humbleby--Rose's mother. Her husband's
recent death had unsettled her so
much that she saw wickedness in the most
improbable places.
sir william ossington--Of Scotland Yard.
Because of their long friendship. Billy
Bones reluctantly listened to Luke's yarn
of eight unsuspected murders.
superintendent battle--The Yard's stolidfaced
top deputy. Despite his calm, reassuring
manner, not a detail escaped his
shrewd eye.
One
england! England after many years!
How was he going to like it? Luke
Fitzwilliam asked himself that question as he
walked down the gangplank to the dock. It
was present at the back of his mind all
through the wait in the customs shed. It
came suddenly to the fore when he was finally
seated in the boat train. Here he was, honorably retired on a pension, with some
small private means of his own, a gentleman
of leisure, come home to England. What was
he going to do with himself? With an effort, Luke Fitzwilliam averted his eyes from the
landscape outside the railway-carriage window
and settled down to a perusal of the
papers he had just bought. The Times, the Daily Clarion and Punch.
He started with the Daily Clarion. The Clarion was given over entirely to Epsom.
He had drawn a horse in the club sweep and
he looked now to see what the Clarion's racing
correspondent thought of its chances. He
found it dismissed contemptuously in a sentence:
Of the others. Jujube the II, Mark's Mile,
Santony and Jerry Boy are hardly likely to
qualify for a place. A likely outsider is--
But Luke paid no attention to the likely
outsider. His eye had shifted to the betting.
Jujube the II was listed at a modest 40 to 1.
He glanced at his watch. A quarter to four.
"Well," he thought, "it's over now." And he
wished he'd had a bet on Clarigold, who was
the second favorite.
Then he opened the Times and became
absorbed in more serious matters. A full half
hour afterward the train slowed down and
finally stopped. Luke looked out of the window.
They were in a large empty-looking
station with many platforms. He caught sight
of a bookstall some way up the platform
with a placard DERBY RESULT. Luke
opened the door, jumped out, and ran toward
the bookstall. A moment later he was
staring with a broad grin at a few smudged
lines in the stop press.
DERBY RESULT
TUTUBE THE II
MAZEPPA
CLARIGOLD
Luke grinned broadly. A hundred pounds
to blow! Good old Jujube the II, so scornfully
dismissed by all the tipsters. He folded
the paper, still grinning to himself, and
turned back--to face emptiness. In the excitement
of Jujube the IPs victory, his train
had slipped out of the station unnoticed by
him. "When the devil did that train go out?"
he demanded of a gloomy-looking porter.
"What train? There hasn't been no train
since the 3:14."
"There was a train here just now. I got
out of it. The boat express."
"The boat express don't stop anywhere till
London."
"But it did," Luke assured him. "I got
out of it."
Faced by facts, the porter change
d his
ground. "You didn't ought to have done,"
he said reproachfully. "It don't stop here."
"But it did."
"That was signal, that was. Signal against
it. It didn't what you'd call 'stop.' You didn't
ought to have got out."
"We'll admit that," said Luke. "The
wrong is done, past all recall. What I'm
trying to get at is, what do you, a man
experienced in the services of the railway
company, advise me to do?"
"Reckon," said the porter, "you'd best go
on by the 4:25."
"If the 4:25 goes to London," said Luke,
"the 4:25 is the train for me."
Reassured on that point, Luke strolled up
and down the platform. A large board informed
him that he was at FENNY
CLAYTON JUNCTION FOR WYCHWOOD
UNDER ASHE, and presently a
train consisting of one carriage pushed backward
by an antiquated little engine came
slowly puffing in and deposited itself in a
modest way.
London train came in. Luke scrutinized each
compartment. The first, a smoker, contained
a gentleman of military aspects smoking a
cigar. He passed on to the next one, which contained a tired-looking, genteel young
woman, possibly a nursery governess, and an
active-looking small boy of about three. Luke
passed on quickly. The next door was open
and the carriage contained one passenger, an
elderly lady. She reminded Luke slightly of
one of his aunts, his Aunt Mildred, who had
courageously allowed him to keep a grass
snake when he was ten years old. Aunt
Mildred had been decidedly a good aunt as
aunts go. Luke entered the carriage and sat
down.
After some five minutes of intense activity
on the part of milk vans, luggage trucks and
other excitements, the train moved slowly
out of the station. Luke unfolded his paper
and turned to such items of news as might
interest a man who had already read his
morning paper. He did not hope to read it
for long. Being a man of many aunts, he was
fairly certain that the nice old lady in the
corner did not propose to travel in silence to
London. He was right--a window that
needed adjusting, a dropped umbrella, and
the old lady was telling him what a good
train this was. "Only an hour and ten minutes.
That's very good, you know, very good
indeed. Much better than the morning one.
That takes an hour and forty minutes." She
went on: "Of course, nearly everyone goes
by the morning one. I mean when it is the
cheap way it's silly to go up in the afternoon.
I meant to go up this morning but Wonky
Pooh was missing--that's my cat, a Persian;
such a beauty, only he's had a painful ear
lately--and of course I couldn't leave home
till he was found!"
Luke murmured, "Of course not," and let
his eyes drop ostentatiously to his paper. But
it was of no avail. The flood went on:
"So I just made the best of a bad job and
took the afternoon train instead, and, of
course, it's a blessing in one way, because
it's not so crowded--not that that matters
when one is traveling first class. Of course, I
don't usually do that, but really I was so
upset because, you see, I'm going up on very
important business, and I wanted to think
out exactly what I was going to say--just
quietly, you know." Luke repressed a smile.
"So I thought, just for once, the expense was
quite permissible. Of course," she went on
quickly, with a swift glance at Luke's bronzed
face, "I know soldiers on leave have to travel
first class, I mean, being officers, it's expected
of them."
Luke sustained the inquisitive glance of a
pair of bright twinkling eyes. He capitulated
at once. It would come to it, he knew, in the
end. "I'm not a soldier," he said.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean--I just
thought--you were so brown--perhaps home
from the East on leave."
"I'm home from the East," said Luke, "but not on leave." He stalled off further
researches with a bald statement, "I'm a policeman."
"In the police? Now, really, that's very
interesting. A dear friend of mine, her boy
has just joined the Palestinian police."
"Mayang Straits," said Luke, taking another
short cut.
"Oh, dear; very interesting. Really, it's
quite a coincidence--I mean that you should
be traveling in this carriage. Because, you
see, this business I'm going up to town
about--well, actually it is to Scotland Yard
I'm going."
"Really?" said Luke.
The old lady continued happily, "Yes, I
meant to go up this morning, and then, as I
told you, I was so worried about Wonky
Pooh. But you don't think it will be too late, do you? I mean there aren't any special office
hours at Scotland Yard."
"I don't think they close down at four 01
anything like that," said Luke.
"No, of course, they couldn't, could they?
I mean somebody might want to report a
serious crime at any minute, mightn't they?"
For a moment the old lady relapsed into
silence. She looked worried. "I always think
it's better to go to the fountain-head," she
said at last. "John Reed is quite a nice fellow—that's
our constable in Wychwood—a
very civil-spoken, pleasant man, but I don't
feel, you know, that he would be quite the
person to deal with anything serious. He's
quite used to dealing with people who've
drunk too much, or with exceeding the speed
limit, or lighting-up time, or people who
haven't taken out a dog license, and perhaps
with burglary even. But I don't think—I'm
quite sure—he isn't the person to deal with
murder!"
Luke's eyebrows rose. "Murder?"
The old lady nodded vigorously. "Yes,
murder. You're surprised, I can see. I was,
myself, at first. I really couldn't believe it. I
thought I must be imagining things."
"Are you quite sure you weren't?" Luke
asked gently.
"Oh, no." She shook her head positively.
"I might have been the first time, but not
the second, or the third, or the fourth. After
that, one knows."
Luke said, "Do you mean there have
been—er—several murders?"
The quiet, gentle voice replied, "A good
many, I'm afraid." She went on, "That's
why I thought it would be best to go straight
to Scotland Yard and tell them about it.
Don't you think that's the best thing to do?"
Luke looked at her thoughtfully, then he
said, "Why, yes, I think you're quite right."
He thought to himself: "The
y'll know how
to deal with her. Probably get half a dozen
old ladies a week coming in burbling about
the amount of murders committed in their
nice quiet country villages. There may be a
special department for dealing with the old
dears."
He was roused from these meditations by
the thin gentle voice continuing, "You know,
I remember reading once—I think it was the
Abercrombie case. Of course he'd poisoned
quite a lot of people before any suspicion
was aroused. . . . What was I saying? Oh,
yes, somebody said that there was a look—a
special look that he gave anyone, and then,
very shortly afterwards, that person would
be taken ill. I didn't really believe that when
I read about it, but it's true."
"What's true?"
"The look on a person's face." Luke stared
at her. She was trembling a little and her
nice pink cheeks had lost some of their color.
"I saw it first with Amy Gibbs—and she
died. And then it was Carter. And Tommy
Pierce. But now, yesterday, it was Doctor
Humbleby--and he's such a good man--a
really good man. Carter, of course, drank, and Tommy Pierce was a dreadfully cheeky, impertinent little boy, and bullied the tiny
boys, twisting their arms and pinching them.
I didn't feel quite so badly about them, but
Doctor Humbleby's different. He must be
saved. And the terrible thing is that if I went
to him and told him about it, he wouldn't
believe me! He'd only laugh! And John Reed
wouldn't believe me either. But at Scotland
Yard it will be different. Because, naturally, they're used to crime there!"
She glanced out of the window. "Oh, dear, we shall be in in a minute." She fussed a
little, opening and shutting her bag, collecting
her umbrella. "It's been such a relief
talking to you. Most kind of you, I'm sure.
So glad you think I'm doing the right thing."
Luke said kindly, "I'm sure they'll give
you good advice at Scotland Yard."
"I really am most grateful." She fumbled
in her bag. "My card--oh dear, I only have
one. I must keep that for Scotland Yard."
"Of course, of course."
"But my name is Fullerton."
"Miss Fullerton," said Luke, smiling. "My
name is Luke Fitzwilliam." As the train drew
into the platform, he added, "Can I get you
a taxi?"
"Oh, no, thank you." Miss Fullerton