Cat Among the Pigeons

Home > Mystery > Cat Among the Pigeons > Page 23
Cat Among the Pigeons Page 23

by Agatha Christie


  Mr. Robinson drew out a package and laid it down on the table.

  “Open it, please.”

  Her fingers fumbled a little as she tore the wrappings off and then unfolded the final covering….

  She drew her breath in sharply.

  Red, blue, green, white, all sparkling with fire, with life, turning the dim little room into Aladdin’s cave….

  Mr. Robinson watched her. He had seen so many women look at jewels….

  She said at last in a breathless voice,

  “Are they—they can’t be—real?”

  “They are real.”

  “But they must be worth—they must be worth—”

  Her imagination failed.

  Mr. Robinson nodded.

  “If you wish to dispose of them, you can probably get at least half a million pounds for them.”

  “No—no, it’s not possible.”

  Suddenly she scooped them up in her hands and rewrapped them with shaking fingers.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “They frighten me. What am I to do with them?”

  The door burst open. A small boy rushed in.

  “Mum, I got a smashing tank off Billy. He—”

  He stopped, staring at Mr. Robinson.

  An olive skinned, dark boy.

  His mother said,

  “Go in the kitchen, Allen, your tea’s all ready. Milk and biscuits and there’s a bit of gingerbread.”

  “Oh good.” He departed noisily.

  “You call him Allen?” said Mr. Robinson.

  She flushed.

  “It was the nearest name to Ali. I couldn’t call him Ali—too difficult for him and the neighbours and all.”

  She went on, her face clouding over again.

  “What am I to do?”

  “First, have you got your marriage certificate? I have to be sure you’re the person you say you are.”

  She stared a moment, then went over to a small desk. From one of the drawers she brought out an envelope, extracted a paper from it and brought it to him.

  “Hm … yes … Register of Edmonstow … Ali Yusuf, student … Alice Calder, spinster … Yes, all in order.”

  “Oh it’s legal all right—as far as it goes. And no one ever tumbled to who he was. There’s so many of these foreign Moslem students, you see. We knew it didn’t mean anything really. He was a Moslem and he could have more than one wife, and he knew he’d have to go back and do just that. We talked about it. But Allen was on the way, you see, and he said this would make it all right for him—we were married all right in this country and Allen would be legitimate. It was the best he could do for me. He really did love me, you know. He really did.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Robinson. “I am sure he did.”

  He went on briskly.

  “Now, supposing that you put yourself in my hands. I will see to the selling of these stones. And I will give you the address of a lawyer, a really good and reliable solicitor. He will advise you, I expect, to put most of the money in a trust fund. And there will be other things, education for your son, and a new way of life for you. You’ll want social education and guidance. You’re going to be a very rich woman and all the sharks and the confidence tricksters and the rest of them will be after you. Your life’s not going to be easy except in the purely material sense. Rich people don’t have an easy time in life, I can tell you—I’ve seen too many of them to have that illusion. But you’ve got character. I think you’ll come through. And that boy of yours may be a happier man than his father ever was.”

  He paused. “You agree?”

  “Yes. Take them.” She pushed them towards him, then said suddenly: “That schoolgirl—the one who found them—I’d like her to have one of them—which—what colour do you think she’d like?”

  Mr. Robinson reflected. “An emerald, I think—green for mystery. A good idea of yours. She will find that very thrilling.”

  He rose to his feet.

  “I shall charge you for my services, you know,” said Mr. Robinson. “And my charges are pretty high. But I shan’t cheat you.”

  She gave him a level glance.

  “No, I don’t think you will. And I need someone who knows about business, because I don’t.”

  “You seem a very sensible woman if I may say so. Now then, I’m to take these? You don’t want to keep—just one—say?”

  He watched her with curiosity, the sudden flicker of excitement, the hungry covetous eyes—and then the flicker died.

  “No,” said Alice. “I won’t keep—even one.” She flushed. “Oh I daresay that seems daft to you—not to keep just one big ruby or an emerald—just as a keepsake. But you see, he and I—he was a Moslem but he let me read bits now and again out of the Bible. And we read that bit—about a woman whose price was above rubies. And so—I won’t have any jewels. I’d rather not….”

  “A most unusual woman,” said Mr. Robinson to himself as he walked down the path and into his waiting Rolls.

  He repeated to himself,

  “A most unusual woman….”

  * * *

  The Agatha Christie Collection

  THE HERCULE POIROT MYSTERIES

  Match your wits with the famous Belgian detective.

  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

  Peril at End House

  Lord Edgware Dies

  Murder on the Orient Express

  Three Act Tragedy

  Death in the Clouds

  The A.B.C. 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 Labors of Hercules

  Taken at the Flood

  The Underdog and Other Stories

  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead

  After the Funeral

  Hickory Dickory Dock

  Dead Man’s Folly

  Cat Among the Pigeons

  The Clocks

  Third Girl

  Hallowe’en Party

  Elephants Can Remember

  Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

  Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

  * * *

  * * *

  The Agatha Christie Collection

  THE MISS MARPLE MYSTERIES

  Join the legendary spinster sleuth from

  St. Mary Mead in solving murders far and wide.

  The Murder at the Vicarage

  The Body in the Library

  The Moving Finger

  A Murder Is Announced

  They Do It with Mirrors

  A Pocket Full of Rye

  4:50 From Paddington

  The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

  A Caribbean Mystery

  At Bertram’s Hotel

  Nemesis

  Sleeping Murder

  Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

  THE TOMMY AND TUPPENCE MYSTERIES

  Jump on board with the entertaining crime-solving

  couple from Young Adventurers Ltd.

  The Secret Adversary

  Partners in Crime

  N or M?

  By the Pricking of My Thumbs

  Postern of Fate

  Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

  * * *

  * * *

  The Agatha Christie Collection

  Don’t miss a single one of Agatha Christie’s

  stand-alone novels and short-story collections.

  The Man in the Brown Suit

  The Secret of Chimneys

  The Seven Dials M
ystery

  The Mysterious Mr. Quin

  The Sittaford Mystery

  Parker Pyne Investigates

  Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

  Murder Is Easy

  The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

  And Then There Were None

  Towards Zero

  Death Comes as the End

  Sparkling Cyanide

  The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

  Crooked House

  Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

  They Came to Baghdad

  Destination Unknown

  Ordeal by Innocence

  Double Sin and Other Stories

  The Pale Horse

  Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

  Endless Night

  Passenger to Frankfurt

  The Golden Ball and Other Stories

  The Mousetrap and Other Plays

  The Harlequin Tea Set

  Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

  * * *

  About the Author

  Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

  She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

  Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

  Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

  www.AgathaChristie.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  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

  Parker Pyne Investigates

  Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

  Murder Is Easy

  The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

  And Then There Were None

  Towards Zero

  Death Comes as the End

  Sparkling Cyanide

  The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

  Crooked House

  Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

  They Came to Baghdad

  Destination Unknown

  Ordeal by Innocence

  Double Sin and Other Stories

  The Pale Horse

  Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

  Endless Night

  Passenger to Frankfurt

  The Golden Ball and Other Stories

  The Mousetrap and Other Plays

  The Harlequin Tea Set

  The Hercule Poirot Mysteries

  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

  Peril at End House

  Lord Edgware Dies

  Murder on the Orient Express

  Three Act Tragedy

  Death in the Clouds

  The A.B.C. 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 Labors of Hercules

  Taken at the Flood

  The Underdog and Other Stories

  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead

  After the Funeral

  Hickory Dickory Dock

  Dead Man’s Folly

  Cat Among the Pigeons

  The Clocks

  Third Girl

  Hallowe’en Party

  Elephants Can Remember

  Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

  The Miss Marple Mysteries

  The Murder at the Vicarage

  The Body in the Library

  The Moving Finger

  A Murder Is Announced

  They Do It with Mirrors

  A Pocket Full of Rye

  4:50 from Paddington

  The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

  A Caribbean Mystery

  At Bertram’s Hotel

  Nemesis

  Sleeping Murder

  Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

  The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries

  The Secret Adversary

  Partners in Crime

  N or M?

  By the Pricking of My Thumbs

  Postern of Fate

  Memoirs

  An Autobiography

  Come, Tell Me How You Live

  Credits

  Cover design and illustration by Faith Laurel

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE® POIROT® CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS™. Copyright © 1959 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.

  CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS © 1960. Published by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-06-207379-2

  EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-174010-7

  11 12 13 14 15

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (P.O. Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca
r />   New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollins.com

 

 

 


‹ Prev