Ordeal by Innocence; One, Two, Buckle my Shoe; The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
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The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
Contents: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding; The Mystery of the Spanish Chest; The Under Dog; Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds; The Dream; Greenshaw's Folly.
The idea of a "white Christmas" at an English country house was not one that appealed to Poirot; especially since the house in question boasted a fourteenth-century wing. For Poirot, this spelled stone floors, draughts and ice-cold bedrooms. But the discovery that this admirable establishment had oil-fired central heating and other similar concessions to the twentieth century finally persuaded him that the gastronomic delights that had been promised might be enjoyed at not too high a cost. And then there was the fee, of course; because this was not really a holiday. There was a job to be done - an investigation requiring all the resourcefulness and tact which Poirot prided himself on possessing to a quite exceptional degree. This is Poirot at his unruffled best. Even the news with which he is awakened on Boxing Day - that one of his fellow guests is lying dead on the snow-covered lawn - leaves him quite undisturbed as he demonstrates that the real master of his craft can successfully combine business with pleasure.
There are five other short stories included - four Poirot & one Marple.
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
The Under Dog
Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
The Dream
Greenshaw's Folly
Contents: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding; The Mystery of the Spanish Chest; The Under Dog; Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds; The Dream; Greenshaw's Folly.
The idea of a "white Christmas" at an English country house was not one that appealed to Poirot; especially since the house in question boasted a fourteenth-century wing. For Poirot, this spelled stone floors, draughts and ice-cold bedrooms. But the discovery that this admirable establishment had oil-fired central heating and other similar concessions to the twentieth century finally persuaded him that the gastronomic delights that had been promised might be enjoyed at not too high a cost. And then there was the fee, of course; because this was not really a holiday. There was a job to be done - an investigation requiring all the resourcefulness and tact which Poirot prided himself on possessing to a quite exceptional degree. This is Poirot at his unruffled best. Even the news with which he is awakened on Boxing Day - that one of his fellow guests is lying dead on the snow-covered lawn - leaves him quite undisturbed as he demonstrates that the real master of his craft can successfully combine business with pleasure.
There are five other short stories included - four Poirot & one Marple.
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
The Under Dog
Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
The Dream
Greenshaw's Folly
Ordeal by Innocence
Two years ago, Jacko Argyle's conviction for the brutal murder of his mother had been assured by the complete lack of any evidence supporting his claim to have been miles away, in the car of a complete stranger. Now, two years later, with Jacko Argyle dead and almost forgotten by the world at large, the stranger turns up. With the best of all reasons for not having come forward earlier with his evidence, he can at least console the family with the hope of a free pardon for the dead boy. Yet the family would clearly have preferred the earlier certainty of Jacko's guilt. Only gradually does Arthur Calgary realise why: if Jacko was not the murderer, then who, among the victim's family, was?
Two years ago, Jacko Argyle's conviction for the brutal murder of his mother had been assured by the complete lack of any evidence supporting his claim to have been miles away, in the car of a complete stranger. Now, two years later, with Jacko Argyle dead and almost forgotten by the world at large, the stranger turns up. With the best of all reasons for not having come forward earlier with his evidence, he can at least console the family with the hope of a free pardon for the dead boy. Yet the family would clearly have preferred the earlier certainty of Jacko's guilt. Only gradually does Arthur Calgary realise why: if Jacko was not the murderer, then who, among the victim's family, was?
One, Two, Buckle my Shoe
The surgery and waiting room of a busy London dentist provide a temporary resting place for an ever-changing population. At any moment those to be found there are likely to have little in common - except the ill-suppressed apprehensiveness that so often seizes even unimaginative people at the thought of that very special chair.
On one particular morning, at the premises of Mr. Morley, things were rather different. Three people there had more in common than they knew; more than they would have derived any comfort from knowing. All three were destined soon, very soon, to be dead.
That their deaths were in some way interconnected seemed impossible to doubt; yet any motive that would logically explain all three murders might never have been brought to light but for one odd chance. It so happened that among the patients at Queen Charlotte Street on the fateful morning - although he had departed before the first death - was a certain foreign gentleman named Hercule Poirot. Poirot's interest in the case was thus assured - a guarantee that the complex strands of a first-class mystery, so cunningly tangled by Miss Christie, are here alegantly separated and finally woven into a logical pattern with no loose ends.
The surgery and waiting room of a busy London dentist provide a temporary resting place for an ever-changing population. At any moment those to be found there are likely to have little in common - except the ill-suppressed apprehensiveness that so often seizes even unimaginative people at the thought of that very special chair.
On one particular morning, at the premises of Mr. Morley, things were rather different. Three people there had more in common than they knew; more than they would have derived any comfort from knowing. All three were destined soon, very soon, to be dead.
That their deaths were in some way interconnected seemed impossible to doubt; yet any motive that would logically explain all three murders might never have been brought to light but for one odd chance. It so happened that among the patients at Queen Charlotte Street on the fateful morning - although he had departed before the first death - was a certain foreign gentleman named Hercule Poirot. Poirot's interest in the case was thus assured - a guarantee that the complex strands of a first-class mystery, so cunningly tangled by Miss Christie, are here alegantly separated and finally woven into a logical pattern with no loose ends.
