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    The Mystery of the Blue Jar: A Short Story
    The Mystery of the Blue Jar: A Short Story
    The Mystery of the Blue Jar: A Short Story
    Ebook40 pages28 minutes

    The Mystery of the Blue Jar: A Short Story

    By Agatha Christie

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    About this ebook

    A classic Agatha Christie short story from the collection The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories.

    Every morning at the same hour on the golf course, Jack Hartington hears mysterious cries for help coming from a cottage. He speaks to the resident and learns that she has unsettling dreams of a woman with a blue Chinese vase. Believing that the cries for help are from the late Mrs. Turner, the former resident of the cottage, Jack hires a psychic investigator to spend a night in the house, a night which proves to have startling results…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 8, 2012
    ISBN9780062211095
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    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 over 70 foreign languages. 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, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

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    • 5/5
      This collection of classic short mysteries by the author of The Mousetrap will have you asking, “Whodunit, howdunit, and whydunit?”At the same time every day, Jack’s morning golf routine is interrupted by the sound of a woman calling for help. Though the cry is clearly coming from a nearby cottage, the lady who lives there has no distress to report—until she starts having nightmares about a mysterious woman and a blue Chinese vase. Could the cottage be haunted? Or is Jack losing his mind? His attempts to find out will lead him down a dangerous path.A taut psychological thriller, “The Mystery of the Blue Jar” is quintessential Agatha Christie. This volume presents that story alongside other short works by the British master of mystery and suspense.

    Book preview

    The Mystery of the Blue Jar - Agatha Christie

    The Mystery of the Blue Jar

    A Short Story

    by Agatha Christie

    An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

    Contents

    Cover

    Title Page

    The Mystery of the Blue Jar

    About the Author

    Back Ads

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    The Mystery of the Blue Jar

    ‘The Mystery of the Blue Jar’ was first published in Grand Magazine, July 1924.

    Jack Hartington surveyed his topped drive ruefully. Standing by the ball, he looked back to the tee, measuring the distance. His face was eloquent of the disgusted contempt which he felt. With a sigh he drew out his iron, executed two vicious swings with it, annihilating in turn a dandelion and a tuft of grass, and then addressed himself firmly to the ball.

    It is hard when you are twenty-four years of age, and your one ambition in life is to reduce your handicap at golf, to be forced to give time and attention to the problem of earning your living. Five and a half days out of the seven saw Jack imprisoned in a kind of mahogany tomb in the city. Saturday afternoon and Sunday were religiously devoted to the real business of life, and in an excess of zeal he had taken rooms at the small hotel near Stourton Heath links, and rose daily at the hour of six a.m. to get in an hour’s practice before catching the 8.46 to town.

    The only disadvantage to the plan was that he seemed constitutionally unable to hit anything at that hour in the morning. A foozled iron succeeded a muffed drive. His mashie shots ran merrily along the ground, and four putts seemed to be the minimum on any green.

    Jack sighed, grasped his iron firmly and repeated to himself the magic words, ‘Left arm right through, and don’t look up.’

    He swung back – and then stopped, petrified, as a shrill cry rent the silence of the summer’s morning.

    ‘Murder,’ it called. ‘Help! Murder!’

    It was a woman’s voice, and it died away at the end into a sort of gurgling sigh.

    Jack flung down his club and ran in the direction of

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