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The Unexpected Guest
Agatha Christie
Charles Osborne
A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal… A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie’s acclaimed play.When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim’s young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura’s lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects…THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie’s plays. Hailed as ‘another Mousetrap’ when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.
Copyright (#ulink_f2f7dc4c-49b4-5c19-a022-7fec4e02bd8b)
Harper
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999
The Unexpected Guest™ is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited and Agatha Christie
and the Agatha Christie Signature are registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere.
Copyright © 1999 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)
Cover by juliejenkinsdesign.com (http://juliejenkinsdesign.com) © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2017
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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.
Source ISBN: 9780008196677
Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780007423033
Version: 2017-03-30
Contents
Cover (#u16bc1909-13ac-5219-afe0-acb25e55d495)
Title Page (#u282b8b40-feda-5e91-b1bd-d2f3c7233f0e)
Copyright (#uc0da1f04-6c17-510d-ac46-cb61d18490c1)
Chapter 1 (#u0e86fa6a-bdcb-5906-bbb8-5c5e8270c8c9)
Chapter 2 (#u29497e0f-fa01-5f8a-b64b-cf43cd38cb43)
Chapter 3 (#uf6d15dd5-a1d6-50a9-ab09-de7cc5f81514)
Chapter 4 (#uba75fa1a-c065-59bc-9401-fec11414f57d)
Chapter 5 (#u85d64d2f-7bbe-5073-832a-9936c4dff5f9)
Chapter 6 (#u6d02c18b-8836-5d9f-967a-4a413fc9b082)
Chapter 7 (#uf1b19ead-d74b-5d9f-b5e7-1a7cff5e64ef)
Chapter 8 (#u4eb6b605-0330-51b8-9afa-5c182b64d15b)
Chapter 9 (#u700eb018-a03e-5974-81fc-c53f4e333e2e)
Chapter 10 (#u08ce15c6-fff6-504f-90d1-b8301afb7458)
Chapter 11 (#u28069775-b0a6-5647-8840-1aee573b0d74)
Chapter 12 (#uc068645b-1d5a-5523-96b6-2255ea70460b)
Chapter 13 (#u262f6d5b-d11e-5fe4-8fcc-8a8d02a31472)
Chapter 14 (#uf48a3068-114a-5a68-ae2c-f868ac4a457f)
Chapter 15 (#u4c7845ef-fee9-52c0-8bb1-e8b7d5068ef2)
Chapter 16 (#u95bb3b2f-cf05-578a-b196-db17e63a1c3d)
Chapter 17 (#u04c8a47d-f71d-5dcb-b8fd-53de969a8190)
Chapter 18 (#udd25d074-8ee2-514a-9ac2-7fab60592e33)
Chapter 19 (#u20fb8d23-6d92-5338-b6a6-f9e7187876ce)
Chapter 20 (#u427b7171-6e18-56a6-91b8-017b8ad88ee0)
Chapter 21 (#uf55816b7-d21b-5bf8-b898-36c8786ad114)
Postscript (#ubb6cef34-1614-53e3-a9c1-d3d9b3bc7139)
The Unexpected Guest (#u3e892b8a-6aee-59a3-a9e8-324805b0e013)
Also by Agatha Christie (#udaaec0a6-8064-5cdf-bf7d-f555d11765db)
About the Publisher (#u4573730d-a71d-50fd-a558-5eca097f2c6e)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_aacc52fa-53f2-5be0-b76c-bb985001bd31)
It was shortly before midnight on a chilly November evening, and swirls of mist obscured parts of the dark, narrow, tree-lined country road in South Wales, not far from the Bristol Channel whence a foghorn sounded its melancholy boom automatically every few moments. Occasionally, the distant barking of a dog could be heard, and the melancholy call of a night-bird. What few houses there were along the road, which was little better than a lane, were about a half-mile apart. On one of its darkest stretches the road turned, passing a handsome, three-storey house standing well back from its spacious garden, and it was at this spot that a car sat, its front wheels caught in the ditch at the side of the road. After two or three attempts to accelerate out of the ditch, the driver of the car must have decided it was no use persevering, and the engine fell silent.
A minute or two passed before the driver emerged from the vehicle, slamming the door behind him. He was a somewhat thick-set, sandy-haired man of about thirty-five, with an outdoor look about him, dressed in a rough tweed suit and dark overcoat and wearing a hat. Using a torch to find his way, he began to walk cautiously across the lawn towards the house, stopping halfway to survey the eighteenth-century building’s elegant façade. The house appeared to be in total darkness as he approached the French windows on that side of the edifice which faced him. After turning to look back at the lawn he had crossed, and the road beyond it, he walked right up to the French windows, ran his hands over the glass, and peered in. Unable to discern any movement within, he knocked on the window. There was no response, and after a pause he knocked again much louder. When he realized that his knocking was not having any effect, he tried the handle. Immediately, the window opened and he stumbled into a room that was in darkness.
Inside the room, he paused again, as though attempting to discern any sound or movement. Then, ‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Is anyone there?’ Flashing his torch around the room which revealed itself to be a well-furnished study, its walls lined with books, he saw in the centre of the room a handsome middle-aged man sitting in a wheelchair facing the French windows, with a rug over his knees. The man appeared to have fallen asleep in his chair. ‘Oh, hello,’ said the intruder. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. So sorry. It’s this confounded fog. I’ve just run my car off the road into a ditch, and I haven’t the faintest idea where I am. Oh, and I’ve left the window open. I’m so sorry.’ Continuing to speak apologetically as he moved, he turned back to the French windows, shut them, and closed the curtains. ‘Must have run off the main road somewhere,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been driving round these topsy-turvy lanes for an hour or more.’
There was no reply. ‘Are you asleep?’ the intruder asked, as he faced the man in the wheelchair again. Still receiving no answer, he shone his torch on the face of the chair’s occupant, and then stopped abruptly. The man in the chair neither opened his eyes nor moved. As the intruder bent over him, touching his shoulder as though to awaken him, the man’s body slumped down into a huddled position in the chair. ‘Good God!’ the man holding the torch exclaimed. He paused momentarily, as though undecided what to do next, and then, shining his torch about the room, found a light switch by a door, and crossed the room to switch it on.
The light on a desk came on. The intruder put his torch on the desk and, looking intently at the man in the wheelchair, circled around him. Noticing another door with a light switch by it, he went across and flicked the switch, thus turning on the lamps on two occasional tables strategically placed around the room. Then, taking a step towards the man in the wheelchair, he gave a start as he suddenly noticed for the first time an attractive, fair-haired woman of about thirty, wearing a cocktail dress and matching jacket, standing by a book-lined recess on the opposite side of the room. With her arms hanging limply by her sides, she neither moved nor spoke. It seemed as though she was trying not even to breathe. There was a moment’s silence while they stared at each other. Then the man spoke. ‘He—he’s dead!’ he exclaimed.
Completely without expression, the woman answered him. ‘Yes.’
‘You already knew?’ asked the man.
‘Yes.’
Agatha Christie
Charles Osborne
A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal… A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie’s acclaimed play.When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim’s young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura’s lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects…THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie’s plays. Hailed as ‘another Mousetrap’ when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.
Copyright (#ulink_f2f7dc4c-49b4-5c19-a022-7fec4e02bd8b)
Harper
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999
The Unexpected Guest™ is a trade mark of Agatha Christie Limited and Agatha Christie
and the Agatha Christie Signature are registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited in the UK and elsewhere.
Copyright © 1999 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)
Cover by juliejenkinsdesign.com (http://juliejenkinsdesign.com) © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2017
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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.
Source ISBN: 9780008196677
Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780007423033
Version: 2017-03-30
Contents
Cover (#u16bc1909-13ac-5219-afe0-acb25e55d495)
Title Page (#u282b8b40-feda-5e91-b1bd-d2f3c7233f0e)
Copyright (#uc0da1f04-6c17-510d-ac46-cb61d18490c1)
Chapter 1 (#u0e86fa6a-bdcb-5906-bbb8-5c5e8270c8c9)
Chapter 2 (#u29497e0f-fa01-5f8a-b64b-cf43cd38cb43)
Chapter 3 (#uf6d15dd5-a1d6-50a9-ab09-de7cc5f81514)
Chapter 4 (#uba75fa1a-c065-59bc-9401-fec11414f57d)
Chapter 5 (#u85d64d2f-7bbe-5073-832a-9936c4dff5f9)
Chapter 6 (#u6d02c18b-8836-5d9f-967a-4a413fc9b082)
Chapter 7 (#uf1b19ead-d74b-5d9f-b5e7-1a7cff5e64ef)
Chapter 8 (#u4eb6b605-0330-51b8-9afa-5c182b64d15b)
Chapter 9 (#u700eb018-a03e-5974-81fc-c53f4e333e2e)
Chapter 10 (#u08ce15c6-fff6-504f-90d1-b8301afb7458)
Chapter 11 (#u28069775-b0a6-5647-8840-1aee573b0d74)
Chapter 12 (#uc068645b-1d5a-5523-96b6-2255ea70460b)
Chapter 13 (#u262f6d5b-d11e-5fe4-8fcc-8a8d02a31472)
Chapter 14 (#uf48a3068-114a-5a68-ae2c-f868ac4a457f)
Chapter 15 (#u4c7845ef-fee9-52c0-8bb1-e8b7d5068ef2)
Chapter 16 (#u95bb3b2f-cf05-578a-b196-db17e63a1c3d)
Chapter 17 (#u04c8a47d-f71d-5dcb-b8fd-53de969a8190)
Chapter 18 (#udd25d074-8ee2-514a-9ac2-7fab60592e33)
Chapter 19 (#u20fb8d23-6d92-5338-b6a6-f9e7187876ce)
Chapter 20 (#u427b7171-6e18-56a6-91b8-017b8ad88ee0)
Chapter 21 (#uf55816b7-d21b-5bf8-b898-36c8786ad114)
Postscript (#ubb6cef34-1614-53e3-a9c1-d3d9b3bc7139)
The Unexpected Guest (#u3e892b8a-6aee-59a3-a9e8-324805b0e013)
Also by Agatha Christie (#udaaec0a6-8064-5cdf-bf7d-f555d11765db)
About the Publisher (#u4573730d-a71d-50fd-a558-5eca097f2c6e)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_aacc52fa-53f2-5be0-b76c-bb985001bd31)
It was shortly before midnight on a chilly November evening, and swirls of mist obscured parts of the dark, narrow, tree-lined country road in South Wales, not far from the Bristol Channel whence a foghorn sounded its melancholy boom automatically every few moments. Occasionally, the distant barking of a dog could be heard, and the melancholy call of a night-bird. What few houses there were along the road, which was little better than a lane, were about a half-mile apart. On one of its darkest stretches the road turned, passing a handsome, three-storey house standing well back from its spacious garden, and it was at this spot that a car sat, its front wheels caught in the ditch at the side of the road. After two or three attempts to accelerate out of the ditch, the driver of the car must have decided it was no use persevering, and the engine fell silent.
A minute or two passed before the driver emerged from the vehicle, slamming the door behind him. He was a somewhat thick-set, sandy-haired man of about thirty-five, with an outdoor look about him, dressed in a rough tweed suit and dark overcoat and wearing a hat. Using a torch to find his way, he began to walk cautiously across the lawn towards the house, stopping halfway to survey the eighteenth-century building’s elegant façade. The house appeared to be in total darkness as he approached the French windows on that side of the edifice which faced him. After turning to look back at the lawn he had crossed, and the road beyond it, he walked right up to the French windows, ran his hands over the glass, and peered in. Unable to discern any movement within, he knocked on the window. There was no response, and after a pause he knocked again much louder. When he realized that his knocking was not having any effect, he tried the handle. Immediately, the window opened and he stumbled into a room that was in darkness.
Inside the room, he paused again, as though attempting to discern any sound or movement. Then, ‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Is anyone there?’ Flashing his torch around the room which revealed itself to be a well-furnished study, its walls lined with books, he saw in the centre of the room a handsome middle-aged man sitting in a wheelchair facing the French windows, with a rug over his knees. The man appeared to have fallen asleep in his chair. ‘Oh, hello,’ said the intruder. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. So sorry. It’s this confounded fog. I’ve just run my car off the road into a ditch, and I haven’t the faintest idea where I am. Oh, and I’ve left the window open. I’m so sorry.’ Continuing to speak apologetically as he moved, he turned back to the French windows, shut them, and closed the curtains. ‘Must have run off the main road somewhere,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been driving round these topsy-turvy lanes for an hour or more.’
There was no reply. ‘Are you asleep?’ the intruder asked, as he faced the man in the wheelchair again. Still receiving no answer, he shone his torch on the face of the chair’s occupant, and then stopped abruptly. The man in the chair neither opened his eyes nor moved. As the intruder bent over him, touching his shoulder as though to awaken him, the man’s body slumped down into a huddled position in the chair. ‘Good God!’ the man holding the torch exclaimed. He paused momentarily, as though undecided what to do next, and then, shining his torch about the room, found a light switch by a door, and crossed the room to switch it on.
The light on a desk came on. The intruder put his torch on the desk and, looking intently at the man in the wheelchair, circled around him. Noticing another door with a light switch by it, he went across and flicked the switch, thus turning on the lamps on two occasional tables strategically placed around the room. Then, taking a step towards the man in the wheelchair, he gave a start as he suddenly noticed for the first time an attractive, fair-haired woman of about thirty, wearing a cocktail dress and matching jacket, standing by a book-lined recess on the opposite side of the room. With her arms hanging limply by her sides, she neither moved nor spoke. It seemed as though she was trying not even to breathe. There was a moment’s silence while they stared at each other. Then the man spoke. ‘He—he’s dead!’ he exclaimed.
Completely without expression, the woman answered him. ‘Yes.’
‘You already knew?’ asked the man.
‘Yes.’
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