Philomel Cottage
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
The recently married Alix Martin is obsessed with a recurring dream of her new husband’s murder. Each time she can see the murderer clearly, and it’s the mild-mannered man she had previously been engaged to, taking his revenge. But, what’s worse is that at the end of the dream she thanks the murderer. Perplexed, Alix tries to calm herself by spending time in the garden of her picturesque cottage. But her gardener confuses her further by wishing her well on her trip to London—a trip which Alix knows nothing about. Now Alix is scared: is the gardener imagining things, or is she?
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.
Read more from Agatha Christie
And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Passenger to Frankfurt Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sparkling Cyanide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Horse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crooked House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Towards Zero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Island: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spider's Web Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5They Came to Baghdad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sittaford Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Philomel Cottage
Related ebooks
Philomel Cottage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Second Gong: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strange Jest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Signal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Mr. Quin: A Short Story Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Listerdale Mystery: A Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Affair of the Pink Pearl: A Tommy & Tuppence Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mystery of the Spanish Chest: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Love Detectives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finessing the King: A Tommy & Tuppence Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Under Dog: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Postern of Fate: A Tommy and Tuppence Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gate of Baghdad: A Parker Pyne Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tragedy of Marsdon Manor: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Case of the Discontented Soldier: A Parker Pyne Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Golden Ball And Other Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Triangle at Rhodes: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Witness for the Prosecution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man in the Mist: A Tommy & Tuppence Adventure Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Plymouth Express: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Destination Unknown Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5By the Pricking of My Thumbs: A Tommy and Tuppence Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King of Clubs: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the "Bells and Motley": A Mysterious Mr. Quin Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The House of Lurking Death: A Tommy & Tuppence Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Idol House of Astarte: A Miss Marple Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Mystery For You
The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dean Koontz: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life We Bury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finlay Donovan Is Killing It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kept Woman: A Will Trent Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summit Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Staircase: Nancy Drew #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did I Kill You?: A Thriller Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Hunting Party: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5False Witness: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghost of Marlow House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Perfect Murders: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pharmacist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Murdery Mystery Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Club: A Reese's Book Club Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Big Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sydney Rye Mysteries Box Set Books 10-12: Sydney Rye Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStill Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Going Rogue: Rise and Shine Twenty-Nine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Night in the Lonesome October Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pieces of Her: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Woman in the Library: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Philomel Cottage
14 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Philomel Cottage - Agatha Christie
Philomel Cottage
A Short Story
by Agatha Christie
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Philomel Cottage
About the Author
Related Products
Copyright
About the Publisher
Philomel Cottage
‘Philomel Cottage’ was first published in Grand Magazine, November 1924.
‘Goodbye, darling.’
‘Goodbye, sweetheart.’
Alix Martin stood leaning over the small rustic gate, watching the retreating figure of her husband as he walked down the road in the direction of the village.
Presently he turned a bend and was lost to sight, but Alix still stayed in the same position, absentmindedly smoothing a lock of the rich brown hair which had blown across her face, her eyes far away and dreamy.
Alix Martin was not beautiful, nor even, strictly speaking, pretty. But her face, the face of a woman no longer in her first youth, was irradiated and softened until her former colleagues of the old office days would hardly have recognized her. Miss Alex King had been a trim business-like young woman, efficient, slightly brusque in manner, obviously capable and matter-of-fact.
Alix had graduated in a hard school. For fifteen years, from the age of eighteen until she was thirty-three, she had kept herself (and for seven years of the time an invalid mother) by her work as a shorthand typist. It was the struggle for existence which had hardened the soft lines of her girlish face.
True, there had been romance – of a kind – Dick Windyford, a fellow-clerk. Very much of a woman at heart, Alix had always known without seeming to know that he cared. Outwardly they had been friends, nothing more. Out of his slender salary Dick had been hard put to it to provide for the schooling of a younger brother. For the moment he could not think of marriage.
And then suddenly deliverance from daily toil had come to the girl in the most unexpected manner. A distant cousin had died, leaving her money to Alix – a few thousand pounds, enough to bring in a couple of hundred a year. To Alix it was freedom, life, independence. Now she and Dick need wait no longer.
But Dick reacted unexpectedly. He had never directly spoken of his love to Alix; now he seemed less inclined to do so than ever. He avoided her, became morose and gloomy. Alix was quick to realize the truth. She had become a woman of means. Delicacy and pride stood in the way of Dick’s asking her to be his wife.
She