The Companion: A Miss Marple Story

By Agatha Christie

Previously published in the print anthology The Thirteen Problems.

A murder-suicide in a small village mimics events that took place years before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9780062297945

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, 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 died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

Book preview

Contents

The Companion

About the Author

The Agatha Christie Collection

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Companion

‘Now, Dr Lloyd,’ said Miss Helier. ‘Don’t you know any creepy stories?’

She smiled at him—the smile that nightly bewitched the theatre-going public. Jane Helier was sometimes called the most beautiful woman in England, and jealous members of her own profession were in the habit of saying to each other: ‘Of course Jane’s not an artist. She can’t act—if you know what I mean. It’s those eyes!’

And those ‘eyes’ were at this minute fixed appealingly on the grizzled elderly bachelor doctor who, for the last five years, had ministered to the ailments of the village of St Mary Mead.

With an unconscious gesture, the doctor pulled down his waistcoat (inclined of late to be uncomfortably tight) and racked his brains hastily, so as not to disappoint the lovely creature who addressed him so confidently.

‘I feel,’ said Jane dreamily, ‘that I would like to wallow in crime this evening.’

‘Splendid,’ said Colonel Bantry, her host. ‘Splendid, splendid.’ And he laughed a loud hearty military laugh. ‘Eh, Dolly?’

His wife, hastily recalled to the exigencies of social life (she had been planning her spring border) agreed enthusiastically.

‘Of course it’s splendid,’ she said heartily but vaguely. ‘I always thought so.’

‘Did you, my dear?’ said old Miss Marple, and her eyes twinkled a little.

‘We don’t get much in the creepy line—and still less in the criminal line—in St Mary Mead, you know, Miss Helier,’ said Dr Lloyd.

‘You surprise me,’ said Sir Henry Clithering. The ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard turned to Miss Marple. ‘I always understood from our friend here that St Mary Mead is a positive hotbed of crime and vice.’

‘Oh, Sir Henry!’ protested Miss Marple, a spot of colour coming into her cheeks. ‘I’m sure I never said anything of the kind. The only thing I ever said was that human nature is much the

Reviews for The Companion

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

All of the Marple short stories, between two covers. Great short mysteries, though not reading a whole bunch of them right in a row may be a better idea than just romping straight through them. 

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The collection is made up of: Tuesday Club Murders (13 Problems), The Regatta Mystery, Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, and Double Sin and Other Stories.
In all I believe there were 20 stories ALL Featuring Miss Marple..... I was never fond of Jane Marple to being with, the falsely humble old lady who knits and pretends to be a simple minded old maid.
The Tuesday Club Murders bored me to tears; In the first six stories a group of six people gathered at Miss Marple's home each posing a mystery for the others to deduce the outcome.... In the second six stories everyone gathered at Gossington Hall the Bantrys' home (you remember them from "Body in the Library" & "The Mirror Crack'd"). The original six are: Raymond West (Marple's nephew); Former Yard Commissioner, Sir Henry Clithering; Raymond's friend Joyce Lempriere; clergyman Dr. Pender; solicitor Mr. Petherick; & Miss Marple. Odd (annoying) how no one could figure anything out, only Miss Marple because after all she knows "human nature" based on all the not nice (evil) people she has known in her quaint little village of St. Mary Mead.
Stories included: The Tuesday Night Club, Ingots of Gold, The Blood Stained Pavement, The Idol House of Astarte, Motive v. Opportunity, The Thumb Mark of St. Peter, The Blue Geranium, The Companion, the Four Suspects, A Christmas Tragedy, The Herb of Death, The Affair at the Bungalow, & Death by Drowning.
The Regatta Mystery was actually "Miss Marple Tells a Story" of how she solved a murder while at home sitting in her armchair.
Strange Jest, The Tape Measure Murder, Case of the Perfect Maid, The Caretaker, Greenshaw's Folly, & Sanctuary or The Man on the Chancel Steps (featuring Bunch Harmon Miss Marple's Niece) I found to be more interesting as they involved the people involved and were not stories told about others.

[book58lover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have forgotten how I loathe short stories. I don't get enough of the character development to make a guess as to the perpetrator in a mystery. Although well written, it seems that Miss Marple knows too much that she doesn't reveal until the wrap up. I prefer the full length Miss Marple stories.

[anissaannalise-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy all things Hercule Poirot and have recently realized that I've not read any of Christie's Marple books. How can this be a thing? So I've begun to rectify this trangression with a collection of the Marple short stories. This was excellent and a good way to get a look in on how Jane's brain works all while she knitting along (I knit as well, so I love how she sometimes has to check her count when she's mulling over some of the conundrums that come up during this meeting of the minds where everyone offers a mystery for the group to solve. This is my first but definitely not my last Marple read. Recommended.

[marcusbastos-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Miss Marple gets RespectThis collection of short stories are useful to know Miss Marple and a bunch of characters that gravitate toward her. One can also grasp Miss Marple line of thought and the method used to solve the puzzles. Solving one mystery after the other, the old lady conquered the respect of her friends. Great reading.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not terrible. If you like Miss Marple, this is a great way to get an overview of her. I liked the first few stories - well, I liked some of the first few stories, the Tuesday Night Club. Some were more than a little too contrived. Later on, they got more annoying - actually, one of the last ones is very similar to one of the early ones, a man who wanted to murder his wife and set things up very complicatedly to do so. Speaking of "don't put yourself at a woman's mercy..." sheesh. I started out willing to enjoy myself, but by the end I was just reading to finish it. Not a book I enjoyed, much, and it makes me less interested in reading any of the Miss Marple novels.

[icewineanne · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At a gathering everyone is encouraged to tell a story of a previously unsolvable mystery to see if anyone could solve the puzzle. Predictably, in each story, no one else has a clue as to who or how the crime was committed other than Jane Marple. People who like to figure out puzzles would enjoy these shorts.
I had a library copy copy that I couldn't renew, so I had to send it back unfinished. Well, it's been 2 years & I still haven't gone back to take it out again, to finish it. Time to remove it from my current reading list - hah - and move on. I'm glad I read some of the stories but overall they just weren't challenging enough for me.

[shulera1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I picked this up because I haven't read much mystery, and thought short stories by a widely recognized author would be a good place to start. I enjoyed the Miss Marple stories, even though they did frustrate me because I couldn't figure them out.

The language was, of course, a bit out-dated, but I thought it made the whole thing extra fun. I'll probably pick up another Agatha Christie soon.

[bezoar44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyable, light. Stock characters recount mysteries and consistently stump each other, but not Miss Marple, who solves each crime through analogy with the behaviors of residents in her small town. It is a refreshing departure from ratiocination and deduction, but given the constraints of the short story - a limited number of characters and conventions of form - many of the solutions seem somewhat inevitable rather than surprising. It is nice to the see the police respect and defer to the amateur detective rather than feeling threatened by or dismissive of her.

[sonofcradock · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like Miss Marple herself as a character and therefore rate it highly. But the stories, as a whole, are rather uneven. Some very compelling, others very not so much so. I think they get better as they go on and as Christie fleshes them out to full stories instead of puzzles. The ones where Marple herself is involved in the workings of the mystery, instead of just as an observer, are the best. My opinion is that Christie does some of her best writing with Marple in the center of the action because in removing the "professional" aspect of a detective or police, she is forced to find more nuanced and more interesting (for me, at least) ways of solving things. I think these stories bear that up. I also think the stories with Mrs Dolly Bantry and co. contain some of the most humorous moments I've read in Christie's writing.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This includes the complete text of the Tuesday Club Murders, which introduced Miss Marple as the seemingly innocent old maid aunt of the sophisticated writer Raymond West. West and some friends (including a retired commissioner from Scotland Yard) agree to meet on Tuesdays and tell the stories of murders (whose results they actually know) to see if the others can solve them. To their astonishment, MIss Marple regularly solves them. The other stories are strays included originally in mixed collections of Christie stores, including The Regatta Mystery (not including the title story), Three Blind Mice (ditto) and Double Sin (ditto). Personally I generally prefer mystery short stories to noels, and particularly that is true for most of Christie, whose novels tend to be depressing (except for a few lighter hearted ones like Tommy and Tuppence and the Scandal at Chimneys series.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Several people try to tell Miss Marple stories she can't deduce the solution to, they all fail.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This collection is really quite fun -- it doesn't get too tedious, because of course, you have a different set of characters for each one, and the mystery is solved quite quickly. Some of them are better than others, obviously, but they're all good for a relaxing read on a Saturday afternoon... And in some cases you get to see characters from the other books, which is nice too. I like the last one the best, I think, because Bunch and her husband are really rather sweet.

They do blend into each other a little, though -- not while you're reading, but after.

[krumbs_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fun mysteries! I didn't solve even one on my own. I did get the feeling that the characterization of Miss Marple is different in the longer books; she was a bit too "aren't I just stupid and silly" in each of these.

[teckelvik · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This volume collects all the Miss Marple short stories. This isn't the best format for reading them, because she keeps getting re-introduced and there is a certain sameness to most of them. "Fluffy little lady, great skepticism, vouched for by surprising experts, solves the case by analogy with village life." There are also several that depend on things that have changed so much, and words that don't mean what they used to, and common objects that no longer exist, which gets confusing. One of them involved a bowl of cornstarch, and despite googling, I'm not at all sure what that was.However, they are well-written, and read one at a time, can be fun.

[catalogthis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good bite-sized mystery reading. Wouldn't necessarily recommend plowing straight through this collection like I did, though... Miss Marple's genius almost starts to wear thin. Good things come in moderation.

[julesjones_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Does what it says on the tin - every short story about Miss Marple, collected into a single volume. We have here the collection "The Thirteen Problems", the five Marple stories from "Miss Marples Final Cases and Two other Stories", and "Greenshaw's Folly". Twenty short stories in total, and in my edition there is also an introductory essay by Stella Duffy, which is well worth reading.I think that reading all of these in one or two sittings would be a bit much; they would seem too formulaic. And in fact I listened to some of them in audiobook format read by Joan Hickson, and then read the others on and off over a period of a couple of weeks. But taken 2 or 3 at a time, the formula can become an asset to the story-telling, particularly in the Thirteen Problems collection. You have the same set-up in each story (a group of friends telling each other stories in the evening, and trying to guess the solution), and then the fun of watching the different approach each character takes to telling his or her story for the others to try to solve. Christie has created distinctive personalities for each of her recurring characters in these stories, and uses various quirks in their personalities to present and hide clues.They're short stories, so by their nature they can't have the depth of the novels. But each story is an engaging puzzle, with the sharp observation of human nature, wittily told, that is Christie's trademark. The quality varies from story to story, but as a whole this is a collection well worth reading.

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fun. A mixed bag as in all short story collections, but generally enjoyable. Miss Marple is perhaps not as famous as Hercule Poirot, but still one of Mrs Christies best creations. As a spinster living in a viallage she has plenty of opportunity for observing human nature, and relating tales of village life to those little but more serious puzzles which crop up. This is a far more belivable technique than Sherlock Homes' observations or deductions. There isn't really much for the reader to guess at though, as the stories revolve about a character's motivation - with explanations provided by Miss Marple.Some of the exposition occasionally gets a little wearying, but Miss Marple has a very sly commentry that is generally delightful to read. Also of fascination are all the insights into 30s-60s life. When housemaids and servants were everyday affairs that everyone (worth knowing) had. As Miss Marple ages, it is noticable how these trends change towards the 'daily' help instead.TBC

[lahochstetler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This collection of Miss Marple short stories highlights many of the things I find interesting about Christie, as well as some oWf her weaknesses. Christie's strength lies in setting up complicated plots and drawing out rich characters in all of their particularities. The short story format, then, takes away Christie's greatest strength. What is left are bare-bones Christie-style stories. Each story in this collection is a whodunit, usually featuring a murder. Everyone is either bewildered, or convinced that the wrong person is guilty, except, of course, for Miss Marple. Christie affords no energy to the set-up; most of these stories begin with a group telling each other stories. The solutions to these stories involve knowledge of all sorts of things with which the average reader will have little familiarity, such as the uses and results of certain poisons. Perhaps most striking to me was just how weak the character of Miss Marple actually is. There's simply very little to her, except a conviction that young people are foolish. The introduction to the volume tries to argue otherwise, but I am not convinced. Christie aficionados will certainly want to read this volume, but I would recommend one of Christie's novels to the uninitiated.

[shellyquade · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had read novels featuring Miss Marple & never really enjoyed her character that much. Compared with Hercule Poirot, she just didn't seem that colorful or fun.In the short story format, however, she is a very fun character. A bit unpredictable, very smart, very Victorian. I really enjoyed this book, & now have a better understanding of why readers really enjoy Miss Marple.I highly recommend these mysteries.

[smik_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

20 short stories actually come from only 3 collections * The Thirteen Problems * Miss Marple's Final Cases * The Adventure of the Christmas Puddinga bit patchy, and a couple of them were downright improbable. All the stories tended to suffer a bit from the need to write sparingly, to keep the plot to short story length. Sometimes the story was finished off, and tidied up, a little too quickly for my liking.

[mrtall_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a fine compendium, comprising all the Miss Marple stories Agatha Christie wrote. I prefer Christie's novels to her stories, since I find so much charm in her settings and characterizations, which as needs must be are given less prominence in short stories, But the plots here are nearly always ingenious, and Miss Marple's inimitable twinkly, fluffy brilliance is in full display. Recommended.

[musicmom41 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a collection of short stories featuring Miss Marple. The device is that a group of people each tell a story of some mystery they know of (and they are also supposed to know the solution—but don’t always) and the others try to solve the puzzle. They are diverting and a few of them fooled me—good bedtime reading because you can read a complete story in a few minutes and then go to sleep. I’m assuming these are early stories since Mrs. Bantry (The Body in the Library, published 1941) is the hostess of the parties where the stories are told and she, along with everyone else, is very surprised when Miss Marple comes up with the solution. If I had not read so many Miss Marple novels I would have been fooled more often because I wouldn’t have known what to look for.

[ruthich · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One wonders if Midsomer is actually St. Mary Mead in disguise? Good for a quick and straightforward read with a cup of tea. Something you can pick up, read one and put down again to pick up later.

[bookangel_a · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Agatha Christie, and I love short stories, so this was a good match for me. I can finish a mystery even if I only have 10 minutes. I liked this book, even though sometimes it was predictable. I smile at how characters fall in love and decide to marry so quickly. And sometimes Miss Marple creeps me out, but I like her anyway. She's so intuitive, and I don't always know what on earth she means. This book definitely kept my attention.

[magst_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just finished these short stories and I loved them!!!!! Great mysterys from the undisputed \'Queen of Crime\'.