Triangle at Rhodes: A Hercule Poirot Short Story

By Agatha Christie

October on the island of Rhodes is a veritable paradise of privacy, beauty, and calm—or so Hercule Poirot has imagined. The reality is quite different, as the arrival of famed Chanel beauty Valentine Chantry causes a ripple of malice to be felt across the island. She captivates at least one married man with her wiles and good looks, as her brooding husband watches on. Poirot senses that someone has murder in their heart, and he guesses right. As things come to a tragic head, only Poirot the quiet observer can piece together what has happened in this lover’s triangle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9780062129543

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.

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Triangle at Rhodes

A Hercule Poirot Short Story

by Agatha Christie

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Triangle at Rhodes

About the Author

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Copyright

About the Publisher

Triangle at Rhodes

‘Triangle at Rhodes’ was first published in the USA in This Week, 2 February 1936, then as ‘Poirot and the Triangle at Rhodes’ in The Strand, May 1936.

Hercule Poirot sat on the white sand and looked out across the sparkling blue water. He was carefully dressed in a dandified fashion in white flannels and a large panama hat protected his head. He belonged to the old-fashioned generation which believed in covering itself carefully from the sun. Miss Pamela Lyall, who sat beside him and talked ceaselessly, represented the modern school of thought in that she was wearing the barest minimum of clothing on her sun-browned person.

Occasionally her flow of conversation stopped whilst she reanointed herself from a bottle of oily fluid which stood beside her.

On the farther side of Miss Pamela Lyall her great friend, Miss Sarah Blake, lay face downwards on a gaudily-striped towel. Miss Blake’s tanning was as perfect as possible and her friend cast dissatisfied glances at her more than once.

‘I’m so patchy still,’ she murmured regretfully. ‘M. Poirot – would you mind? Just below the right shoulder-blade – I can’t reach to rub it in properly.’

M. Poirot obliged and then wiped his oily hand carefully on his handkerchief. Miss Lyall, whose principal interests in life were the observation of people round her and the sound of her own voice, continued to talk.

‘I was right about that woman – the one in the Chanel model – it is Valentine Dacres – Chantry, I mean. I thought it was. I recognized her at once. She’s really rather marvellous, isn’t she? I mean I can understand how people go quite crazy about her. She just obviously expects them to! That’s half the battle. Those other people who came last night are called Gold. He’s terribly good-looking.’

‘Honeymooners?’ murmured Sarah in a stifled voice.

Miss Lyall shook her head in an experienced manner.

‘Oh, no – her clothes aren’t new enough. You can always tell brides! Don’t you think it’s the most fascinating thing in the world to watch people, M. Poirot, and see what you can find out about them by just looking?’

‘Not just looking, darling,’ said Sarah sweetly. ‘You ask a lot of questions, too.’

‘I haven’t even spoken to the Golds yet,’ said Miss Lyall with dignity.

Reviews for Triangle at Rhodes

[debbiemccauley-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

On what is supposed to be his quiet holiday from crime, Poirot is in Rhodes. The quiet season holidaymakers include the beautiful Valentine Chantry and her husband Tony, along with Marjorie Gold and her husband Douglas who seems to have fallen under Valentine's spell. On day Valentine is poisoned by a pink gin her husband was to drink. Douglas is an immediately suspect, remains of the poison being found in his pocket. The ever observant Poirot makes his own deductions and comes up with a different scenario.