The Listerdale Mystery: A Short Story

By Agatha Christie

A classic Agatha Christie short story from the collection The Golden Ball and Other Stories.

After Mr St Vincent’s death, his family are plunged into poverty. Living in reduced circumstances their lives change when they find an elegant town house with staff, for a suspiciously cheap rent. Why would Lord Listerdale rent his home out for such a low price and why are the staff so accommodating?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9780062302274

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 Listerdale Mystery

About the Author

The Agatha Christie Collection

Copyright

About the Publisher

THE LISTERDALE MYSTERY

Mrs. St. Vincent was adding up figures. Once or twice she sighed, and her hand stole to her aching forehead. She had always disliked arithmetic. It was unfortunate that nowadays her life should seem to be composed entirely of one particular kind of sum, the ceaseless adding together of small necessary items of expenditure making a total that never failed to surprise and alarm her.

Surely it couldn’t come to that! She went back over the figures. She had made a trifling error in the pence, but otherwise the figures were correct.

Mrs. St. Vincent sighed again. Her headache by now was very bad indeed. She looked up as the door opened and her daughter Barbara came into the room. Barbara St. Vincent was a very pretty girl, she had her mother’s delicate features, and the same proud turn of the head, but her eyes were dark instead of blue, and she had a different mouth, a sulky red mouth not without attraction.

Oh! Mother, she cried. Still juggling with those horrid old accounts? Throw them all into the fire.

We must know where we are, said Mrs. St. Vincent uncertainly.

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

We’re always in the same boat, she said drily. Damned hard up. Down to the last penny as usual.

Mrs. St. Vincent sighed.

I wish— she began, and then stopped.

I must find something to do, said Barbara in hard tones. "And find it quickly. After all, I have taken that shorthand and typing course. So have about one million other girls from all I can see! ‘What experience?’ ‘None, but—’ ‘Oh! thank you, good morning. We’ll let you know.’ But they never do! I

Reviews for The Listerdale Mystery

[figgles_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fun stories!

[purplequeennl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I hadn't expected this to be a collection of stories, and didn't realise until I reached the second tale and found that it didn't follow on from the first! Clearly I wasn't paying attention, too eager to get stuck into an Agatha Christie whodunnit!

It contains a mixed bag of short stories: some were intriguing and well thought out, others were a bit flat. I think her longer novels are much more enjoyable.

[therebelprince · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Some rather meaningless little nuggets of mystery in this collection; I’m sure the current Marple TV series will eventually get around to adapting them – since their aim is just to keep going until Miss Marple investigates every case ever written by Agatha Christie. Maybe she’ll go up against the Hound of the Baskervilles when they’re done.

You’ll notice I haven’t really written anything about this book; I guess I just didn’t find it interesting. Some of these stories were adapted as part of "The Agatha Christie Hour" alongside stories from "Parker Pyne Investigates".

[US readers can find these stories divided between "Witness for the Prosecution" and "The Golden Ball"]

[elenchus_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Golden Age mystery stories, most if not all featuring everyday people in unusual situations, without a detective or inspector focusing the plot.Interestingly, Christie mentions (mock disparagingly) "crime novels" in a great many of these tales, as commentary on her characters by other characters. (And good-natured ribbing of herself and her fans.)Along with the mystery puzzle an abiding theme of characters coming good: the mother of Listerdale ("genteel poverty" after husband speculates wealth away), and the middle-class milquetoast of "Raja's Emerald". "Girl On The Train" also has an aristocrat (or at least, uppercrust middle class) having to make good -- but then marrying into wealth again. Class is certainly featured in the varied settings, whether resort town or country manor, city townhome or suburban apartment.//Audio edition loaned from my local for a road trip, and liked the stories well enough to finish after returning home.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had listed to 3 of this collection of short stories before, in different anthologies. But they hold up well to a second reading. They are an interesting collection as they don't usually involve a detective of any kind. In some of them you can see where this is going, in others it is a complete surprise. I enjoyed listening to this, the neatness of the short story form working well in this selection where they are tightly plotted and sharply written.

[veracite · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I don't remember a thing about this book. Short stories, none of them remarkable but enough to keep me reading to the end.

[smik_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of 12 short stories. The collection takes its title from the first story. Quite a number of the short stories had been published in magazines well before the collection was published.This is a funny little collection of stories, some quite entertaining and others a bit pedestrian. If there is a theme that Christie is exploring then it is probably the nature of love. In The Listerdale Mystery, Philomel Cottage, and Accident, which I thought were best in the collection, she plays with the twist in the tale, the unexpected ending.None of the stories has characters that we meet elsewhere (as far as I know).

[riverwillow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short stories, some are quite sweet, like the title story, others intruiging. I tend not to enjoy reading a collection of Christie's short stories as much as I enjoy the novels.

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

Great collection of well written short stories