sake of your arrival so early, then give me a reason to accept it," said Sherlock Holmes, "you can go to Hercule Poirot? "
How is that possible! I'm sure the whole Scotland Yard police wouldn't go to that little Frenchman for help!"
"Belgian," corrected Holmes.
"Never mind, Scotland Yard has to deal with this great British sensation," Lestrade almost implored. "Please do it."
"Watson, please find last Saturday's Mirror. Come out, right on the table," said Holmes, after a moment's hesitation. "Now, please read the news aloud from the third edition, thank you!"
"The Queen of Detective Fiction has disappeared mysteriously. According to this newspaper, detective novelist Agatha Christie, who just published "The Roger Mystery", has mysteriously disappeared from her old Berkshire home recently. According to information obtained from the police by a well-informed person, Late last night, patrol officers found a Morris car at the Reston Hills quarry. There was no one in the car at the time, but the engine was running, the front wheels of the car were hanging on the edge of the cliff, and there was only a lady's coat on the car. A suitcase and vanity box, the driver disappeared in the cold night. The police immediately launched a search, but all signs pointed to the detective novelist Agatha Christie, who had risen to fame in recent years..."
"The Berkshire police officer told me that they Her car was found on the hillside 5 miles from her house, but she has not been heard from so far. The boring tabloid didn't know where to get the news, but rushed to the old house early Saturday morning and waited.
" Enough, then the first edition of this Monday," said Holmes.
"Police are offering a reward for clues. Since novelist Agatha Christie disappeared on Friday, Dec. 3, police have dispatched more than 200 officers from other states and counties to search for them, but their life and death are still unknown. An insider revealed that her husband, the former Air Force Captain Archibald Christie is under serious suspicion. Berkshire Police is offering a £100 reward for clues..."
"And today's Daily News" Holmes nodded.
"The novelist has been missing for nine days. Civilian forces have also joined the search for Agatha Christie, two unnamed local gentlemen have lent private jets to assist Scotland Yard and hundreds of volunteers are quarrying stone. Inspector Kenwald, who is in charge of the case, said that the police have not given up their efforts, and are organizing forces to drain the lake..."
"Lestrade, if you want my help, you know that the light This information is not enough. You have to tell me some details that the reporter doesn't know. Or, please come up with the gentleman you left downstairs."
"Great! I knew that, so I brought the parties together. Bring it here." A moment later, Archibald Christie sat anxiously in the living room on the second floor of 221 Baker Street
.
He is well-proportioned and handsome, and his early years of military service can be seen from the way he sits on the sofa. Perhaps disturbed by the silence of Holmes, he leaned in the direction of the fireplace.
"Mr Holmes, when I took the first train from London back to Berkshire last Saturday morning, I learned that Agatha hadn't come back at all the night before. The police suspected that I had arrived in Berkshire earlier and bought a ticket from London. The first bus ticket is just a pretense, and I am really wronged! This is the trouble," our guests looked at us with bright eyes, "almost no one believes me! And you also know the relationship between Polo and Agatha. I was worried that it would be bad for me to ask him for help, so..."
"I believe you," Holmes said in a flat tone, "If an acquaintance commits the crime, it will usually be disguised as a burglary or robbery, and it will be disguised as running away from home. , and you need to pack your luggage, it's too troublesome. These are not difficult questions to figure out, the question now is," he leaned forward and stared at Archibald: "When you answer the police inquiry, what are you doing? What did you hide on purpose?"
Archibald Christie blushed, he became embarrassed, and there were tiny beads of sweat on his forehead, he took off his gloves: "I... don't understand what you mean."
"I Curious as to what would have caused you to take off your wedding ring?" Holmes insisted. I noticed that Archibald's ring finger did have a faint ring of color.
He was speechless in embarrassment, and Holmes said rudely: "If it weren't for the indistinct chromatic edges on your fingers, I would suspect that you were implicated in Mrs. Christie's disappearance, and so eagerly took off the wedding ring. In my opinion, it has been taken down for at least half a year."
Archibald sighed: "I can't hide anything from you, Mr. Holmes." He continued: "Indeed, our marriage has a little problem, which is in the We had it before we got married, but it was impossible for me to hurt her... Agatha and I knew each other before the war, and we had a hasty wedding before I went to war, and I went to France the next day. "
In 1916 I was ordered to defend London, and that was the year Agatha completed the Virgo The Mysterious Case of Stiles, but the novel was not very successful until our daughter Rosalynn three years later." It was only serialized in Time Magazine when De was born, and the manuscript fee was only about £25." Archibald smiled wryly and continued: "After my daughter was born, I retired from the army and started a small business, while Agatha finished it. "The Golf Course," "The Man in the Brown Coat," and most recently, "The Roger Mystery." More than a decade later, she's already a successful detective novelist, and I'm still the humble businessman, I think , she has changed..."
Sherlock Holmes nodded: "The gap in economic status is indeed easy to cause marital problems."
"It's not just because of money, she began to become bossy, a little dissatisfaction will make her unhappy, and also I have contacts with some archaeologists."
"That's normal. When I'm bored, I shoot at the walls and play the violin."
"And opium ."
"I often go to London because of business, sometimes for a week. That's where I met Nancy Neal, she's a gentle French woman, so lively, I feel like I'm back in the happy times before. Just a few months ago, Agatha's mother died suddenly, and I didn't accompany her back to Devon. I can't forget that on Christmas Eve 1914, Agatha and I went to her mother's house after taking the oath from church. In the end, she didn't even let us in. Later, I told Agatha about me and Nancy." Archibald smiled bitterly.
"Tell me everything that has happened between you since then," Holmes added, "do not leave out any details."
Archibald nodded and continued: "Agatha was so angry that she even brought Rosa along with her. Back in the country, but even so, I filed for divorce last month, but she didn't agree, and we were deadlocked like that. Every time I come back from London, I go to see them, but every time I can't help arguing."
"What day of the week do you usually come back and which bus do you take?"
"Oh, it's usually the 8 o'clock bus on Friday night. I always go out after dinner. Only last week was delayed because of something, so I only took it on Saturday. Who knew that when they returned to Styles Manor, the newspaper reporters had already surrounded the place."
"What did she take with her? Did she leave anything behind?"
Lestrade cleared his throat, "In the Items found in the car include: a suitcase, a fur coat, a dressing box, and some irrelevant documents such as a driver's license. According to the nanny's recollection, when the hostess went out at about 9:30 that night, she was wearing It was a long grey knitted dress, a green sleeveless jumper, a sweater in shades of grey, and a tiny fur hat, and no one noticed when she put the box in the car."
"Agatha never liked that one. Dressing box, I think it is too eye-catching, this is a gift I bought for her when I proposed."
"There is no trace of flipping in the house, only the wedding ring is left on the sideboard. Strangely, there is one Aga missing. The ring that Sha brought before the wedding, although it is a ruby, is not big, so it is not worth much."
"When did the patrolman find the car?"
"Well...about 11 o'clock." Lestrade took a look Notepad in hand. "
"Okay, gentlemen, I understand what I want to ask. Now, I want to go out." Watson, tell Mrs. Hudson that I don't have to keep lunch for me. "
Three
o'clock in the afternoon, I was having afternoon tea, and Sherlock Holmes came back from the outside dressed as a secretary and went straight into the room. A few minutes later, he appeared in front of me again in high spirits, with an uncontrollable smile on his face. I mean.
"How are things? "
"I have to say that this Mrs Christie is a natural detective novelist, she has gone to great lengths to leave clues wherever she goes, hoping that her husband can read these messages, but unfortunately Mr Christie's mind is clearly not here. "
This incident will not be murder or suicide in the first place. In my opinion, it is more like a walk-away trip, a willful revenge. If it is a murder, the first scene should be the place where the car was abandoned, and According to our friends at Scotland Yard, there were no signs of fighting or overturning on the car, the luggage was safe and where they were supposed to be, the only thing missing was the driver, and if there was a murderer, wouldn't they still be afraid that the police wouldn't be able to identify the owner of the car Did you leave your driver's license on purpose?"
"As for the suitcase and vanity box that Mrs. Christie brought with her when she went out, instead of valuable things like wedding rings or heirloom jewelry, it was obvious that she was not seeking short-sightedness. It's obviously impossible to take these obvious, immovable things away by foot. So what Mrs. Christie really meant to say was - come and find me."
"Women are always duplicitous."
"And she set off. I went to London train station and checked the timetable. The only trains from Berkshire after 10pm were short trains to London, and the staff at the London ticket booth didn't remember selling late Friday night departures The last train ticket for a well-dressed lady. All of the above can be found out for only 1 shilling. The whereabouts of Mrs Christie after arriving in London are obviously the key to the incident. Did she go to a friend's house? Or to a hotel Hiding? At worst she leaves London the next day. The answer to that question will determine whether I stay in London to investigate, or move on to the Saturday train from London to all over the country. So I get It's a bit tedious to have a Baker Street team to help widen the scope of the investigation, and I'm afraid you'll get bored with too much detail."
"I'm listening carefully," I replied.
"I thought of Mrs Christie's luggage left in the car, so I asked Wiggins to take the lead and went to the hotel near London station to find it. And I went to the department stores in the West End, Westfield, Saferidge, and finally in Harrods made a discovery. Near noon on Saturday, a luxuriously dressed lady came to the jewelry counter with a ruby ring to be resized. The salesperson remembered it very well because the lady was dressed from top to bottom. It's brand new, so it doesn't match the ring. Fortunately, I changed into a secretary's dress and pretended to confirm whether the ring's delivery address was correct. I expected that the recipient must have left a pseudonym, so I pretended to A little trick, but what I didn't expect was that the consignee's name was Mrs. Neal, remember? The French lover of Archibald."
"No way?"
"That's it, so I just Got the delivery address easily. Do we have any guests?" As soon as Holmes finished speaking, I heard mrs.
"Wiggins! Let me guess, the answer is no, right?" Holmes gave five shillings to the lead boy. Wiggins went downstairs in another gust of wind, surrounded by the children.
Sherlock Holmes wrote an address on a piece of paper and handed it to me: "I promise to respond to Lestrade by 8 o'clock, and if he comes you can ask him to find this person at this address, and I, Going to continue analysing the dirt brought back from the outskirts last time..."
I glanced, "Theresa Neal at the Turkish Baths in Harrogate, North Yorkshire."
Afterword
Mrs Christy apparently did not expect the police to find her before her husband. It is said that when Archibald arrived in Harrogate the next day, and saw Mrs Christy playing cards in high spirits, his face turned blue with anger.
In the next two weeks, the newspapers still did not let the couple go. Everyone thought it was a drama about a cruel husband marrying a new love, but it was a willful farce. But what happened later was beyond everyone's expectations: Nancy Neal was harassed by gossip reporters and was forced to return to France, Archibald was exhausted and did not want to take care of business, and Mrs. Christy had been reclusive and self-cultivation, and in the end there was no one winner.
Soon after, the Christie couple finally divorced. Mrs. Christie took the Orient Express to travel to the Middle East. In the novel "The Secret of the Blue Express", I clearly felt that she projected her resentment on the protagonist. When she came back, she was married to archaeologist Max Mallowan, and oddly enough, she still stubbornly continued to publish under the name "Agatha Christie" until the "Murder on the Orient Express" ” made her famous again, and it became clear to everyone that she would always be Agatha Christie.
I have always believed that Agatha's subsequent trip to the Middle East would not have been possible without what happened in the winter of 1926, and the many wonderful stories that followed. In the years that followed, Murder on the Orient Express was adapted and made into several versions of the film. With all due respect, my favorite cast is the 1974 version directed by Sidney Lumet. His films are usually emotional and intellectual, so when there are strong supporting roles like Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, etc. There's no doubt it's going to be a terrific ensemble show, and it's true:
"Hollywood's First Lady" Ingrid Bergman, three Academy Award nominees and four nominees, plays a gloomy, neurotic woman.
"The greatest Shakespeare actor of the twentieth century" Sir John Gielgud, Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy Grand Slam winner, played the old butler of a wealthy businessman.
The first and six 007 film actor Sean Connery, Academy Award, American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award winner, played a retired military officer.
Vanessa Redgrave, who was born into an acting family, was already a two-time Cannes actress when she starred in the film, and she also won her own Oscar trophy four years later.
What is even more unexpected is that the French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel, who played the taciturn conductor, is the father of French actor Vincent Cassel...
As far as the script adaptation is concerned, the 1974 edition, the 2010 edition and the 2017 edition Each version has its own merits. The opening setting of the 1974 version of Case within a Case is complemented by a sobbing soundtrack, and the sometimes cheerful and sometimes tense theme song "Orient Express" is impressive in the few soundtracks of the film. And the end of the 2010 and 2017 editions gave the audience a more shocking blank. Is it moral justice or truth first? Hercule Poirot's mission was originally to discover the truth. When the jury acted by the insider both found the facts and executed the verdict, it was too heavy for the detective to assume the responsibility of the judge.
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