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The Blue Geranium A Short Story by Agatha Christie Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Copyright © 2008 Agatha Christie Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication. Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007526475 Version: 2017-04-13 Contents Copyright The Blue Geranium ‘The Blue Geranium’ was first published in The Christmas Story-Teller, December 1929. ‘When I was down here last year –’ said Sir Henry Clithering, and stopped. His hostess, Mrs Bantry, looked at him curiously. The Ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard was staying with old friends of his, Colonel and Mrs Bantry, who lived near St Mary Mead. Mrs Bantry, pen in hand, had just asked his advice as to who should be invited to make a sixth guest at dinner that evening. ‘Yes?’ said Mrs Bantry encouragingly. ‘When you were here last year?’ ‘Tell me,’ said Sir Henry, ‘do you know a Miss Marple?’ Mrs Bantry was surprised. It was the last thing she had expected. ‘Know Miss Marple? Who doesn’t! The typical old maid of fiction. Quite a dear, but hopelessly behind the times. Do you mean you would like me to ask her to dinner?’ ‘You are surprised?’ ‘A little, I must confess. I should hardly have thought you – but perhaps there’s an explanation?’ ‘The explanation is simple enough. When I was down here last year we got into the habit of discussing unsolved mysteries – there were five or six of us – Raymond West, the novelist, started it. We each supplied a story to which we knew the answer, but nobody else did. It was supposed to be an exercise in the deductive faculties – to see who could get nearest the truth.’ ‘Well?’ ‘Like in the old story – we hardly realized that Miss Marple was playing; but we were very polite about it – didn’t want to hurt the old dear’s feelings. And now comes the cream of the jest. The old lady outdid us every time!’ ‘What?’ ‘I assure you – straight to the truth like a homing pigeon.’ ‘But how extraordinary! Why, dear old Miss Marple has hardly ever been out of St Mary Mead.’ ‘Ah! But according to her, that has given her unlimited opportunities of observing human nature – under the microscope as it were.’ ‘I suppose there’s something in that,’ conceded Mrs Bantry. ‘One would at least know the petty side of people. But I don’t think we have any really exciting criminals in our midst. I think we must try her with Arthur’s ghost story after dinner. I’d be thankful if she’d find a solution to that.’ ‘I didn’t know that Arthur believed in ghosts?’ ‘Oh! he doesn’t. That’s what worries him so. And it happened to a friend of his, George Pritchard – a most prosaic person. It’s really rather tragic for poor George. Either this extraordinary story is true – or else –’ ‘Or else what?’ Mrs Bantry did not answer. After a minute or two she said irrelevantly: ‘You know, I like George – everyone does. One can’t believe that he – but people do do such extraordinary things.’ Sir Henry nodded. He knew, better than Mrs Bantry, the extraordinary things that people did. So it came about that that evening Mrs Bantry looked round her dinner table (shivering a little as she did so, because the dining-room, like most English dining-rooms, was extremely cold) and fixed her gaze on the very upright old lady sitting on her husband’s right. Miss Marple wore black lace mittens; an old lace fichu was draped round her shoulders and another piece of lace surmounted her white hair. She was talking animatedly to the elderly doctor, Dr Lloyd, about the Workhouse and the suspected shortcomings of the District Nurse. Mrs Bantry marvelled anew. She even wondered whether Sir Henry had been making an elaborate joke – but there seemed no point in that. Incredible that what he had said could be really true. Her glance went on and rested affectionately on her red-faced broad-shouldered husband as he sat talking horses to Jane Helier, the beautiful and popular actress. Jane, more beautiful (if that were possible) off the stage than on, opened enormous blue eyes and murmured at discreet intervals: ‘Really?’ ‘Oh fancy!’ ‘How extra-ordinary!’ She knew nothing whatever about horses and cared less. ‘Arthur,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘you’re boring poor Jane to distraction. Leave horses alone and tell her your ghost story instead. You know … George Pritchard.’ ‘Eh, Dolly? Oh! but I don’t know –’ ‘Sir Henry wants to hear it too. I was telling him something about it this morning. It would be interesting to hear what everyone has to say about it.’ ‘Oh do!’ said Jane. ‘I love ghost stories.’ ‘Well –’ Colonel Bantry hesitated. ‘I’ve never believed much in the supernatural. But this – ‘I don’t think any of you know George Pritchard. He’s one of the best. His wife – well, she’s dead now, poor woman. I’ll just say this much: she didn’t give George any too easy a time when she was alive. She was one of those semi-invalids – I believe she had really something wrong with her, but whatever it was she played it for all it was worth. She was capricious, exacting, unreasonable. She complained from morning to night. George was expected to wait on her hand and foot, and every thing he did was always wrong and he got cursed for it. Most men, I’m fully convinced, would have hit her over the
