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AGATHA CHRISTIE
The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This collection © Agatha Christie Limited 2004
The Mysterious Mr. Quin © Agatha Christie Limited 1930
Three Act Tragedy © Agatha Christie Limited 1934
Dead Man’s Mirror © Agatha Christie Limited 1937
The Love Detectives © Agatha Christie Limited 1926,1950
The Harlequin Tea Set © Agatha Christie Limited 1971
Cover photograph © Johner/Photonica
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007171156
Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007562657
Version: 2017-04-13
Contents
Contents
10. The Bird with the Broken Wing
The Mr Quin stories were not written as a series. They were written one at a time at rare intervals. Mr Quin, I consider, is an epicure’s taste.
A set of Dresden figures on my mother’s mantelpiece fascinated me as a child and afterwards. They represented the Italian commedia dell’arte: Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, Pierette, Punchinello, and Punchinella. As a girl I wrote a series of poems about them, and I rather think that one of the poems, Harlequin’s Song, was my first appearance in print. It was in the Poetry Review, and I got a guinea for it!
After I turned from poetry and ghost stories to crime, Harlequin finally reappeared; a figure invisible except when he chose, not quite human, yet concerned with the affairs of human beings and particularly of lovers. He is also the advocate for the dead.
Though each story about him is quite separate, yet the collection, written over a considerable period of years, outlines in the end the story of Harlequin himself.
With Mr Quin there has been created little Mr Satterthwaite, Mr Quin’s friend in this mortal world: Mr Satterthwaite, the gossip, the looker-on at life, the little man who without ever touching the depths of joy and sorrow himself, recognizes drama when he sees it, and is conscious that he has a part to play.