Agatha Christie - The Last Séance

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Agatha Christie - The Last Séance; Tales of the Supernatural (HarperCollins 2019)

Matt Griffin

The Last Séance
In a Glass Darkly
S.O.S.
The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb
The Fourth Man
The Idol House of Astarte
The Gipsy
Philomel Cottage
The Lamp
The Dream
Wireless
The Wife of the Kenite
The Mystery of the Blue Jar
The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael
The Blue Geranium
The Call of Wings
The Flock of Geryon
The Red Signal
The Dressmaker's Doll
The Hound of Death

Bibliography

Blurb:

“From behind the curtains there still sounded the terrible high long-drawn scream - such a scream as Raoul had never heard. It died away in a horrible kind of gurgle. Then there came the thud of a body falling...'
THE LAST SÉANCE
For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling tales from Agatha Christie.
Acknowledged the world over as the undisputed Queen of Crime, in fact she dabbled in her early writing career with mysteries of a more unearthly kind - stories featuring fantastic psychic visions, spectres looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, eerie messages from the Other Side, even a man who switches bodies with a cat...
This haunting compendium gathers together all of Christie's spookiest and most macabre short stories, some featuring her timeless detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Finally together in one volume, it shines a light on the darker side of Agatha Christie, one that she herself relished, identifying ten of them as 'my own favourite stories written soon after The Mysterious Affair at Styles, some before that'.

Found this in the 50p box at Sunday's market. A fleshed out version of The Hound of Death, dropping The Witness for the Prosecution, adding In A Glass Darkly,The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, The Idol House of Astarte, Philomel Cottage, The Dream, The Wife of the Kenite, The Blue Geranium, The Flock of Geryon, and The Dressmaker's Doll

Agatha Christie - The Hound Of Death (Fontana, 1982; originally Collins, 1933)

The Hound of Death
The Red Signal
The Fourth Man
The Gipsy
The Lamp
Wireless
The Witness for the Prosecution
The Mystery of the Blue Jar
The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael
The Call of Wings
The Last Séance
S.O.S.

Blurb:

The collection of Agatha Christie's best stories of the macabre and occult. Included here are:
THE HOUND OF DEATH –when the convent blew up, a black powder mark appeared on the remaining wall – a mark in the shape of a great hound.
THE FOURTH MAN – on the night-train from London, the three men in the carriage hear a very strange tale.
THE RED SIGNAL is the premonition of danger. But even to those who recognise the signal, the events of the evening are extraordinary.
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE JAR–The cries of 'Murder' were clearly heard but no-one can be seen –and that was just the beginning of a trail of mystery and murder.
and eight other spine-chilling mysteries.

The cover shows Prue Clarke and Roy Leighton in THE FOURTH MAN from the Thames Television series of THE AGATHA CHRISTIE HOUR directed by Michael Simpson and produced by Pat Sandys.

The Lamp: (The Hound of Death & Other Stories, 1933). Mr. Winburn, his widowed daughter, and Geoffrey, her son, move to Weyminster and a house left vacant for several years as it is believed haunted by a boy who starved to death when his father was imprisoned on a visit to London. Soon Mr. Winburn and Geoffrey are aware of the sobbing ghost, ever dragging its phantom feet downstairs. The dead boy seeks a playmate.

The Dressmaker's Doll: (Star Weekly, 25 Oct. 1958: Woman's Journal, Dec. 1958). Staff and customers at Alicia Coombe's Dress shop complain that the "sad-looking" velvet doll gives them the creeps - and that is before the discovery that it moves from sofa to writing desk to front of store as the mood takes it. Convinced her mannequin is "malevolent", Mrs. Coombes throws it through the window into the street below ....

In a Glass Darkly: (Woman's Journal, Dec. 1934). While staying at his best friend, Neil Carslake's sixteenth century manor house in 1914, narrator hallucinates the murder of a golden-haired girl by a man with a scarred face. The 'victim' is the host's sister, Sylvia, while the killer looks an awful lot like her fiance, Charles Crawley. Should he inform them of his premonition?

The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb: (The Sketch, Sept. 1923: Poirot Investigates, 1924). "The unlucky mummy of the British Museum, that hoary old chestnut, was dragged out with fresh zest, quietly denied by the museum, but nevertheless enjoyed all its usual vogue."

In the wake of Lord Carnavon's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, a rival party, headed by the Sir John Willard and New York financier Mr. Bleibner, get busy excavating that of the Pharaoh Men-her-Ra. Within weeks, both men are dead. On returning to the States, Bleibner's nephew, Rupert, blows out his brains, leaving behind a suicide note bemoaning his life as an outcast and a leper. Lady Willard, worried that son Guy will be the next victim, wonders if perhaps there is something to this "Egyptian curse" business after all.

Poirot astonishes Captain Hastings by assuring the widow of his belief in the power of superstition and, despite an aversion to a climate likely to distress his immaculate moustache, sets off for Cairo. Even before the ship docks, a fourth fatality. According to Dr. Ames, the young, slightly shady physician, this latest tragedy was a clear case of tetanus. As they speak, the shadowy figure of Anubis, the jackal-headed God, passes the tent. That same night, the forces of darkness spike Poirot's drink with a fast-acting deadly poison. Has he finally met his match?

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The Wife of the Kenite: (The Home, Sept. 1922). "This is the day in which the Lord hath delivered mine enemy into my hand." Herr Schaefer, a German agitator up to no good in South Africa, crosses the veldt to evade the Jo'burg authorities and seek refuge at the farm of a colleague. Unfortunately for him, said ally has since married a Belgian woman whose four-year-old son was butchered before her eyes when the German's overran her village. She hardly likely to forget the murderer's face. Straight horror story.

The Gipsy: (The Hound of Death & Other Stories, 1933). From infancy, Dickie Carpenter nurtures a morbid fear of Gipsy women as their premonitions always come true where he is concerned. Now a mystery red-scarved blonde at the nursing home warns against his risking an operation on a gammy leg. He goes against her advice and - R.I.P. Dickie.

The Call of Wings: (The Hound of Death & Other Stories, 1933). "I don't believe in anything I can't see and hear and touch," insists Silas Hamer, millionaire and loving it, until the day he witnesses a vagrant fall beneath the wheels of a bus and, for the first time, considers his own mortality. Hurrying from the accident, Hamer steps inside a passageway where a man with no legs (he doesn't miss them; "they were evil") plays a particularly wild and haunting melody on a flute. The Great God Pan liberates Hamer from material concerns, ushers him into the sensual realm/ fairy kingdom/ death.