Parker Pyne is investigating
Parker Pyne Investigates (original title Parker Pyne Investigates ) is a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie . It was first published in November 1934 in the United Kingdom by William Collins and Sons and later that year in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company under the deviating title Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective .
The German first edition appeared in 2010 as the 60th volume of The Official Collection Agatha Christie published by the French publisher Hachette Collections . Up to this point in time only three short stories had been translated into German and were first published in 1964 by Diogenes Verlag in the collection The Fall of the Disappointed Housewife .
The collection contains twelve of the author's 14 short stories with the private detective Parker Pyne. The other two stories, Paradies Pollensa and The Stone of Contention are contained in The Murderous Tea Round .
In this book Mrs. Ariadne Oliver has her first appearance, a famous crime writer who loves to eat apples - like the author herself - and who later appeared in a total of seven novels.
introduction
James Parker Pyne is a retired government official who describes himself as a "detective of the heart". He offers his services with an advertisement in the Times . He works together with his secretary Miss Lemon, who later works as a secretary for Hercule Poirot , with the famous crime writer Ariadne Oliver, with the beautiful Claude Luttrell and the artist Madeleine de Sara.
In the first six stories, Parker solves Pyne cases in England. The other six play on his vacation trips, where he actually hoped not to have to do detective work.
The stories
The case of the disappointed housewife
The case of the dissatisfied soldier
The case of the desperate woman
The case of the dissatisfied husband
The case of the office worker
The case of the rich woman
Do you have everything you need?
The gate to Baghdad
The house in Shiraz
A pearl of value
Death on the Nile
Parker Pyne wants to travel the Nile from Luxor to Cairo on the SS Fayoum steamboat. Besides him there are only Sir George and Lady Grayle, their niece Pamela, Lady Grayle's nurse Elsie MacNaughton and Sir George's private secretary Basil West on board. Sir George had married Lady Grayle to end his financial troubles. The price he pays for it is a marriage to a difficult, usually ill-tempered and hypochondriac woman. When the lady learns that Parker Pyne is on board, she reacts angrily, having been assured that her company would be alone on board. Pamela, who does not sympathize with her aunt by marriage, tells Sir George that the lady's illness is only an act. The only person who doesn't seem to mind all the nagging is Basil West, who is on good terms with everyone.
After visiting the Temple of Dendera, Parker Pyne finds a message in his cabin from Lady Grayle, in which she asks him not to visit Abydos and to meet her instead. He refuses at first, but when she offers him a hundred pounds, he agrees and the two meet for tea. Now the lady tells him, after a long introduction, that she suspects that her husband is poisoning her. She got the idea because she always feels better when her husband is not around and it is worse when he is back. When Parker asks Pyne for a motive, she rushes out, offended.
Shortly thereafter, Miss MacNaughton returns prematurely from the outing and expresses the same suspicions as the lady. Parker Pyne didn't see the lady until just before dinner when she smoked a cigarette and apparently burned a letter. She was still offended.
That night, Pyne is called into Lady Grayle's cabin, where he finds her with the clear symptoms of strychnine poisoning. She dies after one last cramp. He immediately remembers the incident before dinner, runs into the salon and finds the remains of the burned letter in the ashtray with the words: "... apsel of your dreams. Burn this!".
The evidence is overwhelming, for packages of strychnine are found in Sir George's cabin and in his dinner jacket. The poison itself came from Miss MacNaughton, who carried it with her patient as medicine. However, Pamela says that Lady Grayle killed herself after discovering that Pamela and Basil are a couple.
Finally he asks Basil. Who explains that he knew the lady was in love with him. Parker Pyne collects a few minutes and then asks Basil to write down his confession. He had an affair with Lady Grayle, then got scruples, fell in love with his niece, and began the slow poisoning that he always combined with the presence of Sir George. When Basil realized the lady had grown suspicious and had spoken to Parker Pyne, it was time to hurry. He sent her the "capsule of dreams" with the strychnine and asked her to burn the enclosed letter. Parker Pyne claims he has this letter (which is not true) and confesses to Basil.
The Oracle at Delphi
References to other works
In the short story The Gate to Baghdad , the poem Gates of Damascus by James Elroy Flecker is quoted twice . A verse from this poem gave the last written novel by the author - Age does not protect against sagacity - its title.
In 1937 the author used motifs from the short story Death on the Nile for one of her most famous novels - Death on the Nile .
Major expenses
- 1934 William Collins & Sons (London), November 1934
- 1934 Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1934
- 1964 German first edition of:
- The case of the dissatisfied soldier
- The case of the disappointed housewife
- The case of the office worker
in the translation by Günter Eichel
- 2010 first complete German edition The Official Collection Agatha Christie , Volume 60, Hachette Collections, Paris
First publications of the stories
Nine of the twelve stories were first published in magazines in the United States:
- The Case of the Discontented Soldier , The Case of the Distressed Lady , The Case of the City Clerk , The Case of the Discontented Husband, and The Case of the Rich Woman all appeared in the August 1932 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine (issue number 556) under Main heading Are You Happy? If Not Consult Mr. Parker Pyne with illustrations by Marshall Frantz.
- Have You Got Everything You Want? , The House at Shiraz , Death on the Nile, and The Oracle at Delphi all appeared in the April 1933 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine (issue number 562) under the headline Have You Got Everything You Want? If not, consult Mr. Parker Pyne again with illustrations by Marshall Frantz.
Film adaptations
Two of the stories were filmed as part of the ten-part television series The Agatha Christie Hour from 1982, with Maurice Denham as Parker Pyne, Angela Easterling as Miss Lemon and Lally Bowers as Ariadne Oliver.
- The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife (1982) as first episode (first broadcast: September 7, 1982)
- The Case of the Discontented Soldier (1982) as the fifth episode (first broadcast October 5, 1982)
Web links
- Parker Pyne Investigates on the official Agatha Christie website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions . Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ↑ John Cooper and BA Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ Volume 60 The official Agatha Christie collection on pressekatalog.de. Archived from the original on January 27, 2016 ; Retrieved July 10, 2008 .
- ^ The case of the disappointed housewife in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ Gates of Damascus ( Memento from December 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The television series The Agatha Christie Hour on imdb