Silence before the storm

Calm before the storm ( The Market Basing Mystery ) is a detective story by Agatha Christie to the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot .

action

The crime short story is about a suicide , which should look like a murder.

Walter Protheroe, a resident of Leigh House, is dead. The doctor is certain that it was not a suicide. Hercule Poirot is consulted during the investigation and finds a cufflink on the floor and an ashtray with many cigarette butts on the table. He interviews the housekeeper Miss Clegg, who has worked for Protheroe for eight years, and Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who are visiting Protheroe on business. Mr. Parker denies the cufflink is his, but is refuted. Inconsistencies such as a handkerchief in the supposed 'wrong' sleeve and the lack of cigarette smell in the room despite the cigarette butts in the ashtray make Poirot ponder.

A short time later, a tramp confesses that he had taken shelter in the Leigh House shed and saw two men arguing. He thinks he remembers that one asked for money what the other refused. He describes the men as Mr. Protheroe and Mr. Parker. It turns out that Mr. Protheroe's real name was Wendover and that he was a naval lieutenant who was involved in the demolition of the cruiser 'Merrythought' in 1910. Mr. Parker knew about Wendover's role and blackmailed him. Therefore, the investigating inspector assumes that Mr. Parker shot Mr. Wendover in an argument and wanted to make it look like suicide. "As the argument progressed, Wendover drew his pistol, Parker snatched it from him, then tried to make it look like suicide." But he's wrong. At Poirot's pressure, Miss Clegg finally clarifies that Protheroe / Wendover actually died by suicide because he feared the embarrassment he expected if his past became public. Miss Clegg put the lead with Mr. Parker.

“I loved him so much,” she replied. "I was his nanny when he was a little boy." She didn't kill him, but she put the gun in her right hand because she knew Protheroe / Wendover was left-handed and so suspected Mr. Parker had to, whom she blamed for the death of her employer.

Publications

The story appeared in the original under the title The Market Basing Mystery in 1923 and later again in the anthology of the same name Yellow Iris . It was republished in the Hercule Poirot's greatest triumphs collection , published by the Weltbild publishing group , translated into German by Adi Oes, Edith Walter, Felix von Poellheim and Sabine Reinhardt-Jost.