By the Pricking of My Thumbs

By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Agatha Christie

An old woman in a nursing home speaks of a child buried behind the fireplace…When Tommy and Tuppence visited an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they thought nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada was a very difficult old lady.But when Mrs Lockett mentioned a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs Lancaster talked about ‘something behind the fireplace’, Tommy and Tuppence found themselves caught up in an unexpected adventure involving possible black magic…

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by

Collins 1968

Agatha Christie® Tommy & Tuppence® By the Pricking of My Thumbs™

Copyright © 1968 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers/Agatha Christie Ltd 2015

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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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.

Source ISBN: 9780007590629

Ebook Edition © Jan 2015 ISBN: 9780007422180

Version: 2017-04-17

This book is dedicated to the many readers in this and in other countries who write to me asking: ‘What has happened to Tommy and Tuppence? What are they doing now?’ My best wishes to you all, and I hope you will enjoy meeting Tommy and Tuppence again, years older, but with spirit unquenched!

By the pricking of my thumbs

Something wicked this way comes.

—Macbeth

Contents

Cover (#u00395e5e-aec0-591f-983d-ba692c801f1d)

Title Page (#uceaba95a-a4c5-5258-9a9c-f013e7db4e78)

Copyright (#u44344cff-f5c6-5b70-a902-0a6c84b8adb3)

Dedication (#ud5d47aa8-01a1-5ba8-902d-61e63de96788)

Epigraph (#u991f9bd0-3f55-53e8-8dec-f1e28b1ab96e)

BOOK 1: Sunny Ridge (#u28f6336a-ae6f-5799-86c8-143044cc4def)

CHAPTER 1: Aunt Ada (#u2462b12c-d326-5bd1-9e6d-03ee82d1527a)

CHAPTER 2: Was It Your Poor Child? (#u792c9271-6b27-5d92-b200-0da7ee157300)

CHAPTER 3: A Funeral (#ufb12b762-ebf6-5748-9456-a5093cfc1d4d)

CHAPTER 4: Picture of a House (#ub8d52b7c-8051-5268-85ab-2af3502d1590)

CHAPTER 5: Disappearance of an Old Lady (#u8a05b0c2-d173-5e2a-ba6a-b6fa35731e8b)

CHAPTER 6: Tuppence on the Trail (#uf8d79de8-294b-5da1-8dfe-bf667c79e245)

BOOK 2: The House on the Canal (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 7: The Friendly Witch (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 8: Sutton Chancellor (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 9: A Morning in Market Basing (#litres_trial_promo)

BOOK 3: Missing—A Wife (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 10: A Conference—and After (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 11: Bond Street and dr Murray (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 12: Tommy Meets an Old Friend (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 13: Albert on Clues (#litres_trial_promo)

BOOK 4: Here is a Church and here is the Steeple Open the Doors and there are the People (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 14: Exercise in Thinking (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 15: Evening at the Vicarage (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 16: The Morning After (#litres_trial_promo)