Ordeal by Innocence

Ordeal by Innocence
Agatha Christie

Evidence that clears the name of a boy sentenced for killing his adopted mother arrives too late to save his life – so who did kill her?According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonmentBut when Dr Arthur Calgary turns up a year later with the proof that confirms Jacko’s innocence, he is too late – Jacko died behind bars from a bout of pneumonia.Worse still, the doctor’s revelations re-open old wounds in the family, increasing the likelihood that the real murderer will strike again…

Agatha Christie

Ordeal by Innocence

Copyright

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 1958

Copyright © 1958 Agatha Christie Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018 Cover photographs by James Fisher © Agatha Christie Productions, 2018

Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 ebooks.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007154913

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007422647

Version: 2018-08-13

To Billy Collins

with affection and gratitude

If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me.

I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent.

Job

Contents

Cover (#ulink_d53ce783-7d5a-5175-b072-00b0a15509e8)

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

It was dusk when he came to the Ferry.

Chapter 2

It should have been a sensational announcement. Instead, it fell…

Chapter 3

Hester went slowly up the stairs pushing back the dark…

Chapter 4

Calgary said apologetically, ‘It’s very good of you to see…

Chapter 5

The Chief Constable’s eyebrows climbed slowly up his forehead in…

Chapter 6

The lights went up in the cinema. Advertisements flashed on…

Chapter 7

Dr MacMaster was an old man with bushy eyebrows, shrewd grey…

Chapter 8

Hester Argyle was looking at herself in the glass. There was…

Chapter 9

Calgary had only been gone a few minutes when Dr MacMaster…

Chapter 10

‘I’m sure, Marshall, that you’ll appreciate my reasons for asking…