The Third-Floor Flat: A Hercule Poirot Short Story

The Third-Floor Flat: A Hercule Poirot Short Story
Agatha Christie

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.Locked out of her apartment, a woman tries to gain entry from the flat downstairs – where she discovers a dead body. Fortunately, a Belgian detective is renting a flat in the same building…

The Third-Floor Flat

A Short Story

by Agatha Christie

Copyright (#ulink_eec5b251-80c0-501f-bf03-fce662f75385)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Copyright © 1999 Agatha Christie Ltd.

Cover Layout Design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

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

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: 9780007438969

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2014 ISBN: 9780007559961

Version: 2017-04-15

Contents

Cover (#u8fb5e4af-db85-51c0-bea4-5fb999fa2433)

Title Page (#ucbf6c5a1-c1f8-5953-8d4a-d276724d4405)

Copyright

The Third-Floor Flat

Related Products (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

The Third-Floor Flat (#ulink_3a943723-d378-5aa4-8c86-596e19fd5888)

‘The Third-Floor Flat’ was first published in Hutchinson’s Story Magazine, January 1929.

‘Bother!’ said Pat.

With a deepening frown she rummaged wildly in the silken trifle she called an evening bag. Two young men and another girl watched her anxiously. They were all standing outside the closed door of Patricia Garnett’s flat.

‘It’s no good,’ said Pat. ‘It’s not there. And now what shall we do?’

‘What is life without a latchkey?’ murmured Jimmy Faulkener.

He was a short, broad-shouldered young man, with good-tempered blue eyes.

Pat turned on him angrily. ‘Don’t make jokes, Jimmy. This is serious.’

‘Look again, Pat,’ said Donovan Bailey. ‘It must be there somewhere.’

He had a lazy, pleasant voice that matched his lean, dark figure.

‘If you ever brought it out,’ said the other girl, Mildred Hope.

‘Of course I brought it out,’ said Pat. ‘I believe I gave it to one of you two.’ She turned on the men accusingly. ‘I told Donovan to take it for me.’

But she was not to find a scapegoat so easily. Donovan put in a firm disclaimer, and Jimmy backed him up.

‘I saw you put it in your bag, myself,’ said Jimmy.

‘Well, then, one of you dropped it out when you picked up my bag. I’ve dropped it once or twice.’

‘Once or twice!’ said Donovan. ‘You’ve dropped it a dozen times at least, besides leaving it behind on every possible occasion.’

‘I can’t see why everything on earth doesn’t drop out of it the whole time,’ said Jimmy.

‘The point is – how are we going to get in?’ said Mildred.

She was a sensible girl, who kept to the point, but she was not nearly so attractive as the impulsive and troublesome Pat.

All four of them regarded the closed door blankly.

‘Couldn’t the porter help?’ suggested Jimmy. ‘Hasn’t he got a master key or something of that kind?’

Pat shook her head. There were only two keys. One was inside the flat hung up in the kitchen and the other was – or should be – in the maligned bag.

‘If only the flat were on the ground floor,’ wailed Pat. ‘We could have broken open a window or something. Donovan, you wouldn’t like to be a cat burglar, would you?’

Donovan declined firmly but politely to be a cat burglar.

‘A flat on the fourth floor is a bit of an undertaking,’ said Jimmy.

‘How about a fire-escape?’ suggested Donovan.

‘There isn’t one.’

‘There should be,’ said Jimmy. ‘A building five storeys high ought to have a fire-escape.’

‘I dare say,’ said Pat. ‘But what should be doesn’t help us. How am I ever to get into my flat?’