At Bertram's Hotel
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
|
|
| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Brian Russell |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
|
Publication date
|
15 November 1965 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Star Over Bethlehem and other stories |
| Followed by | Third Girl |
At Bertram's Hotel is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 15 November 1965 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple.
Jane Marple, the elderly amateur sleuth, takes a holiday at London's Bertram's Hotel, a place of which she has fond memories from her youth. The establishment has retained a mixed Edwardian and Victorian atmosphere, from its prim staff to its elderly patrons. In its tearoom Miss Marple encounters a wartime friend, Lady Selina Hazy, who reveals that she frequently thinks that she recognises people in the hotel only for them to turn out to be complete strangers. Miss Marple is intrigued by her fellow guests, who include the famous adventuress Bess Sedgwick, 17-year-old Elvira Blake and her legal guardian Colonel Luscombe, and a forgetful clergyman, Canon Pennyfather.
Elvira's late father bequeathed her a large sum of money, to be held in trust until she is 21. Her mother had abandoned her as a baby to pursue her career and the two are estranged. Having questioned her guardian on who would inherit her money if she were to die, Elvira hints she is planning marriage. She also claims someone had once tried to poison her during her school days in Italy. Flying in secret to Ireland for the day, Elvira confides in her best friend, Bridget, that she has to discover something of great importance, but is not specific.
On the same day that Elvira travelled to Ireland, Canon Pennyfather had arranged to attend a conference in Lucerne, Switzerland. However the confused cleric arrives at the airport a day late, missing his flight by a full 24 hours. He returns to Bertram's around midnight, disturbing an intruder in his bedroom. Having been knocked unconscious he awakens four days later in a house several hours from London, but near the location of a recent robbery of the Irish Mail train. A family had found him on the side of the road and taken him in. Pennyfather is able to recall nothing since taking the taxi to the airport, yet some witnesses of the robbery state they saw somebody resembling the canon. Miss Marple also witnessed him departing his hotel room at 3 am, three hours after he was assaulted, and a few hours before the robbery.
...
Wikipedia