The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Mysterious Mr Quin

Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
Author	Agatha Christie
Cover artist	Thomas Derrick
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Detective fiction Short stories
Publisher	William Collins & Sons
Publication date	14 April 1930
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	288 pp (first edition, hardcover)
Preceded by	Partners in Crime
Followed by	Giant's Bread

The Mysterious Mr Quin is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on 14 April 1930 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.

Each chapter or story involves a separate mystery that is solved through the interaction between the characters of Mr Satterthwaite, a socialite, and the eponymous Mr Quin who appears almost magically at the most opportune moments and disappears just as mysteriously. Satterthwaite is a small, observant man who is able to wrap up each mystery through the careful prodding and apposite questions of Quin, who serves as a catalyst each time the men meet.

It is New Year's Eve and a house party is taking place at Royston, the country house of Tom Evesham and his wife, Lady Laura. Among the guests are Mr Satterthwaite, Sir Richard Conway and Alex Portal and his Australian wife of two years, Eleanor. Satterthwaite finds her intriguing on many counts, especially why a blonde would dye her hair dark when the reverse is more common. After the clocks strike midnight, the older members among the guests mention Derek Capel, the previous owner of Royston, who committed suicide ten years previously, seemingly without reason. Tom Evesham stops this conversation and a few minutes later the women retire to bed.

Left to their whisky and the fire, the men restart the conversation regarding Capel. There is a sudden knock on the door. It is a stranger; the lights through the stained glass above the door cast a multi-coloured look over his motoring clothes. Mr Harley Quin asks for shelter while his chauffeur repairs his broken-down car. He knows this part of the world and knew Derek Capel, and he skilfully steers the conversation round to the question of why Capel should suddenly take his own life. Satterthwaite feels that Quin's appearance on this night is no accident. As the discussion continues, Satterthwaite spots Eleanor Portal crouched down in the darkness at the top of the stairs listening in.

Capel told the guests on the night of his death that he was about to be engaged. They assumed that it was to Marjorie Dilke. His secretiveness about the engagement makes Conway wonder if the engagement was to someone else, such as a married woman. All agree that Capel's manner that night was like a man who had won a large gamble and was defying the odds, yet ten minutes later he shot himself. A late post of letters and newspapers arrived, the first for several days in the snow-bound countryside, but Capel had not opened any of the letters. A policeman was at the house, returning one of Capel's dogs that had strayed. He was in the kitchen when the shot was fired. Quin asks them to place the exact date, possibly by reference to some event in the news, and the men remember it was the time of the Appleton murder trial. Mr Appleton was an old man who mistreated his far younger wife, and Capel was a friend of theirs. Appleton died by strychnine poisoning but the poison was only found after the body had been exhumed. His wife, who had smashed a decanter of port from which her husband had drunk – perhaps to destroy the evidence – had been put on trial and found not guilty, but had then left the country because of the scandal.