The Companion
Author: Agatha Christie
As 2020 closes, I am still on my mission to read all of Agatha Christie's writing in publication order. It has been a goal of mine for decades. With the advent of lovely things like the internet, ebooks, info websites and online bookshops, I am finding it so much easier to acquire her books, short stories and plays than it was in the 1980s when I first started collecting her paperbacks. It was a losing battle back then, as I was from a small town with no local book shop, UK titles were not readily available to me and I had no way to get an exhaustive list of all of her writing. Today, I have the time (all kiddos raised but one) and the ability to research (ahhh the blessing of the internet!)...so I have been having a glorious time working my way through all that is Christie! :)
Before now, I never really read any of her short stories. I'm finding I really love her short works just as much as her novels. I thoroughly enjoyed her first stories about Hercule Poirot. I find her introduction of the character to the public through short stories printed in detective magazines to be marketing genius. Give them snippets...get people reading...then give them novels. Smart! I have now worked my way into the days where lovely Miss Marple joined the literary party. I'm currently reading my way through thirteen stories about the Tuesday Night Club, which were later gathered into a short story collection called The Thirteen Problems (1932). The Tuesday Night Club is a group of friends (including Miss Marple) that started meeting every Tuesday night. Each member told a story, and the group had to guess the final outcome or the truth behind the tale. After they had all told a tale, the stories branched out to tales told around the table during a dinner party. They are all simple, short and marvelous!
The Companion was first published in 1930 in the Story-Teller Magazine in the UK and in the Pictoral Review in the US. It's the 8th story told by the Tuesday Night Club. Told by a medical doctor, the story relates the tale of a drowning victim.
Very enjoyable short story! It's a bit longer than some of the other tales and very entertaining. I listened to an audio book version of this story while reading along in my copy of Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories. The audio copy I found is read by Joan Hickson who played the sleuth in the television series Miss Marple. Great performance!
On to the next story: The Four Suspects!
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