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    The Fourth Man: A Short Story
    The Fourth Man: A Short Story
    The Fourth Man: A Short Story
    Ebook40 pages26 minutes

    The Fourth Man: A Short Story

    By Agatha Christie

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    About this ebook

    Previously published in the print anthology The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories.

    A cleric, a lawyer, and a psychiatrist find themselves together on a train bound for Newcastle. There is a fourth man in the compartment, who apparently pays no attention to his companions' animated conversation. But do they have something to learn from this stranger?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 3, 2013
    ISBN9780062300621
    The Fourth Man: A Short Story
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

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    • 4/5
      A lawyer, doctor and clergyman sit together on the train. But, the fourth man steals the story into the possible paranormal. A different kind of Christie.

    Book preview

    The Fourth Man - Agatha Christie

    Contents

    The Fourth Man

    About the Author

    The Agatha Christie Collection

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    THE FOURTH MAN

    Canon Parfitt panted a little. Running for trains was not much of a business for a man of his age. For one thing his figure was not what it was and with the loss of his slender silhouette went an increasing tendency to be short of breath. This tendency the Canon himself always referred to, with dignity, as "My heart, you know!"

    He sank into the corner of the first-class carriage with a sigh of relief. The warmth of the heated carriage was most agreeable to him. Outside the snow was falling. Lucky to get a corner seat on a long night journey. Miserable business if you didn’t. There ought to be a sleeper on this train.

    The other three corners were already occupied, and noting this fact Canon Parfitt became aware that the man in the far corner was smiling at him in gentle recognition. He was a clean-shaven man with a quizzical face and hair just turning grey on the temples. His profession was so clearly the law that no one could have mistaken him for anything else for a moment. Sir George Durand was, indeed, a very famous lawyer.

    Well, Parfitt, he remarked genially, you had a run for it, didn’t you?

    Very bad for my heart, I’m afraid, said the Canon. Quite a coincidence meeting you, Sir George. Are you going far north?

    Newcastle, said Sir George laconically. By the way, he added, do you know Dr. Campbell Clark?

    The man sitting on the same side of the carriage as the Canon inclined his head pleasantly.

    We met on the platform, continued the lawyer. Another coincidence.

    Canon Parfitt looked at Dr. Campbell Clark with a good deal of interest. It was a name of which he had often heard. Dr. Clark was

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