Agatha Christie: The Third-Floor Flat

Author:
Agatha Mary Clarissa (maiden name Miller) Christie (1891-1976)
Agatha Christie was an author of over 100 plays, short stories and novels. Her stories always keep you in excitement from the first page until the last one. You do not find identity of the murder until the end, and when you do, it comes as a complete surprise. Book:
The complete short stories


Main characters:
Hercule Poirot – the little Belgian detective with the egg-shaped head and the enormous black moustache. “I could see him as a tidy little man, always arranging things, liking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round. And he should be very brainy – he should have little grey cells of the mind...” (Agatha Christie: The Complete Short Stories, page 1)
Patricia (Pat) Garnett – attractive impulsive and troublesome young girl and a little bit superficial
Mildred Hope – a sensible girl, who kept to the point, but she was not so attractive as Pat
Jimmy Faulkener – short, broad-shouldered young man, with good-tempered blue eyes
Donovan Bailey – young handsome man who is secretly in love with Patricia


Narration:
Third-person narration – author neither makes any explicit comments on the qualities of his characters, nor does he enter into their innermost thoughts and feelings. (J. Grmela: Theory of literature for students of English, page 112).


Settings:
The story is set in London. I assume that this story takes place at the same time as the author wrote it.


Exposition:
Patricia and her friends were all standing outside the closed door of her flat. Mildred, Jimmy and Donovan watched her rummaging wildly in her evening bag for a key. Unfortunately, she had probably her key lost. So they tried to think out how they could possibly get in. They agreed that the best thing to do would be to use the coal lift. Rising action:
So Donovan and Jimmy got into the coal lift and hauled on the rope. When they thought that they were on the fourth floor they stepped out into the blackness of Pat’s kitchen. They switched the light on in the sitting room and in another minute two young men were looking at each other in silent horror. They were in the wrong flat.
Finding a couple of letters on the table they knew they had got into Mrs. Ernestine Grant’s flat, which was one floor lower than Pat’s flat.

They hastily switch off the light and retraced their steps to the lift.


Climax:
Donovan heaved on the rope again and this time they finally got in Pat’s flat. He opened the door and admitted the girls who were waiting outside. Girls listened with lively interest to Donovan’s account of his adventures. Pat was just mentioning that Mrs. Grant had sent her a note about seeing her later when she suddenly caught sight of Donovan’s hand covered all over by blood. At first they thought that he had hurt himself but after washing his hand the rest was staring at him in surprise. He had no mark of hurting on it at all. The only explanation was that the blood on his hand must be from the flat on the third floor. Donovan and Jimmy decided to go to the flat below again and make sure that everything is all right there. But when they got down they found a dead woman behind the curtains. Jimmy stayed on guard while Donovan run upstairs into the flat above and rang up the police. At that moment Hercule Poirot stepped in. He introduced himself and explained that he lived in the same house, had heard what happened and he offered his help. Little detective went to Mrs. Grant’s flat to have a look. He stood upright and looked slowly round the room. He did not move, he handled nothing and it still looked like every object in that place gave up its secret to his observant eye. Then three policemen came. Poirot had a word with inspector and recounted him what they had discovered. What they detected was that Mrs. Grant had been sitting at the table when somebody sitting opposite her had shot her with pistol fitted with a silencer so nobody else could hear the shot. Then the murderer had concealed the body behind the curtains.


Falling action (anticlimax):
Poirot decided to make an investigation of his own again and asked Donovan and Jimmy to accompany him. Getting into the flat he did not enter the living room but he went straight to the kitchen to a big iron bin. After a while of searching he took out a small stoppered bottle. Donovan took it from him took out the stopper and sniffed before Poirot’s warning could stop him. Immediately he fell down. After a while he looked better but still a bit shaking so he decided to go home. Dénouement (resolution)
Jimmy stayed with Poirot and he finally told him what really happened. The murderer hid the body of Mrs. Grant because he didn’t want anybody to find her before he would have a chance to come back for a letter delivered later that day by an evening post. The letter said that her marriage contracted in a foreign country was still valid.

In the envelope was also a certificate of marriage between Ernestine Grant and Donovan Bailey. Mrs. Grant wanted to tell Patricia about her marriage to Donovan, because she knew that Donovan was in love with Pat. When she told Donovan about her intention he decided to kill her. A little trick with a bottle filled with an anesthetic helped Poirot to get proofs from Donovan’s pocket – the envelope and the key from Patricia’s flat.