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.