Cat Among the Pigeons
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| First edition cover | |
| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Hercule Poirot |
| Genre(s) | Mystery, Detective novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
| Released | 1959 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Dead Man's Folly |
| Followed by | The Clocks |
Cat Among the Pigeons is a detective novel by Agatha Christie first published in 1959. It features her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who makes a very late appearance in the final third of the novel. The emphasis on espionage in the early part of the novel relates it to Christie’s international adventures (most notably They Came to Baghdad) and to the Tommy and Tuppence stories.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
At the start of the Summer Term at Meadowbank School for Girls, there is no reason for Miss Bulstrode, the popular but ageing Headmistress, to believe that the challenges facing her will be more than the occasional irate or inebriated parent. She scarcely listens when Mrs. Upjohn, a parent, recognises someone that she sees from her wartime days in the intelligence service. But there is a killer at the school who does not wait long to strike …
[edit] Plot summary
The story flashes back two months to Ramat, one of the richest countries of the Middle East, where a revolution is about to take place. Prince Ali Yusuf gives into the safekeeping of Bob Rawlinson, his old fag at school, a fortune in jewels which he needs sent out of the country. Rawlinson complies with the prince’s request, apparently by concealing the jewels in the luggage of his sister, Joan Sutcliffe, who is travelling with her daughter, Jennifer. He is seen doing this by an unknown woman in the next room. Soon after, both Rawlinson and the Prince are killed in an air crash while attempting to leave the country. A number of people, including British Intelligence, get onto the trail of the jewels, and their attention focuses of Meadowbank, where not only Jennifer, but also the prince’s cousin and fiancée, Shaista, are studying.
There are several new staff at Meadowbank, including Adam Goodman (a British agent who has taken a job as gardener), Ann Shapland (Miss Bulstrode’s new secretary), Angele Blanche (a new French teacher) and Grace Springer (a gym teacher). Miss Springer annoys many with her uncompromising and self-centred attitude to school life.
At first Miss Bulstrode can concentrate on a personal problem: which of two candidates she should appoint as her successor on retirement. On the one hand there is Miss Vansittart, who would preserve her legacy but have no fresh ideas; on the other there is Miss Rich, a younger English teacher with lots of ideas but less experience. These deliberations are cut short, however, when Miss Springer is shot dead in the Sports Pavilion late at night and her body discovered by Miss Johnson and Miss Chadwick.
Following the murder, Inspector Kelsey interviews everyone and Adam Goodland reveals his true identity. Meanwhile, the attention of the reader is focused on Jennifer Sutcliffe’s tennis racquet, which would be a suitable receptacle for the gems. She has been complaining that the racquet is unbalanced suddenly, and sends a letter to her mother asking for a new one. She swaps racquets (and, crucially, their name tags) with a friend, Julia Upjohn. When a strange woman arrives with a new racquet for Jennifer, she implies that it is a gift from her Aunt Gina and takes the old one (actually Julia’s) for restringing. As Julia points out, though, Jennifer’s aunt cannot have believed that Jennifer’s racquet needed restringing, because Jennifer’s own racquet had just been restrung. Sure enough, Aunt Gina writes to say that she has not sent a new racquet.
During a weekend when many of the girls are at home with their parents, Shaista is apparently kidnapped by a chauffeur posing as the one sent by her father to take her home. That night there is a repetition of murder when Miss Chadwick is disturbed by torch light in the Sports Pavilion and Miss Vansittart is found dead there, having been apparently coshed. Many of the girls go home, but the resourceful Julia, who has been pondering the exchange of the racquets, takes her (really Jennifer’s) racquet back to her room and discovers the gems in the handle. She is terrified when someone attempts to enter her room later that night, and the next day flees the school to tell her story to Hercule Poirot.
The police start to focus on the newcomer, Miss Blanche, but in fact she is not the murderer; instead, she knows who the murderer is, and makes an attempt at blackmail that backfires when she is murdered. With the school struggling to survive, the denouement has arrived.
Poirot reviews what the reader already knows, and then explains that Princess Shaista was an impostor: the real Shaista had been kidnapped much earlier, in Switzerland, and the apparent abduction was actually her escape from the school. She was the representative of one group of interests who, crucially, did not know where the gems had been concealed. The murderer, however, did know where the jewels were concealed and must have been in Ramat to see Bob Rawlinson hide them. Most of the teachers could not have been there … the exception was Eileen Rich, who was apparently sick at the time but was in fact in Ramat. Jennifer had even recognised her, although she remembered the woman she had seen as a fatter woman. (It later transpires that Miss Rich had been in Ramat for the delivery of an illegitimate child that was stillborn.)
Just as it seems that Miss Rich is the murderer, Mrs. Upjohn enters the room having been recalled from her holiday in Anatolia. Immediately she identifies the woman whom she had recognised at the start of the book: Ann Shapland, an infamous international spy. Shapland draws a pistol to kill Mrs. Upjohn but Miss Chadwick steps in front of the bullet in an effort to save Miss Bulstrode, and is fatally wounded.
Ann Shapland has murdered Miss Springer, who disturbed her when she was searching the Sports Pavilion, and Miss Blanche, who knew her secret. The murder of Miss Vansittart, for which Ann had a perfect alibi, was committed instead by Miss Chadwick, who herself wished to become headmistress of the school on Miss Bulstrode’s retirement, and was an opportunistic, unpremeditated murder.
At the end of the book, Miss Bulstrode reconfirms her decision to make Miss Rich her eventual successor. Poirot turns over the gems to the enigmatic “Mr. Robinson” who, in turn, delivers them to the English woman who has been secretly married Prince Ali Yusuf. One emerald is returned as a reward to Julia Upjohn.
[edit] Characters in "Cat Among the Pigeons"
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Inspector Kelsey, the investigating officer
- Miss Bulstrode, headmistress of Meadowbank School for Girls
- Ann Shapland, Miss Bulstrode’s secretary
- Elspeth Johnson, the matron
- Miss Chadwick, a long-serving and senior teacher
- Eleanor Vansittart, a senior teacher
- Eileen Rich, a teacher
- Grace Springer, a Games.teacher
- Angele Blanche, a French teacher
- Miss Blake, a teacher
- Miss Rowan, a teacher
- Princess Shaista, a middle-eastern princess and pupil at Meadowbank
- Jennifer Sutcliffe, niece of Bob Rawlinson and pupil at Meadowbank
- Julia Upjohn, pupil at Meadowbank
- Prince Ali Yusuf, hereditary Sheikh of Ramat
- Bob Rawlinson, former school friend of the Sheikh of Ramat
- Joan Sutcliffe, Bob Rawlinson’s sister and Jennifer’s mother
- Henry Sutcliffe, Jennifer’s father
- Colonel Ephraim Pikeaway, a senior figure in Special Branch
- John Edmundson, a member of the Foreign Office
- Derek O’Connor, a member of the Foreign Office
- “Adam Goodman” (aka Ronnie), an operative for Special Branch
- “Mr. Robinson”, a shadowy figure, of importance in international affairs
- Dennis Rathbone, Ann Shapland’s friend
- Briggs, the gardener
[edit] Trivia
- In Chapter 13, II, of the novel, mention is made of popular British comedy actress Joyce Grenfell. In 1957, Grenfell had appeared in Blue Murder at St Trinian's, a comedy set in a girls’ school with a plot that includes a jewel thief and a foreign prince.
- In Chapter 17, III, of the novel Julia tells Poirot that she has been told of him by Maureen Summerhayes, at whose guest house he had stayed during the case related in Mrs. McGinty's Dead.
- In Chapter 23, II, Mrs. Upjohn speaks of having worked in British intelligence “fifteen years ago”, “at the end of the war”. This places the events of the novel very close to the date of publication.
- The New Avengers episode, "Cat Amongst the Pigeons", was based on the title of this novel.
