Absent In The Spring By Agatha Christie

Absent In The Spring By Agatha Christie

Prologue : Joan Scudamore screwed up her eyes as she peered across the dimness of the rest house dining-room. She was slightly short-sighted. Surely that’s – no it isn’t – I believe it is. Blanche Haggard. Extraordinary – right out in the wilds – to come across an old school friend whom she hadn’t seen for – oh quite fifteen years. At first, Joan was delighted by the discovery. She was by nature a sociable woman, always pleased to run across friends and acquaintances. She thought to herself, But, poor dear, how dreadfully she’s changed. She looks years older. Literally years. After all, she can’t be more than – what, forty-eight? It was a natural sequence after that to glance at her own appearance in the mirror that happened, most conveniently, to hang just beside the table. What she saw there put her in an even better humour. Really, thought Joan Scudamore, I’ve worn very well. She saw a slender, middle-aged woman with a singularly unlined face, brown hair hardly touched with grey, pleasant blue eyes and a cheerful smiling mouth. The woman was dressed in a neat, cool travelling coat and skirt and carried a rather large bag containing the necessities of travel. Joan Scudamore was travelling back from Baghdad to London by the overland route. She had come up by the train from Baghdad last night. She was to sleep in the railway rest house tonight and go on by car tomorrow morning.