Within a Wall: A Short Story
4/5
()
About this ebook
Previously published in the print anthology The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories.
Alan Everard, a successful modernist painter, is married to the beautiful society girl Isobel Loring, who eagerly promotes her husband's work. At one of her tea parties, to which she invites the London art critics, she unveils her husband's latest masterpiece—a portrait of herself. But Alan realizes the picture is lifeless. However, a sketch he has done of his daughter's godmother, Jane Haworth, is full of life and honesty. Alan soon discovers that the real contribution Jane has made to his life is not just her artistic judgment.
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.
Read more from Agatha Christie
And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sparkling Cyanide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Passenger to Frankfurt Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Island: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Horse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spider's Web Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crooked House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Is Easy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Towards Zero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Endless Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man in the Brown Suit: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Came to Baghdad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sittaford Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Within a Wall
Related ebooks
Sing a Song of Sixpence: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strange Jest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King of Clubs: A Hercule Poirot Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King of Clubs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sad Cypress: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the "Bells and Motley": A Mysterious Mr. Quin Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gipsy: A Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Call of Wings: A Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Soul of the Croupier: A Mysterious Mr. Quin Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Fairy in the Flat: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Swan Song: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Who Was No. 16: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Face of Helen: A Mysterious Mr. Quin Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Edge: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unbreakable Alibi: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Pearl of Price: A Parker Pyne Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wireless: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael: A Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ambassador's Boots: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Case of the Distressed Lady: A Parker Pyne Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Golden Ball: A Short Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Clergyman's Daughter/The Red House: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Magnolia Blossom: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Actress: A Short Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The World's End: A Mysterious Mr. Quin Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crackler: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5In the Cool of the Evening: A Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Voice in the Dark: A Mysterious Mr. Quin Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Oracle at Delphi: A Parker Pyne Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sunningdale Mystery: A Tommy & Tuppence Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Mystery For You
None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Under a Red Moon: A 1920s Bangalore Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: Inspiration for the 20th Century Studios Major Motion Picture A Haunting in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hunting Party: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in a Blue Dress (30th Anniversary Edition): An Easy Rawlins Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pieces of Her: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pharmacist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dean Koontz: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life We Bury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summit Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Staircase: Nancy Drew #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Club: A Reese's Book Club Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Lies in a Small Town: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5False Witness: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did I Kill You?: A Thriller Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Woman in the Library: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Within a Wall
4 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Within a Wall - Agatha Christie
Contents
Within a Wall
About the Author
The Agatha Christie Collection
Copyright
About the Publisher
WITHIN A WALL
It was Mrs. Lemprière who discovered the existence of Jane Haworth. It would be, of course. Somebody once said that Mrs. Lemprière was easily the most hated woman in London, but that, I think, is an exaggeration. She has certainly a knack of tumbling on the one thing you wish to keep quiet about, and she does it with real genius. It is always an accident.
In this case we had been having tea in Alan Everard’s studio. He gave these teas occasionally, and used to stand about in corners, wearing very old clothes, rattling the coppers in his trouser pockets and looking profoundly miserable.
I do not suppose anyone will dispute Everard’s claim to genius at this date. His two most famous pictures, Colour, and The Connoisseur, which belong to his early period, before he became a fashionable portrait painter, were purchased by the nation last year, and for once the choice went unchallenged. But at the date of which I speak, Everard was only beginning to come into his own, and we were free to consider that we had discovered him.
It was his wife who organized these parties. Everard’s attitude to her was a peculiar one. That he adored her was evident, and only to be expected. Adoration was Isobel’s due. But he seemed always to feel himself slightly in her debt. He assented to anything she wished, not so much through tenderness as through an unalterable conviction that she had a right to her own way. I suppose that was natural enough, too, when one comes to think of it.
For Isobel Loring had been really very celebrated. When she came out she had been the