It's a Crime
Cat Among the Pigeons. By Agatha Christie. (Collins, I 2s. 6d.) 'Owing to the influential con- nections at Meadowbank the murder of Miss Springer had been played down very tactfully in the press.' Meadowbank' is the smartest girls' school in Europe, with princesses among its pupils, and 'Miss Springer' its games mistress, and if Miss Christie believes that the press would play that murder down, she will believe anything. But it is nothing to what she asks us to believe. Her girls and mistresses are as true to boring old type as the boys and masters of Greyfriars and St. Jim's, and the plot calls for mysterious strangers in shrubberies; forgery, kidnapping, and a couple more killings; 'a small wicked-looking automatic'; a secret-service operator disguised as a gardener; and, at last, on page 183, M. Hercule Poirot lui- mbne, ejaculating "Nom d'un nom d'un nom!" in an awe-inspired whisper.' How did we ever come to take Miss Christie seriously?
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