Cat Among the Pigeons

infobox Book |
name = Cat Among the Pigeons
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
author = Agatha Christie
illustrator =
cover_artist = Not known
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Crime novel
publisher = Collins Crime Club
release_date = November 2 1959
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 256 pp (first edition, hardcover)
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Ordeal by Innocence
followed_by = The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

"Cat Among the Pigeons" is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 2, 1959Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. "Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions". Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in March 1960 with a copyright date of 1959. [http://home.insightbb.com/~jsmarcum/agatha53.htm American Tribute to Agatha Christie] ] . The UK edition retailed at twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6) and the US edition at $2.95.

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.

Plot introduction

At the start of the Summer Term at Meadowbank School for Girls, there is no reason for Miss Bulstrode, the popular but aging 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 …

Plot summary

The story flashes back three months to Ramat, one of the richest countries of the Middle East, where a revolution is about to take place. Prince Ali Yusuf gives a fortune in jewels, which he needs sent out of the country, into the safekeeping of Bob Rawlinson, his personal pilot and the only person he can trust. 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 on Meadowbank School, where not only Jennifer, but also the prince’s cousin and expected 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 Goodman 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, whom she has heard of through a friend of her mother.

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 also killed. 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.

It is revealed that Ann Shapland murdered Miss Springer, who disturbed her when she was searching the Sports Pavilion for the jewels, 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. She admits to killing Miss Vansittart with a handy sandbag. Miss Chadwick disliked Miss Vansittart and felt that she would not be a suitable headmistress for Meadowbank. Miss Chadwick also confessed that she imagined that the removal of a potential successor would make Miss Bulstrode change her mind about retiring.

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 to Prince Ali Yusuf. One emerald is returned as a reward to Julia Upjohn.

Characters in "Cat Among the Pigeons"

* Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
* Inspector Kelsey, the investigating officer
* Honoria 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 who helped found Meadowbank
* 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 who was kidnapped while a poser took her place 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

Literary significance and reception

Maurice Richardson of "The Observer" of November 8, 1959 said, "Some nice school scenes with bogus sheikhs sweeping up in lilac Cadillacs to deposit highly scented and busted houris for education, and backwoods peers shoving hockey-stick-toting daughters out of battered Austins. It's far from vintage Christie, but you'll want to know who." ["The Observer" November 8, 1959 (Page 23)]

Robert Barnard: "Girls' school background surprisingly well done, with humour and some liberality of outlook. Some elements are reminiscent of Tey's "Miss Pym Disposes". Marred by the international dimension and the spy element, which do not jell with the traditional detective side. Fairly typical example of her looser, more relaxed style." [Barnard, Robert. "A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie" - Revised edition (Page 190). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0006374743]

References or Allusions

References to other works

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".

References to actual history, geography and current science

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.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

An adaptation of the novel for the series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" was filmed in Autumn 2007. David Suchet once again reprises his role as Poirot and it also stars Harriet Walter as Miss Bulstrode, Natasha Little as Ann Shapland, Claire Skinner as Miss Rich, Elizabeth Berrington as Miss Springer and Raji James as Prince Ali Yusuf. The adaptation was written by Mark Gatiss, and it aired in September 2008. It has a handful of noticeable changes, including:
* Changing the primary murder weapon from a revolver to a javelin.
* Introducing Poirot earlier into the story as an old friend of Miss Bulstrode's.
* Eliminating the character of Miss Vansittart. The murder of Miss Vansittart, however, is kept loosely: in the adaptation, Miss Chadwick coshes Miss Rich hoping that Miss Bulstrode will nominate her (Miss Chadwick) as her successor instead, but Miss Rich ultimately survives the attack.
* The addition of a subplot concerning Miss Springer's blackmail of another teacher; all in all, this version of the character was much more sadistic and bullying than the one in Christie's original story, whom she described as a 'woman you could neither love or hate'.
* Eliminating most of the novel's scenes set in Egypt and the British secret service due to time constraints.

Publication history

* 1959, Collins Crime Club (London), November 2, 1959, Hardcover, 256 pp
* 1960, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), March 1960, Hardcover, 224 pp
* 1961, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 216 pp
* 1962, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 187 pp
* 1964, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 255 pp

In the UK the novel was first serialised in the weekly magazine "John Bull" in six abridged instalments from September 26 (Volume 106, Number 2771) to October 31, 1959 (Volume 106, Number 2776) with illustrations by “Fancett” [Holdings at the British Library (Newspapers - Colindale). Shelfmark: NPL LON LD116.] .

In the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the November 1959 (Volume LXXVI, Number 11) issue of the "Ladies Home Journal" with an illustration by Joe DeMers.

References

External links

* [http://us.agathachristie.com/site/find_a_story/stories/Cat_Among_the_Pigeons.php "Cat Among the Pigeons"] at the official Agatha Christie website
*imdb title|id= 1105122|title=Cat Among the Pigeons (2008)