Mrs Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed. 'Well, that'll have to do,' she murmured. 'Think it's all right, Jane?' Miss Marple eyed the Lanvanelli creation appraisingly. 'It seems to me a very beautiful gown,' she said. 'The gown's all right,' said Mrs Van Rydock and sighed. 'Take if off, Stephanie,' she said. The elderly maid with the grey hair and the small pinched mouth eased the gown carefully up over Mrs Van Rydock's upstretched arms…

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in hand, yet contained one or two suggestive incidents which influenced later developments.

I had just finished carving some boiled beef (remarkably tough by the way) and on resuming my seat I remarked, in a spirit most unbecoming to my cloth, that any one who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world at large a service…

Mrs. Bantry was dreaming. Her sweet peas had just taken a First at the flower show. The vicar, dressed in cassock and surplice, was giving out the prizes in church. His wife wandered past, dressed in a bathing suit, but, as is the blessed habit of dreams, this fact did not arouse the disapproval of the parish in the way it would assuredly have done in real life. Mrs. Bantry was enjoying her dream a good deal.

She usually did enjoy those early-morning dreams that were terminated by the arrival of early-morning tea. Somewhere in her inner consciousness was an awareness of the usual early-morning noises of the household…

Gwenda Reed stood, shivering a little, on the quay-side. The docks and the custom sheds and all of England that she could see, were gently waving up and down. And it was in that moment that she made her decision-the decision that was to lead to such very momentous events. She wouldn’t go by the boat train to London as she had planned.

After all, why should she? No one was waiting for her, nobody expected her. She had only just got off that heaving creaking boat (it had been an exceptionally rough three days through the Bay and up to Plymouth) and the last thing she wanted was to get into a heaving swaying train…

He looked round him with satisfaction. The room was an old one with broad black beams across the ceiling and it was furnished with good old furniture that belonged to it. Hence Raymond West's approving glance. By profession he was a writer and he liked the atmosphere to be flawless. His Aunt Jane's house always pleased him as the right setting for her personality. He looked across the hearth to where she sat erect in the big grandfather chair.

That's not what I mean. I was not talking philosophy, Raymond said. I was thinking of actual bare prosaic facts, things that have happened and that no one has ever explained...

In the heart of the West End, there are many quiet pockets, unknown to almost all but taxi drivers who traverse them with expert knowledge, and arrive triumphantly thereby at Park Lane, Berkeley Square, or South Audley Street.

If you turn off on an unpretentious street from the Park, and turn left and right once or twice, you will find yourself in a quiet street with Bertram's Hotel on the right-hand side. Bertram's Hotel has been there a long time. During the war, houses were demolished on the right of it, and a little farther down on the left of it, but Bertram's itself remained unscathed…

Between 7.30 and 8.30 every morning except Sundays, Johnnie Butt made the round of the village of Chipping Cleghorn on his bicycle, whistling vociferously through his teeth, and alighting at each house or cottage to shove through the letterbox such morning papers as had been ordered by the occupants of the house in question from Mr Totman, stationer, of the High Street. Thus, at Colonel and Mrs Easterbrook’s he deliveredThe Times and theDaily Graphic; at Mrs Swettenham’s he leftThe Times and theDaily Worker; at Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd’s he left theDaily Telegraph and theNew Chronicle; at Miss Blacklock’s he left theTelegraph, The Times and theDaily Mail…

Old Miss Marple inclined her head. It was a gentle gesture of courtesy. Whilst Major Palgrave proceeded with the somewhat uninteresting recollections of a lifetime, Miss Marple peacefully pursued her own thoughts. It was a routine with which she was well acquainted. The locale varied. In the past, it had been predominantly India. Majors, Colonels, Lieutenant-Generals-and a familiar series of words: Simla. Bearers. Tigers. Chota Hazri-Tiffin. Khitmagars, and so on. With Major Palgrave the terms were slightly different. Safari. Kikuyu. Elephants. Swahili. But the pattern was essentially the same…

I first came to know Sophia Leonides in Egypt towards the end of the war. She held a fairly high administrative post in one of the Foreign Office departments out there.

I knew her first in an official capacity, and I soon appreciated the efficiency that had brought her to the position she held, in spite of her youth (she was at that time just twenty two). 4 Besides being extremely easy to look at, she had a clear mind and a dry sense of humour that I found very delightful. We became friends. She was a person whom it was extraordinarily easy to talk to and we enjoyed our dinners and occasional dances very much…

Читателю предоставляется уникальная возможность ознакомиться с избранными работами Милтона Эриксона и, таким образом, заглянуть в его «творческую мастерскую». Оригинальный афористичный стиль, блестящая клиническая интуиция, нетрадиционные решения, высокая эффективность и разнообразие используемых методов – одного этого достаточно, чтобы предлагаемая вашему вниманию книга стала своеобразной `библией` психологов и психотерапевтов. Творчество Милтона Эриксона находится на грани медицины и поэзии, науки и искусства и с этой точки зрения представляет большой интерес для широкого круга читателей.