"WHAT I INTEND TO SAY TO YOU WILL COME AS A SHOCK ..” With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny. and leave her vast fortune to an invalid who has only weeks to live. Among Lady Playford's visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited—until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why— when the crime is committed, despite Poirot's best efforts to stop it—does the identity of the victim make no sense at all?

ISBN: 9780062458834