The Lost Mine E-Book

Agatha Christie

• Herausgeber: MB Cooltura
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Poirot tells Hastings about the time he was gifted fourteen thousand shares for a mine in Burma. On a trip to London a Chinese businessman, member of the mine owners family, has brought its papers to sell it But when the man and the papers go missing, Poirot is hired to solve the case.

Leseprobe

Inhalt

THE-LOST-MINE

I laid down my bank book with a sigh.

‘It is a curious thing,’ I observed, ‘but my overdraft never seems to grow any less.’

‘And it perturbs you not? Me, if I had an overdraft, never should I close my eyes all night,’ declared Poirot.

‘You deal in comfortable balances, I suppose!’ I retorted.

‘Four hundred and forty-four pounds, four and four pence,’ said Poirot with some complacency. ‘A neat figure, is it not?’

‘It must be tact on the part of your bank manager. He is evidently acquainted with your passion for symmetrical details. What about investing, say three hundred of it, in the Porcupine oil-fields? Their prospectus, which is advertised in the papers today, says that they will pay one hundred per cent in dividends next year.’

‘Not for me,’ said Poirot, shaking his head. ‘I like not the sensational. For me the safe, the prudent investment – les rentes, the consols, the - how do you call it? - the conversion.’

‘Have you never made a speculative investment?’

‘No, mon ami,’ replied Poirot severely. ‘I have not. And the only shares I own which have not what you call the gilded edge are fourteen thousand shares in the Burma Mines, Ltd.’

Poirot paused with an air of waiting to be encouraged to go on.

‘Yes?’ I prompted.

‘And for them I paid no cash - no, they were the reward of the exercise of my little grey cells. You would like to hear the story? Yes?’

‘Of course I would.’

‘These mines are situated in the interior, of Burma about two hundred miles inland from Rangoon. They were discovered by the Chinese in the fifteenth century and worked down to the time of the Mohammedan Rebellion, being finally abandoned in the year 1868. The Chinese extracted the rich lead-silver ore from the upper part of the ore body, smelting it for the silver alone, and leaving large quantities of rich lead-bearing slag. This, of course, was soon discovered when prospecting work was carried out in Burma, but owing to the fact that the old workings had become full of loose filling and water, all attempts to find the source of the ore proved fruitless. Many parties were sent out by syndicates, and they dug over a large area, but this rich prize still eluded them. But a representative of one of the syndicates got on the track of a Chinese family who were supposed to have still kept a record of the situation of the mine. The present head of the family was one Wu Ling.’

‘What a fascinating page of commercial romance,’ I exclaimed.

‘Is it not? Ah, mon ami, one can have romance without golden-haired girls of matchless beauty - no, I am wrong; it is auburn hair that so excites you always. You remember -’