When Hercule Poirot receives an alarming and strained telephone call, several words are whispered desperately, it’s life or death and table with the yellow irises. In this dark short story Poirot finds himself in the plush luxuriant restaurant Jardin des Cygnes, nervous to stop an impending murder and find the person behind the voice on the phone. Bumping into an old acquaintance, Poirot is invited to join a dinner party in full swing, but, just as the dancing and champagne are overflowing a morbid announcement is made and the lights go out, by the time the lights come back on, everything has changed.
Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.