Читать книгу Agatha Christie’s Complete Secret Notebooks - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 50

Poe’s ‘The Gold Bug’, not a Dupin story, appeared in 1843, and could be considered the least important of his contributions to the detective genre. It involves the solution to a cipher in an effort to find a treasure. A variation on this can be found in the Christie short stories ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ and ‘Strange Jest’, both of which involve the interpretation of a deceased person’s last cryptic wishes. Although the code concept was only a minor part of Christie’s output it is the subject of the short story ‘The Four Suspects’ in The Thirteen Problems. On a more elaborate canvas, the interpretation of a code could be seen as the basis of The ABC Murders; and, more literally, it is the starting-point of Christie’s final novel, Postern of Fate.