The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael by Agatha Christie #AgathaChristieSS24 #ReadingTheMeow2024

🐈 First of all, I don't know why I had thought this was an Hercule Poirot story, while it's not. It's another of the "no detective stories", but what a story it had been! It has an element of cat, so I included this to my #ReadingTheMeow2024.

🐈 Sir Arthur Carmichael is a twenty-three year old young man, an heir of his father's estate, who hasn't been well these last two weeks. In fact, his case so perplexed his doctor, that he invited his colleague Doctor Carstairs, a renown psychologist, to give his opinion. What the problem was, the doctor didn't tell his friend so that he would form his own impression after seeing the patient by himself.

🐈 Arriving to the estate, Carstairs saw a young girl, Arthur's fiancée in fact, with a grey Persian cat walking by her legs. But why did his friend grew pale when he mentioned the cat? And not just the doctor, the others at the house were automatically silent when he mentioned the grey cat, which he continually heard at night meowing or scratching at his door, but there's no one around when he opened it. And no one saw it either - or rather, there had been a grey cat in the house belonged to Arthur's step mother, but it's been dead two weeks ago!

🐈 But the doctor put it aside for the time being, and he soon got to the mysterious condition of the patient. The young man wasn't himself, and Carstairs noticed that his manner had become so similar to.... a cat! He behaves exactly like cat, even pounding over a mouse! So, there's a cat that no one but Carstairs saw, and there's a healthy young man who turned into cat. What mystery lies beneath it all

🐈 It's actually quite an interesting read, though not surprising, considering the era's fascination over occultism and superstition. Agatha Christie herself had elaborated these themes with the Mr. Quin stories. I quite enjoyed it, the solution of the "murder" might be unusual, but on the whole, it's quite entertaining.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

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Reading the Meow 2024

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