Résumé
Résumé de La treizième lettre
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love a closed circle of suspects, a country house cut off by snow, and a secret code solved step by step, with a touch of romance and old Washington society.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Thirteenth Letter is a murder mystery by Natalie Sumner Lincoln, set in the early 1920s among the well-off families of Washington and the snowbound country of southern Maryland. It opens on a stormy night at a remote hunting lodge, where a newly arrived nurse watches a strange midnight wedding at the bedside of a sick man. By morning her patient lies dead, and Betty flatly denies that she was ever there. Miriam is left to tell her story to the sheriff.
Lincoln builds the book as a puzzle for the reader to share. A sheriff with a sharp mind, a nurse with a hidden past, a reporter, a doctor, a clergyman and a beautiful fiancée all circle the same dead man. Small objects carry the clues: a half-burned envelope with a black seal, a bowl of nuts, a false beard, a row of Canadian stamps.
This summary walks you through the story in order, introduces the people, and shows how the book is told, without revealing the answer to the crime. You will hear how a quiet question about postage becomes the heart of the case. Let us begin with the night at Abbott's Lodge.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A wedding at midnight in the snowFree
- 2Morning brings a murder and doubt
- 3A sheriff's questions and a deadly nut pick
- 4Lies, blackmail and a wide circle of suspects
- 5The will and the black seal
- 6Five cent stamps and a hidden code
- 7Three suspects and a hand in the dark
- 8A trap is laid in the sickroom
- 9How Lincoln builds the puzzle
Point clé 1 sur 9
A wedding at midnight in the snow
The story begins in a snowstorm at Abbott's Lodge, a converted farmhouse used as a hunting lodge about twenty miles from Washington. Doctor Roberts leaves a newly arrived nurse, Miriam Ward, in charge of his patient, the architect Paul Abbott. Abbott is a war veteran in poor health who has withdrawn from the world and lives with a caretaker, Corbin, and his wife, Martha.
Abbott is feverish and keeps asking whether Betty has come. Betty Carter is his fiancée, though Roberts doubts the engagement still stands. Around one in the morning the doorbell rings. Miriam lets in a proud young woman in a fur coat and a clergyman who gives his name as Doctor Nash.
Betty rushes upstairs to the bedside. Nash sends Miriam down for a lamp because the bedroom lamp has gone out. She slips on the snow left by his galoshes and falls on the stairs.
When she returns, she hears the last words of a marriage service. Betty looks at her with tragic eyes, promises to come back, and leaves with Nash. Miriam turns to the bed and sees at once that the man lying there is not her patient.
The opening chapter ends on that line, and it sets the puzzle for the whole book. Who was in the bed, and where was Paul Abbott?
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about La treizième lettre
What is The Thirteenth Letter about?
It is a murder mystery set in Maryland in the early 1920s. A nurse arrives to care for a sick man at a remote lodge and finds him dead, and a sheriff and the nurse follow a trail of clues to a hidden code.
What is the stamp code in The Thirteenth Letter?
Each letter from Canada carries five one-cent stamps with tiny cuts at the edges. Counted against the stamp's fifty-two perforations, the cuts spell out hidden words, so that ordinary letters about farming secretly carry messages.
Who is Miriam Ward?
She is a trained nurse from New York who is sent to look after Paul Abbott. She has a painful past in Russia, and she becomes the sheriff's closest helper as he works to solve the crime.
What does the black seal mean in the book?
The black seal shows a crest with three beehives, which belonged to a Russian noble family called Paltoff. Seeing it on letters in Maryland tells Miriam that someone linked to her past is involved.
Is The Thirteenth Letter easy to read?
Yes: the chapters are short, the plot moves briskly, and the code is explained step by step, so a reader can follow the clues and try to solve the puzzle along with the characters.