怪钟疑案 (1963)

《怪钟疑案》（英语：The Clocks），又译《钟》、《怪钟》，为英国推理小说作家阿加莎·克里斯蒂以赫尔克里·波洛为主角的一部作品，该书1963年11月7日由柯林斯犯罪俱乐部出版公司在英国初版，次年由道得密得出版公司在美国发行。

该书情节中一个显著的事实是，波洛从未亲自拜访过案件中的任何犯罪现场，或者和任何目击者或嫌疑人交谈，因为他面临这样一个挑战：证明他常常作为夸口的“罪案可以仅仅通过思维逻辑活动而得以解决”。这部小说亦标志着部分第一人称叙事这一写作技巧的回归，这一出现在早期波洛系列中的技巧已经在很大程度上被阿加莎·克里斯蒂弃用，但在之前的阿里亚登·奥利弗系列小说《白马酒馆》（The Pale Horse）中开始使用。

罗伯特·伯纳德在评论这部小说时认为“（该书）叙述生动、合理，与其他的晚期作品迥然不同，你需要接受在这样一个小镇的新月形街区里生活着两个间谍和三个杀人犯。（顺利开始的）事件终成可悲的泡影，本身荒诞而引人入胜。包括第14章中波洛对其他小说中的侦探形象、以及推理小说写作中各种风格和流派的审慎思考”。

The Clocks is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 November 1963 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. It features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50.

In the novel Poirot never visits any of the crime scenes or speaks to any of the witnesses or suspects. He is challenged to prove his claim that a crime can be solved by the exercise of the intellect alone. The novel marks the return of partial first-person narrative, a technique that Christie had largely abandoned earlier in the Poirot sequence but which she had employed in the previous Ariadne Oliver novel, The Pale Horse (1961). There are two interwoven plots: the mystery Poirot works on from his armchair while the police work on the spot, and a Cold War spy story told in the first person narrative.

Reviews at the time of publication found the writing up to Christie's par, but found negatives: the murder of a character about to add useful information was considered "corny" and "unworthy" of the author, and "not as zestful". In contrast, Barnard's review in 1990 said it was a "lively, well-narrated, highly unlikely late specimen" of Christie's writing. He loved the clocks at the start, and was oddly disappointed that they were red herrings.

Plot summary

Sheila Webb, a typist at Miss Martindale's secretarial agency, arrives at her afternoon appointment at Wilbraham Crescent in Crowdean, Sussex. She finds a well-dressed older man, stabbed to death, surrounded by six clocks, four of which are stopped at 4:13, while the cuckoo clock announces it is 3 o'clock. When a blind woman enters the house about to step on the corpse, Sheila runs screaming out of the house and into the arms of a young man passing down the street.

This man, Special Branch or MI5 agent Colin "Lamb", takes Sheila into his care. He is investigating a clue from a note found in a dead agent's pocket: letter M, number 61, and a sketch of a crescent moon written on a bit of hotel stationery (sketched in the book). At 19 Wilbraham Crescent, home of the blind Miss Pebmarsh, a police investigation begins into the murder. The dead man's business card proves false. His clothing reveals nothing else, as all labels have been removed. He was killed with an ordinary kitchen knife. Colin and Inspector Hardcastle interview the neighbours. Their homes adjoin the murder site on the street or from the back gardens in this unusually arranged Victorian housing development. Colin takes a liking to Sheila.

Hardcastle questions Mrs Lawton, the aunt who raised Rosemary Sheila Webb. Rosemary is the name on a clock found at the scene of the murder, but it disappeared before police gathered them up. Colin approaches Hercule Poirot, an old friend of his father, to investigate the case. He challenges Poirot to do so from his armchair. He gives Poirot detailed notes. Poirot accepts, then instructs Colin to talk further with the neighbours.