The Dream

The Dream is a short story by Agatha Christie which was first published in the U.S. in The Saturday Evening Post in October 1937 and in the U.K. in The Strand Magazine in February 1938. It was later gathered and published in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories in 1939 in the U.S. and then in the U.K. in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées in 1960.

Synopsis

The reclusive and eccentric millionaire Benedict Farley consults Poirot about a strange dream he keeps having in which he commits suicide.

Plot summary

(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)

Poirot is summoned by letter to the home of reclusive and eccentric millionaire Benedict Farley. He is shown into the office of Farley's personal secretary, Hugo Cornworthy, but finds the millionaire himself alone in the darkened room. Poirot is made to sit in the light of a bright desk lamp and he is not impressed with the man, dressed in an old patchwork dressing gown and wearing thick glasses, feeling that he is stagy and a mountebank and doesn’t possess the charisma he would expect from such a rich and powerful person. Farley tells him that he is troubled by a nightly dream in which he is seated at his desk in the next room and at exactly 12.28pm, he takes out the revolver he keeps in his desk drawer and shoots himself. Various doctors have been unable to explain this to him and he has now turned to the famous detective. Poirot wonders if he has enemies who would want to kill him but Farley knows of no one. Poirot asks to see the room where the dream is set but Farley refuses and Poirot therefore takes his leave. Before he goes Farley asks him for the letter he sent him to be returned and Poirot hands it over but then realises he handed over the wrong one and Farley didn't notice. The correct letter is exchanged.

A week later, an acquaintance, Dr Stillingfleet, phones Poirot and tells him that Farley has shot himself. Poirot goes to the house and meets the doctor, a police inspector, the dead man's second wife, his daughter from his first marriage, Joanna and Hugo Cornworthy in whose office Poirot had had his meeting with Farley. Poirot tells them all of the reason for the previous visit. There is surprise on the part of some members of the party but Mrs Farley was told by her husband of the dreams and she confirms that he kept a revolver in his desk drawer. Her husband seems to have killed himself in precisely the way and at the time the dream foretold. Two visitors were outside his room waiting to see him. Farley spoke to them briefly to tell them he wouldn't be long and then went inside his room. After a considerable period of time, Cornworthy went in and found the dead body. No one could enter the room in the interim. There is a window with no climbable ledge and opposite the window is a blank wall. Poirot feels that the wall is important. He examines the room and finds a pair of extendable tongs which take his interest. He asks various questions of the people gathered there, one of which is to ascertain if Farley had bad eyesight without his glasses and he is told he had. Poirot has the solution: on his previous visit, he did not see Farley but a disguised Cornworthy. It was the secretary who sent the letter to Poirot and he gave the butler instructions to let him in and take him to his own office, not Farley's room. Wearing thick glasses, he was unable to see that Poirot had returned the wrong letter. The act put on by Cornworthy explains why Poirot wasn't as impressed by the man as he expected him to be. Cornworthy lured Farley to the window of his room by a distraction and then shot him by leaning out of his own window, overseen by no one because of the blank wall. He left the man dead for a short while and then went to "find" the body, planting the revolver there. His co-conspirator was his lover, Mrs Farley, who was the only other person who claimed that the dreams were real and that revolver was kept in the desk drawer. She gives the game away by attempting to attack Poirot but is held back by Stillingfleet.

Characters

• Hercule Poirot
• Benedict Farley
• Holmes
• Hugo Cornworthy
• Dr John Stillingfleet
• Inspector Barnett
• Mrs Louise Farley
• Joanna Farley
• Mr Adams
• Mr Stoddart

Film, TV, or theatrical versions

Agatha Christie's Poirot

A television film with David Suchet as Poirot was produced as episode 10 in Series 1 of the ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot, first broadcast on 19 March 1989.

Publication history

• 1937: The Saturday Evening Post, volume 210, Number 17 (Philadelphia), 23 October 1937. Illustrated by F. R. Gruger.
• 1938: The Strand Magazine, Issue 566 (London), February 1938.
• 1939: The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1939.
• 1960: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées, Collins Crime Club (London), 24 October 1960.
• 1960: Suspense (UK), vol. 3 no. 9, Sep 1960.
• 1963: The Saint Mystery Magazine (UK), vol. 9 no. 4, Jun 1963.
• 1964: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, vol. 44 no. 6, whole no. 253, Dec 1964, as "The Three Strange Points".
• 1967: Danger : Great Stories of Mystery and Suspense from the Saturday Evening Post, Doubleday / Curtis Books (New York), 1967.
• 1974: Stories of Crime and Detection, ed. Joan D. Berbrich, McGraw-Hill, 1974
• 1976: Mystery and Suspense: Great Stories from the Saturday Evening Post, Julie Eisenhower (ed.),Doubleday / Curtis, 1976
• 1976: Masterpieces of Mystery: The Supersleuths, ed. Ellery Queen, Davis, 1976
• 1977: The Saturday Evening Post, January/February 1977.
• 1991: Detective Stories from The Strand, Adrian, Oxford University Press, 1991.
• 2019: The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural, HarperCollins (London), Oct 2019, 368 pp; ISBN 978-0008336738.