Mark Aldridge

Exactly.

You would say, fine, fine, we'll indulge it.

Any publisher would go, just give it.

Yeah, of course.

It keeps you happy.

But no, March 1947, Billy Collins, as in Collins Publishers, Billy Collins.

The Collins.

The Collins.

One of the Collins, actually, they're mortals.

He writes to Edmund Cork to say, I was so sorry that we didn't feel as happy about this book as you all did.

But he said that the theme of the story did really rather worry us.

I hope Agatha Christie will understand, which she did.

and then wrote to Cork herself and said, do let MW be published by someone else.

Collins never have appreciated the lady.

Aww.

Well, they were wrong.

Yes.

They've corrected it now because they do publish them.

They do, they do.

But Billy Collins wrote to Agatha directly, invited her to lunch and said that we felt that it was perhaps rather unfortunate having a story around the last general election with such an undesirable person as a candidate at a time like this, which I guess you're talking about post-war instability.