Mark Aldridge

Yeah.

So they paid $7,500 to publish it across two issues.

Well, it's quite a lot.

How scientific of you.

Because Harold Ober, her American agent, had worried that it would be too English.

And how wrong he was.

Yeah, maybe.

But what I love about this is that Harold Ober obviously knew, because he was handling it, that Mary Westmacott was Agatha Christie.

But Miss Cousins of Good Housekeeping, we love Miss Cousins, whoever she may be, because she was such a fan of Mary Westmacott's work that Cork actually suggested that Christie should meet her when Miss Cousins was coming to London in April 1947.

So you might be going, you're going to meet Mary Westmacott?

No, it's not.

It's Agatha Christie.

Yes.

So I think this is, from a modern perspective, so odd.

I was thinking about this the other day.

Richard Osman's Penguin, right?

Can you imagine if your work, if Richard Osman came to you and said, I'm still writing my crime fiction, but I've got this other type of books I want to do.

Can you publish them as well?

Penguin would fall over themselves, right?

There is absolutely no way that they would go like, oh, they're only going to sell 20% of his crime fiction.