Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

by John Curran

  As can be seen, Christie’s creativity was not exclusive—she was able to plot a murder while making a social appointment, or consider a murder weapon while compiling a reading list, or mull over a motive while transcribing travel directions. Throughout the Notebooks she is Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime while always remaining Agatha, the family member.

  Motive and Opportunity

  One of her most personal creations, Ariadne Oliver, is generally accepted as Christie’s own alter ego. Mrs Oliver is a middle-aged, successful and prolific writer of detective fiction and creator of a foreign detective, the Finnish Sven Hjerson. She hates literary dinners, making speeches, or collaborating with dramatists; she has written The Body in the Library and doesn’t drink or smoke. The similarities are remarkable. There can be little doubt that when Mrs Oliver speaks we are listening to Agatha Christie.

  In Chapter 2 of Dead Man’s Folly Mrs Oliver shrugs off her ingenuity:

  ‘It’s never difficult to think of things,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘The trouble is that you think of too many, and then it all becomes too complicated, so you have to relinquish some of them and that is rather agony.’

  And again, later in Chapter 17 she says:

  ‘I mean, what can you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you’ve got to think of something, and then when you’ve thought of it you’ve got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That’s all.’

  It was as simple as that and, for 55 years, exactly what her creator did.

  The process of production was, as we have seen, random and haphazard. And yet, this seeming randomness was transformed into an annual bestseller and, for many years, into more than one bestseller. For over 50 years she delivered the latest ‘Christie for Christmas’ to her agent; for 20 years she presented London’s West End with one box-office success after another; she kept magazine editors busy editing her latest offering. And all of them—novels, short stories and plays—flow with the fluid precision of the Changing of the Guard.

  So although it is true that she had no particular method, no tried and true system that she brought with her down the long years of her career, we know this appearance of indiscriminate jotting and plotting is just that—an appearance. And eventually we come to the realisation that, in fact, this very randomness is her method; this is how she worked, how she created, how she wrote. She thrived mentally on chaos, it stimulated her more than neat order; rigidity stifled her creative process. And it explains how the Notebooks read from both ends, how they leap from one title to another on the same page, how different Notebooks repeat and develop the same ideas and why her handwriting can be impossible to read.

  Notebook 15 and the plotting of Cat Among the Pigeons illustrate some of these points. She talks to herself on the page:

  How should all this be approached?—in sequence? Or followed up backwards by Hercule Poirot—from disappearance…at school—a possibly trivial incident but which is connected with murder?—but murder of whom—and why?

  She wonders and speculates and lists possibilities:

  Who is killed?

  Girl?

  Games mistress?

  Maid?

  Foreign Mid East ?? who would know girl by sign?

  Or a girl who?

  Mrs. U sees someone out of window—could be New Mistress?

  Domestic Staff?

  Pupil?

  Parent?

  The Murder—

  Could be A girl (resembles Julia/resembles Clare?

  A Parent—sports Day

  A Mistress

  Someone shot or stalked at school Sports?

  Princess Maynasita there—or—an actress as pupil or—an actress as games mistress

  She reminds herself of work still to be done:

  Tidy up—End of chapter

  Chapter III—A good deal to be done—

  Chapter IV—A good deal to be worked over—(possibly end chapter with ‘Adam the Gardener’—listing mistresses—(or next chapter)

  Chapter V—Letters fuller

  Notes on revision—a bit about Miss B

  Prologue—Type extra bits

  Chapter V—Some new letters

  And for some light relief she breaks off to solve a word puzzle. In this well-known conundrum the test is to use all of the letters of the alphabet in one sentence. In her version she has an alternate answer although she is still missing the letter Z.

  ADGJLMPSVYZ

  THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS over gladly

  Remembered Deaths

  In Cards on the Table Mrs Oliver is asked if she has ever used the same plot twice.

  ‘The Lotus Murder,’ murmured Poirot, ‘The Clue of the Candle Wax.’

  Mrs Oliver turned on him, her eyes beaming appreciation.

  Two pages of random word puzzles, probably the rough work for a crossword.

  So it is with Christie. She reused plot devices throughout her career; and she recycled short stories into novellas and novels—she often speculates in the Notebooks about the expansion or adaptation of an earlier title. The Notebooks demonstrate how, even if she discarded an idea for now, she left everything there to be looked at again at a later stage. And when she did that, as she wrote in her Autobiography, ‘What it’s all about I can’t remember now; but it often stimulates me.’ So she used the Notebooks as an aide-mémoire as well as a sounding board.

  The first example dates from the mid-1950s and relates to the short stories ‘Third Floor Flat’ and ‘The Adventure of the Baghdad Chest’; it is surrounded by notes for ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ and Four-Fifty from Paddington. The second example, concerning ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’, is from early 1960 and the last one, concerning ‘The Shadow on the Glass’, probably from 1950:

  Development of stories

  3rd Floor Flat—murder committed earlier—return to get post and also footprints etc. accounted for—service lift idea? Wrong floor

  Baghdad Chest or a screen?

  Idea? A persuades B hide B

  Chest or screen as Mrs B—having affair with C—C gives party—B and A drop in—B hides A—kills him—and goes out again

  Extended version of Xmas Pudding—Points in it of importance A Ruby (belonging to Indian Prince—or a ruler just married?) in pudding

  A book or a play from The Shadow on the Pane idea? (Mr Q)

  The ABC of Murder

  One system of creation that Christie used during her most prolific period was the listing of a series of scenes, sketching what she wanted each to include and allocating to each individual scene a number or a letter; this neat idea, in the days before computers with a ‘cut and paste’ facility, may have been inspired by her play-writing experience. She would subsequently reorder those letters to suit the purposes of the plot. In keeping with her creative and chaotic process, this plan was not always followed and even when she began with it, she would sometimes abandon it later for a more linear approach (see Crooked House below). And sometimes the pattern in the finished book would not exactly follow the sequence she had originally mapped out, perhaps due to subsequent editing.

  The following, from Notebook 32, is a perfect example of this method in practice. It is part of the plotting of Towards Zero (see also Chapter 10).

  E. Thomas and Audrey what’s wrong? She can’t tell him. He stresses I know, my dear—I know—But you must begin to live again. Something about ‘died’ a death—(meaning Adrian—somebody like N[evile] ought to be dead) F. Mary and Audrey—suggestion of thwarted female—‘Servants even are nervous’ G. Coat buttons incident H. Moonlight beauty of Audrey

  The following are examples of Christie’s reworked ideas, many of which are discussed elsewhere in this book. Some elaborations are obvious:

  ‘The Case of the Caretaker’/Endless Night

  ‘The Mystery of the Plymouth Express’/The Mystery of the Blue Train

  ‘The Market Basing Mystery’/‘Murder in the Mews’

  ‘The Submarine Plans’/‘The Incredible
Theft’

  ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’/‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’

  ‘Christmas Adventure’/‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’

  ‘The Greenshore Folly’ (unpublished)/Dead Man’s Folly

  In other cases she challenged herself when adapting and expanding by changing the killer:

  The Secret of Chimneys/Chimneys

  ‘The Second Gong’/‘Dead Man’s Mirror’

  ‘Yellow Iris’/Sparkling Cyanide

  ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/Dumb Witness (see Appendix)

  Some stage versions differ from their source novels…

  Appointment with Death presents a new villain with a compelling and daring solution.

  The Secret of Chimneys introduces many variations on the original novel, including a new killer.

  Ten Little Niggers unmasks the original killer within a very different finale.

  Meanwhile, there are more subtle links between certain works:

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Death on the Nile and Endless Night are all essentially the same plot.

  The Man in the Brown Suit, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Endless Night all share a major plot device.

  Evil under the Sun and The Body in the Library feature a common ploy.

  After the Funeral and They Do It with Mirrors are both based on the same trick of misdirection.

  Murder on the Orient Express, At Bertram’s Hotel and, to a lesser extent, The Hollow are all built on a similar foundation.

  Three Act Tragedy, Death in the Clouds and The A.B.C. Murders all conceal the killer in similar surroundings.

  And there are other examples of similarities between short stories and novels that have escaped notice in previous studies of the Queen of Crime:

  ‘The Tuesday Night Club’/A Pocket Full of Rye

  ‘A Christmas Tragedy’/Evil under the Sun

  ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’/Ordeal by Innocence

  ‘The Love Detectives’/The Murder at the Vicarage

  Points

  Mr T-A. Talk with Lady T—asks about Mary

  B. The story of murder led up to how?

  C. Royde and justice (after Mr T has said: Many murders known to police)

  D. Hotel—his rooms are on top floor

  Work out sequence of evening

  G. H. A. D. C. B. G. H.

  It is notable how the E F G H scenes appear on an earlier page and the A B C D scenes on a later one. After they have all been tabulated, she then rearranges them to give the sequence she desires. At first, she intended the G and H scenes to follow A D C B but changed her mind, crossed them out and transposed them, squeezing them in, in front, at the left-hand margin of the page. A study of the relevant second section of the novel—‘Snow White and Red Rose’—will show that she followed this plan exactly:

  G. Coat buttons V

  H. Moonlight V

  A. Lady T VI

  D. Hotel VI

  C. Royde VI

  B. Lead up VI

  F. Mary and Audrey VII

  E. Thomas and Audrey VIII

  Work out sequence of evening G. H. A. D. C. B. G. H. [F E]

  She follows this scheme in the plotting of, among others, Sparkling Cyanide, One, Two, Buckle my Shoe and Crooked House. But with her chaotic approach to creativity and creative approach to chaos, she sometimes abandons it.

  Detailed plotting for Towards Zero—see opposite page.

  Notebook 14 shows this scheme, up to a point, in use for Crooked House (see also Chapter 4). But this time she has added further complications—AA and FF. Ultimately she dispensed with the reordering of the letters and just reordered the scenes without the alphabetical guideline. And the AA and FF were merely afterthoughts to be inserted at a later stage.

  A. Inquires into Ass[ociated] Cat[ering]—discreet at first—Chartered Accountant will get us what we want [Chapter 10/11]

  AA Also Brenda—femme fatale—are sorry for etc. [Chapter 9]

  B. Later?—on its In Queer St.—Get Roger there—Roger—his story—etc. [Chapter 11]

  C. Child’s evidence—best evidence—there is—no good in court—children don’t like being asked direct questions. To you she was showing off [Chapter 12]

  D. Charles and Josephine—asks about letters—I was making it up—won’t tell you—you shouldn’t have told police [Chapter 13]

  E. Charles and Eustace—(Listens outside door—really a boring teacher) Eustace—his views—scornful of Josephine [Chapter 16]

  F. Charles and Edith—this side idolatry—asks Philip—you mustn’t be deterred by his cold manner—really cared for his father—Philip is jealous of Roger [Chapter 14]

  FF. Question as to saving Ass. Cat. Roger refuses—Clemency backs him up—Is very definite about it

  [Chapter 14. There are indications in Notebook 14 that she intended this to form part of H below]

  G. Magda and Charles—Edith didn’t hate him—in love with him—would have liked to marry him [Chapter 15]

  H. Charles and Clemency—her total happiness in marriage—how Roger would have been happy away from it all—Josephine writing in her book [Chapter 14]

  I. A.C. says—be careful of the child—there’s a poisoner about [Chapter 12]

  J. The weight over the door (if J) or definitely dies—little black book missing [Chapter 18]

  K. Charles and Sophia Murder—what does murder do to anyone? [Chapter 4]

  The notes for Crooked House also illustrate a seemingly contradictory and misleading aspect of the Notebooks. It is quite common to come across pages with diagonal lines drawn across them. At first glance it would seem, understandably, that these were rejected ideas but a closer look shows that the exact opposite was the case. A line across a page indicates Work Done or Idea Used. This was a habit through her most prolific period although she tended to leave the pages, used or not, unmarked in her later writing life.

  Ten Little Possibilities

  In ‘The Affair at the Bungalow’, written in 1928 and collected in The Thirteen Problems (1932), Mrs Bantry comes up with reasons for someone to steal their own jewels:

  ‘And anyway I can think of hundreds of reasons. She might have wanted money at once…so she pretends the jewels are stolen and sells them secretly. Or she may have been blackmailed by someone who threatened to tell her husband…Or she may have already sold the jewels…so she had to do something about it. That’s done a good deal in books. Or perhaps he was going to have them reset and she’d got paste replicas. Or—here’s a very good idea—and not so much done in books—she pretends they are stolen, gets in an awful state and he gives her a fresh lot.’

  The opening of The A. B. C. Murders (note the reference to a single ‘Murder’), illustrating the use of crossing-out as an indication of work completed.

  In Third Girl (1966) Norma Restarick comes to Poirot and tells him that she might have committed a murder. In Chapter 2, Mrs Ariadne Oliver, that well-known detective novelist, imagines some situations that could account for this possibility:

  Mrs Oliver began to brighten as she set her ever prolific imagination to work. ‘She could have run over someone in her car and not stopped. She could have been assaulted by a man on a cliff and struggled with him and managed to push him over. She could have given someone else the wrong medicine by mistake. She could have gone to one of those purple pill parties and had a fight with someone. She could have come to and found she’d stabbed someone. She…might have been a nurse in the operating theatre and administered the wrong anaesthetic…’

  In Chapter 8 of Dead Man’s Folly (1956) Mrs Oliver again lets her imagination roam when considering possible motives for the murder of schoolgirl Marlene Tucker:

  ‘She could have been murdered by someone who just likes murdering girls…Or she might have known some secrets about somebody’s love affairs, or she may have seen someone bury a body at night or she may have seen somebody who was concealing his identity—or she may have known some secret about
where some treasure was buried during the war. Or the man in the launch may have thrown somebody into the river and she saw it from the window of the boathouse—or she may have even got hold of some very important message in secret code and not known what it was herself…’ It was clear that she could have gone on in this vein for some time although it seemed to the Inspector that she had already envisaged every possibility, likely or unlikely.

  These extracts from stories, written almost 40 years apart, illustrate, via her characters, Christie’s greatest strength— her ability to weave seemingly endless variations around one idea. There can be little doubt that this is Agatha Christie herself speaking; Mrs Oliver is, after all, a very successful detective novelist. And as we can now see from the Notebooks, this is exactly what Christie did. Throughout her career her ideas were consistently drawn from the world with which her readers were familiar—teeth, dogs, stamps (as below), mirrors, telephones, medicines—and upon these foundations she built her ingenious constructions. She explored universal themes in some of her later books (guilt and innocence in Ordeal by Innocence, evil in The Pale Horse, international unrest in Cat among the Pigeons and Passenger to Frankfurt), but they were still firmly rooted in the everyday.

  Although it is not possible to be absolutely sure, there is no reason to suppose that listings of ideas and their variations were written at different times; I have no doubt that she rattled off variations and possibilities as fast as she could write, which probably accounts for the handwriting. In many cases it is possible to show that the list is written with the same pen and in the same style of handwriting. The outline of One, Two, Buckle my Shoe (see also Chapter 4) provides a good example of this. She is considering possible motives to set the plot in motion.