Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

by John Curran

  H.P. in train—girl gets him to go stealing

  Holiday Task (Cont.) 23 Gillespie Road

  Does Miss Lemon decide to go as Matron? Bored by retirement—asks Poirot’s advice

  …and some later ones that sounded promising were also abandoned.

  Hickory Dickory Dock

  First death at one o’clock—Second at 2 o’clock

  Important—2 murders

  [First] happens quite soon after P’s lecture

  Mrs. Nicoletis? Why? Blackmails? One of the gang and slipping?

  Johnston?—Her trained mind has made certain deduction—etc.—possibly finds after with matter—a warning hold you tongue—

  Aka bombo?

  Nigel?

  Patricia

  Although she toyed with the idea of other characters as the eventual villain, Valerie was always a front-runner, either alone or with various combinations of other students:

  1. Valerie—Master mind of racket—uses students—puts C up to it—Nigel in it with her? Or blackmails her or later N. one of victims

  2. Nigel—finds out about racket—or in it with Valerie—childish excitable

  Basic to the plot is a bet about obtaining poison and it must be admitted that some of the tactics suggested are horribly plausible, at least in the mid-1950s. The ‘doctor’s car’ idea was one that surfaced a few times throughout the Notebooks and the white coat used in the novel as camouflage to access a hospital drug cupboard is one obviously inspired by Christie’s personal experiences in University College Hospital during the Second World War:

  The 4 methods—a bet is made—Argument

  Nigel

  Valerie

  Len

  Angus

  They bring back

  D[angerous] D[rugs] from car—Tube of morphine

  Hosp. Patient—Phenobarbitol

  Poison cupboard—Strych. Or Digi?

  Bicarbonate bottle taken to put powder in—and

  bicarbonate substituted?

  Then drugs destroyed but not one of them—the hospital one?

  By page 50 of Notebook 12 she has the plot under control and the following extract contains most of the elements of the eventual plot:

  Main arguments

  V. an organiser of smuggling into this country (jewels?) (drugs?) by means of students. Mrs. N is in it—buys houses for students—also a shop on corner nearby—where rucksacks are sold—which have false bottoms (stones imbedded in glue (or powdered heroin in rouleau [roll] of canvas).

  Police are on V’s track—she passes something to Nigel—Bath salts—he examines this—finds heroin—replaces it with bicarbonate—and puts stuff in his bicarbonate bottle. Police come to house—V. destroys rucksack cuts it up—afterwards works on Celia.

  And a few pages later she toys with some refinements (the saccharine and rucksack ideas and the involvement of Elizabeth Johnson were subsequently rejected):

  Points to be resolved

  Morphine (Acetate?) replaced by boracic acid—latter shows green flame when burned (Recognised by Celia?) [therefore] C. knows boracic was taken to replace morphia.

  Pat found morphia—took B. [oracic] A[cid] from bathroom.

  Saccharine? Did C. use this in coffee? Morphia tablets exchanged for sacchar

  Val. runs smuggling racket (Killed C?)

  E[lizabeth] J[ohnson] in with Val on smuggling

  Akibombo—saw—what? to do with boracic?—to do with rucksack?

  Smuggling Gems? Dope? Mrs. Nic V’s mother? Just figurehead?

  And, of course, Nigel’s back-story—he was responsible for the death of his mother and his father has left a letter to this effect to be opened after his death—plays a vital part in the plot. It is not until approaching the end of the notes, however, that it is sketched in:

  Argument

  N. bad lot—needs money—tries to get it from his mother—forges her name—or gives her sleeping draught—she dies—he inherits—inquest—overdose—accident. But father turns him out—he cashes in on his mother’s money. (Goes through it?) Pals up with Valerie—in smuggling racquet—has by then taken another name—archaeological diplomat—friends with students etc. Police come—he thinks for him—father dead?—letter left with lawyer—takes out bulbs—(or are bulbs—new ones—stolen—and one taken out in hall)

  Nigel gives mother poison (Money)—Father a chemist—tests it or finds it—turns Nigel out—signs a deposition—at bank in case of his death—or if Nigel does anything dishonourable—N. is to change his name

  One of the ideas that appears after the ‘Suggestions to enlarge and improve’ the novel noted above is Patricia’s murder:

  Nigel goes to police station…Pat (?) rings up—speaks to Nigel—breathless scared voice—Nigel—I think I know—who must have taken the morphia because I remember it was there that night…I don’t want to say…Right…Nigel and Police go—Pat dead. Nigel cries like a small boy

  Coming so late in the novel, however, this feels somewhat tagged on and it is an idea that enlarges rather than improves. In fact, a sketch of it had already appeared ten pages earlier:

  End sequence

  After Nigel and Pat scene Nigel goes round to Police Station. Pat (ostensibly)—really Valerie—rings up—knows who took it. They go there—Pat dead—Nigel’s grief—real—H.P. arrives.

  This murder is similar to the late murders in Four-Fifty from Paddington and Ordeal by Innocence, in the following years. Mrs Oliver, in Chapter 8 of Cards on the Table, says: ‘What really matters is plenty of bodies! If the thing’s getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something—and then they’re killed first. That always goes down well. It comes in all my books…’ And in Chapter 17 of the same novel: ‘when I count up I find I’ve only written thirty thousand words instead of sixty thousand, and so then I have to throw in another murder…’ It is difficult not to think of these remarks, tongue-in-cheek though they may be, when reading Hickory Dickory Dock.

  Exhibit C: Agatha Christie in the Notebooks

  ‘And then—there are always the old favourites.’

  The Clocks, Chapter 14

  Christie several times references herself and her work in the Notebooks. For some reason she twice—in Notebooks 72 and 39—lists some of her books, although the lists are not exhaustive nor is it obvious what the titles have in common; and she often refers to earlier titles as a quick reminder.

  Analysis of books so far

  Hotels—Body in Library, Evil under the Sun

  Trains Aeroplanes—Blue Train, Orient Express, Death in Clouds, Nile

  Private Life (country) Towards Zero, Hollow, Xmas, 3 Act Tragedy, Sad Cypress (village) Vicarage, Moving Finger

  Travel—Appointment with Death

  The above list appears just after notes for Mrs McGinty’s Dead. The fact that Taken at the Flood does not appear in the list may mean that it was compiled in late 1946, after The Hollow, or early 1947, before Taken at the Flood was completed. From the headings it would seem that she was considering backgrounds she had previously used.

  Ackroyd

  Murder on Nile

  Death in Clouds

  Murder in Mesopotamia

  Orient Express

  Appointment with Death

  Tragedy in 3 Acts

  Dead Man’s Mirror

  And the above, squeezed into the corner of a page during the plotting of Evil under the Sun, is even more enigmatic. Apart from the fact that they are all Poirot stories, it is difficult to see what they have in common.

  The next musing appears in the notes for Towards Zero. Wisely, she decided against it as another mysterious death at the hotel in the space of three years could look, in Oscar Wilde’s famous phrase, like carelessness:

  Shall hotel be the same as Evil Under the Sun—N[eville] has to go across in trolley because high water

  The following odd, and inaccurate, reference to an earlier killer appears in the notes for Elephants Can Remember. It
is odd because Poirot was not involved in that case and never knew Josephine:

  Calls on Poirot—asks about Josephine (Crooked House)

  This was among the last notes to appear, written as it was just before the publication of Postern of Fate:

  Nov. 2nd 1973 Book of Stories

  The White Horse Stories

  First one—The White Horse Party (rather similar to Jane Marple’s Tuesday Night Club)

  Chapter 25 of Four-Fifty from Paddington includes a brief, cryptic reference to A Murder is Announced, but without mentioning the title…

  Somebody greedy—bit about Letty Blacklock

  …while this reference appears during the plotting of Third Girl:

  Poirot worried—old friend (as in McGinty) comes to tea

  Finally, the idea of reintroducing Sergeant Fletcher from A Murder is Announced was briefly considered during the plotting of A Pocket Full of Rye:

  Chapter II—Crossways—Inspector Harwell—or Murder is Announced young man

  5

  Blind Man’s Buff: A Game of Murder

  The ping of two bullets shattered the complacency of the room. Suddenly the game was no longer a game. Somebody screamed…

  A Murder is Announced, Chapter 3

  SOLUTIONS REVEALED

  The A.B.C. Murders • Dead Man’s Folly • ‘Manx Gold’ • The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side • A Murder is Announced • One, Two, Buckle my Shoe • Peril at End House • ‘Strange Jest’ • Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

  ‘Shattering the complacency’—this is the dramatic impact of a game going wrong in three Christie titles; while two others are actual games, one intellectual and one physical. The deadliest game of the three titles is The A.B.C. Murders, while the other two, Dead Man’s Folly and A Murder is Announced, feature actual games that go wrong due to the intervention of a real murder. ‘Strange Jest’ and ‘Manx Gold’ are intellectual puzzles played by characters with a tangible prize at the end. The latter was an actual game played in the Isle of Man in 1930, while the former concerns the interpretation of a will. And the game played by Clarissa in Spider’s Web proves to be more dangerous than even she realises. In Christie’s overall output the concept of the game-going-wrong is not a major motif, but the dramatic impact of the scene in the drawing-room at Little Paddocks in A Murder is Announced cannot be denied.

  ‘Manx Gold’ May 1930

  Cousins Juan and Fenella race to find a treasure as they match wits with their dead uncle—and a killer.

  A full history of this story can be found in the 1997 collection While the Light Lasts, thanks to sterling detective work by its editor Tony Medawar. Briefly, the chairman of a tourism committee in the Isle of Man approached Christie, in late 1929, with a view to her creating a treasure hunt on the island to boost tourist numbers. After a visit in April 1930 she wrote ‘Manx Gold’, for a fee of £65 (approx. £1,300 today), and it was published in five instalments, complete with clues, in the Manchester Daily Dispatch, in the third week of May of that year, and in a booklet distributed throughout the island. The ‘treasure’ was four snuffboxes hidden in separate locations around the island. (It is at an exhibition of snuffboxes that Hercule Poirot meets Mr Shaitana in Cards on the Table.)

  Notebook 59 has 20 pages of notes for this unusual commission. Unfortunately those pages contain some of the most indecipherable notes of any of the Notebooks, including much crossing out, doodling and rough diagrams. The story is a minor entry in her literary output, remarkable mainly for the uniqueness of its creation and for the number of ideas that were to resurface in a book four years later. A snapshot and a dying man’s last words as well as a villainous doctor are all features of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?. And, indeed, Juan and Fenella, a couple joining forces to elucidate a mystery, could be seen as forerunners of Bobby Jones and Lady Frances Derwent from the same novel. (Oddly, Juan and Fenella are both fiancés and first cousins.) The invisible ink idea first surfaced in Motive Vs. Opportunity two years earlier and as minor plot element in Chapter 20 of The Secret Adversary.

  The notes accurately reflect the story as it appeared. There were however some name changes—Ronald and Celia become Juan and Fenella and Robert becomes Ewan—while the cliff fall and cuff-link clue were eventually discarded:

  Story

  Ronald and Celia—first cousins—letter from deceased uncle. Her annoyance about uncle—they arrive—the housekeeper—4 snuff boxes missing. Letter left—with doggerel rhyme—call at lawyers. Then they start off—get it—on their return—meet the others—Dr Crook [Crookall was the name of the chairman of the Tourism Committee!] MacRae—Alan—Robert Bagshawe…doesn’t like his smile. They decide to pool with others. Next day—the clues—housekeeper goes to get them—stolen—she admits that they asked her and she refused—a cuff link—it was Robert.

  They dash out—find R in grounds—dying—murdered—hit on head or in hospital—has fallen over cliff. They lean near him—may be conscious at end—opens eyes says ‘D’ye ken—?’—dies

  The ‘doggerel rhyme’ referred to above appears in Notebook 59 in two forms, the one that actually appeared and the following, an earlier unused draft:

  4 points of the compass so there be, South and West North and East

  A double S—No East for me Fare forth and show how clever you be.

  Two of the other clues also appear:

  Excuse verbosity—I am all at sixes and sevens and Words brought out by heat of fire

  Another point of interest in this Notebook is a rough drawing of the clue that falls out of the map of the island—a cross, a circle and a pointing arrow down to the detail of the little lines on one side of the circle, as noticed by Fenella.

  The A.B.C. Murders 6 January 1936

  A series of letters to Hercule Poirot challenges him to a deadly game. Despite these forewarnings, the letter-writer manages to kill Alice Ascher in Andover, Betty Barnard in Bexhill, and Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston. As the entire country watches, can Poirot prevent the D murder?

  Thanks to Notebook 13, we have an exact date for the writing of this novel. There, during a 15-page travel account, we read the following, although unfortunately there are no further references in the travelogue to the progress of the novel:

  Tuesday November 6th [1934] Started The A.B.C. Murders.

  A rough sketch (and even rougher handwriting!) of a clue in the search for Manx Gold, from Notebook 59.

  Featuring a hugely imaginative concept—an alphabetical series both of murder victims and locations, chosen apparently at random—that was carried off with consummate skill and daring, The A.B.C. Murders was destined to become one of the top three Christie titles. And it is now forgotten that it was one of the earliest versions of the ‘serial killer’ idea that is now a staple of both the bookshelf and the screen. When this book was written the phrase did not even exist and is yet another example of Christie anticipating, without even realising it, motifs that were to dominate crime fiction in later years. (The other major anticipation was Death Comes as the End, set in Ancient Egypt and foreshadowing another current trend for crime novels set in various eras of the past.)

  It is therefore a disappointment that there are only 15 pages of surviving notes for The A.B.C. Murders, scattered over three Notebooks. I suspect that there were earlier and rougher notes that have not survived, because the book’s intricate premise needed detailed planning and the notes we have are relatively straightforward and organised.

  Due to the elaborate plot and large cast of characters, the characterisation is slighter than usual. Dealing as it does with three separate murder investigations involving three sets of suspects, the attention to character drawing has to be somewhat perfunctory. The only people who are delineated in any detail are those who form part of Poirot’s band of investigators.

  The earliest jotting would seem to be Notebook 66. It appears as item E on a list that includes the plot outlines for ‘Problem at Sea’, ‘The Dream’, Death in the Clouds, Dumb
Witness and Sad Cypress, and also includes the rudimentary germ of what was to become, almost 20 years later, A Pocket Full of Rye:

  Series of murders—P gets letter from apparent maniac. First—an old woman in Yorkshire—Second—a business man—Third—a girl (tripper?)—Fourth—Sir McClintock Marsh (who isn’t killed—but escapes)—Fifth—Muriel Lavery

  Analysis of his house party—one person knows girl but has absolute cast iron alibi.

  Idea of book is to prove alibi false but really Sir MM—murdered second v third victim for reasons of his own—1st and 2nd camouflage—idea being to fasten guilt on cast iron alibi man

  It is interesting to note several points of similarity, even in this early jotting, with the finished novel. These include the retention of the idea of the ‘old woman’ as the first victim. The novel’s second victim is a young girl—‘tripper?’—at a seaside resort, reflecting the potential third victim. The device of two earlier murders as camouflage for a third—‘for reasons of his own’—is retained. And the owner of the ‘castiron alibi’ would seem to be the forerunner of Alexander Bonaparte Cust, although a cast-iron alibi is not a feature of his defence.

  In contrast, the most surprising divergence from the finished novel is the unmasking of the fourth supposed ‘victim’ of the maniac as the killer. This ‘victim as killer’ idea is not an original concept; already used to great effect by Christie in Peril at End House, it would be used again, to equally surprising effect, in One, Two, Buckle my Shoe, A Murder is Announced and The Mirror Crack ‘d from Side to Side. Why she abandoned it here we can never know, as it was by no means an overworked plot device in her output.