Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks
Page 20
The reference to Lord Northcliffe, the famous newspaperman, suggests that Christie intended to base Lord Nasby, whom Anne visits in Chapter 5 to ask for a job, on him. And both the alternative scenarios involving the changing of cabins and the stabbed man featured in the novel.
‘The House at Shiraz’ June 1933
Why has Lady Esther Carr secluded herself in her house in Persia? What really happened to her maid? Parker Pyne investigates.
This short story, from Parker Pyne Investigates, is a minor Christie, but it nevertheless features a plot device similar to ‘The Companion’ in The Thirteen Problems and, much later and more elaborately A Murder is Announced. There are references in Notebook 63—all, surprisingly, to a stage adaptation which was never realised as a script. It seems a very unlikely possibility for a stage transformation; but then so, probably, did ‘Witness for the Prosecution’! Here Christie toys with various titles, all of which have a relevance to the story:
The Worlds Forgetting (Play? House at Shiraz) Desert Lady
The notes for the adaptation include a sketch for two acts and three scenes:
Hotel—jumping off places—Lady Esther Carr—scene between her and old lady or old gentleman—globetrotter friend of her mother—the chauffeur—her fury—ran way with him—he left her—old friend says man mad. Conversation between Lady E and girl—Muriel—nice normal girl—or has been nursery governess—she is engaged—chauffeur—a pilot—hard-bitten young man. At the interview he talks to other girl—likes her—they get friendly.
Act II The house in the Desert—native servants—Lady E—all in Arab dress. Sends him off on errand to Damascus—will be away for a month—then turns on her slave—tells girl she won’t be allowed to see Alan—M retorts—turns on her—as tall and as strong as you—she walks backwards—falls. New British Consul is due to call—she throws over breakfast tray—puts on ring—lets him in—receives him as Lady E.
The major difference between the original and the proposed adaptation is that information we are given in the short story through conversation between Pyne and the English Consul is played out on stage. The first scene sets the background to the story and the second shows the accident that precipitates the masquerade. This means that the audience is fully aware earlier of the revelation at the end of the story. But we have no way of knowing if Christie had another surprise in mind—there are no notes for a last act.
‘Problem at Pollensa Bay’ November 1935
Mrs Adela Chester asks Parker Pyne to convince her son, Basil, to abandon his girlfriend Betty, whom she considers unsuitable.
There are brief notes in Notebooks 66 and 20 for this lighthearted Parker Pyne short story. The only question was where to set it. A non-crime trifle, it was obviously written for the magazine market:
Excited woman wants M PP to stop her son marrying a girl—they won’t be happy—son asks whether PP will help him.
Corsica? Majorca?
A mother and her son—a girl he likes—parents—trousers—Madeleine comes out—this scene—the boy distracted
‘Triangle at Rhodes’ May 1936
Despite warning the protagonists, Hercule Poirot is unable to prevent a murder in his Rhodes holiday hotel. But he can solve it by correctly interpreting the fatal triangle.
The genesis of this short story is complicated. There are variant texts in the US and the UK appearances, while there are copious notes for its dramatisation. And as it was expanded and altered for the novel Evil under the Sun, some of the notes overlap and intersect. It is not possible to date the Notebooks accurately, but the following in Notebook 20 succinctly summarises the plot:
The triangle—Valerie C. loved by Commander C. and Douglas Golding
It went through a few changes before arriving at the version we know. These notes, complete with Christie’s sketches of the various ‘eternal triangles’, are on either side of those for ‘Problem at Pollensa Bay’. To complicate matters even more, two separate and totally different settings and sets of characters are listed:
Soviet Russia
Room at hotel—
In train—
The Triangle
George and Edna
Anna and Ivan
The Gordons—Lloyd and Jessica
Rhodes—Bathing—Emily Renault (Joan Heaslip)
The Courtneys—beautiful—faded—empty-headed The Goldings arrive—man—plain wife—a shock to discover they are on honeymoon—his devotion to Mrs C—bowled over—antagonism between him and C—a quarrel at dinner—everyone talking about it.
Quiet woman comes to PP…what shall she do? He says leave the island at once—you are in danger—(PP says to himself where has he seen her—remembrance of murder trial). Lee a chemist—Golding has his usual drink—gin and ginger tonic—Mrs Golding drinks it instead and dies
The setting of Soviet Russia (perhaps inspired by a brief foray there while returning from Ur in 1931) would have been unique for Christie and very unusual for crime fiction in general at the time. It is perhaps not surprising that this version was never developed. The other scenario is nearer to the published version, but it was still to go through further refinements. Note also that this early draft has it as a case for Parker Pyne.
Eventually in Notebook 66 we arrive at the ‘real’ version. The short précis below of the plot is in the middle of the notes for The A.B.C. Murders, a position which tallies with the publication dates of each. That this plot and setting should suddenly appear, fully formed, while Christie was plotting one her greatest novels is yet another example of her creative fertility.
Poirot story—Chantries—she beautiful, empty headed, he a strong silent man of personality—The Goldings—G infatuated with Mrs G—Mrs G in despair comes to Poirot—you are in danger. Various scenes if book—actually Chantries and Mrs G are lovers—the gin and tonic—Gold—is supposed to want to kill C—Mrs C drinks it instead—and dies
Note the words in the middle of this jotting—‘Various scenes if book’. She obviously thought, and correctly, that this situation had great potential for elaboration. And she did just that a few years later in Evil under the Sun, although the plots are quite different. Both feature a triangle situation in a beach setting and neither triangle is the one the reader has anticipated, but the motivation for the crimes is different and the eternal triangle theme is given yet another variation in the later work. There is also a distinct similarity to the method of poisoning adopted by the killer in The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, over 25 years later.
Finally, the following in Notebook 58 may seem like a rough note for ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, although it actually occurs in the middle of the jottings for A Caribbean Mystery:
Triangle idea (Rhodes)
Lovely siren—her husband—devoted, dark, cynical—little brown mouse, nice little woman, wife—plain stupid husband—dark husband really has liaison with mouse. They plan to do away with siren—stupid husband is to be suspected
There are similarities between the two—the quartet of two husbands and wives in an exotic beach setting. But in fact it is included at this point in the Notebook as a plot resumé to herself as she considered possibilities for her new Caribbean quartet.
Murder in Mesopotamia 6 July 1936
When Amy Leatheran accepts a nursing job on an archaeological dig looking after the neurotic Mrs Leidner she little suspects that she will be involved in the investigation of her patient’s murder. But how did the killer gain access to his victim when the room was under constant observation?
From the time of her marriage to Max Mallowan, Christie accompanied him annually to Iraq on his archaeological expeditions. These travels gave her background for her foreign travel novels but the one that most closely matches her own experiences is Murder in Mesopotamia. The setting is an archaeological dig and, apart from the detective plot, there is much detail of day-to-day living, written from first-hand experience.
The surviving notes are not extensive, less than 15 pages in to
tal scattered over four Notebooks. Notebook 66 has a oneline jotting in a list dated January 1935; she wrote the novel during that year with hardback publication in July 1936:
Dig murder 1st person Hospital Nurse?
A list of characters given in Notebook 20 tallies with the published novel (although some of the men are not definitely recognisable), as does the basic situation outlined immediately following:
The People
1. Dr. L[eidner]
2. Mrs L[eidner]
3. Architect B. man of 35 taciturn attractive [Richard Carey]
4. Epigraphist P. moody man—hypochondriac or Priest (not really a priest!) [Fr. Lavigny]
5. Young man R. inclined to be garrulous or naïve [David Emmott]
6. Miss Johnson—middle aged—devoted to L.
7. A wife—not archaeological—pretty—frivolous [Mrs. Mercado]
8. A dour young man G. [Carl Reiter]
The wife—very queer—Is she being doped against her own knowledge? Atmosphere gradually develops of intensity—a bomb may explode any minute
It is a pity there are not more detailed notes for the plot mechanics, especially in view of Christie’s reminder to herself at the start of the following extract:
The ‘window idea’ is undoubtedly one of her most ingenious and original ploys, and like all of her best plots it is so simple—in retrospect. That said, when Miss Johnson stands on the roof in Chapter 23 and says ‘I’ve seen how someone could come in from outside—and no one would ever guess,’ this is not exactly the truth. It would have been more strictly accurate to say ‘I’ve seen how someone could commit this murder—and no one would ever guess.’ The murderer did not come in from outside—he was already present; and although Miss Johnson realised how he had managed to commit the murder without ever leaving the roof, this is not the same thing.
And despite the reference to the vital ‘window idea’, the accompanying diagram is not really relevant to it as it represents part of the ground floor plan of the Expedition House, although a different one to that included in the finished novel.
Although Christie experimented briefly with other possible killers, the front-runner always seems to have been the one eventually unmasked:
Possible gambits—Mrs. L’s past life—Some man she has injured—husband or someone she betrayed—hate her—pursued her—she gets more and more nervous
Development
A. Mrs. L is killed
B. Somebody else is killed in mistake for her—really she engineers it and persecution story is an invention
Dr. L murders Mrs. L
Then a second murder—someone who knew something—Miss Johnson?
Miss J original wife—her revenge?
Or—a trumped up story by wife—and husband killed?
Or Dr. L the villain
Murder in Mesopotamia misses being a first-class Christie due to the unbelievable revelation, during Poirot’s explanation, of an unsuspected relationship. The mechanics of the murder are extremely ingenious, the setting and the characters are better drawn than usual and the identity of the killer is undoubtedly a surprise. But the reason for the crime beggars belief; how Christie (or her editor) ever thought this was a likely, or even a credible, scenario is difficult to imagine. Apart from the intrinsic dissatisfaction, it also spoils one of the few examples of Christie’s attempt at the ‘impossible crime’. This is a sub-genre of the detective novel where the interest lies not only in the identity of the killer but also in the means by which he committed his crime. In the ‘impossible crime’ detective novel victims are found in the middle of snow-covered lawns with no footprints, in a room under constant observation (as here) or a room with all the doors and windows locked from the inside. Her great contemporary John Dickson Carr, Master of the Locked Room, brought it to full flower. When it is a feature of a Christie plot it is almost as an afterthought; it was never the main focus of her plot. She used it in only three other novels—Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and Curtain—as well as a handful of short stories.
Finally, Notebook 47 reveals that Christie considered using Murder in Mesopotamia as the basis for a play. However, she rejects the idea of using the novel’s characters or plot as a basis (despite the ‘troublemaking attractive woman’, a similar character to Mrs Leidner) in sketching a possible scenario:
Play on a dig? Possible characters from Murder in Mesopot[amia]
Director American—with a troublemaking wife—in love with a troublemaking attractive woman—widow of an inventor—or atom scientist—imprisoned for Communist activities—(after Hiss idea?) Ten years ago—he’s in prison—she has divorced him—in love with Deirdre? Married to him—is Really on point of having affair with middle-aged architect—two doctors from medical conference Baghdad come along—one a friend of expedition—the other a plastic surgeon—he gets killed—then she does
Alger Hiss was a US State Department official accused of spying and jailed in 1950, but for perjury. His guilt or innocence of the spying accusation is still a matter of debate. He died in 1992.
The above outline seems an unlikely subject for a stage play, but some of these ideas did eventually turn up in Destination Unknown.
Appointment with Death 2 May 1938
The appalling Mrs Boynton terrorises her family even while they are on holiday in Petra. When she is found dead at their camp more than one person is relieved. Hercule Poirot, while sympathising with the family, has 24 hours to find the killer.
There are notes for both the novel and stage versions of this title. Over 60 pages of notes for the latter are contained in four Notebooks and 20 for the novel in Notebook 61, just ahead of preliminary notes for Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and extended notes for Akhnaton. Although published in May 1938, there was an earlier serialisation that January in the Daily Mail, where it was called A Date with Death, and it appeared at the end of the previous year in the USA. In an essay heralding the serialisation of the novel, Christie wrote that three points of this case appealed to Poirot—the 24 hour deadline, the psychology of the dead woman and the fact that he was asked to investigate by a man with a passion for the truth similar to his own, Colonel Carbury.
In Appointment with Death Christie sets herself another technical challenge. The investigation takes place in just 24 hours (although the set-up takes considerably longer) in the spectacular setting of Petra, far removed from the facilities of Scotland Yard. There are no fingerprints, no outsiders, no Hastings; just Hercule Poirot and the suspects—although it has to be said that parts of the solution can be explained only by divine intervention—for example. how can Poirot know about the earlier life of the killer? Tellingly, when Christie adapted this for the stage she completely changed the ending and presented the audience with a more plausible and psychologically compelling solution.
The first page of Notebook 61 is headed ‘The Petra Murder’. This is immediately followed by a list of characters and brief descriptions, whose forerunners can clearly be seen in the notes for Death on the Nile (see Chapter 6). The name Boynton does not appear at this stage, however, and the family are referred to throughout as Platt:
Characters
Roy—young, neurotic (26?)
Nadine (22?)
Lucia—Mrs P’s own daughter?
Jefferson—eldest son
Prunella (his wife—clear, balanced hair
Sarah Grant (Sybil Grey) a young doctor—interested in mental psychology [Sarah King]
Lady Westholme M.P. (a possible future Prime Minister)
Dr Gerard (French?)
Mrs Gibson (very distraught talker)? [Miss Price]
When she returns six pages later (after a quick detour to jot down notes for ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, Sad Cypress and Curtain), Christie amends her characters—as usual, some are later renamed, while others do not appear in the novel—and proceeds with her system of assigning letters to scenes. She plots A to L without hesitation or deviation (which may indicate that sh
e had already worked on this elsewhere), even though the order will change quite considerably. The novel’s opening sentence, the most arresting of any Christie novel (‘You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed’), does not appear until Scene L in the notes. The fact that Poirot is mentioned in conjunction with this statement may account for its being brought forward.
Petra Murder
The Platt family at Mena House—then on boat to Palestine
People
Mrs Platt [Mrs Boynton]
Jefferson Platt [replaced by Lennox]
Nadine his wife
Marcia [Carol]
Lennox [becomes Raymond in the novel]
Ginevra
Sarah Grey [Sarah King]
Amos Cope (in love with Nadine) [becomes Jefferson Cope
in the novel]
Lady Westholme M.P.
Dr Gerard—French doctor
Sir Charles Westholme [does not appear]
A. Sarah Grey and Gerard discuss Mrs Platt—S says sadistic [Part I Chapter 6]
B. Marcia and Lennox—‘It can’t go on—Why shouldn’t it? It always has—She’ll die some day—There’s no one to help us. [Part I Chapter 1]
C. Mrs Platt and Ginevra—you’re tired tonight my dear—ill—she forces her to be ill [Part I Chapter 4]
D. Nadine and Amos—Why are you here? Leave it all [Part I Chapter 5]
E. Nadine and Jefferson—she begs him—he cries Don’t leave me [Part I Chapter 8]
F. Nadine and Mrs Platt—She does not feel spell [Part I Chapter 8]
G. N and Marcia who has overheard conversation—I wouldn’t blame you if you did go
H. Amos and Mrs P—latter says she is ill—can only have her own family—a snub [Part I Chapter 5]
I. Marcia and Sarah Grey [Part I Chapter 7]
J. Lennox and Sarah—she tells him to leave—I can’t—I’m weak—I’m no good to you [Part I Chapter 9]