by John Curran
The underlying misdirection of After the Funeral also featured in the previous year’s novel, They Do It with Mirrors.
After the Funeral
Family returning from cemetery – a meal – deceased younger sister – not been seen for many years or at all by his grandchildren etc. – Cora Lansquenet – (Somebody says – of course – he was murdered) Cora L murdered the next day. Really the CL of funeral is not CL – CL is already dead [actually drugged]. Companion kills C – Why? Contents of house are left to her including a picture? A Vermeer – she paints it over with another
As usual, one of the elements to change was the names:
The family tree (with a few question marks) of the Abernethies from After the Funeral, one of the most complicated families in all of Christie.
Characters
Cora Lansquenet – youngest daughter sister of old Mrs Mr Dent (like James). Married a rather feckless painter – lived abroad a lot
Pam and husband (actor)
Jean – Leo’s widow (2nd wife?)
Judy and Greg (photographer)
Andrea – (Miles’s wife) he doesn’t come – too delicate
George – (Laura’s son) in City
A look at the family tree shows minor differences in the eventual make-up of the Abernethies. Leo’s wife becomes Helen and the ‘2nd wife’ idea was discarded; Andrea and Miles, the hypochondriac, become Maud and Timothy; Pam becomes Rosamund with an actor husband, Michael Shane; and Judy becomes Susan, while Greg has a change of profession to chemist’s assistant. Although the comment ‘like James’ (Christie’s brother-in-law) appears after Mr Dent (the forerunner of Richard Abernethie), there is nothing to show that the character was, in fact, anything like James Watts.
It is not until some pages into the notes that Poirot is mentioned, although in the novel it is Mr Entwhistle, the family lawyer, who actually brings him into the case:
HP is got into case by doctor attending old Larraby – exhumation requested – cannot see how it can be anything but a natural death – only, of course, it could be an alkaloid etc
Christie again employs her alphabetical sequence but this time there is little rearranging. The main reordering, as it appears in the book, is the poisoning of Miss Gilchrist before she gets to Timothy’s rather than afterwards. In fact, it is partly because of the poisoning that she agrees to go to Timothy’s.
A. Mr E gets telephone call from Maude – agrees to go up [Chapter 5]
B. Before goes up – calls on George – Tony and Rosemary [Michael and Rosamund] [Chapter 5]
C. Visits Timothy and Maude [Chapter 6]
D. HP and Ent[whistle] Whole thing rests on E’s belief in Cora’s hunches – she thought it was murder – she had some basis for thinking it so she was quite willing to hush it up – therefore – murder [Chapter 7]
E. Susan finds a wig in Cora’s drawer [Chapter 11]
F. Susan arranges for Miss G to go to Tim’s [Chapter 10]
G. HP receives reports [Chapter 12]
H. HP goes to Enderby – meets Andrea [actually Helen] – her story of something wrong – (Point here is was looking at Cora) – HP represents himself to be taking a house for foreign refugees – Andrea [Maude] speaks of paint smell upsetting Timothy [Chapter 14]
I. At Timothy’s Miss G gets into her stride – gossip with daily women – nun? Miss G very surprised – same nun she is almost certain who was at Cora’s – ? Then wedding cake? To Miss G – she is delighted – taken ill – but not fatal [Chapter 15]
J. They all assemble at Enderby to choose anything from sale – some comedy? Miss G says something about wax flowers? Or something that she could not have seen [Chapter 19]
Points in conversation
A. Nuns – what they were like – same one – a moustache [Chapter 19]
B. R[osamund] asks about wax flowers on malachite table – Miss G says looked lovely there [Chapter 19]
C. Susan says Cora didn’t really sketch Polperro from a postcard [Chapter 18]
D. Talk about seeing yourself [Chapter 19]
One major sequence in Notebook 53 does not appear in the finished novel. Christie referred to it as the Hunter’s Lodge idea:
Idea like Hunter’s Lodge? Housekeeper doubles with someone else made up glamorous
This is a reference to one of Poirot’s early cases, ‘The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge’ in Poirot Investigates. He solves this case while confined to bed with influenza while Hastings travels to Derbyshire, reporting back by telegram. The plot device, which bears more than a passing resemblance to After the Funeral, depends on the ability of the murderer to effect a quick change and to appear both as housekeeper and mistress of the house within minutes of each other. Similar impersonations are adopted by the killers in The Mystery of the Blue Train, Death in the Clouds, Three Act Tragedy, Appointment with Death, Sparkling Cyanide and Taken at the Flood.
Although in Chapter 15 this idea is briefly considered, it is never a serious possibility as a solution. But the underlying subterfuge is very much the same – a domestic successfully masquerades as both mistress and maid, fooling the family and the police (and the reader) into believing someone alive when they have already been murdered. The impersonation in After the Funeral is played over a longer period and is more elaborate. And as the reader is told very early in the novel that Cora had lived abroad for over 25 years, the masquerade is perfectly feasible. Lanscombe the butler ‘would hardly have known her’; Mr Entwhistle, the family lawyer, was ‘able to see little resemblance to the gawky girl of earlier days’; and none of the younger generation of Abernethies knew her at all. At first it seems as if Christie toyed with the idea of the quick-change routine and in Chapter 15 there is an opportunity for this when Miss Gilchrist answers the door in response to a bell that no one else hears and a caller that no one else sees. Pages 26–7 of the notes consider the ramifications of such a development. But this was subsequently subsumed into the nun motif and the impersonation took on a more leisurely aspect.
Does Helen, while with Jean, see woman who collects subscriptions – herself – and immediately after appear as herself – quick change owing to geography of house – such as appearing at front door and in Hall – just calling to ask you – one moment please – two voices. Helen hurries into room where Jean is upstairs – she is in morning room. Jean rings up police – then goes down – visitor is there
Or
Visitor coming in – J says will you wait – get my purse – goes to phone tells police – comes out finds Helen. H goes down to keep him in play – gone.
Appearance of all the people
Cora – blonde hair faded curls like a bird’s nest – make up – big? plump? or a hennaed bang
Miss Earle [Gilchrist] – grey hair brushed back – Pince nez or iron-grey bob – very thin
The caller – blue grey hair well dressed – (transformation) slight moustache – dark eyes (belladonna) deep voice – well cut tweeds – large sensible feet. When Jean sees her – difference in costume wig – coat and street shoes – all removed – thrown in closet – overall and slippers – Gone! What did she come for? Things have to be got rid of – taken away in suitcase – left in train
Finally, most of Chapter 20 is sketched in the latter stages of the notes. In the first paragraph Poirot reviews all the important facts of the case as he tries to sleep (Chapter 20 ii).
P goes to bed – feels something significant said – odd business about Cora’s painting – paint – Timothy – smell of paint. Something else – something connected with Entwhistle – something Entwhistle had said – significant – and something else – a malachite table and on it wax flowers only somebody had covered the malachite table with paint. He sat up in bed. Wax flowers – he remembers that Helen had arranged them that day. A rough plan – Mr Entwhistle – the smell of paint – the wax flowers.
Although the necessary clues are here paraded for the reader, how many will appreciate their significance?
I
mmediately following, the scene where Helen realises the implication of what she noticed at the funeral is sketched, although this is broken into two scenes in the book (Chapter 20 iii and iv):
Helen – in the room – to see ourselves – she looks – my right eye goes up higher – no it’s my left – she made an experimental face – she put her lead on one said and said it was murder wasn’t it? And with that it came back to her – of course – that was what was wrong – excited – goes down to telephone – (or in early morning) – Mr E – do you see – she didn’t – CONK
After the Funeral contains what is probably Christie’s simplest subterfuge and one that is, in retrospect, maddeningly obvious. Even without this ploy it remains a clever but conventional detective novel. The trick played on the reader puts it straight into the classic Christie class.
Destination Unknown
1 November 1954
* * *
In order to solve the mystery of his disappearance, Hilary Craven agrees to impersonate the dead wife of scientist Thomas Betterton. She joins a mysterious group aboard a plane bound for an unknown destination and when it lands in the middle of nowhere she needs all her courage and wits.
* * *
The UK serialisation of Destination Unknown preceded book publication by two months, while US readers had to wait until 1955, when it was published as So Many Steps to Death. From this year onwards Christie produced only one title per year. This cutback in production is understandable when it is remembered that 1952 and 1953 each saw the publication of two books, as well as work on the scripts of Spider’s Web and Witness for the Prosecution.
Following only four years after They Came to Baghdad, Destination Unknown is another adventure-cum-travel story and an even more unlikely one than the earlier title. Like all Christie titles, even the weakest, it has a compelling premise, but one that is not developed or resolved in a manner we have come to expect of the Queen of Crime. The opening section dealing with the state of mind of Hilary Craven as she considers suicide could have been more profitably developed at the expense of some of the interminable travel sequences, which merely pad out the novel. Unlike other one-off heroines in earlier titles – Anne Beddingfeld38 in The Man in the Brown Suit, Victoria Jones in They Came to Baghdad, and, in a more domestic setting, Emily Trefusis in The Sittaford Mystery and Lady Frances Derwent in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? – Hilary is not looking for either adventure or a husband. She is a divorced woman and has been a mother; in fact, it is the loss of her husband through divorce and the death of her child that causes her to agree to the seemingly outrageous suggestion that she change her method of suicide from sleeping pills to a potentially fatal impersonation. Also unlike the others, she works alone once the impersonation begins because from then she can trust no one. Destination Unknown contains none of the light-hearted scenes of the earlier They Came to Baghdad, mainly due to the fact that Victoria and Hilary are totally different characters.
There are a mere dozen pages of notes, scattered over Notebooks 12, 53 and 56; and Notebook 12 has a page dated ‘Morocco Cont[inued]. Feb 28th’.
The year is, in all likelihood, 1954. Collins were anxious as that year progressed and no book reached them. If Christie was still plotting it in February in the year of publication, this would indeed be a cause for alarm. This is somewhat reflected in Notebook 12, which has four scattered attempts to get to grips with the plot. The dated page goes on to discuss possible plot developments when Hilary has already arrived at her final destination, so it is safe to assume that most of the plotting was complete at that stage.
The notes for Destination Unknown are inextricably linked with those of They Came to Baghdad from three years earlier. Much of the sketching of They Came to Baghdad features a character named Hilary/Olive and it would seem that, to begin with, the ideas that were to be included in one novel eventually generated two. The earliest indication of this comes in Notebook 56, where four possible ideas for The House in Baghdad (an early title for They Came to Baghdad) were noted. As we have seen in the discussion of They Came to Baghdad, three of these ideas were indeed used for that novel, and one broke off to become the basis of Destination Unknown.
Notebook 12 contains notes mainly for the first half of the book, before Hilary arrives at her destination. Although they are very sketchy, most of the following ideas appear in the novel with only the usual name changes:
Morocco – Hospital – Olive dying says ‘Warn him – Boris – Boris knows – a password – Elsinore?
Ou sont les neiges – The snows of yesteryear. The Snow Queen – Little Kay – Snow, Snow beautiful snow you slip on lump and over you go. [Chapter 4]
She is vetted by Dalton . . . The instructions – tickets etc. She goes to hotel – her conversation with people. Miss Hetherington – stylish spinster; Mrs. Ferber [Baker?] – American [Chapter 5]
Hilary – goes to Marrakesh. Then to fly to Fez – small plane – or plane to Tangier. Comes down – forced landing – petrol poured over it – bodies
Fellow travellers
Young American – Andy Peters
Hilary
Olaf Ericsson [Torquil Ericsson]
Madame Depuis – elderly Frenchwoman
Carslake – business man – or could be German
Dr. Barnard [Dr Barron]
Mrs Bailer [Mrs Baker]
Nun [Helga Needham] [Chapter 8]
Morocco Cont. Feb 28th
The arrival
Start from a point or little later. Hilary is finishing toilet? Dresses – her panic – no escape. ‘That’s not my wife’ – sits on bed – fertile brain thinking out plans – injure her face? Story about wife – couldn’t come? Dead? That journalist is it Tom Betterton – the hostess comes for her – meeting with Tom – ‘Olive’ [Chapter 11]
Notebook 53 contains the background that the reader learns only at the end of the novel. Unlike her detective novels, the reader is not given the information necessary to arrive at this scenario independently. In these extracts Henslowe is the Betterton of the novel and the American professor is Caspar instead of the Mannheims of the novel. Confusingly, in the book the real wife is Olive and Hilary is the impersonator, but in the Notebook Olive appears as the impersonator.
Morocco
Henslowe – young chemist – protégé of Professor Caspar – (a world famous Atom scientist – refugee to USA). H marries C’s daughter Eva Caspar – Eva dies a couple of years after the marriage. Argument – Eva inherits her father’s genius – is a first-class physicist and makes a discovery in nuclear fission. H. murders her and takes discovery as his.
The idea of a plastic surgeon altering fingerprints is an interesting but unexplored possibility:
This disappearance business is an agency run by an old American – a kind of Gulbenkian39 – he pays scientists good sums to come to him – also plastic surgeons – who also operate on finger prints. A suspicion gets about that Henslowe is not Henslowe because he is not brilliant
And the devious Christie can be seen in the last note (‘Because he is not Henslowe?’). The obvious explanation is not the one she adopts: it is not that ‘Henslowe’ is really someone else, but that he is not the scientist that he purports to be, because his reputation was built on the genius of his dead first wife:
Olive sees real wife dying in hospital – dying words – enigmatic – but they mean something. Olive and Henslowe meet – he recognises her as his wife – why? Because he is not Henslowe?
Christie also toyed with a more domestic variation concerning the earlier murder that set most of the plot in motion:
Conman finds out about murder [of Elsa] and has a hold over him
Communist Agent?
A woman?
Just an ordinary blackmailer?
Henslowe marries again
Deliberately a communist?
Just a devoted woman?
His disappearance and journey to Morocco is planned deliberately by him. [Therefore] Olive when on his tra
il will eventually discover that the dead body they come across (actually the blackmailer) is a private murder by Henslowe and all the Russian agents stuff is faked by Henslowe
After four very traditional whodunits in the previous two years – Mrs McGinty’s Dead, They Do It with Mirrors, A Pocket Full of Rye, After the Funeral – Destination Unknown is a disappointment. Despite a promising opening the novel ambles along to a destination that is more unbelievable than unknown, with little evidence of the author’s usual ingenuity. The denouement of They Came to Baghdad unmasked an unexpected (if somewhat illogical) villain but there are no surprises at the climax of Destination Unknown. It is undoubtedly the weakest book of the 1950s.
The Unexpected Guest
12 August 1958
* * *
When Michael Starkwedder stumbles out of the fog and into the Warwick household, he finds Richard Warwick shot dead and his wife, Laura, standing nearby holding a revolver. Between them they concoct a plan to explain the situation before ringing the police. But who really shot Richard Warwick?
* * *
During the 1950s Agatha Christie reigned supreme in London’s West End. The Hollow led off the decade in June 1951, followed by The Mousetrap in November 1952. October 1953 saw the curtain rise on Witness for the Prosecution; Spider’s Web opened in December of the following year and Towards Zero (co-written with Gerald Verner) in September 1956. In 1958 two new Christie plays appeared – Verdict in May and The Unexpected Guest in August. With the exception of Verdict all were major theatrical successes, two of them at least, The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution, assuring Agatha Christie’s eternal fame as a playwright.