by Mark Place
Unlike many mystery short story series, which are planned as a group and appear monthly in some magazine, the Mr. Quin stories appeared at irregular intervals, from 1924 to 1929. Complete dates for all their magazine appearances in Britain and the USA are difficult to track down. The last tale in the book, "Harlequin's Lane" (1927), has been wrenched out of magazine order, apparently because its supernatural aspects provide some sort of finale or thematic summing up of the stories as a whole. The Mr. Quin stories mix genres and approaches to mystery. Some of the tales are romantic dramas, and have little crime or mystery elements. Among these, "The Soul of the Croupier" (1926) is especially satisfying. It reminds one of "The Listerdale Mystery" (1925) and "The Manhood of Edward Robinson" (1924), and is fairly light hearted in approach. Much grimmer, and with a definite feminist slant, is "The Man From the Sea" (1929). It is one of many stories in the mystery field that treat spousal abuse with seriousness - see also Rineheart’s "Alibi For Isabel". The book's final story, "Harlequin's Lane" (1927), is the most supernatural oriented in the series. It anticipates Michael Powell’s film The Red Shoes (1948) with its mixture of ballet and fantasy. Somehow, it is based on the same extremely dubious idea as that film, that a woman dancer cannot marry and have a family life. Why not, one might ask? I like this final tale much less that most of the Mr. Quin stories.
In addition to these three tales with little or no mystery in them, "The World's End" (1926) has only a small mystery plot. It too is a satisfying work. "The World's End" is especially good when it describes painting, especially the gifted woman painter, someone whose talents and aspirations are treated with complete seriousness by the author - another feminist story in Christie's oeuvre. It has a similar island setting to "The Man From the Sea".
By contrast, many of the Mr. Quin tales are puzzle plot detective stories. "The Shadow on the Glass" (1924) and "The Dead Harlequin" (1929) show the influence of G. K. Chesterton. The tales are somewhat unusual among Christie's work in that the crimes have a supernatural appearance. See also "The Idol House of Astarte" in The Tuesday Night Club Murders. In both of these stories, Christie invokes a tradition of hauntings of Stately English Homes.
They do not quite invoke the full supernatural mise-en-scène of a John Dickson Carr story. Instead, their invocation has an element of historic charm. Both stories were favorites of mine while growing up. Another Mr. Quin tale, "The Voice in the Dark" (1926), is also an impossible crime story with a fake supernatural appearance about its crime. But here the solution lies not in a Chesterton-like ingenuity about the crime, but in an exploration of the characters' past. This sort of detective work is more derived from the stories of Anna Katherine Green. One reason Christie's plots are so difficult to guess is that she uses such a variety of approaches in their solutions.
The reader is not at all sure at the start of the tale what kind of story is about to unfold. In retrospect, after reading the solution, one can say that this or that story belongs among Christie's Chesterton like tales, or her Green like explorations of the past, or her Orczy like look at hidden relationships under surface appearances. But while reading the tales, the reader can expect Christie to unleash any or all of these approaches in her solution. It makes for a very baffling challenge.
The Labors of Hercules
The Labors of Hercules (1939-1940) contains twelve stories about Hercule Poirot. Each tale deals with one of the mythological labors of the Greek hero Hercules; Christie finds a modern parallel to the ancient labor, making it a basis for a mystery tale. This is one of Christie's most delightful books.
The Labors of Hercules has a number of similarities to the earlier The Mysterious Mr. Quin:
The many references to Greek mythology give a fantastic aura and feel to the events. This functions a bit like the magical Harlequin imagery in the Mr. Quin tales - even though there is nothing actually fantastic about any of the tales in The Labors of Hercules. The last three stories in The Labors of Hercules also have much religious imagery, which also fits in with the metaphysical nature of both collections.
As in the earlier book, quite a few of the stories have a background in the worlds of art and culture. This gives both works a tie to the Van Dine school of writers in America, who often set their tales against the world of the intelligentsia.
Both books also frequently transpire in European settings, especially resort areas on the Continent.
A number of the stories in both volumes have a strong romantic feel, with "The Arcadian Deer" being especially like the romances in The Mysterious Mr. Quin. "The Apples of the Hesperides" is also a tale with less mystery, and more pure emotion, although it is not a love story. In addition, a number of the genuine mysteries have strong romantic subplots.
Two of the stories involve ingenious impossible crimes: "The Girdle of Hyppolita", "The Capture of Cerberus". Impossible crimes were also prominent in the earlier collection.
Politics, Gender and Society. A theme throughout The Labors of Hercules are the schemes of women, both honest and crooked. There are more female villains here than in any other Christie source, and quite a few good women who launch ingenious, mysterious plots, as well. The dialogue is full of references to the mysterious and miraculous nature of women. The attitude is less criticism for women being involved with crime, and more one of admiration for women's ingenuity. A number of tales show aging women trying to make their way through a treacherous, male dominated world. Christie herself was around 50 when these tales were written. The opening story, "The Nemean Lion", deals more deeply with material of this sort which Christie first explored with "The Listerdale Mystery". Even a number of supporting characters who seemingly just appear in passing, such as the women who runs the boarding house in "The Nemean Lion", and the school teachers in "The Girdle of Hyppolita", illustrate women making their way alone through the economy of the era.
Politics is also a running theme throughout. "The Augean Stables" is a richly political story. The book version (published in 1947) condemns both Fascism and Communism; I have not seen the original magazine version of the tale. This story involves political corruption in the highest reaches of the British government. In this it resembles An Overdose of Death (1940), the classic Poirot novel that Christie was writing about the same time. That novel satirizes, but is ultimately sympathetic to, young socialists who want to build a labor government in Britain. We get some of the same satire, but with less sympathy, in "The Capture of Cerberus". The opening of "The Girdle of Hyppolita" reflects unemployment and protest in Britain of the era. Other stories paint a picture of corrupt business practices among the big rich: "The Nemean Lion", "The Apples of the Hesperides". And while "The Flock of Geryon" deals with a religious cult group, it can be seen as an allegory about the sinister lure of radical political movements, too. Miss Carnaby's pipe dreams involve a Utopian reworking of the world. Christie shows both sympathy and satire here, just as she will with the Utopian dreams of the young people in An Overdose of Death. All of this makes this book far more political than most of Christie's writings.
If Mr. Sattherwaite in The Mysterious Mr. Quin seems like a gay man, in The Labors of Hercules it is Poirot himself who can seem like a gay figure. Especially in "The Arcadian Deer", Poirot comes across as a figure steeped in the world of sophisticated culture, like Mr. Sattherwaite. This story comes close to showing Poirot directly attracted to a young man. So too does "The Cretan Bull". The ballet designer in "The Arcadian Deer" also seems like a gay man. Similarly, in Murder on the Links (1923), Captain Hastings is attracted to a young woman, while Poirot is indifferent to her charms (Chapter Two), a situation that recurs in "Double Sin" (1928). H.R.F. Keating offers a detailed account of purported gay features of Poirot's character, in his essay in the critical anthology Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime (1977). Although Christie is often viewed by critics as a frivolous writer, these tales are vividly situated in contexts: political, feminist, religious, economic, different European nationalities, and involving the arts and c
ulture.
Concealed Methods. "The Nemean Lion" has a mystery plot, in which an apparently straightforward crime was actually done in a more practical but cunningly concealed way. In this it is similar to the Miss Marple tale "The Herb of Death". Such stories are a bit related to the "howdunit" - a story in which the main mystery is figuring out the mechanism of the crime. Howdunits were a favorite of S. S. Van Dine, and others in his school, such as Ellery Queen and Stuart Palmer. Howdunits can be seen as related to the impossible crime, although this is a rather distant relationship in the case of these Christie stories. In a different way, the tone and subject matter of "The Nemean Lion" recall "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook" in The Under Dog, both being comic tales in which Poirot takes on seemingly trivial domestic problems for women clients, and finds unexpectedly puzzling mysteries in the process.
Undercover operations. Undercover operations, especially by the police, are a running plot gambit. They are central to "The Erymanthian Boar", and Miss Carnaby's undercover work in "The Flock of Geryon" is notable as well. They also play a comic role in "The Capture of Cerberus". The policeman in the latter tale reminds one of the sophisticated Scotland Yard figure in Edgar Wallace’s The Green Archer (1923), who also poses as a rich young idler of the most polished sort. This whole story has a Wallace-like feel, with a setting among cafe society permeated by big level crooks. It recalls the Wallace spoof "The Crackler" (1924) in Partners in Crime. Both tales involve crooks with criminal schemes at racy London night life spots. The night club setting has some of Christie's richest mise-en-scène, a term she uses herself in "The Horses of Diomedes". All the settings in the book are characterized with care.
Paralleling the tales of police undercover work, are stories of criminals and their own undercover schemes. "The Stymphalean Birds", "The Horses of Diomedes" and "The Capture of Cerberus" form a series of tales, with some common approaches. These look forward to the Miss Marple novel At Bertram's Hotel (1965). "The Oracle at Delphi" (1933) in Parker Pyne Investigates is a related work, as is also perhaps "The Veiled Lady" (1923) from Poirot Investigates. The Miss Marple story "Ingots of Gold" (1928) from The Thirteen Problems (or The Tuesday Night Club Murders) perhaps also belongs to this tradition, and there are elements of it as a subplot in "The Regatta Mystery". The stories in this tradition have some plot ideas in common with the Mr. Quin tale "At the Bells and Motley" (1925) and the Miss Marple "The Case of the Perfect Maid" (1942), although these works are distinctly different in overall approach.
These tales also recall Number 4 in The Big Four (1924 - 1927) and his numerous disguises, which tend to include various new roles, as well as purely physical disguise. These disguises are the most interesting aspect, of an otherwise lesser Christie work. The disguise elements are richest in Chapters 2, 4, 7. Then in Chapter 14, Poirot does some inventive detective work figuring out the disguises. Christie's own spoof of the book, "The Man Who Was No. 16" (1924) in Partners in Crime, also centers on disguise.
The spot-the-criminal-impostor puzzler "The Gate of Baghdad" (1933) in Parker Pyne Investigates also belongs here. So does the spot-the-hidden-Nazi-spy puzzle in N or M? (1941). Both tales feature a group of seemingly ordinary, honest people, in which one or more characters, we learn right from the start, is actually a notorious criminal or spy - but we don't know which one. The reader has to figure out the guilty impostor. Not quite undercover work, but a tale of "respectable" people with secret involvements occurs in The Seven Dials Mystery (1929). Christie sometimes does ingenious things, with reversing our understanding of good and evil involvements. One suspects that both the secret organization, and the reversal in our understanding of guilt and goodness, were influenced by The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) by G. K. Chesterton. Even the time symbolism of the group members in The Seven Dials Mystery seems to derive from Chesterton. As a whole, though, this is not one of Christie's better works.
We Must Mention The Miss Marple Short Stories
Miss Marple first appeared in the short story collection, variously known as The Thirteen Problems or The Tuesday Club Murders (1927 - 1931). This book mainly consists of two sequences of six stories each. The first six tales share common characters. So do the second six. As best as can be determined, the first six appeared as a series in late 1927 - early 1928, the second six as a series in late 1929-1930. The collection's final tale, "Death by Drowning" (1931), appeared a year and a half later, in November 1931, and follows a different format from the earlier linked tales. The short-but-good "Miss Marple Tells a Story" (1934) seems to have been written for radio broadcast a few years later. In the meantime, Christie had published the first novel about Miss Marple, The Murder at the Vicarage (1930). These two books were the main writings about Miss Marple till 1941, when Christie resumed using the character.
In 1941-1942 Christie returned to writing about Miss Marple, after a seven year absence. She wrote three short stories, collected in The Mousetrap, and a novel, The Body in the Library (serialized 1941, in book form 1942). The best short tale was "Tape-Measure Murder" (1941). This tale places Miss Marple in the full context of her country village of St. Mary Mead. It is perhaps the Marple work that is closest to today's "cozy" writers in its emphasis on domestic detail. However, it is also very plot oriented, and has a full murder investigation in its 16 pages. It follows Anna Katherine Green’s lead in having investigation both by the police and the amateur Miss Marple; each researches the sort of things that police and amateurs do best. It is also Green-like, in that it delves deeply into the past of the characters, and in the way it investigates a crime scene for clues.
The other two tales in the series are midrange in quality. The rather grim "The Case of the Perfect Maid" (1942) recalls Baroness Orczy in tone. It is especially close in approach to the Mr. Quin "At the Bells and Motley". In "The Case of the Caretaker" (1941) Miss Marple functions as an armchair detective in the manner of Orczy's Man in the Corner, just as she did throughout The Tuesday Night Club Murders. Even before Miss Marple began her armchair detective career, some of the stories in The Mysterious Mr. Quin also took this form, notably "The Coming of Mr. Quin" (1924) and "At the Bells and Motley" (1925). Christie's Double Sin contains two fine stories about Miss Marple written in the 1950's. "Sanctuary" (1954) recycles plot ideas from Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1934). Like many Christie works, the tale is rich in humor. It also allows Miss Marple to become involved in intrigue and a police stakeout. It is a very satisfying piece of storytelling.
Three Blind Mice
Christie occasionally wrote works without her series detectives. Notable among these is the novella "Three Blind Mice" (1948). This started life as a 1947 radio play, before Christie turned it into a prose work. Then Christie adapted it into a stage play, The Mousetrap (1952), which had an extraordinarily long run in London. "Three Blind Mice" is notable among Christie's work for its detailed social observation of middle class life. Many of Christie's pre-war works had taken place among the upper or at least the upper middle classes. "Three Blind Mice" looks at a much more financially modest group of English people. The story is also carefully rooted in a particular time and place: virtually every detail of the plot and setting occurs against a background of the impact of World War II on English domestic and civilian life. World War II had just been over for two years when Christie wrote her radio play in 1947, and English life was still dominated by rationing and shortages. In some ways, the middle class characters and the World War II setting reinforce one another: had Christie tried to set this work among the upper crust, the wealth of the characters would largely have shielded them from England's war time problems.
"Three Blind Mice" is realistic in other ways as well. One of the characters, Christopher Wren, is a remarkably frank portrait of a gay young man. Christopher Wren shares many personality traits with earlier gay figures in Christie, such as Mr. Satterthwaite. However, Mr. Satterthwaite was a well to do, elderly man of wealth and social position, while Christopher Wren is a poor young man who faces prejud
ice and rejection from British society. Like the other characters in the novella, he is much more middle class than many of Christie's usual suspects. Christie wavered in her depiction of gays. Such characters in her mystery fiction as Mr. Satterthwaite and Christopher Wren are largely sympathetic, whereas her dismal non-mystery play Akhnaton (1937) is horribly homophobic. Both of the male characters in the Poirot tale, "The Double Clue" (1925), also seem gay, and they are of different social classes, rather like Mr. Satterthwaite and Christopher Wren, with hints of some sort of hidden relationship between them.
The last thing anyone should suggest is that "Three Blind Mice" is a sociological tract, where Christie lectures her readers while ignoring her mystery plot. In fact, it is almost the exact opposite of this. The biggest mystery in this story is not whodunit, but what the characters are really like. Christie keeps us in suspense as she gradually reveals more and more of her suspects' lives, personalities, and social backgrounds. Consequently, each new detail about the characters' social experiences and sexual orientation serves to fill in another piece of the mystery puzzle. The reader has a burning desire to learn more and more about the characters and their lives, thus understanding these mysterious figures. The novella can be called a "sociological mystery", where the important facts are not physical clues, but an understanding of the characters' personalities, social background and lives. Christie is of course extremely expert at constructing mysteries, and this one is as well crafted as any of her less sociological tales.
"Three Blind Mice" has antecedents in Christie's work, and that of other people. The story resembles And Then There Were None (1939) in isolating a bunch of suspects in an inaccessible location, here a snowbound house. It also resembles that tale in that sinister secrets start coming out about seemingly respectable people. The snowbound setting also recalls the opening of Murder at Hazelmoor (1931). In tone and setting, "Three Blind Mice" also recalls Christie's "Sing a Song of Sixpence" (1929). "Sixpence" is also a story partly set among poorer people. It too has a domestic focus. Both stories are non-series works, without Agatha's series sleuths. And in both stories, the murder is a consequence of a previous domestic tragedy. The plot of "Three Blind Mice" is perhaps closest to "The Erymanthian Boar" (1940) in The Labors of Hercules. Both deal with mysteries of identity, among a group of snowbound people. The final mystery surprise of "Three Blind Mice" and "The Erymanthian Boar" is borrowed from Mary Roberts Rineheart and Avery Hopwood's play The Bat (1920). The same plot idea was used in Christie's "The Adventure of The Sinister Stranger" (1924) in Partners in Crime. Christie had been influenced by Rinehart before - elements of the solution of Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1934) recall Rinehart's The Door (1930).