Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

by John Curran

  The reference to ‘his house party’ is also puzzling. There is no house party setting in The A.B.C. Murders, although the idea does have echoes of the analysis of Sir Bartholomew Strange’s fatal house party in Three Act Tragedy. And, of course, there is no mention of the alphabetical sequence, which is the whole raison d’être of the novel. If the fifth victim is Muriel Lavery then the sequence is certainly not alphabetical.

  Notebook 20 also has a brief outline of the plot and by now the alphabetical sequence has been established. The details of the significant ‘C’ murder have moved nearer to those in the novel. But there are still major differences, especially at the end of the note:

  Aberystwyth—old woman Mrs. Ames—husband suspected

  Bexhill—Janet Taylor Blythe

  Cottersmarch—Sir Morton Carmichael Clarke—also a very wealthy man—his brother Rudolph—anxious to help—Janet Taylor’s friend or sister also keen

  Doncaster—James Don—killed in a cinema

  P. gets a telegram—E.—sends it himself—man is released—R[udolph] says this must be another murder

  Much of the detail of the first four murders here is retained. The A murder features an old lady whose husband is suspected; the location, however, is different (this may be because Andover is easier to spell and/or pronounce than Aberystwyth!). The B murder is the same location although the victim’s name is different. Note the change to a B initial, although Barnard is the surname eventually chosen. The C murder has the same set-up—a wealthy Sir Morton Clarke (note that the name as it appears in the book, Carmichael, is, interestingly, deleted here). The brother and sister of two of the victims are anxious to help, an idea pursued in Poirot’s band of helpers. The D murder does take place in Doncaster and in a cinema, although in the novel it is actually a victim with the surname initial E.

  A major surprise, however, and one that is, unfortunately, left unexplained, is the reference to the E murder. I would hazard a guess that in sending an ABC letter to himself Poirot was stage-managing the release from prison of a suspect (possibly Alexander Bonaparte Cust) he knows to be innocent. He could also have been forcing the killer’s hand, thereby precipitating a more dramatic unmasking in the last chapter.

  Notebook 66, some 50 pages after the first reference, again takes up the novel beginning with possible locations for the murders. It goes on to consider two theories, both of which contain some elements—the existence of a ‘real’ victim, with an avaricious legatee, in a sequence of ‘camouflage’ victims—that Christie eventually adopted. Finally, it lists the questions that Poirot asks his five helpers in Chapter 32 of the novel:

  A.B.C. Murder

  Poirot gets letter To Aberystwyth

  Brixham or Bexhill

  Cheadle or Croydon

  Dartmouth Daneshill

  Theory A

  Intended victim Sir Lucas Oscar Dane—It causes a stir—his fortune goes to his brother Lewis Dane

  Theory B

  Intended victim Janet King

  3rd victim is Sir Oscar Dane—but he is only stabbed—not fatally injured—her will leaves everything to her cousin Vera who is the nurse attending Oscar—Vera and Oscar are attracted to each other

  P asks a question of all of them

  Megan—a passion for truth—want the truth?—NO—You may not want the truth but you can give a truthful answer!

  Thora—would you have married Sir C if his wife had died

  F[ranklin] Do you remember the news in the paper the day you landed or [a question about] Ascot hats

  J. Have you got a young man?

  D[onald] When did you take your holiday

  Only one of the possible locations, Bexhill, was actually used in the book. She rejected nearby Dartmouth and both of the C suggestions, eventually settling on somewhere else she did know well, Churston, as the scene of the C murder. It is still possible to get the train, like Poirot and Hastings, to Churston and walk from there to Greenway House, although at this point, 1934, Christie did not yet own the house.

  Theory A was the eventual choice as the main plot, although Theory B had some interesting possibilities. Sir Oscar Dane faking an attack on himself in order to kill another victim and inherit, through marriage, a fortune from her is a very Christiean concept and would, no doubt, have produced a surprise ending. It does have more than an echo, from two years earlier, of Peril at End House (where Nick Buckley fakes attacks on herself in order to kill her cousin and inherit a fortune) and this is possibly the reason for its rejection.

  The biggest surprise at this point is that the victims are not chosen alphabetically despite the fact that a few pages earlier Christie is listing Brixham/Cheadle/Dartmouth. The third ‘victim’ is Dane and the fourth is King. While some connection between the victims would have been necessary, the alphabetical sequence was inspired. And like many inspirations it is brilliantly simple. Sadly, we will never know who or what inspired it. Perhaps Christie remembered Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, published in September 1934, two months before she began The A.B.C. Murders, where an open ABC Guide is mentioned in Chapter 24 and used as a clue to a character’s whereabouts?

  Finally, the five questions of Chapter 32 all appear in the Notebook as they appear in the book, apart from a different initial (‘J’) for the Mary Drower question and the substitution of the shorter and subtler ‘Ascot hat’ one for the Franklin Clark.

  One of the main themes of Chapter 32 and 35, that of a murderer hunted like a fox, is captured in a last cryptic note:

  Bit about the fox

  ‘Strange Jest’ July 1944

  When wealthy Uncle Mathew dies and leaves very little in his will, his legatees approach Miss Marple in an attempt to uncover the whereabouts of his missing fortune.

  The Miss Marple short story ‘Strange Jest’ was first published in the USA in November 1941 but did not appear in the UK until almost three years later. It is a slight non-crime story built around a single device, the interpretation of clues to a missing fortune. Its brevity, a mere ten pages, confirms its similarity to a rebus or literary acrostic.

  The interpretation of a will appears in a few Christie short stories. Poirot deals with ‘The Case of the Missing Will’, Tommy and Tuppence tackle ‘The Clergyman’s Daughter’/‘The Red House’ and ‘Strange Jest’ is one of the Miss Marple versions, the other being ‘Motive Vs. Opportunity’ in The Thirteen Problems.

  A page in Notebook 62 headed ‘Short Marple Stories’ goes on to list ideas that eventually appeared as ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’, ‘The Case of the Caretaker’, ‘Tape-Measure Murder’, The Moving Finger and, oddly, Endless Night. There are also some unused ideas, including two that appear again and again, the twins and the chambermaid (see ‘The House of Dreams’, page 303). Some pages later, there are three pages of notes on ‘Strange Jest’ including a full outline of the plot:

  Found on love letters from abroad—cryptogram in letter? No—stamps on it.

  Old Uncle Henry—died—had money but hid it somewhere—Gold? Diamonds? Bonds? Last words—taps his eye—(glass eye like Arsene Lupin). They look through desk—secret drawer found by furniture expert—love letters from Sierra Leone signed Betty Martin

  The idea of unrecognised and valuable stamps on an envelope appears again in Spider’s Web nearly 15 years later. The main clue in the story, the phrase ‘all my eye and Betty Martin’, is exactly the same as the main clue in ‘The Four Suspects’ in The Thirteen Problems. The reference to Arsène Lupin is to the crime story ‘The Crystal Stopper’ featuring the French detective, by Maurice Leblanc.

  Also of note is the glass eye idea itself. Christie decided not to use it in this story, instead adopting the idea of Uncle Henry (Mathew in the published version) tapping his eye. But it is entirely possible that the glass eye, which formed a key plot device in A Caribbean Mystery, almost 25 years later, has its origins here.

  A Murder is Announced 5 June 1950

  An advertisement in the local paper announcing a murder bri
ngs many of the inhabitants of Chipping Cleghorn to Little Paddocks, the home of Miss Blacklock, where the ensuing game of Murder turns deadly. Miss Marple, who is visiting the local vicar, investigates a triple killing.

  A Murder is Announced was Agatha Christie’s fiftieth title (although a 1939 US collection, The Regatta Mystery, had to be included in order to reach this significant number) and the occasion of a major launch and celebration party in London’s Savoy Hotel in June 1950. She happily posed for photographs with Sir William Collins beside a cake iced with the jacket design. Other guests included fellow crime writer Ngaio Marsh and the actress Barbara Mullen, then appearing in the West End as Miss Marple in The Murder at the Vicarage.

  A Murder is Announced remains one of the best detective novels Christie ever wrote. It qualifies effortlessly for the Top Ten and it is easily the best of the Marple titles. The last of the ingeniously constructed, daringly clued and perfectly paced detective novels and a wonderful half-century title, it shares a major plot device with both ‘The Companion’ in The Thirteen Problems and ‘The House at Shiraz’ (see Chapter 8) in Parker Pyne Investigates. Although we do not have extensive notes for this title—just ten pages in total—we do have interesting ideas that were toyed with before settling on the final plot. The following reference, in Notebook 35, is idea J in an alphabetical list, dated 1947:

  J. A Murder has been (combine with H)

  People going to meet in a Country house Or at a dinner party in London Like [Ten Little] Niggers—each of them thinking beforehand—about 6 people—they all have motive for killing a certain man—that is why they are asked—victim turns up last—host and hostess (a Mrs North)—it is often let—for parties or a London house—street numbers repainted

  A death has been arranged and will take place on Monday Feb 6th at 20 Ennerly Park Gardens—friends accept this, the only intimation—no flowers by request

  As we shall see, the setting changed a few times before arriving at Chipping Cleghorn, as did the wording of the invitation. And in the finished novel we do indeed meet a group of people going to a house in the country, but not all of them have a motive for murder and the reason for their invitation is very different. ‘Mrs North’ is possibly Christie’s friend Dorothy North (the dedicatee of One, Two, Buckle my Shoe). The reference ‘combine with H’ is to an earlier jotting about a plot, never pursued, involving a divorced mother of two daughters whose first husband inherits a fortune. The children are Primrose and Lavender and the subsequent murders were to involve flowers left by the bodies; hence the ‘no flowers by request’ instruction.

  In Notebook 31 we can see the plot that we know taking shape. These notes are inserted on four pages in the middle of extended notes for They Came to Baghdad dated, some pages earlier, ‘May 24th’. This is, presumably, 1948; on 8 October 1948 Edmund Cork, Christie’s UK agent, wrote assuring her American agent that, although she had not written a word that year, she was shortly to start on a Miss Marple story. In fact she worked on it in 1949.

  Argument I, below, is the plot with which we are familiar although some fine-tuning was necessary—Harry (Patrick Simmons in the novel) is not the victim nor is he in possession of knowledge dangerous to Miss Blacklock. Apart from other name changes, as indicated, this is the plot as it finally appeared.

  The really interesting passage, however, is Argument II. Here we are presented with a totally different plot and murderer with Letitia as victim rather than perpetrator:

  A M[urder] has been arranged

  Letitia Bailey at breakfast reading out [Letitia Blacklock]

  Amy Batter—someone calls her Lottie [Dora Bunner]

  young man Harry Clegg—son or nephew of old school friend? [Patrick Simmons]

  Phillipa Hedges lodger [Phillipa Haymes]

  Col and Mrs Standish [Col. and Mrs Easterbrook]

  ‘Hinch’ and ‘Potts’ [Hinchcliffe and Murgatroyd]

  Edmund Darley and his mother [Edmund and Mrs. Swettenham]

  Mitzi—maid?

  The events

  Argument I

  L[etitia] is Deus ex Machina—Sister ‘Charlotte’ is really her……Sister ‘consumptive’ acting I[n] P[lace]

  Clue

  1 Belle gives this away

  2 Called Lotty by Amy instead of Letty

  [therefore] L. has to remove—Harry? He knows by snapshot—(seen it in album?)—(tie up with disappearance of album?)—(or blank space in it) later—ostensibly photos of P and E—or their mother—Phillipa is ‘Pip’ Recognised by L. who is however quite beneficent towards her and advances theory that H. is Pip. L. shoots Pip H—Later poisoning—Amy dies instead of her—Circle narrows to look for Emma or Emma’s husband—or Phillipa’s husband (missing)—Point anonymous letter from ‘Pip’ (written by L) sent to Belle.

  3rd excitement is the danger to someone who has found out something (Phillipa?) her boy friend (love interest?) Edmund or Edmund’s rather mysterious friend

  Argument II

  Mitzi is prime mover—she is ‘Emma’—Shot young man is her husband—this comes out later—she sticks to it—Harry and Phillipa arranged ambush together—second murder is Letitia—(Mitzi very ill?) Poisoning Mitzi suspected—persecuted Polish Girl—sulky—persecution complex—then she nearly dies—Does Leticia make new will?

  How Harry and Phillipa arranging the ambush was to work is not elaborated unless it was intended to be part of the game. We shall never know.

  In an undated note to Collins, Christie draws attention to the galley proofs and the correct spellings of ‘Lotty’ and ‘enquiries’, reminding them of the importance of ensuring that they are printed incorrectly sometimes—‘Plot depends on this’. There is just a single reference to this in the Notebooks; in Notebook 30 the following appears as an

  Idea

  inquire enquire—both in same letter (part of it forgery)

  When she incorporated this into A Murder is Announced we can see how she used it in a much cleverer way than merely as a forgery. By including the different spellings, on almost

  Apart from its sublime detective plot A Murder is Announced is also a convincing picture of an England stumbling out of post-war austerity. We are no longer in the world of butlers and cocktail receptions; there is no dressing for dinner or questioning the lady’s-maid; no weekend guests or alibis provided by nights at the opera. The shadow of rationing and bartering, deserters and foreign ‘help’, ration books and identity cards hovers over the book. In fact, some of the clues come from that very milieu—the seemingly extravagant use of the central heating, the note with the incriminating spelling, the ease of access to houses to assist bartering. Chapter 10 iii also includes a telling conversation between Miss Marple and Inspector Craddock on the changing of the old order: ‘Fifteen years ago one knew who everybody was…But it’s not like that anymore…nobody knows anymore who anybody is.’ And this, with customary Christie ingenuity, is also subsumed into the plot.

  Another aspect of this novel that merits attention is the understated presence of the lesbian couple, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd. Heretofore, the few examples of gay characters scattered through the novels have been either figures of fun (Mr Pye in The Moving Finger or Mr Ellsworthy in Murder is Easy) or menace (Lord Edgware’s Greek-godlike butler or, some years later, Alec in The Rats). The picture of the Chipping Cleghorn couple is matter of fact and, as far as the villagers are concerned, unremarkable; and after the murder of Murgatroyd, moving. This is a distinct improvement on the representation of Christopher Wren in Three Blind Mice, three years earlier. He is one her campest creations and is described in the original script as having a ‘pansy voice’; and he is not toned down in the stage version two years after A Murder is Announced, where he remarks on the attractiveness of policemen (Act I, Scene ii). Shortly after the appearance of A Murder is Announced, when Christie was planning Mrs McGinty’s Dead, she intended two of the suspects to be ‘2 young men who live together’, although she abandoned this idea.

 
consecutive pages in Chapter 18, in documents supposedly written by the same character, she defies her readers to spot the anomaly and, thereby, a major indication of the killer’s identity. It remains one of her most daring clues. The use of both forms in the same letter might have been a bit too daring and the approach she adopts is much more subtle.

  Although the Notebooks are short on detail for A Murder is Announced, we are fortunate to have the actual typescript—one of the few known to exist—with copious handwritten notes. An inserted handwritten page toys with changes to the name of the village—‘Chipping Burton? Chipping Wentworth?’—instead of the original Chipping Barnet, the name of the Inspector—‘Cary? Craddock?’—instead of the original Hudson and the name of the victim—‘Wiener?’—instead of the original Rene Duchamps. The original wording of the advertisement was also amended from ‘A Murder has been arranged and will take place on Friday Oct. 13th at Little Paddocks at 6.p.m. Friends please accept this, the only intimation.’ And the title on this typescript is the slightly more cumbersome A Murder has been Arranged. Puzzlingly, the name ‘Laetitia’ appears throughout and every example has been amended, by hand, to plain, and accurate, ‘Miss (Blacklock)’, leading to the assumption that this switch was a late inspiration despite its appearance in the notes—‘Sister "Charlotte" is really her’—as above. Christie would have considered it utterly unfair to refer to ‘Laetitia’ if, in fact, the character is actually Charlotte; hence the amendment to the accurate but ambiguous Miss Blacklock.

  The only jarring note in this otherwise near-perfect detective novel is the unlikely denouement in the kitchen of Little Paddocks when Miss Marple practises her hitherto unknown gift for ventriloquism. A feature common to almost all of the Marple titles is the dramatic closing chapter. Like A Murder is Announced, The Body in the Library, The Moving Finger, They Do It with Mirrors, Four-Fifty from Paddington, A Caribbean Mystery, At Bertram’s Hotel, Nemesis and Sleeping Murder all culminate in a theatrical action sequence where the killer incriminates him or herself, usually in a misguided attempt at another murder. In most cases this is because the case that Miss Marple outlines is somewhat short on verification and largely dependent on her intuition, which, however unerring, is not the same as legal proof. Oddly, in A Murder is Announced, above all her other cases, proof is abundant and there are numerous clues to complement Miss Marple’s gifted insight. As Robert Barnard has pointed out in his masterly study of Dame Agatha, A Talent to Deceive, Miss Marple’s reputation as a Great Detective is not improved by her emergence from a broom cupboard at the climax of the novel. This short twopage scene could have been easily amended to omit this embarrassment.