Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks
Page 21
K. Sarah and Gerard she admits I’ve fallen for him [Part I Chapter 9]
L. Lennox and Marcia—we’ve got to kill her—It would—it would set us all free—HP overhears that last sentence [Part I Chapter 1]
Interestingly, both Appointment with Death and the following book, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, published six months later, feature Christie’s most monstrous creations, Mrs Boynton and Simeon Lee respectively. Both of them bully their family, although in neither case is their tyranny the motivation for their murders. The alternate solution propounded in the stage version of Appointment with Death takes the domination to new heights. This novel also features an early example of a young professional woman in Christie, Dr Sarah King. There had been independent young women in earlier novels—apart from Tuppence Beresford there is Emily Trefusis in The Sittaford Mystery, Frankie in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and Anne Beddingfeld in The Man in the Brown Suit—but Dr King is the first of her profession.
There is much speculation in the notes as to the method of murder, lending strength to the argument that this was a character-driven, rather than a plot-driven, book. And it is not insignificant that in the stage version it is not only a different villain that is unmasked but also a totally different method adopted by the villain. As can be seen, Christie considered quite a few poisons before settling on digitoxin:
Method of Crime etc.
Sarah’s drug stolen
Abricine—Sarah’s stolen—sudden violent illness of Mrs Pl[att]
Prussic acid in smelling salts?
Digitalin
Narcotic at lunch
One servant takes up genuine drink (tea?)—One Lady M who takes false tea
If poison—Coniine—Digitoxin—Coramine
If coniine or coramine—did Lady MacMartin and Miss Pierce go up and speak to her—she did not answer
If insulin Mrs P injected herself
Point of coniine (or coramine) the muscular paralysis
The old woman sits—each of family goes up and speaks to her—they all see she is dead—but no one says so
The stage adaptation, up to the denouement, is largely the same as the novel. However, as with some of the other stage plays—The Hollow, Death on the Nile, Go Back for Murder/Five Little Pigs and Cards on the Table (although not dramatised by Christie)—Poirot is dropped. The major difference is the new ending but there is also a discussion in Act II, Scene I of Mrs Boynton’s previous career as a wardress. Both of these are discussed in the notes. And it is the seemingly insignificant Miss Price who supplies the vital information leading to the solution, as Christie sketches the revelatory dialogue:
Do you know—have you done perhaps done rescue work? A wardress. Miss P uncomfortable—gets up goes away. Sarah who is sitting nearby—then breaks in—‘That explains a lot of things—you didn’t give up your job when you married—you’ve carried on with it. The need to dominate etc.’
To be a drug addict—so very sad for the family
S: Miss Pierce what are you saying
Miss P: Nothing—nothing at all
S: Are you saying that Mrs. Boynton took drugs
Miss P: I found out—quite by accident—of course. I knew it was far worse
S: But that means…Mrs. Boynton was a drug addict
Miss P: Yes dear, I know
S: Tell me—you’ve got to tell me
Miss P: No, I shall say nothing. The poor woman is dead and…
S: Tell me—what did you see or hear—
Miss P tells what she saw—put into stick. Sarah calls Col. Carbury—all come—takes out from stick
A Caribbean Mystery 16 November 1964
While holidaying in the West Indies, Miss Marple is subjected to the endless reminiscences of Major Palgrave. After his sudden death she regrets not paying more attention when he talked about a murderer he knew. Is it possible that the same killer is planning another crime on St Honore?
In A Caribbean Mystery Christie used memories of a holiday in Barbados from a few years earlier. It is Miss Marple’s only foreign case, although sending her abroad had been considered shortly before Christie began Four-Fifty from Paddington:
Miss Marple—somewhere on travels—or at seaside
The notes for A Caribbean Mystery are scattered over 14 Notebooks, although many of these are no more than jottings of isolated ideas that Christie subsumed into A Caribbean Mystery when she came to write it in 1963. Notebook 4 shows early musings and in Notebook 48 we find speculation about two couples:
1961 Projects
Carribean [sic]—Miss M—after illness—Raymond and Wife—Daughter—or son? Bogus major Taylor—like a frog—he squints.
Idea A Couples Lucky and Greg Evelyn and Rupert [Edward]
Greg very rich American—Lucky wants to marry young chap—however pretends it is Rupert—has affair with him. Point is to be R. kills Greg or Evelyn kills G by mistake for R. Really it is young man kills Greg
Despite the presence of two couples with almost identical names in the novel, none of the various permutations and combinations considered here found their way into A Caribbean Mystery. And in Notebook 35 she lists what were to become three novels, although the alphabetical sequence is odd. Perhaps this is the order in which she intended to write them, although they were actually published in the order below:
1962 Notes for 3 books
Y. The Clocks (?)
Z. Carribean [sic] Mystery
X. Gypsy’s Acre
Some of the ideas Christie jotted down in the various Notebooks—the frog-faced Major, someone telling longwinded stories about murder, the administration of hallucinogenic drugs and a husband who ‘saves’ his wife a few times only to ‘fail’ to save her at some later stage—do appear in the novel. She also reminds herself a few times about ‘The Cretan Bull’ from The Labours of Hercules and its use of hallucinogenic drugs:
Look up datura poisoning as administered by Indian wives to husbands—and re-read Cretan Bull
Book about Cretan Bull idea—insanity induced by doses of Belladonna
Play or Book—depending on root idea of Murder Made [sic] Easy or Cretan Bull—everything closing round one person gradually—engineered by someone else
A man’s wife hangs herself—he cuts her down in time. Really man is preparing the way for her suicide…Does this tie in with what doctor or other officer remembers of another case—same man
Story about—woman hanged herself—husband cut her down in time—hushed up
One fact strikingly revealed by the Notebooks is how different a story A Caribbean Mystery could have been. In early drafts in Notebook 3 we see the germ of a bizarre idea, not pursued, which is elaborated in Notebook 18. Note also the early possibility of including Hercule Poirot. I can only speculate that Poirot was dropped in favour of Miss Marple as Christie, now as elderly a lady as her creation, had spent a happy holiday in the Caribbean:
(Happy idea) West Indian book—Miss M? Poirot
Girl crippled by polio—has given up her young man—goes out to where they were going on their honeymoon—she has nurse with her—a rather doubtful character—girl kills anyone who is happy
West Indies
Miss Marple and possibly Jean Brent—Polio victim and a hospital nurse Doran Watson (Miss? Mrs.?)
Could start with the girl—Jean—crippled—tells fiancé she must give him up—he protests—everyone applauds her—then given a trip because she wishes she could get away. Raymond must perhaps make an arrangement with Mrs. Watson who is going with an old Mr. Van Dieman (rich)—(to give him massage every day?)…
If a warped Jean who hates to hear other people’s happiness is the murderer—how does she bring it about.
Poison? Narcotic? Tranquillisers? Substitution of same Pep pills—What drug
Combine Polio Jean—(or car accident) sacrifice with frog faced Major (West Indies)
Three consecutive pages in Notebook 3 contain three important elements of A Caribbean Mystery:
&nb
sp; Book about Cretan Bull idea—insanity induced by doses of Belladonna.
2 pairs husband and wife—B and E apparently devoted—actually B and G (Georgina) have had an affair for years—Brian, G’s husband doesn’t know? Really it is a different husband and wife—husband is a wife killer. Old ‘frog’ Major knows—has seen him before—he is killed
And it is in Notebook 18 that we get the main source of misdirection (even though it is mentioned frequently)—the idea of the glass eye:
A different story by Major P—his glass eye rests on ? (1) ? (2) but really on Jean and Nurse Boscombe
Interestingly, in the original typescript at the end of Chapter 23 and after the ‘Evil Eye…Eye…Eye’ clue, there is an extra sentence—‘Miss Marple gasped.’ This may have been considered too daring and does not appear in the published version. And in Notebook 23 we get a rough sketch, literally, of the all-important scene, with the Major looking over Miss Marple’s shoulder. Here Christie draws, probably for her own clarification, the physical set-up as Miss Marple listens to the Major’s story and misinterprets his gaze:
After lunch Miss Marple talking to Maj—verandah steps
Notebook 58 is still considering very basic character setting and a slightly different version of the story told by Major Palgrave. Here, the CID man who investigated the crimes tells the story directly to Miss Marple. At this stage in the planning there is no mention of the hotel owners—just the quartet. But there was to be a Christiean twist, not adopted for the novel, even with this limited field of suspects.
Carribean [sic] Mystery
A quartet [of] friends
Mr and Mrs R. Rupert and Emily—English—friends of many years standing—one pair app[ear] very devoted. One daywife confides they never speak to each other in private—husband (to girl) says wonderful life together—which is lying?
The CID man is in County district in England—man’s phone broken down—he walks into town—(car at garage) for doctor—they get back—wife is dead—heart?—man terribly upset—it worries CID man—remembers man—has seen him before—remembers—in France—and his wife had died—same thing in Canada—then marries an American woman—comes to Tobago—CID man found dead
But is it really the woman—The dog it was that died
The wrong man or wrong woman dies—of heart trouble so that you suspect the wrong pair—really Mrs Rupert is the one with her fads and illnesses—she and chap are having an affair
Finally, we can see the amount of thought that went into the Major and his story, elements of which appear in three Notebooks:
Problem of Major P
Points Why did Major not recognise his murderer before?
No new comers to the island—Edward, Greg, Van D Jackson all known to him
Answer by Miss M?—Major had not seen the man himself—this was a story told him—he had only glanced at snap—then kept it as a curiosity—he takes it out preparatory to showing it to her looks at it—looks up, seeing suddenly the man in the photograph—hastily stuffs it back again
Possibilities (1) Major had several murderer stories that he had picked up in course of travel
(2) Could Miss M—(or Esther) have misunderstood
(3) (Not supported!) Esther lied—why?
The murderer story is different—could be either a man or a woman.
Does Kelly tell Miss M—how Palgrave told him a story this indicates that it was a woman
Miss M with Jenny in West Indies
The frog faced Major—his gossip—glass eye—appears to be looking different direction from what he really is—3 husband and wives applicable—Chuck and Patty (affair?)—Greg and Sarah Evelyn
Once more, we can see how the fertility of Christie’s imagination might have created a very different novel from the one we have.
9
In a Glass Darkly:
The Unknown Christie
‘…that is to say UN Owen. Or by a slight stretch of fancy: UNKNOWN’
Ten Little Niggers, Chapter 3
Apart from Agatha Christie’s enormous known output there is also a number of works that are largely unknown, except to the most ardent fans. These titles are all scripts, either for the stage or radio, and have all been either performed or published. And all of these titles feature in the Notebooks, some of them to a large degree.
Agatha Christie is still the only crime novelist to have had an equally successful career as a playwright. Indeed, arguably the greatest monument to her success is a play, The Mousetrap. The majority of her plays are well known but there are still a few surprises.
Akhnaton is a non-crime script from 1937 based on the reallife Pharoah Akhnaton of Egypt. The little-known Rule of Three contains three utterly contrasting one-act plays, Christie’s only venture into this form. And the final title in this chapter is the last play that she wrote, Fiddlers Three. Neither play received encouraging reviews, although both contain much interesting material.
For future consideration are the totally unknown radio plays Personal Call and Butter in a Lordly Dish, and Chimneys. The latter is her own adaptation, and reworking with a new villain, of the 1925 novel The Secret of Chimneys; the former two original plays written directly for radio. None of the three is currently available in any form.
Rule of Three 20 December 1962
Over 40 years after her career began Christie was still experimenting when Rule of Three was first presented at the Duchess Theatre, London. Reviews were not good however and apart from Fiddlers Three, which never had a West End run, it lowered the curtain on her golden age of theatre. It is now an unknown Christie because it has seldom been staged since. But Rule of Three shows that, even after a lifetime of hoodwinking her audience, she still had the ability to surprise and entertain. Each of the three plays represents a different aspect of Christie and, moreover, aspects that are very unexpected and atypical. Of the three plays, Afternoon at the Seaside is the most unlikely play ever to have come from the pen of Agatha Christie; The Rats is not a whodunit but a claustrophobic will-they-get-away-with-it; while The Patient is the essence of Christie.
As early as 1955, seven years before its first presentation, in Notebook 3 Christie was including Rule of Three in a list of ‘Projects’. The same list also anticipates what were to become Four-Fifty from Paddington (‘New Book Miss M?’ below) and the next Westmacott novel, eventually titled The Burden. At that stage the three projected plays were to be adaptations of existing, and mutually contrasting, stories; both ‘Accident’ and ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’ are from The Listerdale Mystery and ‘S.O.S.’ is included in The Hound of Death. It is worth noting that ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’ has a thematic connection—the disappearance of jewels on a beach—with the play eventually decided upon, Afternoon at the Seaside; and both are lighthearted in tone. The grim poisoning short story ‘Accident’ had already been adapted in 1939 by Margery Vosper as Tea for Three.
General Projects 1955
Angle of Attack Mary Westmacott
The Unexpected Guest Play 3 Acts
Three Plays (Rule of Three?)
1. Accident?
2. Rajah’s Emerald?
3. S.O.S.?
New Book Miss M? P?-
By Notebook 24, two of the eventual titles, C and B below, were included in the following jotting, ‘S.O.S.’ (although with a question mark) still remaining as the third. Inexplicably, they are listed on the page in reverse alphabetical order; when presented The Rats is performed first, followed by Afternoon at the Seaside, and culminating with The Patient.
Rule of Three 3 1-Act plays for P.S.
C. The Patient
B. Seaside Holiday—I do like to be beside the seaside
A. S.O.S.? [sic]
The Locket
Christmas Roses
Green Paint Or Telephone Call—
‘P.S.’ was Peter Saunders, her long-time producer. Though the remaining references are elusive, the ‘telephone call’ in the second list is probably the seed of The Rats
, where the telephone sets the trap into which the rats are lured; and ‘Green Paint’ may be a cryptic reference to the proposed innovation she had in mind for the end of The Patient (see below).
The Rats
Adulterous lovers Sandra and David each receive a phone call inviting them to the flat of a mutual acquaintance. When they try to leave they discover that they are locked in—and there is a dead body in the Kuwait Chest.
The Rats is not a whodunit although there are a few mysterious deaths, explained by the end of the play. The most obvious similarity is to the Poirot story ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’, and its later and more elaborate version, ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’. In that story a suspicious husband hides in the chest hoping to catch his wife and her lover in flagrante; in The Rats, when the Sandra and David realise that they have been lured to the flat, they suspect a similar trap. But the play develops in a more macabre fashion. It does retain the clue of the little heap of sawdust beneath the chest that gives Poirot ‘furiously to think’ in the short story. Notebook 24 contains almost five pages of notes:
The Rats
Flat belongs to the Torrances—rather bare—a Kuwait chest is centre—high up into roof- built in cupboards—a dark divan covered with curtains etc.—a long ply wood table— some modern chairs—one or two pieces of Persian pottery—a big Arab long nosed beak nosed coffee pot
Body in cupboard—Baghdad Chest—Oh! My God—It’s Robert—Police will come—girl and man discover body of her husband—Alec arrives—a Mischa like person—says he got phone call
Although there have been gay characters in Christie before this (Mr Pye in The Moving Finger, Murgatroyd and Hinchcliffe in A Murder is Announced and Horace Bundler in ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’), Alec in The Rats is the most unequivocal and stereotypical example and far more sinister than, for example, Christopher Wren in The Mousetrap. He is described in the script as ‘the pansy type, very elegant, amusing, inclined to be spiteful’ and his love for Sandra’s former husband is openly discussed. The Mischa reference, above, is puzzling.