Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

by John Curran

  Eventually, we get to the final and vital idea that was to set Endless Night apart from virtually everything else that Agatha Christie wrote. Note that originally she intended the narrator to be an architect intent on building a house, but in the novel the role of Ellie’s architect was given to the enigmatic Santonix instead:

  Idea? Told in first person—by an architect

  ‘I first heard about Gypsy’s Acre from old Simon Barlow’ etc. looks at it. The perfect house—meets girl

  What do you want

  I want thirty thousand pounds

  What for?

  To build a house

  Without its unreliable narrator this would have been a different, and possibly indifferent, novel. After all, the eternal triangle idea, and two sides of that triangle conspiring to kill the third, is new neither to literature in general nor to crime fiction in particular, much less to Agatha Christie. The originality lies in what further trick the writer can weave around it. And just at the end of her career, when everyone assumed that Agatha Christie had played all the tricks she possibly could, she surprised everyone—yet again. If Endless Night had been told in the third person much of its devastating impact would have been defused.

  This page from Notebook 66 is one of many examples in the Notebooks of Agatha doodling the three intertwined fishes, as sketched by Lois Hargreaves in ‘The House of Lurking Death’ (Partners in Crime). The symbol was subsequently used as the cover design on the Greenway Collected edition of Agatha’s books, begun in the late 1960s and published throughout the 1970s.

  Appendix

  Swan Song—Two Last Stories

  The Capture of Cerberus

  It has always been a minor mystery to Christie scholars why ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ did not appear in The Strand magazine after the other 11 Labours, as it seemed an inexplicable omission. The discovery of a hitherto unknown and unpublished version of the story, with a completely different setting and plot, may now allow us to solve this puzzle.

  In ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ Poirot once more looks for a missing person, and in this respect his twelfth Labour resembles similar missions in ‘The Lernean Hydra’ and ‘The Girdle of Hyppolita’. But there all similarity ends, as this final task has an unprecedented aspect—his quarry is dead.

  Although Collins Crime Club eventually published The Labours of Hercules on 8 September 1947, with Christie adding an introductory Foreword to explain the rationale for Poirot’s undertaking (see Chapter 11), the twelfth story’s non-appearance in The Strand remained puzzling. The magazine had always provided a ready market for Christie short stories throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, with her name emblazoned on the cover as a selling point. Christie herself explicitly mentions this story in the Foreword to the 1953 Penguin edition of The Labours of Hercules when she explains that in the writing of the stories, ‘over the final Capture of Cerberus I gave way completely to despair’. She left it aside for six months and ‘then suddenly, one day coming up on the escalator on the Tube the idea came. Thinking excitedly about it, I went up and down on the escalator about eight times.’ But, as we shall see, while this may be the truth, it is not the entire truth…

  When was it written?

  Clue No. 1

  Labours one to eleven were first published in the UK in The Strand magazine beginning in November 1939 (‘The Nemean Lion’) and culminating in September 1940 (‘The Apples of the Hesperides’). On 12 January 1940 Edmund Cork wrote to Christie about the twelfth story, explaining that he thought that The Strand would not publish it (at this stage they had already published three of them) and suggesting that she think about writing a replacement for eventual book publication. The Strand had already paid £1,200 for the stories as written and if they decided not to publish one of them, as they may have indicated to Edmund Cork, they were not entitled to look for a replacement. On 12 November 1940 (after The Strand had appeared without ‘Cerberus’) she wrote to ask for the return of ‘the Cerberus story’ in order ‘to do a new one’. But it was not until 23 January 1947 (i.e. early in the year of the book’s publication) that the second version was finally submitted.

  Clue No. 2

  Notebook 44 contains most of the notes for all 12 of the stories. At first glance it seems that they were all plotted and finished together, as most of the notes tally with the finished Labours as we know them. But a closer examination, in light of the discovery of the alternative version and this correspondence, shows a potentially different story. The initial notes for the last half-dozen stories all begin, and in some cases finish, on a right-hand page of Notebook 44 with the left-hand page left blank, and follow the sequence of the book. Notes for the first and hitherto unpublished version of ‘Cerberus’ follow this pattern. But the notes for the collected one are inserted, in different ink and slightly different writing, on a left-hand page, sandwiched, out of sequence, between those for ‘The Horses of Diomedes’ and ‘The Flock Of Geryon’. It is not unreasonable to suppose that, when inspiration for the revamped story struck, Christie went back to her original notes and inserted her new idea as near as she could to the original. Also, the later notes are written in biro, whereas the original notes are, like those for all the other Labours, in pencil.

  Why was it never published?

  There can be little doubt that the political situation of the time and the poorly disguised picture of Adolf Hitler in section iii was the main (and probably only) reason for the rejection of the story. Unusually for Christie, it is blatantly political from the first page, mentioning not just the impending war but also the previous one: ‘The world was in a very disturbed state—every nation alert and tense. At any minute the blow might fall—and Europe once more be plunged in war.’ Later in the story we are told about ‘August Hertzlein…[who] was the dictator of dictators. His warlike utterances had rallied the youth of his country and of allied countries. It was he who had set Central Europe ablaze…’ And in case there is any lingering doubt he is later described as having ‘a bullet head and a little dark moustache’.

  This would have been considered much too close to the actual state of the world and one of its inhabitants in 1939 to be considered escapist reading. Why Christie chose to write this story will never be known, as there is little evidence elsewhere in her work that she was particularly political. And the rejection by The Strand may have rankled more than she cared to admit as this very assassination scenario is utilized in the ‘Good Fat Hen’ chapter of One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, published the following year while the Countess Vera is fondly recalled by Poirot in the ‘Maids Are Courting’ chapter of the same novel. The writing of novel and short story would have been contemporaneous.

  Two pages showing the two sets of notes for ‘The Capture of Cerberus’. The left-hand page (Notebook 44) refers to the version published in The Labours of Hercules, and the right-hand page (Notebook 62)…

  …to the newly-discovered earlier version included in the Appendix. Note the difference in handwriting over the almost 10-year period.

  In an interview for her Italian publishers, Mondadori, conducted soon after the publication of Passenger to Frankfurt in 1970, she writes, ‘I have never been in the least interested in politics.’ So why did she not simply tone down the portrait and change the name? Ironically, Chapter 17 of that novel contains more than a passing reference to the main idea of the short story. Is it possible that, 30 years after it had been rejected, Agatha Christie unearthed her idea and inserted it into a very different book? And that, long after The Strand had ceased publication, she had the last laugh?

  ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ (unpublished version) in the Notebooks

  There are notes to the unpublished version of the story in Notebooks 44 and 62:

  Cerberus

  Does Poirot go to look for 2 friends supposedly dead

  Lenin Trotsky Stalin

  George II Queen Anno

  Must go unarmed (like Max Carrados in room story)

  Poirot and Vera Rossakoff�
�says to a friend—‘he brings people back from the dead’

  Dr Hershaltz

  Hitler made a marvellous speech—I am willing to die— and falls shot—a boy. Two men each side of him—surprise him—revolver in hand. The boy was my son—I want him brought back to life.

  Father Lavallois—his convert—he planned to speak—a great meeting—to propose International Disarmament. Dr Karl Hansberg—compiles stastistics—letter of introduction from…medical authorities in Berlin—doctor in charge lured away by religion—nurse tries to prevent him. Herr Hitler—hands him a card.

  While the similarities to Hitler are quite clear in the story, there is no mention of the actual name—until we read Notebook 62. But the ‘hands him a card’ at the end is mystifying; and some of the other references are equally mysterious. If, as is almost certain, this was written in 1939 why are Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin listed? Lenin died in 1924 but Trotsky lived until 1940 and Stalin until 1953; and the other two historical figures were long dead. Moreover, none of them could be considered friends. All the names are crossed out in Notebook 44 but their presence at all is inexplicable. The Max Carrados reference is to the detective created by Ernest Bramah and the story ‘The Game Played in the Dark’; this character and story had already been pastiched in the Tommy and Tuppence collection Partners in Crime, where Tommy emulates the blind detective in the story ‘Blindman’s Buff’.

  This page from Notebook 62, during the original plotting of ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ (despite the reference to ‘destroy human flesh’ and its echo of ‘The Horses of Diomedes’), may represent Christie’s doodles of a variation on the Swastika.

  The Capture of Cerberus (The Labours of Hercules XII)

  i

  Hercule Poirot sipped his apéritif and looked out across the Lake of Geneva.[2]

  He sighed.

  He had spent his morning talking to certain diplomatic personages, all in a state of high agitation, and he was tired. For he had been unable to offer them any comfort in their difficulties.

  The world was in a very disturbed state—every nation alert and tense. At any minute the blow might fall—and Europe once more be plunged into war.

  Hercule Poirot sighed. He remembered 1914 only too well. He had no illusions about war. It settled nothing. The peace it brought in its wake was usually only the peace of exhaustion—not a constructive peace.

  He thought sadly to himself:

  ‘If only a man could arise who would set enthusiasm for peace flaming through the world—as men have aroused enthusiasm for victory and conquest by force.’

  Then he reflected, with Latin commonsense, that these ideas of his were unprofitable. They accomplished nothing. To arouse enthusiasm was not his gift and never had been. Brains, he thought with his usual lack of modesty, were his speciality. And men with great brains were seldom great leaders or great orators. Possibly because they were too astute to be taken in by themselves.

  ‘Ah well, one must be a philosopher,’ said Hercule Poirot to himself. ‘The deluge, it has not yet arrived. In the meantime this apéritif is good, the sun shines, the Lake is blue, and the orchestra plays not badly. Is that not enough?’

  But he felt that it was not. He thought with a sudden smile:

  ‘There is one little thing needed to complete the harmony of the passing moment. A woman. Une femme du monde—chic, well-dressed, sympathetic, spirituelle!’[3]

  There were many beautiful and well-dressed women round him, but to Hercule Poirot they were subtly unsatisfactory. He demanded more ample curves, a richer and more flamboyant appeal.

  And even as his eyes roamed in dissatisfaction round the terrace, he saw what he had been hoping to see. A woman at a table nearby, a woman so full of flamboyant form, her luxuriant henna-red hair crowned by a small round of black to which was attached a positive platoon of brilliantly feathered little birds.

  The woman turned her head, her eyes rested casually on Poirot, then opened—her vivid scarlet mouth opened too. She rose to her feet, ignoring her companion at the table, and with all the impulsiveness of her Russian nature, she surged towards Hercule Poirot—a galleon in full sail. Her hands were outstretched, her rich voice boomed out.

  ‘Ah, but it is! It is! Mon cher Hercule Poirot! After how many years—how many years—we will not say how many! It is unlucky.’

  Poirot rose to his feet, he bent his head gallantly over the Countess Vera Rossakoff’s hand. It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess had for him. Now, it was true, the Countess was far from young. Her makeup resembled a sunset, her eyelashes dripped with mascara. The original woman underneath the makeup had long been hidden from sight. Nevertheless, to Hercule Poirot, she still represented the sumptuous, the alluring. The bourgeois in him was thrilled by the aristocrat. The old fascination stole over him. He remembered the adroit way in which she had stolen jewellery on the occasion of their first meeting, and the magnificent aplomb with which she had admitted the fact when taxed with it.[4]

  He said:

  ‘Madame, enchanté—’ and sounded as though the phrase were more than a commonplace politeness.

  The Countess sat down at his table. She cried:

  ‘You are here in Geneva? Why? To hunt down some wretched criminal? Ah! If so, he has no chance against you—none at all. You are the man who always wins! There is no one like you—no one in the world!’

  If Hercule Poirot had been a cat he would have purred. As it was he twirled his moustaches.

  ‘And you, Madame? What is it that you do here?’

  She laughed. She said:

  ‘I am not afraid of you. For once I am on the side of the angels! I lead here the most virtuous of existences. I endeavour to amuse myself, but everyone is very dull. Nichevo?’

  The man who had been sitting with the Countess at her table had come over and stood hesitating beside them. The countess looked up.

  ‘Bon Dieu!’ she exclaimed. ‘I forgot you. Let me present you. Herr Doktor Keiserbach—and this—this is the most marvellous man in the world—M. Hercule Poirot.’

  The tall man with the brown beard and the keen blue eyes clicked his heels and bowed. He said:

  ‘I have heard of you, M. Poirot.’

  Countess Vera overbore Poirot’s polite rejoinder. She cried:

  ‘But you cannot possibly know how wonderful he is! He knows everything! He can do anything! Murderers hang themselves to save time when they know he is on their track. He is a genius, I tell you. He never fails.’

  ‘No, no, Madame, do not say that.’

  ‘But it is true! Do not be modest. It is stupid to be modest.’ She turned to the other man. ‘I tell you, he can do miracles. He can even bring the dead back to life.’[5]

  Something leaped—a startled flash—into the blue eyes behind the glasses. Herr Keiserbach said:

  ‘So?’

  Hercule Poirot said:

  ‘Ah, by the way, Madame, how is your son?’

  ‘The beloved angel! So big now—such shoulders—so handsome! He is in America. He builds there—bridges, banks, hotels, department stores, railways—anything the Americans want.’

  Poirot looked slightly puzzled. He murmured:

  ‘He is then an engineer, or an architect?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ demanded the Countess Rossakoff. ‘He is adorable. He is wrapped up in iron girders and things called stresses. The kind of things I have never understood nor cared about. But we adore each other.’[6]

  Herr Keiserbach took his leave. He asked of Poirot:

  ‘You are staying here, M. Poirot? Good. Then we may meet again.’

  Poirot asked the lady:

  ‘You will have an apéritif with me?’

  ‘Yes, yes. We will drink vodka together and be very gay.’

  The idea seemed to Hercule Poirot a good one.[7]

  ii

  It was on the following eve
ning that Dr Keiserbach invited Hercule Poirot to his rooms.

  They sipped a fine brandy together and indulged in a little desultory conversation together.

  Then Keiserbach said:

  ‘I was interested, M. Poirot, by something that our charming friend said about you yesterday.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She used these words. He can even bring the dead back to life.’

  Hercule Poirot sat up a little in his chair. His eyebrows rose. He said:

  ‘That interests you?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I feel those words may have been an omen.’

  Hercule Poirot said sharply:

  ‘Are you asking me to bring the dead to life?’

  ‘Perhaps. What would you say if I did?’

  Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:

  ‘After all, death is death, Monsieur.’

  ‘Not always.’

  Hercule Poirot’s eyes grew sharp and green. He said:

  ‘You want me to bring a person who is dead to life again. A man or a woman?’

  ‘A man.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘You do not appear appalled by the task?’

  Poirot smiled faintly. He said:

  ‘You are not mad. You are a sane and reasonable individual. Bringing the dead to life is a phrase susceptible of many meanings. It may be treated figuratively or symbolically.’

  The other said:

  ‘In a minute you will understand. To begin with, my name is not Keiserbach. I adopted that name so that I should pass unnoticed. My own name is too well-known. That is, it has been too well-known for the last month.