by John Curran
All of the notes for The Sittaford Mystery are contained in 40 pages of Notebook 59. Also in this Notebook are the notes for Lord Edgware Dies and brief notes for some of the Mr Quin stories. The Sittaford notes are very organised and there is little in the way of extraneous material. Most of the chapters are sketched accurately and even some of the chapter headings are included, although the chapter numbers in the Notebook do not correspond exactly with those of the published novel. Unusually, most of the characters’ names, with the exception of the Inspector, are also as published. The notes for the two novels sketched in this Notebook follow each other in an orderly fashion and there are no shopping lists, no breaking off to plan a stage play, no digressions to a different novel. The year 1931 was also the last of the decade in which Christie had only one title published. From 1932 onwards, starting with Peril at End House and The Thirteen Problems, Collins Crime Club published more than one Christie title per year. This increased rate of production is probably one of the reasons that the subsequent Notebooks become more chaotic.
Following in the footsteps of Tuppence Beresford in The Secret Adversary and more recently, Partners in Crime, Anne Beddingfeld from The Man in the Brown Suit and ‘Bundle’ Brent from The Secret of Chimneys, Emily Trefusis in The Sittaford Mystery is another young Christie heroine with an independent mind and a yearning for adventure. She also foreshadows Lady Frances (Frankie) Derwent in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and, 20 years later, Victoria Jones in They Came to Baghdad.
The first four chapters of the novel are accurately reflected in the early notes, although the time of death in the novel is amended to 5.25. Oddly, the secret of the novel upon which the alibi is based, is not mentioned at this stage and the brief summary below, while the truth, is not the whole truth.
The séance
Burnaby insists on going off to see his friend. Starts in the snow, goes up to house, rings and then goes in. Finds body, rings up doctor. Hit by sand bag (put under door for draughts). Dead two hours; could he have died at 6.15? Yes – very probably.
Inquest – Scotland Yard
Inspector – he questions Major Burnaby: Why did you say 6.15? Hums and haws – at last explains. Goes to see friend who is scientific.
Following this, Christie rather chaotically considers possible suspects before returning to the beginning of the novel. She confidently heads page 26 . . .
Chapter I At Mrs Willet’s
Major Burnaby put on his gum boots, took his hurricane lantern. Goes through snow to Mrs. Willets. Arrive at house – description. Captain Trevelyan – his qualities – 6 bungalows – first for his old friend and crony and lets the others.
Major B – Ronnie Garfield – young ass staying with invalid Aunt for Xmas
Mr Rycroft – entomologist dried up little man
Mr Duke – big square man
The conversation – the glasses – mention of it being the first Friday for two years he hasn’t gone down to Midhampton to Capt. Trevelyan. ‘I walk. What’s twelve miles – keep yourself fit.’ Looks at Violet . . . they said curves were coming in again – all for curves
Young man (journalist) arrives at hotel, accosts Major Burnaby. I’m on the staff of the Daily Wire. Overheard – young man explains – presents with cheque – No 1 The Cottages. Then gets into cottage conversation – goes out and wires to his paper. Comes back and talks loudly. Tells Burnaby he wants to photograph his cottage. Mr Enderby then goes out and finds Batman. So then things are square after all. Explains how the late captain used his name.
Each person at séance must have connection
Violet Wilton and a ne’er do well
Captain Trevelyan
Mary Trevelyan married a man called Archer – 3 sons?
Bill [Brian Pearson] the ne’er-do-well – nothing much known of him, supposed to be in Australia, really in Newton [Abbot] seeing Violet.
John, the good stay-at-home, in Town for a literary dinner. He is married – really having an intrigue with an actress. [Martin Dering?]
Another was at the theatre with a girl (Story changes – girl agrees) they give wrong theatre – play has moved there – or different actor in it yes, better – Gielgud instead of Noel Coward.
Ronald Payne, in love with Mary Archer, has come down here to persuade old uncle to do something.
Batman has married – living with wife 2 cottages away – comes in to do for him. A prize of new books has arrived for him at Batman’s.
Brief sketches of potential chapters cover eight pages and while some of the descriptions below match the published chapters, as the list progresses the matches become less faithful. It is entirely possible, of course, that the original manuscript followed this pattern and that subsequent editing resulted in the book we now know. I have added chapter numbers where the descriptions seem to tally but in some cases this is not feasible.
I Afternoon at Sittaford [Chapter 1]
II Round the Table [Chapter 2]
III Discovery at Midhampton [Chapter 3]
IV Inspector Pollock [Narracott] takes over [Chapter 4]
V At Mr and Mrs Evans [Chapter 5]
VI Inspector P and B visit lawyer – the will [Chapter 7]
VII The journalist bit [Chapter 8]
VIII Exeter and Jennifer Gardiner, Nurse – husband – names of nephews and nieces [Chapter 9]
IX James Pearson – facts about detained during his Majesty’s pleasure [Chapter 10]
X She decides on taking counsel of Mr Belling. You poor dear girl – the young gentleman – the attraction between [Chapter 11 and 12]
XI Sittaford – photograph of Major Burnaby’s cottage – Sittaford House – Mrs and Miss Willett [Chapter 13/14]
XII The Professor on Psychical Research consents to be interviewed [Chapter 16]
XIII Prolonged interview at Exeter – alibis examined
XIV Mrs Grant – her husband, Ambrose Grant – author – literary dinner
XV Looking up AG’s alibi [Chapter 24]
XVI The four – Major B out of it – the three others
XVII The Willets – nothing to be got out of them [Chapter 18]
XVIII Duke and Pollock – Duke indicates doubt of what has happened
XIX His story – engaged to Violet on way home
At the very end of the notes Christie reverts to her alphabetical method of cut and paste – assigning letters to a series of short scenes and then rearranging these letters to suit the purposes of her plot. I list the alphabetical sequence first and then her rearrangement, with comments:
A. Mrs C[urtis] full of death convict [Chapter 15]
B. Enderby and his interview with Emily – eye of God etc. [Chapter 25]
C. Young Ronald comes along – wants Emily to come and see his aunt [Chapter 17]
D. Miss Percehouse – acid spinster – Emily feels some kinship with her etc. Emily arranges with her to get a message . . . . to talk to Willetts – or Ronald goes with her. Label business. [Chapter 17]
E. She sees Violet Willett – evidently very nervous. Emily goes back for umbrella – creeps up stairs – the door. My God, will the night never come [Chapter 18]
F. Captain Wyatt and bulldog – eyes her up and down [Chapter 18]
G. Duke’s house – Inspector Pollock comes out of door [Chapter 19]
H. Emily’s interview with him [Chapter 19 and 27]
I. Enderby’s theory – before [Chapter 19]
J. Emily’s interview with Dr. Warren [Chapter 20]
K. The trunk label [Chapter 17]
L. The watch by night – Brian Pearson [Chapter 22]
M. Pollock at Exeter – Brian’s movements checked up to Thursday [Chapter 24]
N. Since then? Since then – I don’t know [This cryptic reference remains a mystery]
O. Enderby says Martin Dering not at dinner. Says he knows because Harris [Carruthers] was there – had one empty place – one side of him [Chapter 19]
P. Pollock clears up Martin Dering – the wire – answ
er comes all right [Chapter 27]
Q. Jennifer – either Emily or Inspector [Chapter 20]
R. Investigates her alibi – possible [Chapter 20]
S. Rycroft – name in book [Chapter 24]
T. Letter from Thomas Cronin about boots [Chapter 28]
U. Interview with Dacre the solicitor [Chapter 20]
Z. Emily interviews Mr Duke [Chapter 29]
Below are the regroupings as they appear in Notebook 59, with the relevant chapters added. The rearrangement does not follow the novel exactly but the broad outline is accurate, although for some reason the letters H, K, N and R do not appear at all. The scene F obviously gave trouble as it appears twice, each time with a question mark.
A B C F? D E [Chapters 15/17/18, apart from B which is Chapter 25]
I O G O F? [Chapters 18/19]
J Q U L [Chapters 20/22]
M S P T Z [Chapters 22/24/27/28]
A very interesting question in connection with the three novels published between 1931 and 1934 arises from a brief note in Notebook 59. As discussed in Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, certain motifs – the legless man, the chambermaid, a pair of artistic and criminal friends – seemed to preoccupy Christie for several years. Similarly, she toyed on a number of occasions with the possibilities of the question ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ As she approached the end of her career, in the lengthy Introduction to her 1970 novel Passenger to Frankfurt, she explained that sometimes a title was settled even before any story was in mind. She gave as an example the time that she visited a friend whose brother was just finishing the book he was reading; he tossed it aside and said ‘Not bad, but why on earth didn’t they ask Evans?’ She immediately decided that this would be the title for an as yet unwritten novel but, she wrote, she did not worry about the plot or the question of who Evans might be. That, she was sure, would come to her; as, indeed, it did – but when? She gives no date for the event and it is not mentioned in her Autobiography.
There are however a few possibilities. During the plotting of The Sittaford Mystery, page 24 of Notebook 59 reads: ‘The Inspector killed – concussion confirmed Why Didn’t they ask Evans? Ada Evans – also name of gardener.’ During the plotting of Lord Edgware Dies, page 53 of Notebook 41 reads: ‘Chapter XXVI Why didn’t they ask Evans.’ And earlier in Notebook 41 she also wrote a note to herself: ‘Can we work in Why Didn’t they ask Evans.’
When plotting The Sittaford Mystery, could Christie have possibly toyed with the idea of killing the Inspector? I think she may have intended that the Inspector be attacked and knocked unconscious, uttering the significant words as he collapsed. This theory gains some support from the fact that up to this point in the plotting the Inspector is the only investigator. Emily is not mentioned in the notes until 20 pages later, when Christie had gone back to the beginning of the novel and begun to draft individual chapters. The Sittaford Mystery has a character called Ada, and the gardeners are both involved in witnessing the will of Captain Trevelyan. Calling any of these characters Evans would have solved her dilemma. It is clear from the notes that she speculated about this possibility, as all three are questioned in the course of the investigation. And Captain Trevelyan’s batman is named Evans. He is ‘asked’ more than once and it is Emily’s final questioning of him that is responsible for drawing her attention to the fact of the missing boots – and thereby to the solution of the murder. When Christie did eventually incorporate Evans into a novel called, not surprisingly, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, the witnessing of a will was the very event that caused Evans not to be asked, because she is a bright girl who might realise that there is subterfuge afoot. For further speculation upon this intriguing enigma see the discussion on Lord Edgware Dies.
‘The Second Gong’
July 1932
* * *
Hubert Lytcham Roche is found shot dead in his locked study, but luckily one of his dinner guests is Hercule Poirot.
* * *
The short story ‘The Second Gong’ was first published in the UK in July 1932 in The Strand magazine but it was not until the posthumous 1998 UK collection Problem at Pollensa Bay that it appeared between hard covers. The reason for this is that Christie expanded and rewrote the story as ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, one of the four novellas comprising Murder in the Mews.
Notes for it appear in three Notebooks, 30, 41 and 61, although the reference in Notebook 30 is only to the possibility of expanding it. Notebook 41 has, unusually for a short story, ten pages of notes neatly summarising the main plot at the outset, the only difference being the smashing of a window rather than a mirror. The notes reflect accurately the progress of the story with the usual changes of names and minor plot details (I have inserted the actual names used in the story against the names given in the notes):
Bullet passed through him and out to gong. Then door was locked on inside and body turned so that shot would have gone through window.
Second Gong
Girl coming down stairs late – meets boy – they ask butler – No, Miss – first gong. Secretary joins them (or girl anyway) – murderer – the shot fired from library just when he joins them
Dinner 8.15 – First gong 8.5. At 8.12 Joan comes down with Dick – butler says 1st gong (shot!). Geor Jervis joins them. Exeunt
At 7 Diana picks flowers – stain on dress. At 8.10 Diana hurries out – gets rose – tries window – is going away when shot is heard from road
Murderer shoots [victim] at 8.6 – shuts and locks door, goes out through window – bangs it and it shuts, smoothes over footprints – is in library when shot is fired.
Mrs Mulberry [No equivalent in story]
Diana Cream [Cleves] clever (adopted daughter)
Calshott – the agent – a one-armed man – ex-soldier [Marshall]
Geoffrey Keene (secretary)
John Behring – old friend – rich man [Gregory Barling]
They go in to drawing room. Diana joins them – Mrs Lytcham Roche – vague – spectral – John Behring – 2nd gong – M. Poirot. No L[ytcham] R[oche] – an extraordinary thing. Butler says still in his study. Diana mentions that he’s been very queer all day – yes, he may do something dreadful. P watches her – they go to study – locked.
Break down door – dead man – mirror – window locked – (reopened by John Behring) pistol by hand – ‘Gong’ – key in his pocket. Inspection of window – he opens it – ground – no footprints. Police sent for – questions.
John Behring
Mrs LR [Lytcham Roche]
Miss Cleves
[Geoffrey] Keene (pick[s] up from hall)
Butler [Digby]
Police satisfied – doctor a little uncertain as to mirror. Poirot goes out with torchlight – comes back – asks Joan for shoes – comes out – J with him (and Dick) Diana – Michaelmas daisies. Come, mes enfants, Shows them window (gong then?). Asks butler about Michaelmas daisy – Yes – then a few words with him.
As can be seen, the notes, telegrammatic in style, are very close to the finished story, which includes even the details of the Michaelmas daisies and the stain on Diana’s dress. The novels immediately preceding ‘The Second Gong’ – The Murder at the Vicarage, The Sittaford Mystery, Peril at End House – all appear in the Notebooks more or less as they eventually appeared in print. Rough work, if any, may have been done elsewhere and the Notebooks represented an outline as distinct from the working out of details of the plot.
The plot of ‘The Second Gong’ features one of the few experiments that Christie made with that classic situation of detective fiction – the locked room problem, where the victim is found in a room with all the doors and windows locked from the inside, making escape for the killer seemingly impossible. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Murder in Mesopotamia and Hercule Poirot’s Christmas also have similar situations. But fascinating though these situations can be, Christie does not make them a major aspect of any of these titles. And nor does she with ‘The Second Gong’, where the solution is
disappointingly mundane.
But there is another connection with one of these titles. Both ‘The Second Gong’ and Hercule Poirot’s Christmas feature a killer faking the time of the murder in order to provide himself with an alibi. And more importantly, in both titles a character picks something off the floor, obviously an important clue as it gets a note of its own above, ‘Picks up from hall’; when confronted with this fact, the killer in each case offers a different object in the hope of avoiding detection. And there is a thematic connection with the only Poirot stage play written directly for the stage, Black Coffee, premiered the year before the short story. In each case the killer proves to be the male secretary of a wealthy man.
There are no notes for the elaboration of ‘The Second Gong’ into ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, apart from the appearance of the names Miss Lingard and Hugo Trent on a single page of Notebook 61. The plot is almost identical and although a different killer is unmasked, their position in the household is essentially the same as in the original.
Lord Edgware Dies
4 September 1933
* * *
When Lord Edgware is found stabbed in his study it would seem that his wife, actress Jane Wilkinson, has carried out her threat. But her impeccable alibi forces Poirot to look elsewhere for the culprit. Two more deaths follow before a letter from the dead provides the final clue.
