Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks

by John Curran

  As can be seen, this draft is very similar to the published version – an heiress, a ne’er-do-well son, a bolting horse and an injection – but there also differences. As frequently happens, the names change, but there is also uncertainty about the sex of the caretaker, and the doctor’s daughter is sketched in as the villain of the piece. The second possibility, the clock tower, contains an explicit reference to the Mr Quin story ‘The Sign in the Sky’; there the murderer alters the time of the clocks in his house in order to give himself an alibi. But altering the domestic clocks is far removed from changing the tower clock and thereby attempting to fool an entire population, which seems a very impractical and unconvincing idea. Wisely, Christie abandoned it.

  The ‘doctor’s daughter’ as murderer idea is more complicated. In the published version it is the chemist’s wife, a former lover of the husband, who conspires with him by supplying the poison, although she does not actually administer the injection. In the Notebook at this stage the husband is not the first choice for murderer, but trying to arrange for the innocent-seeming presence of the doctor’s daughter in order for her to administer an injection is perhaps one of the reasons for her replacement with Esme’s husband.

  Dr Haydock’s niece – not daughter – Clarice is one of the main characters in the story; and she also, unsuspectingly, provides a subsidiary motive for the murder. But as Dr Haydock appears throughout Miss Marple’s detective career, starting with The Murder at the Vicarage and making his final appearance in Sleeping Murder, it would hardly be fitting for her to alight on his daughter as the killer. Hence the name ‘Clare Wright’ and the question mark in the Notebook.

  Both the UK and US versions of the short story are identical. But among Christie’s papers is a second, significantly different version, and this version is published here for the first time.

  Why this second version should exist is open to speculation. Most Christie short stories were originally published in magazines and many of her novels appeared, prior to book publication, in newspapers and periodicals. Editors were notorious for their predilection for changing stories and cutting novel serialisations, often for reasons of space. Christie complained about this when asked to change Dumb Witness (see Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks) and a 1944 letter from her agent talks about the ‘serial version’ of Towards Zero that Christie had prepared ‘in accordance with their [Colliers Magazine] instructions’. In Chapter 4 I discuss the different versions of Three Act Tragedy, also accounted for, in all likelihood, by an editor. So the different versions of ‘The Case of the Caretaker/Caretaker’s Wife’ may well be explained away that simply. But if that is the explanation, it means that the edited version was the one also submitted to the US for its subsequent appearance; and as the newly discovered version remains the more straightforward and logical one, it would seem an odd decision.

  One of the main differences between the known version (Version A) and the new version (Version B) is the method of narration. In Version A the story is told in the form of a manuscript prepared, for reasons never made clear, by Dr Haydock and given to Miss Marple to read while recovering from flu; Version B tells a similar story directly, without the device of the manuscript, and this certainly makes for a more convincing narration. But the differences are not merely in the manner of telling.

  The setting of St Mary Mead is firmly established by the second sentence of Version B, but in Version A we have to wait until four pages from the end for confirmation of this, despite the fact that ‘the village’ is mentioned but unnamed on the second page. Version B features Miss Marple’s neighbours, familiar to readers from their appearances in The Murder at the Vicarage and the soon-to-be-published The Body in the Library – Mrs Price Ridley, Miss Hartnell and Miss Wetherby; Version A has the vaguely analogous Mrs Price, Miss Harmon and Miss Brent. These changes are not only completely inexplicable in themselves but it is very difficult to see how they were explained or justified to Christie and/or her agent. To confuse the issue still further, ‘Harmon’ is the name of the vicar’s wife in another Marple book, A Murder is Announced, as well as the later Marple short story ‘Sanctuary’.

  Version B finds Miss Marple playing a much more central role; she talks to Mrs Murgatroyd, and Clarice and the doctor, and generally acts as the observant old lady that she is. While the circumstances of reading the doctor’s manuscript and then propounding her solution is adequate, and similar to the plan of the short stories in The Thirteen Problems, it seems cumbersome and unnecessary in view of the now-published alternative.

  The title of Version B also makes more sense than its predecessor. Mrs Murgatroyd’s husband was the caretaker and he has been dead for two years in both versions; so why call the story ‘The Case of the Caretaker’? And Notebook 62, as we have seen, vacillates about this anyway. The title of version B is more logical and accurate.

  In this first-ever publication, some minor errors of spelling and punctuation have been corrected.

  The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife

  ‘And where is the bride?’ asked old Miss Hartnell genially.

  The village of St Mary Mead was all agog to see the rich and beautiful young wife that Harry Laxton had brought back from abroad. There was a general indulgent feeling that Harry, wicked young scapegrace, had all the luck! Everyone had always felt indulgent towards Harry. Even the owners of windows that had suffered from his indiscriminate use of a catapult had found their just indignation dissipated by young Harry’s abject expressions of regret. He had broken windows, robbed orchards, poached rabbits, and later ran into debt, got entangled with the local tobacconist’s daughter, been disentangled, and sent off to Africa – and the village as represented by various ageing spinsters had murmured indulgently:

  ‘Ah well. Wild oats! He’ll settle down.’

  And now, sure enough, the prodigal had returned – not in affliction, but in triumph. Harry Laxton had ‘made good’ as the saying goes. He had pulled himself together, worked hard, and had finally met and successfully wooed a young Anglo-French girl who was the possessor of a considerable fortune.

  Harry might have lived in London, or purchased an estate in some fashionable hunting county – but at least he was a faithful soul. He came back to the part of the world that was home to him. And there, in the most romantic way, he purchased the derelict estate in the Dower House of which he had passed his childhood.

  Kingsdean House had been unoccupied for nearly seventy years. No repairs were ever done to it and it had gradually fallen into decay and abandon. It was a vast unprepossessing grandiose mansion, the gardens overgrown with rank vegetation, and as the trees grew up higher around it, it seemed more and more like some gloomy enchanter’s den. An elderly caretaker and his wife lived in the habitable corner of it.

  The Dower House was a pleasant unpretentious house and had been let for a long term of years to Major Laxton, Harry’s father. As a boy, Harry had roamed over the Kingsdean estate and knew every inch of the tangled woods, and the old house itself had always fascinated him.

  Major Laxton had died some years ago, so it might be thought that Harry would have had no ties to bring him back. But on his marriage, it was to St Mary Mead that he brought his bride. The ruined old Kingsdean House was pulled down. An army of builders and contractors swooped down upon the place and in an almost miraculously short space of time, (so marvellously does wealth tell!) the new house rose white and gleaming amongst the trees.

  Next came a posse of gardeners and after them a procession of furniture vans. The house was ready. Servants arrived. Lastly a Rolls Royce deposited Harry and Mrs Harry at the front door.

  St Mary Mead rushed to call, and Mrs Price Ridley who owned the large house near the Vicarage and who considered herself to lead society in the place sent out cards of invitation for a party to ‘meet the bride.’

  It was a great event in St Mary Mead. Several ladies had new frocks for the occasion. Everyone was excited, curious, anxious to see this fabulous creature. It
was all so like a fairy story.

  A page of the typescript of ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’ with Christie’s handwritten amendments. As can be seen, sometimes a typewritten page can be as illegible as a handwritten one!

  Miss Hartnell, weather beaten hearty spinster, threw out her question as she squeezed her way through the crowded drawing room door. Miss Wetherby, a thin acidulated spinster, fluttered out information.

  ‘Oh my dear, quitecharming. Such pretty manners. And quite young. Really, you know, it makes one feel quite enviousto see someone who has everythinglike that. Good looks and money, and breeding – (mostdistinguished, nothing in the least commonabout her) and dear Harry sodevoted.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘It’s early days yet.’

  Miss Wetherby’s thin nose quivered appreciatively.

  ‘Oh my dear, do you really think—?’

  ‘We all know what Harry is,’ said Miss Hartnell.

  ‘We know what he was. But I expect now—’

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Hartnell. ‘Men are always the same. Once a gay deceiver, always a gay deceiver. Iknow them.’

  ‘Dear, dear. Poor young things!’ Miss Wetherby looked much happier. ‘Yes, I expect she’ll have trouble with him. Someone ought really to warnher. I wonder if she’s heard anything of the old story?’

  The eyes of the two ladies met significantly.

  ‘It seems so very unfair,’ said Miss Wetherby, ‘that she should know nothing. So awkward. Especially with only the one chemist’s shop in the village.’

  For the erstwhile tobacconist’s daughter was now married to Mr Edge, the chemist.

  ‘It would be so much nicer,’ said Miss Wetherby, ‘if Mrs Laxton were to deal with Boots in Much Benham.’

  ‘I daresay,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘that Harry Laxton will suggest that himself.’

  Again a significant look passed between them.

  ‘But I certainly think,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘that she ought to know.’

  ii

  ‘Beasts!’ said Clarice Vane to old Miss Marple. ‘Absolute beasts some people are!’

  Miss Marple looked at her curiously.

  Clarice Vane had recently come to live with her Uncle, Dr Haydock. She was a tall dark girl, handsome, warm hearted and impulsive. Her big brown eyes were alight now with indignation.

  She said:

  ‘All these cats– sayingthings – hintingthings!’

  Miss Marple asked:

  ‘About Harry Laxton?’

  ‘Yes, about his old affair with the tobacconist’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh that!’ Miss Marple was indulgent. ‘A great many young men have affairs of that kind, I imagine.’

  ‘Of course they do. And it’s all over. So why harp on and bring it up years after? It’s like ghouls feasting on dead bodies.’

  ‘I daresay, my dear, it does seem like that to you. You are young, of course, and intolerant, but you see we have very little to talk about down here and so, I’m afraid, we do tend to dwell on the past. But I’m curious to know why it upsets you so much?’

  Clarice Vane bit her lip and flushed. She said in a curious muffled voice: ‘They look so happy. The Laxtons, I mean. They’re young, and in love, and it’s all lovely for them – I hate to think of it being spoilt – by whispers and hints and innuendoes and general beastliness!’

  Miss Marple looked at her and said: ‘I see.’

  Clarice went on:

  ‘He was talking to me just now – he’s so happy and eager and excited and – yes, thrilled– at having got his heart’s desire and rebuilt Kingsdean. He’s like a child about it all. And she – well, I don’t suppose anything has ever gone wrong in her whole life – she’s always had everything. You’ve seen her, don’t you think—’

  Miss Marple interrupted. She said:

  ‘As a matter of fact I haven’t seen her yet. I’ve only just arrived. So tiresome. I was delayed by the District Nurse. Her feelings, you know, have been hurt by what—’

  But Clarice was unable to take an interest in the village drama which Miss Marple was embarking upon with so much zest. With a muttered apology she left.

  Miss Marple pressed onwards, full of the same curiosity that had animated everyone in St Mary Mead, to see what the bride was like.

  She hardly knew what she expected, but it was not what she saw. For other people Louise Laxton might be an object of envy, a spoilt darling of fortune, but to the shrewd old lady who had seen so much of human nature in her village there came the refrain of a popular song heard many years ago.

  ‘Poor little rich girl. . .’

  A small delicate figure, with flaxen hair curled rather stiffly round her face and big wistful blue eyes, Louise was drooping a little. The long stream of congratulations had tired her. She was hoping it might soon be time to go . . . Perhaps, even now, Harry might say—? She looked at him sideways. So tall and broad shouldered with his eager pleasure in this horrible dull party.

  Oh dear, here was another of them! A tall grey haired fussily dressed old lady bleating like all the rest.

  ‘This is Miss Marple, Louise.’

  She didn’t understand the look in the old lady’s eyes. She would have been quite astonished if she had known what it was:

  ‘Poor little rich girl. . .’

  iii

  ‘Ooph!’ It was a sigh of relief.

  Harry turned to look at his wife amusedly. They were driving away from the party. She said:

  ‘Darling, what a frightful party!’

  Harry laughed.

  ‘Yes, pretty terrible. Never mind, my sweet. It had to be done, you know. All these old pussies knew me when I lived here as a boy. They’d have been terribly disappointed not to have got a good look at you close up.’

  Louise made a grimace. She said:

  ‘Shall we have to see a lot of them?’

  ‘What? Oh no – they’ll come and make ceremonious calls with cardcases and you’ll return the calls and then you needn’t bother any more. You can have your own friends down or whatever you like.’

  Louise said after a minute or two:

  ‘Isn’t there anyone amusingliving down here?’

  ‘Oh yes. There’s the country set, you know. Though you may find them a bit dull too. Mostly interested in bulbs and dogs and horses. You’ll ride, of course. You’ll enjoy that. There’s a horse over at Eglinton I’d like you to see. A beautiful animal perfectly trained, no vice in him, but plenty of spirit.’

  The car slowed down to take the turn into the gates of Kingsmead. Harry wrenched the wheel and swore as a grotesque figure sprang up in the middle of the road and he only just managed to avoid it. It stood there, shaking a fist and shouting after them.

  Louise clutched his arm.

  ‘Who’s that – that horrible old woman?’

  Harry’s brow was black.

  ‘That’s old Murgatroyd – she and her husband were caretakers in the old house – they were there for thirty years.’

  ‘Why did she shake her fist at you?’

  Harry’s face got red.

  ‘She – well, she resented the house being pulled down. And she got the sack, of course. Her husband’s been dead two years. They say she got a bit queer after he died.’

  ‘Is she – she isn’t – starving?’

  Louise’s ideas were vague and somewhat melodramatic. Riches prevented you coming into contact with reality.

  Harry was outraged.

  ‘Good Lord, Louise, what an idea! I pensioned her off, of course – and handsomely, too. Found her a new cottage and everything.’

  Louise asked bewildered:

  ‘Then whydoes she mind?’

  Harry was frowning, his brows drawn together.

  ‘Oh how should I know? Craziness! She loved the house.’

  ‘But it was a ruin, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it was – crumbling to pieces, roof leaking, more or less unsafe. All the same I suppose it – meantsomething to her. She�
��d been there a long time. Oh! I don’t know! The old devil’s cracked I think.’

  Louise said uneasily:

  ‘She – I think she cursed us . . . Oh Harry, I wish she hadn’t.’

  iv

  It seemed to Louise that her new home was tainted and poisoned by the malevolent figure of one old crazy woman. When she went out in the car, when she rode, when she walked out with the dogs there was always the same figure waiting. Crouched down on herself, a battered hat over wisps of iron grey hair, and the slow muttering of imprecations.

  Louise came to believe that Harry was right, the old woman wasmad. Nevertheless that did not make things easier. Mrs Murgatroyd never actually came to the house, nor did she use definite threats, nor offer violence.

  Her squatting figure remained always just outside the gates. To appeal to the police would have been useless and in any case Harry Laxton was averse to that course of action. It would, he said, arouse local sympathy for the old brute. He took the matter more easily than Louise did.

  ‘Don’t worry yourself about it, darling. She’ll get tired of this silly cursing business. Probably she’s only trying it on.’

  ‘She isn’t, Harry. She – she hatesus! I can feelit. She – she’s ill wishing us.’

  ‘She’s not a witch, darling, although she may look like one! Don’t be morbid about it all.’

  Louise was silent. Now that the first excitement of settling in was over, she felt curiously lonely and at a loose end. She had been used to life in London and the Riviera. She had no knowledge of, or taste for, English country life. She was ignorant of gardening, except for the final act of ‘doing the flowers.’ She did not really care for dogs. She was bored by such neighbours as she met. She enjoyed riding best. Sometimes with Harry, sometimes, when he was busy about the estate, by herself, she hacked through the woods and lanes, enjoying the easy paces of the beautiful horse Harry had bought for her.

  Yet even Prince Hal, most sensitive of chestnut steeds, was wont to shy and snort as he carried his mistress past that huddled figure of a malevolent old woman . . .