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

by John Curran

  The decade began well with the publication, in June, of her fiftieth title, A Murder is Announced. This is a major title not simply thanks to its jubilee status but also because it is one of Christie’s greatest detective novels and Miss Marple’s finest hour. To celebrate the occasion Collins hosted a party in the Savoy Hotel; photos of the event show a relaxed and smiling Agatha Christie chatting with Billy Collins and fellow crime writer Ngaio Marsh as well as with actress Barbara Mullen, then appearing in the West End as Miss Marple in Murder at the Vicarage.

  Her 1950s novels reflected the new social order of a post-war Britain. Elements of the plot of A Murder is Announced depend on food rationing, identity cards, fuel shortages, and a new social mobility. They Do It with Mirrors (1952) is set in a reform home for delinquents; Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952) finds Poirot staying at an unspeakable guest-house while he solves the murder of a charwoman. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955) is set in a student hostel and Ordeal by Innocence (1958) is a dark novel about a miscarriage of justice. The female protagonist of 4.50 from Paddington (1957) makes a living, despite a university degree, as a short-term domestic help; Cat among the Pigeons (1959) combines a murder mystery with international unrest and revolution. And two titles – They Came to Baghdad (1951) and Destination Unknown (1954) – represent a return, after almost 30 years and The Man in the Brown Suit, to the foreign thriller.

  In this decade the final Mary Westmacotts were published, A Daughter’s a Daughter in 1952 and The Burden in 1956. And in April 1950 Agatha Christie began to write her Autobiography, a task that would take over 15 years; it would not materialise in print until after her death. Despite this impressive range of projects, throughout the 1950s her output remained steady, although 1953, with After the Funeral and A Pocket Full of Rye, was the last year that saw more than one ‘Christie for Christmas’. During the 1950s, to the probable chagrin of Collins Crime Club, Christie concentrated her literary efforts on the stage.

  Exactly a year after her fiftieth title became a best-seller, The Hollow, her 1946 Poirot novel, made its debut as a play, despite the prognostications of Christie’s daughter Rosalind, who tried to dissuade her mother from adapting what she saw as unsuitable dramatic material. The play was a success and buoyed by its reception Christie began in earnest to turn her attention to the stage. In her Autobiography she explains that writing a play is much easier than writing a novel because ‘the circumscribed limits of the stage simplifies things’ and the playwright is not ‘hampered with all that description that . . . stops [the writer from] getting on with what happens’.

  In 1952 The Mousetrap began its unstoppable run. Although it began as a radio play, written at the express request of Queen Mary, who celebrated her eightieth birthday in 1947, Christie subsequently adapted it as a long short story and, finally, as a stage play. After tryouts in Nottingham, it opened at London’s Ambassadors Theatre on 25 November 1952. By the mid 1960s it had broken every existing theatrical record and it still sailed serenely on. The following year her greatest achievement in theatre, Witness for the Prosecution, opened and confirmed Agatha Christie’s status as a crime dramatist. The year after that the play duplicated its London success on Broadway, earning for its author an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America.

  The previous three plays had been her own adaptations of earlier titles, but she now began producing original work for the stage. Spider’s Web (1954) was the first, followed by Verdict and The Unexpected Guest (both 1958). Although all three contained a dead body, something audiences had come to expect from a Christie play, in most other respects they were surprises and showed that her talents were not confined to the printed page. Spider’s Web was another commission, this one written at the request of the actress Margaret Lockwood, and was a light comedy with a whodunit element. Verdict, the only failure of the decade, was, despite its title and the presence of a murdered body, not a whodunit at all; and The Unexpected Guest was a brooding will-they-get-away-with-it – or so it seems until the final surprise. In between these titles Towards Zero, an adaptation of her 1943 novel, opened to a lukewarm reception in 1956. It was her only collaboration and it was co-adapted by Gerald Verner, a now-forgotten crime writer with a long list of titles to his credit.

  On radio Tommy and Tuppence, played by The Mousetrap’s husband-and-wife team of Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim, appeared in a 13-part adaptation of Partners in Crime beginning in April 1953. The following year the BBC broadcast an original radio play, Personal Call. The artistically and critically acclaimed Billy Wilder version of Witness for the Prosecution arrived on screen in 1957 and remains the best film version of any Christie material. And in 1956 US television cast (the unlikely) Gracie Fields in the role of Miss Marple in A Murder is Announced.

  The 1950s saw The Queen of Crime expanding her literary horizons from phenomenally successful crime novelist to equally impressive crime dramatist. And in 1956, in recognition of her exceptional contribution to both, Agatha Christie was awarded a CBE.

  They Came to Baghdad

  5 March 1951

  * * *

  After losing her job and falling for a young man she meets in a London park, Victoria Jones travels to Baghdad, where she becomes involved, not entirely unwillingly, in murder, mystery and international intrigue.

  * * *

  ‘It is difficult to believe that Mrs Christie regards this as more than a joke.’ This was the verdict from the first person at Collins to read They Came to Baghdad. Phrases such as ‘far-fetched and puerile . . . not worthy of Mrs Christie . . . wildly improbable’ pepper the report, but it goes on to say ‘it is eminently readable’ and that ‘its sheer vitality and humour and the delightful . . . Victoria Jones carry it through.’ It should be remembered that this book followed on from Crooked House and A Murder is Announced, both first-class Christie detective novels; Collins, not unreasonably, expected another in the same vein. They Came to Baghdad, the first foreign adventure story since The Man in the Brown Suit a quarter of a century earlier, was obviously a shock. And there are, undoubtedly, far-fetched aspects to the plot.

  Although published in March there had been a serialisation in John Bull in January 1951. The manuscript was received by Collins in late July or early August 1950 and Christie’s agent, Edmund Cork, wrote to her on 21 August asking for clarification, for the Collins reader, of two small points – why does Carmichael use the name ‘Lucifer’ instead of ‘Edward’, when he is dying in Chapter 13; and the question of the scar on Grete Harden’s lip early in Chapter 23 which resulted in the insertion of the sentence beginning ‘Some blotchily applied make-up . . .’ In the USA, a radio and TV version were broadcast in September 1951 and on 12 May 1952 respectively. For such an atypical Christie title it is surprising that it should have been adapted so quickly for other media.

  The notes for this novel are contained in three Notebooks – 31, 49 and 56. The majority of them, 95 pages, are in Notebook 56, the opening page of which reads:

  The House in Baghdad

  A. A ‘Robinson’ approach. Disgruntled young man – turned down – by girl – light hearted

  B. T and T

  C. Woman about to commit suicide in Baghdad

  D. Smell of fear

  As can be seen, the working title of the book was The House in Baghdad and the planning of it, to judge from a letter dated 3 October of that year, went back as far as October 1947. The ‘Robinson’ reference is puzzling but the first notes otherwise reflect the basic set-up. But the biggest surprise in this list is B – the inclusion of Tommy and Tuppence. As we shall see, they also feature in the more detailed notes later in the same Notebook, although all of their published adventures (both in novel and short story form) are firmly based in the UK. Idea C is clearly the forerunner of Destination Unknown, which was to follow three years later, and throughout the notes for They Came to Baghdad, the name Olive, the main protagonist of Destination Unknown, appears frequently, together with some of the plot of the later novel. The phr
ase ‘smell of fear’ runs like a motif throughout the notes, where it occurs 17 times, and it appears in the novel in Chapter 6.

  Notebook 31 continues the Tommy and Tuppence idea:

  Baghdad Mystery May 24th

  T and T – went into Consulate – didn’t come out

  Points

  At Consulate – Kuwait chest – Tup. looks inside – nothing – but something showing that gunman had been there. He hid in the chest?

  Sir Rupert Stein – great traveller – was to meet S. He came from Kashmir – found dead in Baghdad later – really kidnapped before?

  They went to Baghdad

  Beginning in Basrah – the hunted man – into the Consulate – the man through – up the stairs – meets man coming down – through door to bedroom.

  Miss Gilda Martin – attention paid to her – goes to the Zia hotel – she has a little red book.

  Archaeologists – including Mrs. Oliver and her brother – latter is learned gentleman horrified by her inaccurate Professor Dorman. A question of poison arises – Mrs O. tries to get it – finally does get it – then it disappears – she is very upset.

  The ‘May 24th’ reference is less definite than it might at first seem. It is most likely to be 1949. If Christie was correcting the text in September 1950, after the manuscript had been read and discussed at Collins, it is unlikely that the rough notes for the novel had been first sketched at the end of May, three months earlier. (A page of Notebook 56 is dated unequivocally ‘Oct. 1949’.) At this point Tommy and Tuppence are still in the book and there are certainly some similarities between Victoria and Tuppence – resourcefulness, courage, determination and a sense of humour. There is no mention of Tommy in any of the notes. Perhaps the inclusion of the Beresfords is not that surprising when you remember that they had not appeared in print since N or M? in 1941 and would not actually appear again for another 17 years, in By the Pricking of my Thumbs.

  There is a definite foreshadowing of Sir Stafford Nye from Passenger to Frankfurt in the sketch of Sir Rupert Stein and, indeed, in the eventual Sir Rupert Crofton Lee in the novel. Both characters, each with an international reputation, make their appearance in airports and both favour the dramatic look by wearing long cloaks with hoods. Sir Stafford survives his airport adventure but Sir Rupert is not so lucky.

  The second shock is the mention of Mrs Oliver; and not just Mrs Oliver but her brother also. This could have been a very amusing pairing and would have probably given Christie herself an opportunity to vent her spleen on some of the nit-picking observations of critics and readers. The ‘question of poison’ would suggest a more traditional whodunit rather than a spy adventure.

  The ‘Kuwait chest’ has echoes of the earlier short story ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’ and its more elaborate form ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’, and The Rats, the one-act play from Rule of Three. In each case a body is discovered in such a chest. Gilda Martin may have been an early version of Victoria.

  To judge from the amount of notes (well over 100 pages, many more than for any other title) and the amount of repetition in those notes, this book gave more trouble than other, more densely plotted whodunits. Again and again in Notebook 56 the opening chapters are sketched, each of them with only minor differences. This is unique within the Notebooks. These are not alternatives or an example of her usual fertility of invention – this is repetition of just one scene, which, apart from the name change, remains substantially the same throughout. Victoria Jones does not appear until 50 pages into the planning, at which point Olive is put aside until Destination Unknown. The following nine examples are some of the notes for the opening of the book and, as can be seen, there are only minor differences between them.

  They Went to Baghdad

  Quotation from girl’s book – Western approach – Olivia in plane – Sir Rupert Crofton Lee – great traveller and orientalist – his traveller’s cape and hood

  Olive in the plane – behind Sir Rupert – his cape slips back – boil on neck – (perhaps he is flown on by RAF plane to Basrah)

  Sketch (rough) – Olive arrives in Baghdad

  Approaches

  A. Olive – plane – Crofton Lee – boil

  Tentatives

  Olive arrives in Basrah – welcome by Mr. D – ordinary life – Sir Rupert – does not recognise her – supercilious she thinks

  Start with A

  Olive leaving England – Heathrow – Sir Rupert in plane – her thoughts – divorce – future – Baghdad – sensible – happy free life – uneasy feeling of something she doesn’t want to remember – then sees back of Sir R’s neck

  Victoria Jones – a plain girl with an amusing mouth – can do imitations – is doing one of her boss – gets sack – finds young man – also sacked? Edward – ex-pilot – given me a job in an office

  Parts settled – Victoria Jones in London and Edward

  Vic. – Journey out – Sir Rupert – Cairo? Air hostess? – arrival in Baghdad

  (A) Journey out – Victoria Mrs HC Sir R changes at Heliopolis – arrive Baghdad Aerodrome

  Running alongside the Olive/Victoria approach was what Christie called the Eastern approach, in other words the events leading up to the scene in the consulate that sets the plot in motion:

  Eastern approach – in the Market – Arabs – young man’s feelings – goes to Souk. In Consulate’s office waiting room – smell of fear – Richard knows it well – in war – looks around waiting room

  2. Carmichael Stewart in Marshes – with Arabs – coming into civilisation

  B. Carmichael – with Arabs – bazaar – something wrong

  Approach B. Carmichael gets to Basrah – everything as planned – to South – passwords – all OK – to Consulate – fear – then along passage – upstairs – Richard watches him go – last time ever seen alive. Idea is for false Rupert to extract information from him

  Richard – off boat at Basrah – waiting room – smell of fear – man stumbles puts in his pocket – What?

  Start

  A. Richard off boat – smell of fear – somehow or other something is passed to him (washing bag) – finds afterwards wonders what it is

  B. In from Marshes – something wrong – does he put half – Message in Kuwait chest – specially made secret drawer – has been a conjurer – goes up steps – vanishes

  Notebook 56 speculates about bringing the various strands of the plot together, although Janet McCrae does not feature in the novel. The illustration below, from the same Notebook, is similar to that drawn by Dakin in the first chapter of the book and is also the idea behind the well-known Tom Adams Fontana paperback cover from the late 1960s.

  At the end of Chapter 1 of They Came to Baghdad Dakin doodles a sketch like this but the above is Christie’s own interpretation of the title from Notebook 56. The Tom Adams painting for the 1970’s Fontana paperback edition is a more elaborate and sinister version.

  4 people bringing four parts of the puzzle

  Schute’s [Scheele] evidence from America

  Carmichael’s from Persia(?) Kashgar(?)

  Sir Rupert’s from China

  Janet McCrae’s from the Bahamas

  1. Olive in the plane – behind Sir Rupert – his cape slips back – boil on neck (perhaps he is flown on by RAF plane to Basrah)

  2. Carmichael Stewart in Marshes – with Arabs – coming into civilisation

  3. Richard lands from ship – goes to Consulate – smell of fear

  4. Crooks? In train? At Alep – Damascus? Stamboul – agents everywhere

  Notebook 56 also considers the identity of the villain:

  Is Crosbie real villain? Does he send Olive (or Vic) to Basrah on his own account?

  Can Edward be young (Nazi) villain – uses Victoria. V. resembles Anne Schepp – that is why Edward picks her up

  A. Does Edward (IT!) deliberately select Victoria

  Or

  B Edward and Victoria allies

  If A, Victoria pairs with R
ichard? Deakin ?

  If B, is villain Mrs Willard (plaster on arm?)

  Overall, as the Collins reader rightly noted, the novel has great pace and readability and, if not taken seriously or examined in any detail, is a pleasant read. But it must be asked why Edward, in Chapter 2, should draw attention to ‘something fishy’ in the Baghdad set-up (thereby setting the whole novel in motion) when he is the (very surprising) villain of the piece. He could easily have invented another reason to persuade Victoria to follow him. This very basic flaw in the plot is, possibly, a reflection of the problems the book seems to have given in its creation. But as the Collins reader observed, the character of Victoria, as well as the depiction of life in Baghdad and on an archaeological dig, more than compensate.

  They Do It with Mirrors

  17 November 1952

  * * *

  Miss Marple goes to Stonygates, the reform home for young delinquents run by the husband of her childhood friend Carrie Louise. Although the atmosphere is tense, when murder is committed the victim is totally unexpected. More deaths follow before Miss Marple penetrates the murderer’s conjuring trick.