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

by John Curran

  The idea of stage-managed anarchy brought about by promoting student protest and civil unrest is not new in the Christie output. It reaches back as far as the mysterious Mr Brown in The Secret Adversary and also makes an appearance, 30 years later, in They Came to Baghdad. While both these examples demand some suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader, Passenger to Frankfurt demands a higher and longer suspension. The other echo from earlier works, and one that can be appreciated only now, after the publication of the alternate version of ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ (see Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks), is the subterfuge about a fake/real Hitler character and the method of concealment. This element of the plot is identical in both the short story and the novel, written 30 years apart.

  The other surprise about this novel, apart from the unlikeliness of the plot, is the fact that throughout her life Christie evinced little interest in politics. And yet the entire thrust of the novel is political, with politicians and diplomats meeting regularly and, it must be said, implausibly in attempts to maintain political stability. Such scenes are dotted throughout the book; although, despite these meetings and endless conversations, nothing happens. Most of the conversations, whether private or political, meander aimlessly and unconvincingly and swathes of the book could be removed without making any notable difference.

  The character of Matilda Cleckheaton is, in many ways, a Marple doppelganger – elderly, observant, worldly-wise and devious. But her stratagem for dealing with ‘Big Charlotte’ is in the highest degree unlikely and unconvincing.

  Passenger to Frankfurt was written in the year of publication and Notebook 24 has three dates, ‘1970’, ‘February 1970’ and ‘16th February 1970’, on pages 12, 14 and 17 respectively. Christie realised that the year of her eightieth birthday would inevitably involve publicity and that the 1970 ‘Christie for Christmas’ would have to be finished earlier than usual for a September publication. Some selective arithmetic had to be done to arrive at the significant figure of 80 titles. Only by counting the American collections – The Regatta Mystery (1939), Three Blind Mice (1950), The Underdog (1951) and Double Sin (1961) – all of which contained stories not then published in Britain, as well as the Mary Westmacott titles, could this all-important figure be arrived at.

  In an interview conducted shortly after the publication of the book Christie denied that any of the characters were based on real-life politicians and that her inspiration for writing the book was her reading of the daily newspapers. She cited especially reports of rebellious youth and the fact that youth can be more easily influenced than older people. She was at pains to emphasise that, personally, she was ‘not in the least interested in politics’ and that the novel was apolitical in the sense that anarchy could originate from either the Right or the Left. Much of this is echoed in the Introduction to the novel where she also discusses her ideas and where and how she got them. ‘If one idea in particular seems attractive, and you feel you could do something with it, then you toss it around, play tricks with it, work it up, tone it down, and gradually get it into shape.’ It is a sad irony that, of all her novels, Passenger to Frankfurt is one where the ingenious ideas that proliferated in other novels are notable only by their absence.

  The opening gambit of the airport swap is one that, nowadays, would be practically impossible; in the less terrorist-conscious days of the late 1960s, when the book was plotted, it was just about feasible. But this feasibility does not extend to believability: is it remotely likely that anyone would agree to hand over their passport to a total stranger and then take a drink with the assurance of that stranger that the drug that it admittedly contained was harmless? This ploy is considered in six Notebooks with the earliest, in the first extract below, dating back to around 1963. As usual, details of names and airport locations were to change, but the basic situation remains the same:

  Possibilities of Airport story (A)

  After opening in central European airport (Frankfurt) (Venice) – diversion of plane – substitution of girl for Sir D

  Starts at European airport – woman, tall, sees a medium man wearing a distinctive cloak and hood. Asks him to help her – Sir Robert Old – she takes his place – he takes knock-out drops. Later woman contacts him in London. Thriller

  D. Book

  Starting at airport – substituting – Robin West – international thinker type

  B. Missing passenger

  B. Passenger to Frankfort [sic]

  Missing passenger – airport – Renata – Sir Neil Sanderson

  B. Passenger to Frankfurt

  Sir Rufus Hammersley – his cloak – med[ium] height – sharp jutting feminine chin.

  In Notebook 23 the first sketch above – ‘Possibilities of Airport story’ – continues at ‘A.’ below. But the scenario considered after the postcard and ‘near escape’ idea goes in a completely different direction from the one adopted in the novel. The ‘Girl murdered’ idea is rather similar to that of Luke Fitzwilliam’s reading of the death of Miss Pinkerton following their meeting on the train in Murder is Easy. These notes appear on a page directly preceding the plotting of 1964’s A Caribbean Mystery and this timeline is confirmed by the date of the proposed postcard, November 1963.

  A. Advertisement?

  Postcard? Frankfort 7-11-63 Could meet you at Waterloo Bridge Friday 14th 6 p.m.

  B. Sir D. is called upon by a rather sinister gentleman – questioned about incident at Frankfort – D. is alert – non-committal. Shortly after, a ‘near escape’ – gas? car steering trouble? electric fault? Then a visit from the ‘other side’ apparently friends of girl

  Or

  Girl murdered – her picture in paper – he is sure it is the girl at the airport – it starts him investigating – he goes to the inquest.

  Notebook 28A contains the plot-line that Christie actually adopted and the following short paragraph, listed as Idea B, neatly encapsulates it. Although the calculation about the age of the supposed son would seem to place the writing of this note in 1969, Idea C on the following page is part of the plot of Endless Night (1967) and is followed a few pages later by extensive notes for By the Pricking of my Thumbs (1968). Unusually, here also is the exact title, spelling apart, of the projected book:

  Passenger to Frankfort [sic]

  Missing passenger – airport – Renata – Sir Neil Sanderson

  London Neil at War Office or M.14. His obstinacy aroused – puts advertisement in. Frankfort Airport Nov. 20th Please communicate – passenger to London etc. Answer – Hungerford Bridge 7.30pm

  What is it all about? She passes him ticket for concert Festival Hall. Hitler idea – concealed in a lunatic asylum – one of many who think they are Napoleon or Hitler or Mussolini. One of them was smuggled out – H. took his place – Hitler – H. Bormann – branded him on sole of foot – a swastika – the son born 1945 now 24 – in Argentine? U.S.A.? Rudi Schornhorn – the young Siegfried

  The following extract from Notebook 49 dates from the mid 1960s. Idea A on the same list became Third Girl and Ideas C and D never went further than the four-line sketches on the page of this Notebook. This outline tallies closely with the finished novel although there is no mention of the ticket and passport swap.

  B. Passenger to Frankfurt

  Sir Rufus Hammersley – His cloak – med[ium] height – sharp jutting feminine chin. Fog in airport – flight diverted – the young woman – not noticeable – thinks he has seen her before – likeness – she will be killed – because of the fog – diverted elsewhere – Miss Karminsky – passenger – he is found in passage by loos – no money or papers

  He gets money sent him – then asked to go to Intelligence. He has a sixth sense and a feeling of partisanship. His things searched. Advertisement – wants to see you again – Hungerford Bridge – Nov. 26th Ticket at concert. What is it all about

  Probably because this novel did not involve clues and suspects and alibis, the usual components of a Christie detective novel, there is little in
the way of notes or ideas that were considered and discarded. In fact, it is fair to say that there is little in the way of plot at all in Passenger to Frankfurt. Apart from speculation about rearranging some sections, the notes for the novel are mostly of the names of people and their countries and the interminable meetings that fill the book. The following early notes show uncertainty about the arrangement of some passages in the opening chapters. The seemingly odd reference ‘Lifeboat’ is to the name of the periodical used to conceal the safe return of Sir Stafford’s passport.

  Chapter 3

  Car incident p. 51 – or keep it as original – or keep it on p. 46

  Last page rearranged – Start at breakfast – Interview at ministry. After ministry interview into Mrs. Worrit – clothes cleaned – man – panda?

  Rings Matilda – arranges to go down next week. Dinner with Eric – on way home car business – Lifeboat – passport – advertisement idea

  A passage of considerable interest is the one concerning the antecedents of Siegfried, ‘the young hero, the golden superman’ of Chapter 6. Chapter 17 of Passenger to Frankfurt contains distinct echoes of the ‘new’ version of ‘The Capture of Cerberus’, published in Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks. Remarkably, after a 30-year gap, the central idea of the short story is recycled in the novel – the asylum with its many incarnations of famous, and infamous, people. In each case there is confusion about the ‘fake’ and the ‘real’ Hitler (Hertzlein in the short story) and the eventual release of the ‘real’ one. A major difference in the short story is that the newly released character has become a force for good and not evil, as in the novel.

  Are you suggesting he is Hitler?

  No, but he believes he is.

  Statistics – Borman hid him there – he married a girl – child was born – swastika branded on

  child’s foot – Renata has birth certificate [Chapter 17]

  Some characters from earlier titles reappear. Mr Robinson, first mentioned in Chapter 3, and Colonel Pikeaway in Chapter 4, both appeared in both Cat among the Pigeons and Colonel Pikeaway also appeared in At Bertram’s Hotel; these two shadowy figures would make a further reappearance in Postern of Fate. Matilda Cleckheaton’s nurse, Amy Leatheran, on the other hand, is unlikely to be the same Amy Leatheran who narrated Murder in Mesopotamia; she is described in Chapter 20 of Passenger to Frankfurt as a ‘tactful young woman’. Other interesting passages include a discussion, in Chapter 6, of The Prisoner of Zenda, to be discussed again by Tommy and Tuppence in Postern of Fate; an inadvertent naming of two Christie plays in a paragraph of Chapter 11; and a distinct reference, in Chapter 22, to the basis of the 1948 radio play Butter in a Lordly Dish. More personally, Lady Matilda’s discussion of medicines in Chapter 15 is an echo of Christie’s own description, in her Autobiography, of her work in the dispensary in Torquay.

  Overall, the decline that began with Third Girl reached its nadir with Passenger to Frankfurt; the superb Endless Night beams out like a shining light among the last half-dozen novels. But there can be little doubt that the only reason that Passenger to Frankfurt was even published was that it had the magic name ‘Agatha Christie’ on the title page.

  Nemesis

  18 October 1971

  * * *

  At the posthumous request of Mr Rafiel, from A Caribbean Mystery, Miss Marple joins a coach tour of ‘Famous Houses and Gardens’. She must use her natural flair for justice to right a wrong. But she is mystified by a lack of clues – until one of her fellow travellers is murdered.

  * * *

  Like its predecessors, By the Pricking of my Thumbs and Hallowe’en Party, and its successors, Elephants Can Remember and Postern of Fate, Nemesis is concerned with a mystery from the past. Retrospective justice is what Miss Marple is asked, by the deceased Mr Rafiel, to provide. And, similar to the letter received by Poirot at the outset of Dumb Witness, the posthumous correspondence from Mr Rafiel is very short on detail.

  In one way Nemesis is the most surprising novel that Christie wrote in her declining years. As with most of the novels from her last decade Nemesis is rambling and repetitive, and it is disappointing as a detective novel. The coach tour, which promises much as a traditional Christie setting, is almost a red herring. And unlike the classic settings of Murder on the Orient Express, Death in the Clouds and Death on the Nile, where a mode of transport isolates a group of suspects, the vital characters in Nemesis, the three sisters, are all to be found outside the coach.

  Yet, though it is not a great detective novel – clues to its solution are remarkable only by their absence – considered solely as a novel it is a revelation. Its theme is ‘Love – one of the most frightening words there is in the world’, according to Elizabeth Temple at the close of Chapter 6. The mainspring of the plot is the smothering, corrosive love of Clotilde Bradbury-Scott for the girl Verity. As a counterbalance to this claustrophobic situation there is the love of Verity for Michael Rafiel; but this love is also destined for tragedy. The doomed worship of Verity by Clotilde is the root cause of three deaths – the object of that love and the brutal killing of two innocent onlookers. This hitherto unexplored theme has powerful emotional impact, especially in the closing explanation which, unusually for Miss Marple, takes over 15 pages.

  Like the novel itself, the notes for Nemesis are not very detailed. The bulk of them concern the crime in the past and its possible variations. The idea of the three sisters and the tomb disguised as a greenhouse seems to have been settled in the early stages of planning. This has distinct echoes of a similar plot device in Hallowe’en Party, where a sunken garden fills a similar role; and, earlier again, Dead Man’s Folly, which features a folly as a grave. The notes for Nemesis are in four Notebooks and, as can be seen from the first extract below, work on it began just a year before publication. Note the incorrect name ‘Raferty’ instead of Rafiel:

  Oct. 1970

  Chapter I

  Miss Marple at home reading Times – glances at Marriages – then Deaths. A name she knows – can’t quite remember. Later in garden remembers Carribean [sic] – Raferty, the dying millionaire.

  Chapter II Letter from lawyer in London.

  The Three Sisters – invitations to Miss Marple – Mr. Rafiel – old manor house – a body concealed there

  Clothilde

  Lavender

  Alicia

  What kind of a house? What garden

  A Greenhouse – wreathed over with polygnum – fell down or collapsed in war

  This list of characters from Notebook 6 reflects, with the exception of the Denbys and Miss Moneypenny, that of the completed novel.

  People on Tour

  Mrs. Risely-Porter (Aunt Ann) Elderly dictatorial a snob

  And niece Joanna Cartwright (27)

  Emlyn Price (Welsh and revolutionary)

  Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke (spinster friends)

  Miss Moneypenny (Cats) [possibly Miss Bentham or Lumley]

  Mr and Mrs. Butler Americans middle-aged

  Colonel and Mrs. Walker (Flowers? Horticulture)

  Mr Caspar (Foreign) about 50

  Elizabeth Peters [Temple] Retired headmistress

  Schoolgirl and brother – Liz and Robert Denby

  Professor Wanstead

  A section of Notebook concerning the murder of Elizabeth Temple appears almost word for word in Chapter 11, ‘Accident’. Details differ – the school is Fallowfield, not Grove House Park, and it is Joanna Crawford and not Mr Caspar who provides most of the details of the rock fall – but in essence this extract is an accurate précis:

  Death of Elizabeth Peters, late headmistress of Grove House Park Girls’ School – or is she in hospital? Does Miss M go and see her?

  Does Emlyn Price come and tell Miss Marple of accident? She goes to local hotel to see other travellers – group talk and chat. Either Miss Cooke or Robert Denby describe what they saw – 4 or 5 boys climbing up – throwing stones – pushing a rock – local boys. Mr Caspar later says that was not
what happened – it was a woman. Tells Miss Marple – he was a botanist and had wandered by himself. Professor Wanstead speaks to Miss Marple – mentions Mr. Rafiel – suggests Miss Marple should go and visit her. He stresses Rafiel told him about her

  It must be said however that as a murder method, rolling a rock down a hillside in the hope of hitting a moving target is, at best, imprecise; 35 years earlier, on the banks of the Nile, Andrew Pennington discovered this when his murder attempt on Linnet Doyle failed, literally, to achieve its target. And for a middle-aged murderess it is also very unlikely and impractical.

  The essence of the plot appears in Notebook 28 and, apart from a few details – Gwenda and Philip are forerunners of Verity and Michael – is reproduced in the book. It would seem to have been written early in the plotting as it appears directly ahead of a page dated ‘Jan. ’71’; and it is written straight off with no deletions or changes. The ruse of the ‘pinched’ car and the obliterated body has familiar echoes from The Body in the Library, 30 years earlier.