Crime Writers and Other Animals

by Simon Brett

  Carlton Rutherford bought all of them, and read them all with relish. Again, he was comforted by the knowledge of how his forthcoming bestseller would upturn all of these charitable assessments.

  It was while he sat there in bliss that the phone rang.

  Dashiel Loukes. ‘Sorry to bother you on a Sunday . . .’

  Carlton Rutherford did not mind at all. No doubt the agent had received the first ‘ball-park figure’ from which the forthcoming book auction would start, and was anxious to tell his author without delay.

  ‘. . . but something’s come up,’ the agent continued, in a voice which suggested he might be the bearer of less pleasing news.

  ‘Oh? What?’ asked Carlton Rutherford, instantly alert.

  ‘Something which I’m afraid may rather put the kibosh on our scheme, old boy.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Apparently Bartlett Mears wrote his own memoirs. Did you know that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. But that needn’t worry us. By the time they’ve been edited and got ready for publication, my book will have been out a long time and we’ll have cleaned up.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid we won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Bartlett Mears’ Memoirs have been all ready for publication for the last three years. His publishers can have them on the bookstalls in a couple of months if they want to.’

  ‘But how? I mean, if they’re ready, why haven’t they been published before?’

  ‘They were all set up – pre-publicity about to start – announcement in the Bookseller about to be made – when suddenly they had to be withdrawn.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Libel risk, old boy. Most of the people in the book were either dead or unlikely to sue, but there was one who held out. They tried sending her the manuscript to read, but that only made her even more determined to sue.’

  ‘Who was it?’ asked Carlton Rutherford weakly, knowing all too well the name that Dashiel Loukes was about to pronounce.

  ‘Mariana Lestrange,’ the agent replied. ‘But, of course, now she’s dead, there’s nothing to stop them publishing as soon as they want . . .’

  The agent went on for a while, explaining why this news invalidated the chances for their book, but Carlton Rutherford heard no more. He felt a sudden stab of pain in his chest, then his breath seemed to be sucked painfully out of his body until, moments after, blackness descended.

  He collapsed, still holding the telephone, and died on the pile of newspaper tributes to his great rival, Bartlett Mears.

  The death of Carlton Rutherford did not merit any newspaper obituaries. Memories of any promise contained in Neither One Thing Nor The Other had long been swamped by recollections of the subsequent turgid annals of Bob Grantham. There wasn’t a lot to say about a novelist who hadn’t published a book since the sixties.

  The British edition of Bartlett Mears’ Memoirs was published with great éclat in the autumn of 1992. It shot straight to the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list, and stayed there for many weeks. The American and foreign language editions looked set fair to repeat this success.

  Part of the appeal of the book was that it was extremely scurrilous. The author made no attempt to whitewash himself, and indeed his account of his own life was infinitely more offensive than anything contained in the forgotten manuscript of Carlton Rutherford. There was lots of dirt, which was why the book proved so phenomenally popular.

  The public, as they always do, loved a rogue.

  Incidentally, there was no mention in Bartlett Mears’ Memoirs of Carlton Rutherford. The famous author had been completely unaware even of the existence of his rival.

  A LITTLE LEARNING

  SIMON BRETT WRITES:

  A few years back, I bought an old desk at an auction and, when I got it home, found that the drawers had not been emptied by its previous owner. He, from the papers I found there, I deduced to have been an academic of some kind. In a miscellaneous pile of documents, I came across the following essay. It seems to have been submitted as part of his doctoral thesis by an American postgraduate student named Osbert Mint. Keen that the fruits of his scholarship should be made available to as wide a readership as possible, I have made strenuous efforts to trace Mr Mint. These efforts have proved – regrettably – to be unsuccessful, and the essay is therefore printed here for the first time without its owner’s permission.

  The Literary Antecedents of

  Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot

  There is a popular misconception in academic circles that the works of Agatha Christie are simply popular jeux d’esprit which have no connection with the mainstream of English literature. This attitude both belittles the quality of the author’s work and also underestimates the wide reading and research which went into the creation of her most famous character. Hercule Poirot did not spring fully formed into life on page 34 of his first adventure, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. His genesis was part of a much longer creative process and must be seen as the culmination of eleven centuries of English literary history.

  Though Agatha Christie was properly reticent about the breadth of her reading, it is clear to the informed student of her works that they reflect a much broader and deeper literary frame of reference than is usually admitted to this particular author. My essay will trace the pattern of references to other literary sources of which the author herself was sometimes no more than subliminally aware.

  Though there were clearly classical influences on Agatha Christie’s work – most obviously in the collection The Labours of Hercules – they are not within the province of this study, particularly since the subject has been expertly covered by other scholars.1 It is my intention to trace only the English language sources for the creation of Hercule Poirot.

  The first unarguable influence on Agatha Christie’s writings can be found in one of the Digressions in Beowulf. The killing in Hrothgar’s meadhall described in the ensuing passage was clearly the origin of the many Country House murders which were to feature in Hercule Poirot’s investigations. (The language of the extract has been modernized to render it accessible to the general reader. Those fluent in Anglo-Saxon may prefer to consult the original text.)

  Felled on the floor limp lay the earl,

  Blood from the blade blackening his back,

  While all the warriors, muddled with mead-drinking,

  Snored in their slumbers, lost like the daylight

  That darkness has doused. One of their number,

  A murdering bondman – hated by Hrothgar

  (Bringer of boons, mighty meat-giver)

  And by He who made heaven (granter of goodwill,

  Holy helper) – unfairly faked sleep.

  Wakeful eyes worked, lurking behind lids,

  Knowing that another, whose sword he had stolen,

  A goodman not guilty, a worthy warrior,

  Would be caught for the killing – unless

  One much wiser, a righteous unraveller,

  A reader of runes, a Conner of clues,

  Might see through the slaying, righting its wrong,

  And finger the fiendish one.

  Though it might be fanciful to assert that this passage heralds the arrival of Hercule Poirot on the literary scene, it is clear that the Digression prepares the way for the development of the whodunnit form, and particularly of the private detective, ‘the righteous unraveller’, whose task it will be to solve the murder.2

  Granting that the Beowulf reference, though tantalizingly close to unambiguity, cannot be unequivocally accepted as a primary source for Hercule Poirot, the directness of the next reference brooks no denial. It is indeed remarkable – and perhaps a comment on the tunnel vision of many in academic life – that no previous scholars have looked for the Belgian detective’s literary antecedents in the most obvious of sources, the Medieval Mystery Play. The very word ‘Mystery’ could not provide a much heavier clue, and I am bold to assert that Agatha Christie’s inspiration to write mysteries fe
aturing Hercule Poirot sprang directly from her reading of the following extract from the Harrogate Third Shepherd’s Play in the Hull Cycle (‘as it hath been divers time acted by the Guild of Chandlers and Gardners upon the Feast of Corpus Christie’):

  The three Shepherds wake to find the fourth Shepherd, Mak, lying still beside them.

  1Shep. Now by good Saint Loy – and eke by Saint Beth, Why ye lie here, boy, so barren of breath?

  2Shep. Aye, why curl up coy, so still on the earth?

  3Shep. Oh, gone be our joy – for that stillness be death! He is dead!

  1Shep. Now deep is my dole, for lost is his life!

  2Shep. And taken his soul – how sad be this strife!

  3Shep. His purse it be stole. We must go tell his wife.

  1Shep. In his back there’s a hole! It was made by a knife! How he bled!

  2Shep. Someone foully hath played, some forsaken swine This murder hath made – by evil design!

  3Shep. At whose door be it laid? Who’s the cause of the crime?

  1Shep. Let’s see whose be the blade? By the rood, it be mine!

  2Shep. So then thou must be blamed!

  1Shep. Nay, by our lakin’s grace! I slept right through the night!

  3Shep. Then why scratched be thy face? Why these signs of a fight?

  2Shep. Why be blood in this place? On thy sleeve it be bright.

  1Shep. Now, by Saint Boniface! What ye think be not right! I’ve been framed!

  Oh, would one come, that could prove me guilt-free!

  2Shep. Soft, now what be this hum? And this light that I see?

  An angel appears to them.

  3Shep. ’Tis an angel! Be dumb! Nay, drop to thy knee! Angel Nay, look not so glum! I am come to ye three,

  As the scripture foretells.

  2Shep. How his bald head doth shine! Like an egg it be round!

  2Shep. His moustache be so fine, I am nigh to a swound!

  1Shep. Show this guilt be not mine! Let the killer be found!

  Angel Aye, that villain malign I will catch and confound – With my little grey cells!’3

  The next unarguable literary reference which Agatha Christie must have responded to is found in John Skelton’s Speke, Parrot. This poem is generally agreed to be made up of material from different dates and there are considerable textual differences between manuscript versions. The most telling one, from the point of view of this study, was found only as recently as 1893 in the Brestimont Collection. It is actually entitled Speke, Porot and contains the following significant variants of the first three stanzas:

  My name is Porot, a byrd of paradyse,

  By nature devysed of a wonderous kynde,

  Daintily dressed, so dylycate and precyse,

  Blessed with a quyte exceptyonall mynde;

  So men of all countreys by fortune me fynd,

  And send me greate crymes to investygate:

  Then Porot the culpryt wyl incrymynate.

  Cravat curyously clynched, with sylver pyn,

  Properly parfumed, to make me debonaire;

  A myrrour of glasse, that I may prene therin;

  Mustaches ful smartly with many a divers care

  Freshly I dresse, and make blacke my haire.

  Then, Speke, Porot, I pray you, full curtesly they say;

  Porot hath a goodly brain, to ferrit out foul playe.

  With my backe bent, my lyttel wanton eye,

  Fancye and fresh as is the emrawde grene,

  About my neck a sylke scarfe do I tye.

  My lyttyll leggys, my spats4 both nete and clene,

  I am essentyale on a murdre scene;

  Oh perfecte Porot, the lyttyl clever sluthe,

  The clewes wyl trace, and always fynde the truthe.

  The evidence in this extract is conclusive, and it can therefore be definitively stated that Agatha Christie’s source for the character of Hercule Poirot was Speke, Parrot.

  But the author’s debts to English literature do not stop with John Skelton. In her development of the character of Poirot, she was clearly influenced by her reading of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, and particularly of the following sonnet:

  CXI

  Why I haue ask’d you here

  O Fate, O fault, O curse, O crime of bloode!

  What caitif could haue caused so foul a showe?

  What coward turn’d my smiles to sighes of woe?

  What joye-killer haue forced my teares to floode,

  And caused Loue’s flowres to perishe in the budde?

  What trecherie hath brought this man so lowe,

  Stabbd deeper e’en than Cupid’s darts can goe,

  That from his hart the beat no more shall thudde?

  Were Stella’s eyes the motiue for this crime,

  Or stolen rubies, iuorie, pearle and gold?

  I might! – nay, will! – if you should graunt me time –

  The secret of this heauy case unfold.

  To shewe the villain and to make all clere

  The reason is why I haue ask’d you here.

  There are so many other examples of literature from the Tudor and Stuart period which influenced Agatha Christie that it would be invidious to mention any of them.5 I will therefore move next to the Augustan Age and another undeniable source-work for the expansion of the character of Hercule Poirot, Alexander Pope’s Essay on Detection. Almost every line of this surprisingly underrated poem is relevant to the subject in hand, but I will limit myself to the following short extract:

  As in the World’s, so in Detection’s laws,

  All force respects the Universal Cause,

  Which Logic’s enemies do but confuse,

  Confounding those who will not heed the clues.

  For, from the first, a mighty endless chain

  Links clue to crime, and crime to clue again.

  One all-connecting, naught-excluding line

  Draws Logic’s threads within its grand design;

  As when a bloodied sword, by Vulcan’s skill

  Framed to inflict on man the greatest ill,

  Be found imbedded in some chilly corse,

  Inhuman stabbed with more than human force,

  The first thought is to find and clap in jail

  The owner of the sword. Of more avail

  Might be to check the angle of the blow

  And whether struck from left or right to know.

  If from the left, you wrongly would indict

  The owner of a sword who used his right.

  The true Detective to such ploys is wise,

  Nor lets the smallest thing evade his eyes.

  Though falsely led, his true mind does not stray,

  But follows through its thesis all the way,

  Nor does forget, but mightily esteems

  That One Great Truth: ‘All is not what it seems.’

  That Agatha Christie’s reading was wide-ranging cannot now be denied, but, even so, the source of one of Hercule Poirot’s favourite ploys – almost, it could be said, his trademark, the gathering together of the suspects at the climax of one of his investigations – is surprising. It was only after extensive reading through the writings of many authors that I came across the work which undoubtedly gave the author this particular inspiration. Here, from a late volume of The Scots Musical Museum, is the poem which clinches my argument. Though published anonymously, it is undoubtedly the work of Robert Burns:6

  CA’ THE BURGIES TAE THE BOGGIN CHORUS.

  Ca’ the burgiesa tae the bogginb.

  Whaur the willie-paughc be troggind.

  Seele a’ windiesf wi’ the wogging,

  My dearie-oh, my dorkh.

  When Macporriti gang a-spoolinj’,

  Wi’ his ganglinsk in his troolinl’

  He waur mair a skilfu’ doolinm

  Wi’ a’ ca’in’n roon his ha’!

  And his baughito of the hintreep

  Was sae breeq on ilka wintreer

  That he niver f
reemeds his fintreet

  Till he spoffer’d who doon tha’u!

  Ca’ the burgies tae the boggin, &c.

  a Suspects b Library c Detective

  d Waiting e Guard f Exits

  g Police Force h Possibly a

  reference to

  Hastings?

  i Poirot? j Investigating k Grey cells?

  l Brain m Detective n?

  o Analysis p Case q Acute

  r Occasion s Sipped t Tisane

  u Till he had told them whodunnit

  I have now supplied sufficient evidence of Agatha Christie’s erudition and remarkable range of source-material to silence the most sceptical critic of my thesis. And I think I should definitely be awarded my doctorate as soon as possible.

  OSBERT MINT, April 1967

  NOTES:

  1 Cf. especially Britt-Montes’ The Oresteia: Did Clytemnestra REALLY Do It? (Scand. Dagblat, Vol vii, pp. 152–157, 1932) and Bent Istrom’s The Death of Aeschylus: Who Dropped the Tortoise? (Christiana Review, March 1947, pp. 474–523).

  2 It has long been a matter of regret amongst Beowulf scholars that this particular Digression is not resolved and that the identity of the true murderer is never revealed. Tom St Brien’s solution (Grendel’s Mother Did It, Gunterrheinischer Festschrift, 1924), though initially persuasive, cannot ultimately be regarded as other than conjectural.

  3 Academic opinion has long been divided over the precise meaning of this line, which is seriously obscured in the original manuscript of the play. Professor Ernst Tombi of Geneva University has argued persuasively that the line should read, ‘When my little goose calls’, though has unfortunately offered no convincing reason as to why. Enthusiasts of Agatha Christie will be in no doubt that the line should be printed as above.

  4 There seems to be no justification for Bo Mitstern’s reading of ‘spots’ in this context.

  5 Scholars who wish to pursue this topic further are recommended to read the seminal works of Sir T. Bemton, Christopher Marlowe’s Mean Streets and The Metaphysicals: Who-Donne-It?

  6 Ms N. Briotte’s questioning of this attribution on the premise that ‘the poem does not contain enough hatred of women to be authentic Burns’ can be confidently dismissed as feminist claptrap.