Agatha Christie

by Laura Thompson

  The plan – which Cork had been considering for some time, perhaps for too long – was that Agatha Christie should be turned into a limited company, which would employ Agatha to produce her novels and from which she would receive a wage. Her income would be something like the one she was receiving after tax, but far less money would go to the government as the company itself would only pay profits tax at the standard rate. In 1955 the Christie Settlement Trust was formed. The trustees bought one hundred shares in a company called Agatha Christie Limited, controlled by Agatha, whose hundred pounds had bought the shares. In 1957 the Christie Copyrights Trust was formed to look after the copyrights of almost all Agatha’s work (she kept the rights in just twenty books and stories). This avoided a potential problem after death, when her copyrights might otherwise have been assessed at something like £20 million if – as in the case of Bernard Shaw – the tax authorities chose to multiply the income from a top-value property like Witness for the Prosecution by the number of stories she had written.

  Essentially Agatha had to give away as much as she possibly could, in ways that were more congenial to her than handing it to the Revenue. She had already assigned The Mousetrap and They Do It with Mirrors to Mathew, A Pocket Full of Rye to the BSA, and the magazine rights of the short story ‘Sanctuary’ to the Westminster Abbey fund, but all this was for reasons of simple kindness rather than tax avoidance. Now she gave the film sale of Witness for the Prosecution to Rosalind, and Hickory Dickory Dock to Max’s two nephews, John and Peter Mallowan, establishing a trust for their school fees; she gave sums to members of the Boehmer family (relations of her mother), to godchildren and to Charlotte Fisher. She gave to a charity, Harrison Homes, which cared for the elderly, and later the Agatha Christie Trust for Children was established. She also assigned a story called ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’31 to the Diocese of Exeter, with which to buy a stained-glass window for the church at Churston Ferrers, near Greenway, where she worshipped. Agatha was by nature an extremely generous woman, but now she was obliged to be.

  She had had her doubts about the scheme from the first: ‘I presume it’s ethical? So difficult to know nowadays.’32 Although she thought her tax bills absurd, exorbitant proof of government wastefulness, she never for a moment considered becoming a tax exile, or being anything other than above board with the Revenue. She was instinctively uneasy about the way she was obliged to dodge and shift with her money. Why did it have to be like this? Deep into her sixties she still worked so very hard; through no fault of her own she had to play this absurd game of catch-up, and try not to be the victim of her overwhelming popularity. She strove to remain valiant. ‘All this money rolling in and a far harder working life than when we had £400 a year and I wheeled a pram to the Park every day!!’33 she wrote to Cork.

  He, of course, was acting in what he considered to be Agatha’s best interests, and had striven for the best possible scheme. In this he was helped by Anthony, who put his good legal brain to use and who, along with Cork and Rosalind, was to be a trustee. Herein lay the problem, in a sense. The scheme – which in effect took power away from Agatha, and turned her into what she called ‘an employed wage slave’ – was not for Agatha’s own benefit. ‘It really concerns Rosalind and Anthony,’ she wrote to Cork in 1956. And there was something distasteful about the fact that, in order for the arrangement to work properly, Agatha was told that she had to live for another five years. ‘How awful that sounds,’ wrote Cork, ‘but tax machinations make everyone seem inhuman, but do believe me we are not where our dear Agatha is concerned.’34 She was sensitive to his embarrassment – ‘Dear Edmund, the Doll will do her best to live another five years’ – but she disliked the whole thing, and her attitude was to dissociate from it.

  I leave all complications to you, and to Anthony who, I suspect, may even enjoy them. Rosalind can be counted upon as a brake lever, oiled with perfect pessimism.

  Don’t upset yourself too much over all this. I always feel that in taxes the dice are loaded against one.35

  Agatha then wrote to Rosalind and Anthony, saying, ‘The thing is undertaken for your benefit – not mine, since I gather that my means of livelihood (and luxury living!) are more or less unchanged. Therefore unless you really want it and think it a good thing, let it go. [But] if you both think the possible worry and fuss is worthwhile go ahead. I personally am not going to worry or even take much interest. I think it’s your pigeon.’36

  This was relayed back to Cork as evidence of Agatha’s apathy: ‘I am definitely not prepared to go ahead unless our schemes have your unqualified approval,’ he wrote to her. ‘The whole thing does involve putting an awful lot of trust in Anthony and me . . ,’37 He remained convinced that the company was a necessity but was desperate for Agatha to be happy about it, and knew that deep down she was not. Nevertheless she went along with the scheme.

  Stung by being called apathetic (by Anthony, not by you!) I sent an indignant telegram denying the charge. Agreeable, not apathetic . . . Now don’t have qualms, Edmund, I know you are doing your utmost for my financial welfare (and peace!) and I repose complete confidence in you and Anthony, and anyway, I’ve always been urging you to try something of the kind, haven’t I? So don’t let anxiety sit too heavily on your brow.38

  But she had been right to doubt the protection that the scheme would afford her. In 1957 the Inland Revenue started up again. It was disputing the tax position of Agatha’s copyrights, which had produced about £120,000 in the hands of the trustees, and indeed the whole notion of the scheme, which said she had ‘died as an author’ in 1955 and become a mere company employee with a tax code number. The Revenue had initially accepted this change of status, then, as Cork put it, ‘changed their mind as only the Crown can do’. As with the Sabatini case back in 1938, which had started the whole nightmare of Agatha’s tax liability in America, this new problem was waiting upon a judgment: the decision as to the copyrights of the late author, Peter Cheyney. It would not be resolved until the end of 1964.

  In the interim Cork decided to urge further action. After the success of Witness for the Prosecution there was a huge amount of film interest, and the prospect of a deal with MGM seemed a straightforward way to pay the taxman, should the need arise. It was not a good deal. According to Mathew, Agatha’s books ‘were simply handed over to the first person who offered for them’.39 MGM paid $75,000 in early 1960 for the film and television rights to forty properties, and the expectation at this time was that the profits – to be shared fifty-fifty with Agatha Christie Limited – would be handsome. Again, Agatha had doubts; again she was proved correct. ‘I hope there won’t be “broken hearts” over the MGM agreement but what will be – will be! And what one loses in cash one may gain in absence of worry. But don’t break your heart over it, Edmund dear – .’40

  MGM cast as Miss Marple Margaret Rutherford, who was physically quite wrong – large, galumphing, with what was once described as a ‘face like a poached egg’ – but had the requisite light voice and ladylike English charm. As Cork wrote to Rosalind, she was ‘a lot more like Marple than some of the sophisticated American minxes that were proposed. MGM have an option on Rutherford for the future, and we hope that may mean a long and remunerative run for Miss Marple.’ The first film, Murder, She Said, released in 1961, was an adaptation of The 4.50 from Paddington. It did good box office but Agatha had some justification in writing to Cork, after a family visit to the Regal at Torquay: ‘Frankly, it’s pretty poor! I thought so that evening in London, but I couldn’t say so before Margaret Rutherford, especially as she herself was so good. I thought it might seem better if seen in a real cinema with people. But no, definitely not.’41

  Agatha did have an admiration and liking for Margaret Rutherford, and dedicated to her The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. ‘I can assure you that this is one of the proudest moments of my life,’ wrote Rutherford, with a touching sincerity. ‘I am glad you were really so pleased with my performance, as no one but yourself really kno
ws what “Miss Marple” is like – I just put myself in her hands, with faith, and let her do the rest – and very happy she made me!’ There was a poignancy about this letter because, even as the actress was expressing her desire to continue in the role, Agatha was doing her utmost to get the films stopped. If she had thought Murder, She Said ‘pretty poor’, this was as nothing to her feelings about Murder at the Gallop – an extremely free adaptation of After the Funeral, set for no fathomable reason in a riding school – and Murder Most Foul, an even freer rewrite of Mrs McGinty’s Dead,42 When she made plain her feelings about the gross liberties that were being taken, MGM’s reaction was to come up with Murder Ahoy!, which put Miss Marple on a Royal Navy ship and bore no resemblance whatever to any Christie story.

  After this MGM turned its attention to Poirot, whom it threatened to reincarnate as a moustachioed old lecher played by Zero Mostel. The Alphabet Murders43 was made – in fact with Tony Randall as Poirot and, in a cameo role, Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple – but after this both sides had had enough. At the start, Agatha had established friendly relations with Lawrence Bachmann, the MGM representative, who had visited her at Greenway and been very popular because he and his wife liked dogs (Agatha had by this time acquired a Manchester terrier of her own: Treacle, bred in 1955 by Rosalind and given to her mother because he fought with Rosalind’s shih-tzus). Bachmann had reassured Agatha that the films – while inevitably deviating somewhat from her original stories – would not cause her pain or embarrassment. She had been prepared for substantial changes. ‘Don’t think I’m upset by Murder, She Said – I’m not!’ she wrote to Cork. ‘It’s more or less what I expected all along.’44 But she refused to go to the première of Murder at the Gallop and the riding-school setting led her to write, a little caustically, to Bachmann: ‘Don’t kill Margaret Rutherford by making her embrace too many outdoor sports.’45 The title Murder Most Foul aroused her scorn, as did the predilection for putting Miss Marple into books written for Poirot, But it was Murder Ahoy! that caused her real distress. ‘I return to you this farrago of nonsense!’ she wrote to Pat Cork (Edmund’s daughter), after reading the script in March 1964. ‘Why on earth can’t MGM write their scripts, engage Margaret Rutherford to play an old lady, “Miss Sampson”, have plenty of cheap fun and leave me and my creations out of it?’ This was unarguable. MGM had valued her books: why then did they do everything in their power to destroy what made them valuable?

  The shock to me is to find that possibly MGM have the right to write these scripts of their own featuring my characters. That, neither I nor Rosalind seem to have known . . .

  I don’t suppose there could be any misery greater for an author than to see their characters completely distorted. After all, I have a reputation as an author . . . I really feel sick and ashamed of what I did when I joined up with MGM. It was my fault. One does things for money and one is wrong to do so – since one parts with one’s literary integrity. Once one is in the trap one can’t get out. It is one of the sickmaking things that happen all the time nowadays . . . I held out until seventy but I fell in the end.

  If they can write limitless scripts of their own, we’ve really had it. But I still hope that isn’t true.

  She wrote to Larry Bachmann, who apologised for the ‘difficulties over Murder Ahoy? and attempted to reassure her as to The ABC Murders. ‘Please be assured that our basic conception of Hercule Poirot is such that it will not diminish your pride in your creation of this world famous character . . . we will not make him a licentious, “girl-chasing”, dirty or shabby character.’46 (‘Soft words butter no parsnips’, began her reply, and if this flummoxed Bachmann then the rest of the letter was admirably clear: ‘I still feel it questionable that you really have the right to act as you have done.’) Cork did his best to restrain any future excesses on the part of MGM, but it was a losing battle and he knew it: ‘No film company will surrender absolute control,’ he wrote to Anthony in May 1964. But Agatha was also obdurate. The films had gone from bad to worse, in fact they had become demeaning, and there was no prospect that MGM would ever treat the books with any kind of respect. It was stalemate. In July 1965 Cork delivered the news that ‘MGM have not scheduled any further cinema films, as they find it impracticable to proceed without some more flexible arrangement as to adaptation than we are willing to grant them.’ To Rosalind he wrote: ‘It is a relief to be free of MGM . . .’ The company had also employed Agatha to write an adaptation of Bleak House, one of her favourite novels, for which she – or Agatha Christie Ltd – was paid ten thousand pounds in 1962. She found the work fascinating, but had been subject to constant interference. ‘She said that she had never got headaches from worry over her work before, as with this,’47 wrote A. L. Rowse. The film was never made.

  So the MGM deal had not yielded the promised riches. And the Cheyney case, which had been awaiting judgment since 1957, went against her. In November 1964 Cork wrote: ‘I need not say how sorry I was to have to tell you last night that we lost our case against the Special Commissioners.’ She was now liable for a sum between £100,000 and £125,000, this being the tax arrears from 1955. ‘Agatha may indeed be shaken when she comes to consider the amounts at stake,’ Cork wrote to Anthony; he himself was extremely upset about it, and felt deeply frustrated at his own failure to protect her.

  He attempted reassurance: ‘In my view the copyrights that we reserved against contingencies are worth substantially more than these sums,’ he told her, but of course they had to be sold without the proceeds incurring tax at eighteen shillings in the pound. The old spectre of bankruptcy raised its head: ‘You would be gloriously solvent,’ he wrote tentatively. Then he moved away from this frankly unbelievable idea. ‘I am more than ever confident that a solution will be found that will not scrape the barrel and which should not force any alteration in your mode of living. If you decide you want to cut down a bit anyway, that is a different matter!’48

  It was a desperate shambles. Although it was nobody’s fault – except that of the rapacious Revenue – it was a cruel position for Agatha to be in. The decision was appealed and the appeal was lost. More money was paid; more demanded. As a younger woman Agatha had had the resilience to withstand the situation, the sheer relentlessness with which it drove back and forth across her life. But in her seventies she found it hard, although she put up a show of courage.

  Now that the unmentionable financial year has come round again [she wrote to Cork in March 1966], will you send me my accounts so that I can keep up with my homework and know how I stand and why – I don’t know how or what I am spending. And I find this worrying. So will you do this as you have the figures and I don’t – I can’t say 1966 has been a pleasant year so far . . . Thank you for enclosed accounts. I can’t help grudging Medley! [one of her legal advisers]. Talk, talk, talk, object, and no good comes of it!

  In October 1966 a meeting was held at Somerset House, at which her liability was assessed as somewhere near £200,000, but it was agreed that she could sell her retained copyrights for £150,000 to Agatha Christie Ltd without incurring tax. Agatha was in America at the time, and replied from Princeton:

  Nice to receive your letter, though I must say I am far from sharing your inexplicable jubilation! . . . If the tax people can get me to sell my copyrights to the Agatha Christie company they are sitting pretty to collect nearly all of the sum received for ordinary income tax – and no doubt would! Why not?

  They are entitled to it. No – I’m not rejoicing yet.

  We are enjoying ourselves very much . . .

  Eventually a solution of sorts was found when 51 per cent of Agatha Christie Ltd49 was sold in 1968. It was bought by Booker McConnell (the company that in 1972 established the Booker Prize), a subsidiary of which had bought a similar controlling stake in Ian Fleming and the James Bond books. The sum paid to Agatha Christie Ltd was unspecified, but reported as being ‘very much more’ than the £100,000 deal with Fleming. By 1972 Booker also acquired the interest in the co
pyrights that had been owned by the Christie Copyrights Trust.50 The company then lent to Agatha the money she owed to the Revenue, the loan being secured by the copyrights she retained. So it was that, in her eighties, she was in personal debt to Booker McConnell but clear of her obligations to the Inland Revenue: relieved at last of a weight that had pressed upon her – horribly, by the end – for more than thirty years. What has been called the mystery of her will, the fact that she left only £106,000, was in fact no mystery at all. Everything else had been taken from her.

  Throughout, Rosalind’s attitude was complex; as always between her and her mother. For a start her views on her mother’s writing was far from straightforward. Like Agatha, she loathed publicity – because she too lived with the fallout from 1926; because her nature was so down-to-earth and suspicious of flummery – and what conjured more publicity than the words ‘Agatha Christie’? The plays, in particular, attracted a huge amount of public attention. The Mary Westmacotts were obviously autobiographical, which was why in later life Rosalind was at pains to stress that they were not. According to her son, she rather wished the Westmacott novels ‘had never been published’ and she hated the idea of first nights. ‘She was not proud of her mother and what she did.’51

  It was not so surprising if Rosalind felt resentment, too deep for acknowledgement, about Agatha’s career. It had helped to make Agatha the absent mother she undoubtedly was. In Rosalind’s eyes it may have contributed to the breakdown of her marriage to Archie (‘She left him alone too much . . .’). And the portrayal of Rosalind herself, in Unfinished Portrait and, to a lesser extent, A Daughter’s a Daughter, was appallingly clear-eyed: reading those books, there could be no denying that Agatha was writer first, mother second.