Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (11 page)

Perhaps with this in mind, the adaptation of
The Secret of Chimneys
is set entirely in Chimneys. This necessitated dropping large swathes of the novel (including the early scenes in Africa and the disposal, by Anthony, of Virginia’s blackmailer) or redrafting these scenes for delivery as speeches by various characters. This tends to make for a clumsy Act I, demanding much concentration from the audience as they are made aware of the back-story; but it is necessary in order to retain the plot. The second and third Acts are more smooth-running and, at times, quite sinister, with the stage in darkness and a figure with a torch making his way quietly across the set. There are also sly references, to be picked up by alert Christie aficionados, to ‘retiring and growing vegetable marrows’ and to the local town of Market Basing, a recurrent Christie location.

The solution propounded in the stage version is the earliest example of Christie altering her own earlier explanation. She was to do this throughout her career. On the stage she gave extra twists to
And Then There Were None
,
Appointment with Death
and
Witness for the Prosecution
; on the page, to ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/
Dumb Witness
, ‘Yellow Iris’/
Sparkling Cyanide
and ‘The Second Gong’/‘Dead Man’s Mirror’.
In
Chimneys
she makes even more drastic alterations to the solution of the original; the character unmasked as the villain at the end of the novel does not even appear in the stage adaptation.

Some correspondence between Christie and Edmund Cork, her agent, in the summer of 1951 would seem to indicate that there were hopes of a revival, or to be strictly accurate, a debut of the play, due to the topicality of ‘recent developments in the oil business’; this is a reference to one of the elements of the plot, the question of oil concessions. But further developments in connection with a staging of the play, if any, remain unknown and it is clear that until Calgary in 2003 the script remained an ‘unknown’ Christie. The remote possibility that the script preceded the novel, which might have explained the unlikely choice of title for adaptation, is refuted by the reference in the opening pages of notes by the use of the phrase ‘Incidents likely to retain’.

There are amendments to the original novel in view of the fact that the entire play is set in Chimneys. As the play opens a weekend house party, arranged in order to conceal a more important international meeting, is about to begin, and by the opening of Act I, Scene ii the murder has been committed. And, in a major change from the novel, Anthony Cade and Virginia Revel are the ones to find the body, although they say nothing and allow the discovery to be made the following morning. In a scene very reminiscent of a similar one in
Spider’s Web
, Cade and Virginia examine the dead body and find the gun with Virginia’s name; in view of the danger in which this would place her, they agree to remain quiet about their discovery. In effect, Act II opens at Chapter 10 of the book and from there on both follow much the same plan.

A major divergence is the omission of the scenes involving the discovery and disposal, by Cade, of the blackmailer’s body. In fact, the entire blackmail scenario is substantially different. But whether written or staged, it is an unconvincing red herring and it could have been omitted entirely from the script without any loss. Other changes incorporated into the stage version include the fact that Virginia has no previous connection with Herzoslovakia, an aspect of the book that signally fails to convince. The secret passage from Chimneys to Wyvern Abbey is not mentioned, the character Hiram Fish has been dropped and the hiding place of the jewels is different from, and not as well clued as, that in the novel.

The Cast of Characters and Scenes of the Play from a 1928 script
of
Chimneys
.

The notes for
Chimneys
are all contained in Notebook 67. It is a tiny, pocket-diary sized notebook and the handwriting is correspondingly small and frequently illegible. In addition to the very rough notes for some of
The Thirteen Problems
the Notebook contains sketches of some Mr Quin short stories, as well as notes for a dramatisation of the Quin story ‘The Dead Harlequin’. Overall, the notes for
Chimneys
do not differ greatly from the final version of the play, but substantial changes have been made from the original novel.

The first page reads:

People

Lord Caterham

Bundle

Lomax

Bill

Virginia

Tredwell

Antony

Prince Michael

Now what happens?

Incidents likely to retain – V
[irginia]
blackmailed

Idea of play

Crown jewels of Herzoslovakia stolen from assassinated King and Queen during house party at Chimneys – hidden there.

And twenty-five pages later she is amending her cast of characters:

Lord C

George

Bill

Tredwell

Battle

Inspector

Isaacstein

Bundle

Virginia

Antony

Lemaitre

Boris

The entire action of the play moves between the Library and the Council Chamber of Chimneys. The opening scene, which does not have an exact equivalent in the novel, introduces us to Lord Caterham, Bundle and George Lomax, the immensely discreet civil servant, arranging a top-level meeting that is to masquerade as a weekend shooting party. Chapter 16 of the novel has a brief reference to visitors being shown over the house and it is with such a brief scene that the play opens, as outlined below:

Act I Scene I – The Council Chamber

Lord C
[aterham]
in shabby clothes – Tredwell showing party over. ‘This is the . . . .’ A guest comes back for his hat tips Lord C. Bundle comes – ‘First bit
[of honest money]
ever earned by the Brents.’ She and Lord C – he complains of political party Lomax has dragged him into. Bundle says why does he do it? George arrives and B goes. Explanation etc. about Cade – the Memoirs – Streptiltich . . . the Press – the strain of public life etc. Mention of diamond – King Victor – stolen by the Queen, 3rd rate actress – more like a comic opera – she killed in revolution

Despite the crossing-out and amended heading of this extract, the following passage appears in the script as Act I, Scene ii. It corresponds to Chapter 9 of the novel, although there it takes place in Virginia’s house. I have broken up the extract and added punctuation to aid clarity.

Scene II – The Same (Evening)

Act II Scene I

That evening Antony arrives first – then V. He says about a poacher – shots – They do go to bed early – no light except in your window . . . – not this side of the house. Then she talks about the man – his queer manner – didn’t ask for money – wanted to find out. Then discovery of body – she screams. He stops her – takes her to chair.

‘It’s all right my dear, it’s all right.’

‘I’m quite all right.’

‘You marvellous creature – anyone else would have fainted.’

‘I want to look.’

He goes, coming back with revolver.

‘Yes – stay.’

He asks her to look.

‘You are marvellous’

‘Have you ever seen him before?’

‘Have I – Oh! Why, it’s the man – he’s different. He had horn-rimmed glasses – spoke broken English.’

‘This man wasn’t . . . He was educated at Eton and Oxford’

‘How do you know?’

‘Oh, I know all right. I’ve – I’ve seen his pictures in the newspapers’

‘Have you ever had a pistol?’

‘No’

‘It’s
[an]
automatic.’ Shows her.

‘It’s got my name on it.’

‘Did you tell anyone – anyone see come down here?

‘Go up to bed.’

‘Shouldn’t I shut the window after you?’

‘No – no . . .’

‘But . . .’

‘No tell tale footprints’

V goes. A. comes round – examines body. A little earth – he sweeps it up – wipes fingerprints from handles inside. Then goes out, looking at pistol.

Christie reorganises her earlier listing of acts and scenes, although the sequence is somewhat confused:

Act II Scene I – The Library

[Act II]
Scene II – The Council Chamber

Act III

Act II Scene I – The same (evening)

Scene II – The Library (next morning)

Act III The Council Chamber (that evening)

[Scene]
II The same – the following evening

[Act II]
Scene II The library next morning

Bundle and her father (the police and doctor)

Then begins – splutters – I’ve got Battle. Battle comes in, asks for information. Scene much as before – plenty of rope – gets him to look at body next door – watches him through crack – Antony slips out unnoticed

And the third act is sketched twice, the second time in a more elaborate version:

Act III Scene I The following evening

Assembled in library – George and Battle read code letter – Richmond – they wait – struggle in darkness. Lights go up – Antony holding Lemaitre – always suspected this fellow – colleague from the Surete

Act III That evening
Battle and George

Virginia, Lord C, Bundle go to bed. Lights out – George and Battle – the cipher – George 3 – man in armour. They
[struggle]
– door opens – the window – shadows. Suddenly outbreak of activity – they roll over and over – the man in armour clangs down. Suddenly door opens – Lord C. switches on light – others behind him. Battle in front of window – Antony on top of Lemaitre – ‘I’ve got you.’

As the above extract might suggest,
The Secret of Chimneys
is, both as novel and play, a hugely enjoyable but preposterous romp. Overall it is littered with loose ends, unlikely motivations and unconvincing characters. Characters drop notes with significant information; jewel thieves act with uncharacteristic homicidal responses; blackmail victims react with glee at a new ‘experience’ and bodies are disposed of with everyday nonchalance. And virtually nobody is who or what they seem. Why does Virginia not recognise Anthony if, as is reported in Chapters 15 and 24, she lived for two years in Herzoslovakia? Would someone really mistake a bundle of letters for the manuscript of a book? Would Battle accept Cade’s bona-fides so easily? It is difficult not to have a certain amount of sympathy with the pompous George Lomax and to sympathise deeply with the unfortunate Lord Caterham.

There are glimpses of the Christie to come in the final surprise revelation and the double-bluff with King Victor (in a novel about a disputed kingdom, why use this name for a character unconnected with the throne?), but her earlier thriller,
The Man in the Brown Suit
, and the later book with some of the
Chimneys
characters,
The Seven Dials Mystery
, are, if not more credible, at least far less incredible.

The Mystery of the Blue Train

29 March 1928

The elegant train is the setting for the murder of wealthy American Ruth Kettering. Fellow passenger Katherine Grey assists Hercule Poirot as he investigates the murder and the disappearance of the fabulous jewel, the Heart of Fire, among the wealthy inhabitants of the French Riviera.

The Mystery of the Blue Train
was written at the lowest point in Christie’s life. In her
Autobiography
she writes, ‘Really, how that wretched book came to be written I don’t know.’ Following her disappearance and her subsequent separation from Archie Christie, she went to Tenerife with her daughter Rosalind and her secretary, Carlo Fisher, to finish the book she had already started. Rosalind constantly interrupted the writing of it, as she was a child not given to entertaining herself and demanded attention from her preoccupied mother.

The writing of this book also represented an important milestone in the career of Agatha Christie. She realised that she had advanced from amateur to professional status and now she had to write whether she wanted to or not. ‘I was driven desperately on by the desire, indeed the necessity, to write another book and make money.’ But ‘I had no joy in writing, no élan. I had worked out the plot – a conventional plot, partly adapted from one of my other stories . . . I have always hated
The Mystery of the Blue Train
but I got it written and sent it off to the publishers. It sold just as well as my last book had done. So I had to content myself with that – though I cannot say I have ever been proud of it.’
Most Christie fans would agree with her.

The short story to which she refers is ‘The Plymouth Express’, a minor entry in the Poirot canon, published in April 1923. It is a perfectly acceptable short story but it is debatable that it merited expansion into a novel. Frequently in the Notebooks she toys with the idea of expanding, inter alia, ‘The Third Floor Flat’ and ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’; why she opted for ‘The Plymouth Express’ remains a mystery. It is indeed a conventional plot and lacks both the ingenuity and glamour of her later train mystery,
Murder on the Orient Express.