Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (14 page)

His lips setting in a determined line, he pulled the drawer open. Underneath the ties and handkerchiefs, he felt the outline of something hard – something that had not been there previously. With amazement on his countenance, he drew out – a revolver!

He examined it attentively, but beyond the fact that it was of somewhat unusual calibre, and that a shot had lately been fired from it, it told him nothing.

He sat down on the bed, the revolver in his hand. Once again he studied the pencilled words on the programme. Who had been at the theatre party? Cyril Dalton, Noel Western and his wife, Agnes Haverfield and young Frensham. Which of them had written that message? Which of them
knew
– knew what? His speculations were brought up with a jerk. He was as far as ever from understanding the meaning of that revolver in his drawer. Was it, perhaps, some practical joke? But instantly his inner self negatived that, and the conviction that he was in danger, in grave immediate peril, heightened. A voice within him seemed to be crying out, insistently and urgently: ‘Unless you understand, you are lost.’

And then, in the street below, he heard a newsboy calling. Acting on impulse, he slipped the revolver into his pocket, and, banging the door of the flat behind him, hurriedly descended the stairs. Outside the block of buildings, he came face to face with the newsvendor.

‘’Orrible murder of a well known physician. ’Orrible murder of a – paper, sir?’

He shoved a coin into the boy’s hand, and seized the flimsy sheet. In staring headlines he found what he wanted.

HARLEY STREET SPECIALIST MURDERED. SIR JAMES LAWSON FOUND SHOT THROUGH THE HEART.

His uncle: Shot!

He read on. The bullet had been fired from a revolver, but the weapon had not been found, thus disposing of the idea of suicide.

The weapon –
it was in his pocket now
: why he knew this with such certainty, he could not have said. But it was so. He accepted it without doubt, and in a blinding flash the terrible peril of his position became clear to him.

He was his uncle’s heir – he was in grave financial difficulties. And only that morning he had quarrelled with the old man. It had been a loud bitter quarrel, doubtless overheard by the servants. He had said more than he meant, of course – used threats – it would all tell against him! And as a culminating proof of his guilt, they would have found the revolver in his drawer . . .

Who had placed it there?

It all hung on that. There might still be time. He thought desperately, his brain, keen and quick, selecting and rejecting the various arguments. And at last he saw . . .

A taxi deposited him at the door of the house he sought.

‘Mr Weston still up?’

‘Yes, sir. He’s in the study.’

‘Ah!’ Derek arrrested the old butler’s progress. ‘You needn’t announce me. I know the way.’

Walking almost noiselessly upon the thick pile of the carpet, he opened the door at the end of the hall and entered the room. Noel Western was sitting by the table, his back to the door. A fair, florid man; good looking, yet with a something in his eyes that baffled and eluded. Not till Derek’s hand touched his shoulder, was he aware of the other’s presence. He leaped in his chair.

‘My God, you!’ He forced a laugh. ‘What a start you gave me, old chap. What is it? Did you leave something behind here?’

‘No.’ Derek advanced a step. ‘I came to return you –
this
!’

Taking the revolver from his pocket he threw it on the table. If he had had any doubts, they vanished now before the look on the other’s face.

‘What-what is it?’ stammered Western.

‘The revolver with which you shot James Lawson.’

‘That’s a lie.’ The denial came feebly.

‘It’s the truth. You took my latchkey out of my overcoat pocket this evening. You remember that your wife and I went in the first taxi to the theatre. You followed in another, arriving rather late. You were late because you had been to my rooms to place the revolver in my drawer.’

Derek spoke with absolute certainty and conviction. An almost supernatural fear showed upon Noel Western’s face.

‘How – how did you know?’ he muttered, as it were in spite of himself.

‘
I
warned him.’

Both men started and turned. Stella Western, tall and beautiful, stood in the doorway which connected with an adjoining room. Her fairness gleamed white against the sombre green of the window curtains.

‘I warned him,’ she repeated, her eyes full on her husband. ‘Tonight, when Mr Lawson mentioned casually something about returning home, I saw your face. I was just beside you, although you did not notice me, and I heard you mutter between your teeth “There’ll be a surprise for you when you do get home!” And the look on your face was – devilish. I was afraid. I had no chance of saying anything to Mr Lawson, but I wrote a few words on the programme and passed it to him. I didn’t know what you meant, or what you had planned – but I was afraid.’

‘Afraid, were you?’ cried Western. ‘Afraid for
him
! You still may be! That’s why I did it! That’s why he’ll hang – yes, hang – hang – hang! Because you love him!’ His voice had risen almost to a scream, as he thrust his head forward with blazing eyes. ‘Yes – I knew! You loved him! That’s why you wanted me to see that meddling old fool, Lawson, who called himself a mental specialist. You wanted to make out I was mad. You wanted me put away – shut up – so that you could go to your lover!’

‘By God, Western,’ said Derek, taking a step forward with blazing eyes. He dared not look at Stella. But behind his anger and indignation, a wild exultation possessed him. She loved him! Only too well he knew that he loved her. From the first moment he had set eyes on her, his doom was sealed. But she was another man’s wife – and that man his friend. He had fought down his love valiantly, and never, for one moment, had he suspected there was any feeling on her side. If he had known that – he struggled to be calm. He must defend her from these raving accusations.

‘It was a conspiracy – a great conspiracy.’ The high unnatural voice took no heed of Derek. ‘Old Lawson was in it. He questioned me – he trapped me – found out all about my mother having died in an asylum (Ha ha! Stella, you never knew that, did you?). Then he spoke about a sanitorium – a rest cure – all lies! Lies – so that you could get rid of me and go to your lover here.’

‘Western, you lie! I’ve never spoken a word to your wife that the whole world couldn’t hear.’

Noel Western laughed, and the laugh frightened them both, for in it was all the low cunning of a maniac.

‘You say so, do you?
You
say so!’ Carried away by fury, his voice rose higher and higher, drowning the protests of the other, drowning the sound of the opening door. ‘But I’ve been too clever for you! Old Lawson’s dead. I shot him. Lord! what fun it was – knowing who’d hang for it! You see, I’d heard of your quarrel, and I knew you were in pretty deep financial water. The whole thing would look ugly. I saw it all clearly before me. Lawson dead, you hung, and Stella – pretty Stella – all to myself! Ha ha!’

For the first time, the woman flinched. She put up her hands to her face with a shivering sob.

‘You say you saw it all clearly before you,’ said Derek. There was a new note in his voice, a note of solemnity. ‘Did you never think that there was something
behind
you?’

Quelled in spite of himself, Noel Western stared fearfully at the man before him.

‘What – what do you mean?’

‘Justice.’ The word cut the air with the sharpness of steel.

A mocking smile came to Western’s lips.

‘The justice of God, oh?’ he laughed.

‘And the justice of men.
Look behind you!
’

Western spun round to face a group of three standing in the doorway, whilst the old butler repeated the sentence that his master’s words had drowned before.

‘Two gentlemen from Scotland Yard to see Mr Lawson, sir.’

An awful change came over Noel Western’s face. He flung up his arms and fell. Derek bent over him, then straightened himself.

‘The justice of God is more merciful than that of men,’ he said. ‘You do not wish to detain me, gentlemen? No? Then I will go.’ For a moment his eyes met Stella’s, and he added softly: ‘But I shall come back . . .’

The expansion of ‘The Man Who Knew’ into ‘The Red Signal’ suggests that Christie rewrote this after some experience in plotting a detective story. ‘The Red Signal’ was first published in June 1924, so we can assume that it was written probably the previous year and, therefore, after the publication of
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
and
The Murder on the Links
, both novels with carefully constructed plots and unsuspected denouements. By the beginning of 1924 she had also published a dozen Poirot short stories. Technically, she was now more adept at laying clues, both true and false, misdirecting the reader and springing a surprise.

Plot-wise both versions of the story are identical, the later one merely longer and more elaborate than the earlier. Some elements remain exactly the same – the description of Stella’s husband as ‘florid’, the ominous words ‘Don’t go home’, the revolver found in the handkerchief drawer. But ‘The Red Signal’ has a larger cast of characters, a greater emphasis on the supernatural and a more unexpected revelation at the end. Unlike the earlier version the reader is encouraged to trust the character unmasked as the villain; in the earlier version Noel Western is unknown to the reader until his unmasking. The cunning hand of Christie the detective novelist can be seen in some of the plot expansion – the ambiguous conversation between Dermot and his uncle when we are mistakenly confident, after subtle misdirection, that the subject of the conversation about insanity is Clair; the red signal of the title, the warning ‘Don’t go home’, which applies equally to Sir Arlington and to Dermot; and the ruse of Dermot masquerading as his own servant, which would become one of Christie’s favourite stratagems for hoodwinking her readers. On a more mundane note however, is it likely that a newsboy would sell newspapers and shout headlines at close to midnight? If the party has just returned from the theatre it cannot be much earlier.

While by no means a typical Christie tale, we can see how, after writing a mere handful of detective stories, Agatha Christie was able to transform a slight short story such as ‘The Man Who Knew’ into a clever exercise in misdirection.

Chapter 4
The Second Decade 1930–1939

‘The funny thing is that I have little memory of the books I wrote just after my marriage. ’

SOLUTIONS REVEALED

Black Coffee •
‘Dead Man’s Mirror’
• Death in the Clouds • Death on the Nile • Evil under the Sun • Endless Night • Hercule Poirot’s Christmas • Lord Edgware Dies • The Murder at the Vicarage • The Mysterious Affair at Styles •
‘The Second Gong’
• Three Act Tragedy • Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

The years 1930 to 1939 were undoubtedly Agatha Christie’s Golden Age, in terms of ingenuity, productivity and diversity. In 1930 she published the first Miss Marple novel,
The Murder at the Vicarage
, and the first Mary Westmacott,
Giant’s Bread
. By the end of the decade she had produced a further 16 full-length novels and six short story/novella collections (seven if the US-only
The Regatta Mystery
in 1939 is included). Many of her classic titles appeared in this decade. She experimented with the detective story form in
And Then There Were None
(1939), she broke the rules in
Murder on the Orient Express
(1934), she pioneered an early example of the serial killer in
The A.B.C. Murders
(1936) and wrote a light-hearted thriller with
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
(1934). Reflecting her own love of travel, she sent Poirot abroad in
Murder in Mesopotamia
(1936),
Death on the Nile
(1937)
and
Appointment with Death
(1938), for the type of detective experience not shared by most of his literary crime-solving contemporaries.

As well as an impressive output of detective novels, she also published short stories – crime fantasy with
The Mysterious Mr Quin
(1930), the supernatural in
The Hound of Death
(1933), a mixture of crime, romance and light-hearted adventure in
The Listerdale Mystery
and
Parker Pyne Investigates
(both 1934); and mastered the difficult novella form in
Murder in the Mews
(1937). Despite the first appearance of Miss Marple in a full-length book and the publication of some of Poirot’s best cases, she also published non-series titles –
The Sittaford Mystery
(1931) and
Murder is Easy
(1939). In addition, she wrote the scripts for
Black Coffee
(1930), her only original Poirot play, and
Akhnaton
(written 1937), a historical drama set in ancient Egypt. She contributed to the round-robin detective stories of the Detection Club,
Behind the Screen
in 1930 and
The Floating Admiral
and
The Scoop
in 1931; and she wrote her first radio play,
Yellow Iris
(1937).

She would never again – perhaps not surprisingly – equal this productivity; the second half of the following decade saw her slow down to a mere one title a year. But the truly astonishing aspect of this output is not just the volume but also the consistency. None of the titles produced in these years fall below the level of excellent. All of them display her talents – ingenuity and readability, intricacy and simplicity – at the height of their powers and many are now recognised classics of the genre, representing a standard which other crime writers strove to match.

Her work was in demand for the lucrative magazine market in the UK and North America and for translation throughout Europe. She was one of the first writers to be chosen, in 1935, for publication in the new Penguin paperbacks; and her hardback sales for each new title entered the five-figure category. From
Three Act Tragedy
(1935) onwards her first-year sales never fell below 10,000. Film versions of her work –
Alibi
(based on
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
) and
Black Coffee,
both in 1931, and
Lord Edgware Dies
in 1934 – were released,
although all three featured a seriously miscast Austin Trevor, a six foot tall Irishman, in the role of Poirot; and
Love from a Stranger
, adapted from the short story ‘Philomel Cottage’, appeared in 1937 with Joan Hickson in a small role.
Black Coffee
and
Love from a Stranger
had been produced as stage plays earlier in the decade; and
Chimneys
, her own stage adaptation of her 1925 novel, was scheduled to appear in 1931 but was cancelled for reasons still unknown. The first Christie, and Poirot, on television came in June 1937 with the broadcast of
Wasp’s Nest
.

It is entirely possible that Christie’s happy personal life was, at least in part, responsible for this productive professional life. In September 1930 she had married Max Mallowan, thus ending the profoundly unhappy period of her life which began with the death of her mother in 1926 and culminated in her divorce from Archie Christie in 1928. Secure in a stable marriage, with a happy and healthy daughter, and spending some months of every year cheerfully working on an archaeological dig with her husband, she produced new books with enviable ease. And to judge from the evidence of the Notebooks, plot ideas for future books were not in short supply. The early 1930s coincide with the most indecipherable pages of the Notebooks, when her handwriting could hardly keep pace with her ingenuity. By the mid 1930s, reading the latest Agatha Christie had become not just a national but an international pastime.

The Murder at the Vicarage

13 October 1930

When unpopular churchwarden Colonel Protheroe is found shot in the vicar’s study in St Mary Mead, the vicar’s neighbour identifies seven potential murderers. Two confessions, an attempted suicide and a robbery confuse the issue but Miss Marple understands everything when she realises the significance of the potted palm.

The Murder at the Vicarage
was the first Agatha Christie title issued under the new Crime Club imprint, and the first book-length investigation for Miss Marple. It appeared in serial form in the USA three months before its UK publication, leading to the conclusion that the bulk of the novel was completed during 1929. Disappointingly, Christie writes in her
Autobiography
that ‘I cannot remember where, when or how I wrote it, why I came to write it or even what suggested to me that I should select a new character – Miss Marple.’ She goes on to explain that the enjoyment she got from the creation of the Caroline Sheppard character in
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
was a factor in the decision to re-create an ‘acidulated spinster, full of curiosity, knowing everything, hearing everything; the complete detective service in the home’. The character of Miss Marple in
The Murder at the Vicarage
is considerably different from the Miss Marple of her next case 12 years later,
The Body in the Library
.

Jane Marple made her first appearance in print in a series of six short stories published between December 1927 and May 1928 in the
Royal Magazine
, beginning with ‘The Tuesday Night Club’. A further six stories were published between December 1929 and May 1930 in
The Story-Teller
and all 12 were published, with the addition of ‘Death by Drowning’, as
The Thirteen Problems
in June 1932. In the first story Miss Marple sits in her house in St Mary Mead, dressed completely in black – black brocade dress, black mittens and black lace cap – in the big grandfather chair, knitting and listening and solving crimes that have baffled the police. She is described as ‘smiling gently’ and having ‘benignant and kindly’ blue eyes. But the first description we receive of her, from the vicar’s wife, Griselda, in
The Murder at the Vicarage
is ‘that terrible Miss Marple . . . the worst cat in the village’. The vicar himself, while describing her as ‘a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner’, also concedes that ‘she is much more dangerous’ than her fellow parishioner the gushing Miss Wetherby. He captures the essence of Miss Marple when he states in Chapter 4 that ‘There’s no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.’ By 1942 and
The Body in the Library
, Miss Marple has cast off, temporarily at least, both St Mary Mead and her black lace mittens to accompany Dolly Bantry to the Majestic Hotel in Danemouth to solve the murder of Ruby Keene. And thereby to join the company of the Great Detectives.

The Murder at the Vicarage
has its origins in the Messrs Satterthwaite and Quin short story ‘The Love Detectives’, published in December 1926 in
The Storyteller
magazine. Here two adulterous lovers commit murder and then confess separately, confident in the knowledge that if they make the ‘confessions’ incredible enough (they each claim to have used different and incorrect weapons), neither of them will be believed. In both short story and novel the victim is the husband, and the killers are his wife and her lover. Significantly, in each case a stopped clock causes confusion as to the time of death. The novel adapts the motive, the means and the device of false confessions, adds extra suspects and replaces the duo of Satterthwaite and Quin with Miss Marple; but they are, essentially, the same story.

The notes for
The Murder at the Vicarage
are all contained in Notebook 33 and consist of 70 very organised pages that closely follow the progress of the novel. For the early chapters the chapter number is included; thereafter the remainder of the notes follow the novel in chronological order. There is little in the notebook that is not included in the published version. Two maps of St Mary Mead are included and the rest of Notebook 33 contains the draft for
Three Act Tragedy
.

From Notebook 33 Christie’s own sketch of St Mary Mead for
The Murder at the Vicarage
showing most of the locations that appear in that novel.

For some reason, the notes for
The Murder at the Vicarage
begin at Chapter 3; there is no record anywhere of the first two chapters. The extracts below have been edited for clarity.

Chapter III

Griselda and Vicar – Vicar meets Mrs L
[estrange]
at Church – shows her round. Studio – he goes to it to see picture – Anne and Lawrence. Anne comes to him in Study – taps on window

Chapter IV

Dinner that night – Lawrence there – Dennis – afterwards Lawrence with vicar. Dennis comes in after Lawrence has gone – wants to tell things. Says ‘What a rotten thing gossip is.’ Where does Mrs Lestrange go to at night.

Chapter V

Vicar called away – returns and discovers body.

Although the next extract is labelled ‘Chapter VII’ in the Notebook, it appears in the published novel as Chapter 6. From here on the Notebook does not specify chapter headings; I have added the actual chapter numbers to preserve the chronology:

Chapter VII
[actually Chapter 6]

Inspector shuts up room and window and leaves word no-one is to go in. Learns from Mary next morning Mr Redding has been arrested – Griselda says ‘What’ – incredulous – couldn’t be Lawrence. What earthly motive. Vicar does not want to say about Anne. Entrance of Miss Marple – very terrible business – discusses it with them. Of course one knows who one thinks – one might be wrong. They tell her L arrested. She is suspicious – he has confessed. Oh! Then – I see I was wrong – I must have been wrong. Explain about clock – Griselda says again he knew. Miss M pounces on note – ‘Yes that is curious.’ Mary says Col. Melchett.

[Chapter 7]

A sad business – young Redding came in to the police station, threw down the pistol, a Mauser 25, and gave himself up. Declined to give motive. One thing I am amazed – the shot not heard. Vicar explains where kitchen is – still, I feel it would have been heard – silencer. They go to Haydock. They tell him Redding has confessed – Haydock looks relieved – that saves us all a lot of anxiety. Say 6.30 not later than that – the body was cold, man. Redding couldn’t have shot him then. He looked worried – but if the man says so he’s lying. But why on earth should he lie?

[Chapter 8]

The clock – what about the clock – it stopped at 6.22. Oh! I put it back. Note
[from Anne]
to Vicar. ‘Please – please – come up to see me. I have got to tell someone.’ Hands it to Col Melchett – they go up – Slack, Col and vicar. They go up. Anne – Want to ask you a few questions – she looks at him. Have you told them? I shook my head. I’ve been such a coward – such a coward – I shot my husband – I was desperate. Something came over me – I went up behind him and fired. The pistol? It – it was my husband’s – I took it out of a drawer. Did you see anyone? No – Oh! yes – Miss Marple.

[Chapter 9]

They go to see Miss Marple. They ask her. Yes – I saw Mrs Protheroe at about a quarter past six. No – not flustered at all. She said she had come to walk home with her husband. Lawrence came from wood path and joined her. They went into the studio – then left and walked off that way. She must have taken the pistol with her. Miss M says no pistol with her. Slack says concealed on her person – Miss M says ‘quite impossible.’