Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (17 page)

The plot of ‘The Second Gong’ features one of the few experiments that Christie made with that classic situation of detective fiction – the locked room problem, where the victim is found in a room with all the doors and windows locked from the inside, making escape for the killer seemingly impossible.
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
,
Murder in Mesopotamia
and
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
also have similar situations. But fascinating though these situations can be, Christie does not make them a major aspect of any of these titles. And nor does she with ‘The Second Gong’, where the solution is disappointingly mundane.

But there is another connection with one of these titles. Both ‘The Second Gong’ and
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
feature a killer faking the time of the murder in order to provide himself with an alibi. And more importantly, in both titles a character picks something off the floor, obviously an important clue as it gets a note of its own above, ‘Picks up from hall’; when confronted with this fact, the killer in each case offers a different object in the hope of avoiding detection. And there is a thematic connection with the only Poirot stage play written directly for the stage,
Black Coffee
, premiered the year before the short story. In each case the killer proves to be the male secretary of a wealthy man.

There are no notes for the elaboration of ‘The Second Gong’ into ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, apart from the appearance of the names Miss Lingard and Hugo Trent on a single page of Notebook 61. The plot is almost identical and although a different killer is unmasked, their position in the household is essentially the same as in the original.

Lord Edgware Dies

4 September 1933

When Lord Edgware is found stabbed in his study it would seem that his wife, actress Jane Wilkinson, has carried out her threat. But her impeccable alibi forces Poirot to look elsewhere for the culprit. Two more deaths follow before a letter from the dead provides the final clue.

Lord Edgware Dies
, set amongst the glitterati of London’s West End, began life in Rhodes in the autumn of 1931 and was completed on an archaeological dig at Nineveh on a table bought for £10 at a bazaar in Mosul. It was dedicated to Dr and Mrs Campbell Thompson, who led the archaeological expedition at Nineveh, and a skeleton found in a grave mound on site was christened Lord Edgware in honour of the book.

The inspiration for the book and for the character of Carlotta Adams came from the American actress Ruth Draper, who was famed for her ability to transform herself from a Hungarian peasant to a Park Lane heiress in a matter of minutes and with a minimum of props. In her
Autobiography
Christie says, ‘I thought how clever she was and how good her impersonations were . . . thinking about her led me to the book
Lord Edgware Dies
.’

Although never mentioned in the same reverent breath as
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
or
Murder on the Orient Express
,
Lord Edgware Dies
, despite its lack of a stunning surprise solution, is a model of detective fiction. The plot is audaciously simple and simply audacious and, like many of the best plots, seems complicated until one simple and, in retrospect, obvious, fact is grasped; then everything clicks neatly into place. Every chapter pushes the story forward and almost every conversation contains information to enable Poirot to answer the question, ‘Did Lady Edgware carry out her threat to take a taxi to her husband’s house and stab him in the base of the skull?’

Lord Edgware himself is in the same class as the victims from both 1938 novels, Mrs Boynton from
Appointment with Death
and Simeon Lee from
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
; he is a thoroughly nasty individual whose family despises him and whose passing few mourn. There are also unspoken suggestions of a relationship between himself and his Greek god-like butler, Alton.

The progress of
Lord Edgware Dies
was mentioned sporadically by Christie to her new husband, Max Mallowan, in letters written to him from Grand Hotel des Roses, Rhodes in 1931.

Tuesday Oct. 13th [1931]

I’ve got on well with book – Lord Edgware is dead all right – and a second tragedy has now occurred – the Ruth Draper having taken an overdose of veronal. Poirot is being most mysterious and Hastings unbelievably asinine.

. . . breakfast at 8 . . . meditation till 9. Violent hitting of the typewriter till 11.30 (or the end of the chapter – sometimes if it is a lovely day I cheat to make it a short one!)

Presumably there were ‘lovely days’ at the time of writing Chapters 8 and 16!

Oct. 16th

Lord Edgware is getting on nicely. He’s dead – Carlotta Adams (Ruth Draper) is dead – and the nephew who succeeds to the property is just talking to Poirot about his beautiful alibi! There is also a film actor with a face like a ‘Greek God’ – but he is looking a bit haggard at present. In fact a very popular mixture I think. Just a little bit cheap perhaps . . .

Oct. 23rd

True, I have got to Chapter XXI of Lord Edgware which is all to the good . . . I should never have done that if you had been there . . . I must keep my mind on what the wicked nephew does next . . .

All of the notes for this novel are spread over almost 50 pages of a pocket-diary sized Notebook 41. They outline most of the novel very closely and there is little in the way of deletions or variations. Unless there were earlier discarded notes it would seem that the writing of this novel went smoothly and that the plot was well established before Christie began writing. The first page of this notebook is headed ‘Ideas – 1931’ and the first ten pages, prior to the notes for
Lord Edgware Dies
, contain brief notes for ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’ (1932)
and an even briefer note for
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
, as well as
a one-sentence
outline of the crucial idea behind
Three Act Tragedy.

There are also two references to
Thirteen at Dinner
, the title under which
Lord Edgware Dies
appeared in the USA, but it is not clear if these two references are coincidental or if the idea of 13 guests at a dinner (as mentioned in Chapter 15) was an earlier idea that Christie subsumed into
Lord Edgware Dies
. The first reference lists 13 members of the Detection Club in connection with this plot (as discussed in
Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks
), and five pages later the idea of ‘Thirteen at Dinner as a short story?’ is considered though not pursued.

Two jottings, a dozen pages apart, accurately reflect the first two chapters of the book; and in between these, in the last extract below, Christie summarises the murder plot. As can be seen, the only details to change are minor ones – the name Mountcarlin changes to Edgware, the secretary Miss Gerard becomes Miss Carroll and Martin Squire becomes Bryan Martin, although at this stage he is merely an admirer rather than a fellow actor. The Piccadilly Palace Hotel, the door ajar, the waiter and the corn knife all appear in the book.

An actress Jane W comes to see Poirot – engaged to Duke of Merton – her husband – not very bright – best way would be to kill him she drawls – Hastings a little shocked. But I shouldn’t like to be hanged. Door is then seen to be a little ajar. Martin Squire
[Bryan Martin]
– pleasant hearty young fellow – an admirer of Miss Wilkinson’s. He is seen next evening having supper with Carlotta

Sequence

At theatre – CA’s performance – H’s reflections – Is JW really such a good actress? Looks round – JW – her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. Supper at Savoy – Jane at next table – CA there also (with Ronnie Marsh) – rapprochement – JW and Poirot – her sitting room – her troubles. I’ll have to kill him (just as waiter is going out) Enter Bryan (and CA). JW has gone into bedroom. B asks what did she say – means it – amoral – would kill anyone quite simply

Plot

Jane speaks to Carlotta – bribes her – a thousand pounds – to go to Mr? Jefferson’s dinner. Rendezvous at Piccadilly Palace at 7.30. They change clothes – C goes to dinner. At 9.15 J. rings her up. C. says quite alright. J goes to Montcarlin House – rings – tells butler (new) that she is Lady Mountcarlin goes in – Hullo John. Secretary (Miss Gerard) sees her from above.
Shoot
? Or stab? Ten minutes later she leaves. At 10.30 butler goes to room – dead. Informs police – they come. Go to Savoy – Lady M came in at half an hour ago
or
following morning. J kills him with corn knife belonging to her maid Eloise

Christie then considers her suspects, although this list is much shorter than the eventual cast of characters:

People

Lord Mountcarlin
[Edgware]

Other man Duke? Millionaire?

Bryan Martin – actor in films with her

Lord Mountcarlin’s nephew Ronnie West – debonair Peter Wimseyish

Miss Carroll – Margaret Carroll – Middle-aged woman – a Miss Clifford

The reference to ‘debonair Peter Wimsey’ is to Lord Peter Wimsey, the detective creation of Christie’s crime-writing contemporary Dorothy L. Sayers and the hero of (at that stage) a half-dozen novels and a volume of short stories. The Clifford reference is, in all likelihood, to a member of the Clifford family at whose home the young Agatha attended social evenings.

The vital letter written by Carlotta and forwarded from her sister in Canada (Chapters 20 and 23) is sketched, but only the crucial section, containing the giveaway clue:

Arrival of a letter

he said ‘I believe it would take in Lord Mountcarlin himself. Now will you take something on for a bet. Big stakes, mind.’ I laughed and said ‘How much’ but the answer fairly took my breath away. 10,000 dollars, no more no less. Oh, little sister – think of it. Why, I said, I’d play a hoax on the King in Buckingham Palace and risk lese majeste for that. Well, then we got down to details.

And the Five Questions of Chapter 14 are listed in cryptic form:

Then Points?

A. Sudden change of mind

B. Who intercepted letter

C. Meaning of his glare

D. The pince-nez – nobody owns them – except Miss Carroll?

E. The telephone call (they will go to Hampstead)

The Notebook does include one intriguing sequence, not reflected in the book:

. . . or says I have been used as a tool – I feel ill. I didn’t know what I ought to do – letter to Superintendent of police (rang up) – letter to Bryan Martin. A telephone number Victoria 7852 . . . No, no, I forgot – he wouldn’t be there. Tomorrow will do.

A letter she writes but does not post? Or a friend comes to see her?

These would seem to be the actions of Carlotta Adams as described by her maid in Chapter 10; perhaps the original intention was to report the abandoned phone call directly. And the second reference is to the vital letter to her sister, the facsimile of which, in Chapter 23, gives Poirot the clue that eventually solves the case.

Page 53 of Notebook 41 throws a further intriguing sidelight on
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
. The following note appears under a heading:

Chapter XXVI

Why didn’t they ask Evans

Ah! I can see it all now – Evans comes. Questions about BM
[Bryan Martin]
. She answers – pince-nez left behind

This refers to Chapter 28 of
Lord Edgware Dies
and the questioning of Carlotta’s maid, Ellis. At the end of the previous chapter Poirot has a revelation when, passing a cinema-goer in the street, he overhears the observation, ‘If they’d just had the sense to ask Ellis . . .’; or, in other words, ‘Why didn’t they (have the sense to) ask Ellis.’ It is entirely possible that the writing of
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
followed closely on the completion of
Lord Edgware Dies.
Although there are no notes for the later novel its serialisation began the same month, September 1933, in which
Lord Edgware Dies
was published. Christie possibly felt that the questioning of Evans/Ellis, and the intriguing reason for the lack of questioning, deserved a more elaborate construction than the one given in
Lord Edgware Dies
. And so she wrote
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
,
where the identification and questioning of Evans is the entire raison d’être of the book. Is it entirely coincidental that the Evans of the later novel is also a maid? For further discussion of the Ellis/Evans enigma see the notes on
The Sittaford Mystery.

Three Act Tragedy

7 January 1935

Who poisoned Reverend Babbington at Sir Charles’s cocktail party? And, more bafflingly, why? What became of Sir Bartholomew’s mysterious butler Ellis? What secret did Mrs de Rushbridger hide? In the last act Poirot links these three events to expose a totally unexpected murderer – and an even more unexpected motive.

Three Act Tragedy
is based on one of the most original ideas in the entire Christie output. A single sentence in the Notebooks shows the inspiration for the novel and from it Christie produced a perfectly paced and baffling whodunit. In fact the book is full of clever and original ideas. Apart from the brilliant central concept we also meet a victim murdered not because of what she knows but on account of what she
doesn’t
know; a new conjuring trick in a clever poisoning gambit; a witty yet chilling closing line; and, unwittingly, a foreshadowing, in the final chapter title, of a famous case to come. Mr Satterthwaite, normally the partner in crime of the mysterious Mr Quin, here makes one of two appearances alongside Hercule Poirot, the other being the novelette ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’ from
Murder in the Mews
.

Three Act Tragedy
has ideas in common with
Lord Edgware Dies
from two years earlier. Both are set firmly among the glittering classes; both feature a murderous member of the acting profession involved in a deadly masquerade; both feature a clothes designer and an observant playwright among the suspects; and both feature Hercule Poirot. Oliver Manders’ motorcycle ‘accident’ on the night of Sir Bartholomew’s death is the same as that engineered by Bobby and Frankie in the previous year’s
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
. A variation on the impersonation at the centre of the plot was also to appear in the following year’s book,
Death in the Clouds
, with a murderer disguised as a plane steward; and, in more light-hearted vein, the same ruse was the basis for the short story ‘The Listerdale Mystery’, first published in 1925. This ploy, and its reverse – a servant masquerading as an employer – is used in many Christie titles, for example
The Mystery of the Blue Train
,
Appointment with Death
,
One, Two, Buckle my Shoe
,
Sparkling Cyanide
,
Taken at the Flood
and
After the Funeral
,
as well as
the long short story
‘Greenshaw’s Folly’.