Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (22 page)

The idea of a ‘last case’ for Poirot was one that Christie toyed with intermittently while plotting earlier titles. The following references are scattered through seven Notebooks and all refer to such a case, often with the name
Curtain
included:

The cover of a typescript of
Curtain
. Edmund Cork of Hughes Massie and Co. was Christie’s agent from
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
onwards.

The title page of the
Curtain
typescript, showing the title and name-and-address in Christie’s own handwriting.

Curtain

Poirot investigates story of death believed caused by ricin

B. Poirot’s Last Case

Styles – turned into convalescent home or Super Hotel

A. Poirot’s Last Case

History repeats itself – Styles now a guest house

Double murder – that is to say: A poisons B
[and]
B stabs A but really owing to plan by C (perhaps P’s last case?)

Curtain

Letter received by Hastings on boat. His daughter with him – Rose? Pat? At Styles

The Unsolved Murder – Poirot’s Last Case?

The
Curtain

H
[astings]
comes to Styles – has heard about P
[oirot]

Short Stories

Scene of one – Road up to Bassae? (Hercule’s last case)

That last, very short and cryptic example from Notebook 60 refers to the Temple of Bassae in Greece, one of the places that Christie visited on her honeymoon. Both her
Autobiography
and Max Mallowan’s
Memoirs
mention it, mainly because it involved a ten-hour mule ride. At first glance it seems that she was considering it as a possible setting for
Curtain
but it is far more likely that it is the last of
The Labours of Hercules
she had in mind, although in the end it came to nothing. This would have been totally in keeping with the international flavour of many of those cases (see
Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks
).

Possible characters are considered in six Notebooks, with Hastings and/or his daughter appearing in many of the lists:

The people

Sherman is the man who likes power – attractive
personality. Victim is Caroline

Curtain Characters

Judith – H’s daughter

Mrs Merrit – tiresome invalid

Her husband – tropical researcher medicine

Girl – B.Sc. has done work for him – very devoted

Or

Judith

Miss Clarendon – nurse companion – fine woman – experienced – mentions a ‘case’ of murder – ‘I once had to give evidence in a murder case’

Sir C. Squire – fine English type – wants to fight – H. terrifically taken by him –

2nd set of people?

Betty Rice (old friend of Landor) – A difficult life – her husband takes drugs

Dr. Amberly – clever man tropical medicine

Mrs Amberly tiresome invalid but with charm

Sir Roger Clymer – old school tie – fine fellow – has known Mrs A
[llerton]
as girl

Miss Clarendon – a nurse companion

A girl, Betty, and her friend come down together – she is an archaeologist or B.Sc. or something in love with Dr. Amberley

Or

Judith H’s daughter

Superior and unpleasant young man? (Mrs A’s son by former marriage?)

At Styles

Dr Amory – keen man of forty-five – wants to go to Africa, study tropical medicine

His wife, Kitty – invalid imaginaire – a blight but attractive

Governess Bella Chapstowe

Nurse companion Miss Olroyd

Martin Wright – cave man – naturalist

People

John Franklin

Adela Franklin

Langton

Nurse Barrett

? Mrs. L
[angton]
(Emilia?)

Roger Boyd

Old Colonel Luxmoore

Mrs Luxmoore

People there

The Darwins – Fred – patient, quiet – his wife querulous

He wants to go off to Africa – his wife won’t let him

Betty Rousdon – a girl staying there – very keen on his work

Wife’s companion – Miss Collard – principal false clue

John Selby – cave man – fond of birds – a naturalist – becomes great friends with Joan Hastings

Girl and mother (latter impossible)

Young man who wants to marry her

Has Selby a wife?

Col. Westmacott and wife – (like Luards?) some secondary resentment between them

Langdon – lame man – keen on birds – has alibi
genuine
for some previous case

P
[oirot]
– invalid – thinks Egypt etc. not George another valet – (not totally helpless)

Triangle drama

(Hastings daughter?) sec. to scientific man – nagging invalid wife who won’t let him go to S. America

Some of the characters seem to have been decided early on and, apart from name changes, remained constant until the finished novel. They include a doctor interested in tropical medicine and his invalid wife, under various names (the Amberleys/Merrits/Darwins/Amorys/Franklins); a young professional woman (Betty Rousdon/‘a Girl’/Judith) in love with him and his work; a nurse companion (Miss Collard/Oldroyd/Clarendon/Nurse Barrett); an ‘old school tie’ (Roger Boyd/Sir C. Squire/Sir Roger Clymer); a naturalist (Sherman/Martin Wright/Selby); and the owners of Styles (the Westmacotts/Luxmoores). These remain, in one form or another, through most of the notes. The young professional woman was not always Hastings’ daughter, Judith; this amendment was introduced possibly in order to give Hastings the necessary motive for murder.

Note the one-time proposal to use the name Westmacott for the owners of Styles. Although it is now well known that Mary Westmacott is a pseudonym for Agatha Christie, at the time these notes were written it was a carefully preserved secret. The reference to the Luards in the final extract is to a once-famous real life murder case in 1908 involving a love triangle.

Eventually, in Notebook 60, we get the listing that is nearest to the novel. At this point, as in some of the earlier listings, there was to be a Mrs Langton. However, Langton as a ‘loner’ makes more sense, psychologically as well as practically.

People

Judith Hastings

John Franklin

Barbara Franklin

Nurse Campbell
[Craven]

Sir Boyd Carrington

Major
Neville
Nugent
[Allerton]
(seducer) really after Nurse

Col and Mrs Luttrell own the place

Miss Cole – handsome woman of 35

Langtons
[Norton]

Chapter 2 of the novel lists the cases on which Poirot bases his assertion that a death will take place at Styles in the near future. Some of the scenarios sketched below, from Notebooks 60 and 65, tally closely with that chapter though, in general, details have been selected and amalgamated:

The Cases

On a yacht – a row – man pitched another overboard – a quarrel – wife had had nervous breakdown

Girl killed an overbearing aunt – nagged at her – young man in offing – forbidden to see or write to him

Husband – elderly invalid – young wife – gave him arsenic – confessed

Sister-in-law – walked into police station and admitted she’d killed her brother’s wife. Old mother (of wife) lived with them bedridden
[elements of the Litchfield Case]

Curtain The Cases

Man who drinks – young wife – man she is fond of – she kills husband – arsenic?
[the Etherington Case]
(Langton’s her cousin – or friend?)

Man in village – his wife and a lodger – he shoots them both – or her and the kid (It comes out L
[angton]
lived in that village)
[elements of the Riggs Case]

Old lady – the daughter or granddaughter – elder polishes off old lady to give young sister a chance
[elements of the Litchfield Case]

The only scenario not to appear in any way is the first one. In many ways these recapitulations are reminiscent of a similar set-up in
Mrs McGinty’s Dead
, where four earlier and notorious murder cases affect the lives of the inhabitants of Broadhinny.

The following extract, from Notebook 61, appears as Idea F in a list that includes the germs of
Sad Cypress
(‘illegitimate daughter – district nurse’) and ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’ (‘The Second Gong – Miss Lingard efficient secretary’) and is immediately followed by detailed notes for
Appointment with Death
, published in 1938. As this jotting was probably written around late 1936 (‘Dead Man’s Mirror’ was first published in March 1937 in
Murder in the Mews
) this would put the early plotting of
Curtain
years ahead of its (supposed) writing. The theory that Christie wrote
Curtain
and
Sleeping Murder
in case she was killed in the Blitz begins to look questionable, as the 1940 Blitz was an unimagined horror four years earlier. Nor can it have been a book held in reserve in case of a ‘dry’ season when she didn’t feel like writing.
Curtain
could only be published at the end of Poirot’s (and Christie’s) career, so it can in no way be considered a nest egg. Ironically, despite the fact that this is a very precise and concise summation of
Curtain
, this Notebook contains no further reference to it.

The Unsolved Mystery Poirot’s Last Case?

P very decayed – H and Bella
[Hastings’ wife, whom he met in
The Murder on the Links
]
come home. P shows H newspaper cuttings – all referring to deaths – about 7 –
4
people have been hanged or surprise that no evidence. At all 7 deaths
one person
has been present – the name is cut out. P says that person X is present in house. There will be another murder. There is – a man is killed – that man is really X himself – executed

And this extract, from Notebook 62, mentions another important point – the absence of George and his replacement with another ‘valet’:

Hastings arriving at the station for Styles – Poirot – black hair but crippled – Georges away – the other man – a big one – quite dumb

After dinner (various people noted) P in his room gives H cases to read – X

Notebook 65 recaps this with some added detail – Poirot and Egypt, the sadism angle – but the note about warning the victim is puzzling. As he says in Chapter 3, Poirot knows from his experiences in
Death on the Nile
and ‘Triangle at Rhodes’ how fruitless warning a potential murderer can be. And he makes the point in the same chapter that warning the victim in this case is impossible as he does not know who the victim is to be. So why is the ‘Warn the victim?’ question answered with ‘I have done that’?

The
Curtain

H comes to Styles – has heard about P from Egypt – has arthritis – Georges is back with him – Master much worse since he went to Egypt.

I am here because a crime is going to be committed. You are going to prevent it

No – I can’t do that

Warn the victim?

I have done that

It is certain to happen because the person who has made up his mind will not relent

Listen –

The story of 5 crimes – H stupefied – no motive in ordinary sense? No – spoilt – sadistic

The first ‘murder’, that of Mrs Luttrell by her husband, is considered in Notebook 60. The finished novel follows these notes accurately, even down to the quotation from
Julius Caesar
:

Col L shoots Mrs L – rifle not shot gun as he thinks – prepared by ‘brother’ batman story – then good shot – quick etc. Accident. He is terribly upset that night – cares for her – remembers her as ‘girl in a blue dress’
[Chapter 9]

P goes down – finds Colonel and Langton – former has been shooting rabbits – Langton flattering him. Talk of accident – he talks of shot beater etc. BC
[Boyd Carrington]
comes along – tells story of batman – goes off. Langton says
he’ll
never be bullied or henpecked – Langton quotes ‘Not in our Stars, dear Brutus but in ourselves.’ Col. shoots at rabbit – shoots Mrs – bending over flowers. Franklin and Nurse attend to her.
Colonel
latter comes later to Colonel – says it’s all right, Colonel all broken up – talks of her and old days – where he met her
[Chapter 9]