Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (35 page)

Mr Goby from
After the Funeral
makes a brief appearance. And is Chief Inspector Neele the same policeman, though not of the same rank, who investigated, alongside Miss Marple, the deaths at Yewtree Lodge in
A Pocket Full of Rye
? Is Dr Stillingfleet, moreover, the medical man who featured in ‘The Dream’?

The intriguing opening scene is sketched over half a dozen times, with little variation, in four separate Notebooks. This premise would seem to have been the starting point of the novel and the one unalterable idea throughout the notes.

Poirot breakfast – Girl – Louise – I may have committed a murder. 3 girls in a flat Louise and Veronica – Judy – (Claudia Norma Townsend). One of these three girls. What does she mean by ‘she thinks she may have committed’

Poirot at breakfast – girl calls ‘She thinks she may have committed a murder.’ ‘Thinks’ Doesn’t she know? No clearness – no precision. ‘I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have told you – you’re too old’

Poirot at breakfast table – Norma (an unattractive Ophelia) says she may have committed a murder – then tells Poirot he is ‘too old.’

Suggestions – Chap I – P. at breakfast

Poirot at the breakfast table – thinks she may have committed a murder. Disappointed by P – too old – recommended by Mrs. Oliver – makes excuse – goes. Poirot worried

Idea A    July – 1965

Poirot at his breakfast table (The Late Mrs. Dane). P. at breakfast – George
⁴⁰
announces – a – pause – young lady. I do not see people at this hour. She says she thinks she may have committed a murder. ‘Thinks? It is not a subject on which one should be in doubt.’ Girl – unkempt – Poirot regards her with pain etc. G
[eorge]
and P discuss – neurotic?

This last sketch merits discussion. It appears in Notebook 27 a page after the final notes for
At Bertram’s Hotel
, the previous year’s book. To judge by the date heading this note, Christie was mulling over ideas for her 1966 book having just despatched the 1965 Christie for Christmas to Collins. In the notes that follow we find, using an alphabetical sequence, the germs of
Endless Night
,
Nemesis
and
Hallowe’en Party
.

Idea B, four pages later, is ‘Gypsy’s Acre – place where accidents always happen’ (this became
Endless Night
). Idea C is a variation on ‘The Cornish Mystery’, though it did not generate a subsequent novel: ‘Wife thinks her husband is poisoning her . . . niece’s young man writes love letters to her – but to Aunt also’. Idea D toys with the possibility of a ‘National Trust Tour of Gardens’, later developed into
Nemesis
. And Idea E, headed ‘Mary, Mary, Quite contrary’, concerns a foreign girl who is left everything in the will of her wealthy employer. Christie urges herself at the end of this note, ‘Good idea – needs working on’; after further work this became
Hallowe’en Party
.

The other interesting point concerns the reference to ‘The Late Mrs. Dane’. The first page of Notebook 19, during the planning of what was to become
Sleeping Murder
, is headed:

Cover Her Face

The Late Mrs. Dane

They Do It with Mirrors

The promising title ‘The Late Mrs Dane’ was not pursued although the name itself appears in the early sketches for
Sad Cypress
and
The A.B.C. Murders
. Thirty years later, in 1965, we can see that the elderly Christie was still toying with it; and it is a great title.

Mrs Oliver’s visits to Borodene Mansions in Chapters 3 and 7, and Poirot’s to High Basing in Chapters 4 and 5, are sketched thoroughly in Notebook 26:

Mrs Oliver visits Borodene Court – a flat – 3 girls

Claudia – confident, efficient good background

Frances – Arts Council or Art Gallery.

Norma

Milkman mentions to Mrs O. Lady pitched herself down from 7th floor. Mind disturbed – had only been in flat a month

Decoration of flat – all similar built-in furniture and wallpaper – one wall with huge Harlequin

Poirot at High Basing – visits Restaricks – pretends to know Sir Rodney. On leaving has a snoop before he and Mary encounter the Peacock (David) also snoopy. Later Poirot gives lift to David

And the essence of the plot is captured in the following paragraph from Notebook 42:

Frances in an art racket – David works with her – gallery ‘in’ it. She runs picture shows abroad – he forges pictures. She meets McNaughton, he and Restarick whose brother dies suddenly – he takes R’s place – R’s passport faked by her. She goes back to England – once there assumes part of Mary – blonde and wig – Mrs Restarick – visit Uncle Rodney – furniture in store – picture ‘cleaned’ – substitute painted by David of McNaughton. Katrina found by Mary – dailies – Mary up and down to London, Frances to Manchester – Liverpool – Birmingham etc. Frances gets Norma to Borodene Court – she seldom sees F – but thinks she is going mad because she
dreams
F is M

Most of the salient points of the plot are covered but the words ‘assumes part of Mary’ are easier to read than to imagine. They involve a character playing a continuing dual role. It is difficult for the reader to believe that, even in Norma’s drug-induced twilight existence, the same person could have been accepted as her flatmate and her stepmother. Impersonation has frequently played an important part in Christie’s fiction – Carlotta Adams in
Lord Edgware Dies
, Sir Charles Cartwright in
Three Act Tragedy
, Miss Gilchrist in
After the Funeral
, Romaine in ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ – but in each of these cases the impersonation is a one-off episode and not a long-term arrangement. And in three of these instances the impersonator is a professional actor.

The sequence of events in Chapter 22 is outlined in Notebook 42:

Frances speaks to porter, goes up in lift – inserts key etc. Hand rises slowly to throat – sees herself in glass – her look of frozen terror. Then screams and runs out of flat – grips someone – killed – she has just returned from Manchester? Dead body – 2 hours dead. F. comes by train from Bournemouth? – changes to Mary – meets David – where are Claudia? Andrew? Mary?

And there are flashes of Christie’s old ingenuity – the odd/even numbers, the different/same room scenario – in this extract from Notebook 49; elements of this note surfaced in the book although the practicality of the idea is questionable. The reference to ‘Swan Court’ is to the actual apartment block in which Christie had a flat for much of her life:

An idea

Girl or (dupe of some kind) taken to flat – go up in lift – one of kind you can’t see or count floors. Room has very noticeable wall paper – Versailles? Cherries? Birds? She swears to this – believing it – describes it minutely. Actually that room and wallpaper is
somewhere else
. Wallpaper is put on same night – it is all prepared – cut etc. – pasted on – would take a couple of hours not more –
but
it would have to dry off and therefore would be described as a damp room – ‘had patches’ of damp on it
or
a room with the noticeable paper would be papered over with another paper. The similarity of rooms in a block like Swan Court in, say, opposite sides of building – odd and even numbers if some flats furniture would be the same

Much of the detail explored in the following extract from Notebook 50 was to change but some concepts – the drugging and scapegoating, the fake portrait and the subterfuge with regard to flat numbers – remained:

Girl doped by other girls (Claudia? Frances?)
friends
hears a shot – comes to find herself shooting out of window – other girl supporting her and pistol really discharged by her – Lance they get in and fix him up – bandages etc. He and (Cl?) (Frances?) are ‘in it’ together against simple Norma. Later she is again ‘doped’ a second brain storm – result – a young artist is shot – girls give evidence for Norma – police can’t shake them but don’t believe them.

(B)? The Picture by Levenheim A.R.A. is of her mother
Lady Roche
in country house. Actually picture is copied by young David McDonald – only face of (Mary?) is substituted – then David is shot. Norma suspected and believes herself she did it. Thought to be a sexy crime.

C.
Or
is Arthur Wells – Mary’s husband – painted into picture

D. Or Arthur and Mary – Sir R – can’t see A very well but believes he is his nephew. A man with a stroke – is bribed to impersonate Arthur at a specialist.

[E]
Painting – a Lowenstein – (L is dead) worth £40,000 – insured. Copy false – seen on one evening – party

Points of interest

Double flat – 71 7th floor (faces W), 64 6th floor (faces E) Police called to which?

Finally, in the following extracts, all from Notebook 51, there are glimpses of the Christie of yesteryear with the listing of ideas and the consideration of possible combinations of conspirators (throughout these sketches the David of the book appears as Paul):

Norma – are her words connected with home – stepmother? Her own mother – Sonia – old boy?

Or

3rd girl activities – is boy friend (Paul) a Mod – like a Van Dyk
[sic]
– brocade waistcoat – long glossy hair – is he the evil genius – is he in it with Claudia? with Frances? Narcotics?

Does Norma get keen on him – she acts as a go between for them? A girl – an addict – dies really because she is found to be a police agent getting evidence – killed by Paul or Claudia – (Frances) – they make Norma believe that she brought her an over strength dose of purple
[hearts]
(some new name) Technically she might be accused of murder – they do this to get her finished and say they will protect her – she really is fall guy if necessary – she thinks of getting help from Poirot – they decide she is danger – they’ll get rid of her. What is Norma’s job? Cosmetics Lucie Long powders etc. N
[orma]
packs things

2nd idea

Paul is really police spy – he tangles with the girls

3rd idea

Paul is in it with Sonia

4th idea

Paul is in it with Mary Wells. Sir Rodney – rich – his nephew and wife come to live – or his niece and her husband. Niece dies – widower is married – 2nd wife sucks up to old man – then Sonia arrives also sucks up to him – he alters his will

5th idea

Sonia and Sir Paul linked together – he is impersonating real Sir R

6th idea

Mary Restarick – her beautiful blue eyes – tells Poirot how she got Norma to leave home – better for her – because she hates me. Shows Poirot a chemist’s analysis – arsenic? Or morphia. Norma says – I hate her – I hate her – does boy friend
old boy dies
see her (he says) walking in sleep – puts something in glass. He tells her – will of old Rodney forged – by Norma?

7th

Poirot and Mary – her beauty – blue eyes – about Norma – glad she went – I didn’t know what to do – takes from locked drawer an analyst’s report – Arsenic? Or morphia? – hated me because of her mother

Sadly Christie’s former ingenuity is missing from these scenarios (note, for example, that Ideas 6 and 7 are very similar). Even if some of the ideas here – Paul/David as a police spy, Norma as a go-between – had been utilised, little difference would have been made to the fundamental situation.

By the Pricking of my Thumbs

11 November 1968

On a visit to Tommy’s Aunt Ada in Sunny Ridge Nursing Home, Tuppence meets Mrs Lancaster. Her subsequent disappearance intrigues Tuppence, who decides to investigate. This quest brings her to the village of Sutton Chancellor where the mystery is finally solved, but not before Tuppence’s own life is in danger.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

William Shakespeare,
Macbeth

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are the only Christie characters to age gradually between their first appearance and their last. In their first adventure,
The Secret Adversary
from 1922, they are ‘bright young things’, in 1941’s
N or M?
they are worried parents and by the time of
By the Pricking of my Thumbs
they are middle-aged. The chronology of their lives and ages does not bear close scrutiny, however, and gets even more complicated and, in fact, inexplicable, by the time of their final adventure
Postern of Fate
in 1973.

The notes for
By the Pricking of my Thumbs
are more unfocused than usual. They repeat the same scene with only minor variations, suggesting a lack of clarity as to where the book was going. And although the scenes in Sunny Ridge are intriguing, they are not enough to sustain an entire book. When Tuppence embarks on her investigation, the novel begins to flag and, unlike Christie’s plotting in her heyday, with a minimum of tweaking the final revelation could have been completely different with a totally different villain unmasked. Ironically, in Notebook 36 we find a note Christie wrote to herself: ‘Rewriting of first half – not so verbose – 1st three or four chapters good – but afterwards too slow’.

Notes are contained in two Notebooks, 28 and 36, and extend to just over 50 pages. We have, in Notebook 36, a clearly dated starting point for the writing of this novel just over a year before it appeared in the bookshops. The early pages of this Notebook encapsulate the opening of the plot. The first and second sections of the novel, ‘Sunny Ridge’ and ‘The House on the Canal’, are then sketched between Notebooks 28 and 36:

Behind the Fireplace – Oct. 1967

Tommy and Tuppence go to visit disagreeable Aunt Ada – she takes dislike to Tuppence who goes and sits in the lounge – old lady in there sipping milk – says it’s a very nice place – are you coming to stay here?

It wasn’t your poor child, was it?