John Curran - Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

These extracts from stories, written almost 40 years apart, illustrate, via her characters, Christie’s greatest strength— her ability to weave seemingly endless variations around one idea. There can be little doubt that this is Agatha Christie herself speaking; Mrs Oliver is, after all, a very successful detective novelist. And as we can now see from the Notebooks, this is exactly what Christie did. Throughout her career her ideas were consistently drawn from the world with which her readers were familiar—teeth, dogs, stamps (as below), mirrors, telephones, medicines—and upon these foundations she built her ingenious constructions. She explored universal themes in some of her later books (guilt and innocence in Ordeal by Innocence, evil in The Pale Horse, international unrest in Cat among the Pigeons and Passenger to Frankfurt ), but they were still firmly rooted in the everyday.

Although it is not possible to be absolutely sure, there is no reason to suppose that listings of ideas and their variations were written at different times; I have no doubt that she rattled off variations and possibilities as fast as she could write, which probably accounts for the handwriting. In many cases it is possible to show that the list is written with the same pen and in the same style of handwriting. The outline of One, Two, Buckle my Shoe (see also Chapter 4) provides a good example of this. She is considering possible motives to set the plot in motion.

Man marries secretly one of the twins

Or

Man was really already married [this was the option adopted]

Or

Barrister’s ‘sister’ who lives with him (really wife)

Or

Double murder—that is to say—A poisons B—B stabs A—but really owing to plan by C

Or

Blackmailing wife finds out—then she is found dead

Or

He really likes wife—goes off to start life again with her

Or

Dentists killed—1 London—1 County

A few pages later in the same Notebook, also in connection with One, Two, Buckle my Shoe, she tries further variations on the same theme, this time introducing ‘Sub Ideas’.

Pos. A. 1st wife still alive—

A. (a) knows all—co-operating with him (b) does not know—that he is secret service

Pos. B 1st wife dead—someone recognises him—‘I was a great friend of your wife, you know—’

In either case—crime is undertaken to suppress fact of 1st marriage and elaborate preparations undertaken

C. Single handed

D. Co-operation of wife as secretary

Sub Idea C

The ‘friends’ Miss B and Miss R—one goes to dentist

Or

Does wife go to a certain dentist?

Miss B makes app[ointment]—with dentist—Miss R keeps it Miss R’s teeth labelled under Miss B’s name

Also from Notebook 35, but this time in connection with Five Little Pigs, we find a few very basic questions and possibilities under consideration:

Dotted throughout the Notebooks are dozens of phrases that show Agatha Christie the resourceful creator, Agatha Christie the critical professional, Agatha Christie the sly humorist at work. In many cases she ‘thought’ directly on to the page and there are many instances where she addresses herself in this way.

Sometimes it is idle speculation as she toys with various ideas before settling on just one:

‘How about this’…as she works out the timetable of ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’

‘A good idea would be’…this, tantalisingly, is on an otherwise blank page

‘or—a little better’…firming up the motive in Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

‘How about girl gets job’…from early notes for A Caribbean Mystery

‘Who? Why? When? How? Where? Which?’…the essence of a detective story from One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

‘Which way do we turn?’…in the middle of Third Girl

‘A prominent person—such as a minister—(Aneurin Bevan type?)—on holiday? Difficulties as I don’t know about Ministers’…rueful while looking for a new idea in the mid-1940s

When she has decided on a plot she often muses about the intricacies and possibilities of a variation:

‘Does Jeremy have to be there then’…pondering on character movements for Spider’s Web

‘Contents of letter given? Or Not’…in the course of Cat among the Pigeons

‘How does she bring it about…What drug’…while planning A Caribbean Mystery

‘Yes—better if dentist is dead’…a decision reached during One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

‘Why? Why??? Why?????’…frustration during One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

‘He could be murderer—if there is a murder’…a possibility for Fiddlers Three

Like a true professional she is self-critical:

‘unlike twin idea—woman servant one of them—NO!!’…a decision during The Labours of Hercules

‘NB All v. unlikely’…as she approaches the end of Mrs McGinty’s Dead

‘All right—a little elaboration—more mistresses?’…not very happy with Cat among the Pigeons

She includes reminders to herself:

‘Look up datura poisoning…and re-read Cretan Bull’…as she writes A Caribbean Mystery

‘Find story about child and other child plays with him’…probably her short story ‘The Lamp’

‘Possible variant—(read a private eye book first before typing)’…a reminder during The Clocks

‘A good idea—needs working on’…for Nemesis

Things to line up’…during Dead Man’s Folly

And there are the odd flashes of humour:

‘Van D. pops off’…during A Caribbean Mystery

‘Pennyfather is conked’…a rather uncharitable description from At Bertram’s Hotel

‘Elephantine Suggestions’…from, obviously, Elephants Can Remember

‘Suspicion of (clever!) reader to be directed toward Nurse’…a typically astute observation from Curtain when the nurse is completely innocent (note the use of the exclamation mark after ‘clever’!)

From Notebook 35 and One, Two, Buckle my Shoe— the essence of detective fiction distilled into six words.

Did mother murder—

A. Husband

B. Lover

C. Rich uncle or guardian

D. Another woman (jealousy)

Who were the other people

During the planning of Mrs McGinty’s Dead (see also Chapter 7), the four murders in the past, around which the plot is built, provided Christie with an almost infinite number of possibilities and she worked her way methodically through most of them. More than almost any other novel, this scenario seemed to challenge her mental fertility as she considered every character living in Broadhinny, the scene of the novel, as a possible participant in the earlier murders. In this extract from Notebook 43 she tries various scenarios with the possible killer underlined (her underlining) in each case. As we know, it was idea 1B that she eventually settled on.

Which?

A. False—elderly Cranes—with daughter (girl—Evelyn)

B. Real—Robin—son with mother son [Upward]

A. False Invalid mother (or not invalid) and son

B. Real—dull wife of snob A.P. (Carter) Dau[ghter]

A. False artistic woman with son

B. Real middle-aged wife—dull couple—or flashy Carters (daughter invalid)

A. False widow—soon to marry rich man

[A] False man with dogs—stepson—different name