John Curran - Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

Towards Zero is superb Christie. The plot resembles a series of Russian dolls with one concealed inside the other. The reader is presented with one solution and within that is another, and behind that yet another. The motivation and clue laying are masterly because the whole plot is predicated on the ‘wrong’ solution being uncovered and then disproved and the subsequent one being discovered. And there is yet another solution behind that.

Nine months before Zero Hour we meet, in a series of vignettes, a group of people; at first they seem totally disconnected. Then we realise that, for various reasons, they are all converging on Lady Tressilian’s house in September.

Sharing a plot device used years earlier in The Murder at the Vicarage and more recently in ‘Murder in the Mews’, this is a dark and emotional crime novel as well as a very clever detective story with subtle clueing and better-than-usual characterisations. Twelve years after its publication the novel was presented on stage with a slightly altered ending (although the same killer), but it was not one of Christie’s major stage successes.

The plotting for this novel is contained in two Notebooks, the majority of it in Notebook 32 and with a further ten pages in Notebook 63. Its genesis seems to have been painless and clear from the start, as the notes follow the finished book very closely and very little of the plotting from the Notebooks is not included. As can be seen from below, the notes are quite detailed and accurate. Even here, however, Christie came up with a few ideas that did not appear.

On the first page of the notes the all-important story that Mr Treves tells is clearly stated. Apart from the importance of the homicidal tendency of its main protagonist, it also includes the important clue of the (unspecified) ‘physical trait’, a distinction shared by all the suspects:

Story about 2 children—bows and arrows—one kills the other—or shotgun?

One child practiced—narrator—old man—says he would know that child again by a physical trait

Yes, so many people all converging from different points—all Towards Zero

There is an alphabetical list of scenes, although it does not tally exactly with the novel. It would seem that there was to be a Sir Marcus and a Mr Trevelyan; in the novel they are amalgamated into Mr Treves. None of the members of the house party are included. The listing of ‘The Cleaners’ is at first puzzling until we remember that a dry-cleaning firm with mixed-up suits provides one of the main clues to the mystery. Their omission from the opening scenes is a shame as it would have been a fascinating puzzle for the reader trying to fit a dry-cleaners’ into the jigsaw.

A. MacWhirter—suicide—his rescue—fall off cliff—arrested by tree

B. Sir Marcus—holding forth in his chambers after acquittal of client

D. The murderer—his mind—the date

E. Superintendent Battle

F. Mr. Trevelyan—looking at hotel folders

G. The Cleaners

The list of characters is also very close to the novel. As usual, however, the names were to change, although not as totally as other novels (Nevil, Judy and Clare/Audrey Crane become Nevile, Kay and Audrey Strange):

People

Lady Tressillian

Mary Aldin or Kate Aldin

Barrett (lady’s maid)

Thomas Royde

Adrian Royde

Nevil Crane—well known tennis player and athlete

Judy Crane—formerly Judy Rodgers

Ted Latimer—wastrel—lives on his wits

Clare Crane or Audrey Crane—formerly Audrey Standish

MacWhirter

Towards Zero

Nevill (or Noel) Crane—tennis player—athlete sportsman

Audrey his first wife ‘Snow White’—frozen—fractured—hysterical childhood etc.

Judy his second wife—a glamorous girl—suffused with vitality—pagan—Rose Red

The events of the fatal night are worked out:

Night of Tragedy

Neville and Lady T—quarrel overheard by butler—then he goes—rings bell for Barret (old maid). He has also put narcotic in her milk—she sees him go out—goes to Lady T who denies ringing bell. B feeling very confused and queer gets back to bed and passes out. Lady T discovered in morning.

A few interesting ideas that never made it into the novel show that some of the detail was not self-evident. It must be remembered of course that the ‘victim’ below is not the real victim and is only a means to an end in this labyrinthine plot. Although none of the detail appears quite as outlined, the series of dated vignettes that opens the novel could indeed be seen, in retrospect, as sketches of eventual witnesses. The victim is not related to Judy/Kay and Audrey has not remarried, thus paving the way for a romance at the end of the novel:

Towards Zero

Series of vignettes of various people—witnesses at murder trial which takes place in last chapter?

Who is victim? Judy’s stepmother? Her father—very rich man—left the money to 2nd wife (chorus girl or shop girl) she has it for life—Judy wants the money

Audrey quickly remarries her quiet doctor—a biologist—or archaeologist—they are happy but poor—she wants stepmother’s money for research

But one of the most tantalising notes in Notebook 63 concerns a ‘new end’ to Towards Zero. The page references are, presumably, to those of the publishers’ proofs, and one interesting point is that in the novel it is McWhirter who carries out all of the actions here attributed to Thomas Royde. Unfortunately we will never know what the original draft was—the Notebook then continues to list the events that appear in the published novel just before the section ‘Zero Hour’:

New End to Zero starting P. 243

Thomas and little girl acquaintance—Dog and fish—Goes to cleaner—(lost slip) quarrel about suit—Royde—ever so sorry—thought you said Boyd—Easthampton Hotel—gets suit—takes it home—smell on shoulder—takes it back—or rings up. Goes to Easthampton Hotel—no Boyd staying there—goes up to cliff—Audrey—afraid of being hanged.

P. 255 the police come—Battle talks to the others ending with Royde—then goes to house—Mary comes across him in attic—Or Kay? Wet rope

269? Royde speaks to B privately—B comes out—A taken off- then B looks over house—finds rope—Mary? Or Kaye? Finds him there—it would be strong enough to hang a man!

In September 1956 a stage version of the novel opened in London, dramatised by Gerald Verner and Christie. Some of the notes for this adaptation appear in the Notebooks, although they are not comprehensive and consist mainly of a list of scenes without any elaboration. But the opening scene in Notebook 17 corresponds closely with the play itself:

Act I

Royde alone on stage—looking out of window—takes up Audrey’s photo—looks at it—puts it down—walks to window—Kay rushes in (tennis racquet) agitated—picks up Audrey’s photo—dashes it down into grate—Royde turns—she looks like guilty child.

Oh! Who are you? I know who you are—the man from Malaya

R. Yes, I’m the man from Malay

Miss Marple’s nephew treats her to a stay in Bertram’s Hotel, a relic of Edwardian decency in London. While enjoying its old-fashioned, and somewhat suspicious, charm, she becomes involved in a disappearance, robbery and murder.

At Bertram’s Hotel was the second Marple novel in as many years. Like its predecessor, A Caribbean Mystery, the title page included the reminder ‘Featuring Miss Marple The Original Character as created by Agatha Christie’. This appeared as a result of the recent incarnations of the character on screen in the Margaret Rutherford travesties.