Agatha Christie - The A.B.C. Murders

"My friend, Hastings, will tell you that from the moment I received the first letter I was upset and disturbed. It seemed to me at once that there was something very wrong about the letter."

"You were quite right," said Franklin Clarke dryly.

"Yes. But there, at the very start, I made a grave error. I permitted my feeling—my very strong feeling about the letter to remain a mere impression. I treated it as though it had been an intuition. In a well-balanced, reasoning mind them is no such thing as an intuition—an inspired guess! You can guess, of course—and a guess is either right or wrong. If it is right you call it an intuition. If it is wrong you usually do not speak of it again. But what is often called an intuition is really impression based on logical deduction or experience. When an expert feels that there is something wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque he is really basing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely—his experience obviates that—the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong. But it is not a guess, it is an impression based on experience."

"Eh bien, I admit that I did not regard that first letter in the way I should. It just made me extremely uneasy. The police regarded it as a hoax. I myself took it seriously. I was convinced that a murder would take place in Andover as stated. As you know, a murder did take place."

"There was no means at that point, as I well realized, of knowing who the person was who had done the deed. The only course open to me was to try and understand just what kind of a person had done it."

"I had certain indications. The letter—the manner of the crime—the person murdered. What I had to discover was: the motive of the crime, the motive of the letter."

"Publicity," suggested Clarke.

"Surely an inferiority complex covers that," added Thora Gray.

"That was, of course, the obvious line to take. But why me? Why Hercule Poirot? Greater publicity could be ensured by sending the letters to Scotland Yard. More again by sending them to a newspaper. A newspaper might not print the first letter, but by the time the second crime took place, A.B.C. could have been assured of all the publicity the press could give. Why, then, Hercule Poirot? Was it for some personal reason? There was, discernible in the letter, a slight anti-foreign bias—but not enough to explain the matter to my satisfaction."

"Then the second letter arrived—and was followed by the murder of Betty Barnard at Bexhill. It became clear now (what I had already suspected) that the murders were to proceed in an alphabetical plan, but that fact, which seemed final to most people, left the main question unaltered to my mind. Why did A.B.C. need to commit these murders?"

Megan Barnard stirred in her chair. "Isn't them such a thing as—as a blood lust?" she said.

Poirot turned to her. "You are quite right, mademoiselle. There is such a thing. The lust to kill. But that did not quite fit the facts of the case. A homicidal maniac who desires to kill usually desires to kill as many victims as possible. It is a recurring craving. The great idea of such a killer is to hide his tracks—not to advertise them. When we consider the four victims selected—or at any rate three of them (for I know very little of Mr. Downes or Mr. Earlsfield), we realize that if he had chosen, the murderer could have done away with them without incurring any suspicion."

"Franz Ascher, Donald Fraser or Megan Barnard, possibly Mr. Clarke—those are the people the police would have suspected even if they had been unable to get direct proof. An unknown homicidal murderer would not have been thought of! Why, then, did the murderer feel it necessary to call attention to himself? Was it the necessity of leaving on each body a copy of an A.B.C. railway guide? Was that the compulsion?"

"Was there some complex connected with the railway guide?"

"I found it quite inconceivable at this point to enter into the mind of the murderer. Surely it could not be magnanimity? A horror of responsibility for the crime being fastened on an innocent person?"

"Although I could not answer the main question, certain things I did feel I was learning about the murderer."

"Such as?" asked Fraser.

"To begin with—that he had a tabular mind. His crimes were listed by alphabetical progression—that was obviously important to him. On the other hand, he had no particular taste in victims—Mrs. Ascher, Betty Barnard, Sir Carmichael Clarke, they all differed widely from each other. There was no sex complex—no particular age complex, and that seemed to me to be a very curious fact. If a man kills indiscriminately it is usually because he removes anyone who stands in his way or annoys him. But the alphabetical progression showed that such was not the case here. The other type of killer usually selects a particular type of victim—nearly always of the opposite sex. There was something haphazard about the procedure of A.B.C. that seemed to me to be at war with the alphabetical selection."

"The slight inferences I permitted myself to make. The choice of the A.B.C. suggested to me what I may call a railway-minded man. This is more common in men than women. Small boys love trains better than small girls do. It might be the sign, too, of an in some ways undeveloped mind. The 'boy' motif still predominated."

"The death of Betty Barnard and the manner of it gave me certain other indications. The manner of her death was particularly suggestive. (Forgive me, Mr. Fraser.) To begin with, she was strangled with her own belt—therefore she must almost certainly have been killed by someone with whom she was on friendly or affectionate terms. When I learnt something of her character a picture grew up in my mind."

"Betty Barnard was a flirt. She liked attention from a personal male. Therefore A.B.C., to persuade her to come out with him, must have a certain amount of attraction—of the sex appeal! He must be able, as you English say, to 'get off.' He must be capable of the click! Visualize the scene on the beach thus: the man admires her belt. She takes it off. He passes it playfully round her neck—says, perhaps, 'I shall strangle you.' It is all very playful. She giggles—and he pulls."

Donald Fraser sprang up. He was livid. "M. Poirot—for God's sake."

Poirot made a gesture. "It is finished. I say no more. It is over. We pass to the next murder, that of Sir Carmichael Clarke. Here the murderer goes back to his first method—the blow on the head. The same alphabetical complex—but one fact worries me a little. To be consistent the murderer should have chosen his towns in some definite sequence."

"If Andover is the 155 thname under A, then the B crime should be the 155 thalso—or it should be the 156 thand the C the 157 th. Here again the towns seemed to be chosen in rather too haphazard a fashion.''

"Isn't that because you're rather biased on that subject, Poirot?" I suggested. "You yourself are normally methodical and orderly. It's almost a disease with you."

"No, it is not a disease! Quelle idée! But I admit that I may be overstressing that point. Passons!"

"The Churston crime gave me very little extra help. We were unlucky over it, since the letter announcing it went astray, hence no preparations could be made."

"But by the time the D crime was announced, a very formidable system of defence had been evolved. It must have been obvious that A.B.C. could not much longer hope to get away with his crimes."

"Moreover, it was at this point that the clue of the stockings came into my hands. It was perfectly clear that the presence of an individual selling stockings on and near the scene of each crime could not be a incidence. Hence the stocking-seller must be the murderer. I may say that his description, as given me by Miss Grey, did not quite correspond with my own picture of the man who strangled Betty Barnard."