John Curran: Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making: Stories and Secrets from Her Archive - includes an unseen Miss Marple Story

Stories and Secrets from her Archive

For

Mathew, Lucy and Mahler,

without whom …

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

1 Rule of Three

2 The First Decade 1920–1929

Unused Ideas – One

3 Favourite Stories and ‘The Man Who Knew’

4 The Second Decade 1930–1939

Unused Ideas – Two

5 ‘How I Created Hercule Poirot’

6 The Third Decade 1940–1949

Unused Ideas – Three

7 Miss Marple and ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’

8 The Fourth Decade 1950–1959

Unused Ideas – Four

9 Agatha Christie and Poison

10 The Fifth Decade 1960–1969

Unused Ideas – Five

11 The Dark Lady …

12 The Sixth Decade 1970–1976

Unused Ideas – Six

13 Agatha Christie’s Booklists

Appendix 1: Agatha Christie Chronology

Appendix 2: Alphabetical List of Agatha Christie Titles

Index of Titles

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

From Notebook 4 a tantalising glimpse of a project, never realised, from the 1960s. See Unused Ideas Three.

Victoria Station, March 1931

Although she is by now an experienced traveller, the sights, sounds and even smells of the great railway station never fail to excite her. This is the start of her journey and she takes a moment to savour the sense of anticipation that bustling railway stations have always engendered in her – harassed and luggage-laden passengers hurrying along platforms, imperious-looking porters issuing instructions and shouting to invisible colleagues, the great trains snorting and bellowing clouds of smoke. She walks purposefully along the continental platform and hails a porter. As soon as she is installed in her seat she has an opportunity to observe, at her leisure, her fellow passengers. She can’t help speculating about the life of these strangers with whom she is to share a few hours in close proximity. This covert observation has, by now, become almost an occupational hazard and provided she is left to her own devising it’s all potential material. Now let’s see …

The moth-eaten looking man sitting opposite … studying his railway timetable and jotting down the details as he turns the pages could be … an office worker planning his holiday? a Civil Servant checking a business trip? a salesman plotting his sales route? His only luggage is a smallish case … probably for his samples … too small for encyclopaedias … brushes, perhaps, or … pens or … hosiery?

And that very handsome young man opposite … reading … what, exactly? It’s not a book … or a magazine … it seems to be typed pages, loosely bound, printed on only one side of the page and laid out very specifically. And he is studying it intensely and underlining sections of it … a business report? A manuscript perhaps and he’s correcting it? No … the corrections seem too regular. Ah, I’ve got it – it’s a script and he’s marking his lines … he’s an actor and that makes sense … matinee-idol good looks.

The older, haughty-looking woman in the far corner … seems to be waiting for someone, as evidenced both by her exasperated demeanour and by the continual checking of her wristwatch and her scanning of the platform for … her husband? No … no wedding ring … a friend, maybe … a travelling companion?

A harassed-looking older woman, struggling with a fox terrier on a lead and carrying a suitcase, a handbag, an umbrella and an assortment of magazines, hurries along the platform. In response to an imperious gesture she clambers into the carriage, managing to drop the magazines as she does so. Any lingering doubt as to her status is removed by the recriminations which follow.

Yes, definitely a companion … almost certainly a paid companion … nobody else would accept that sort of abuse.

At last, to the accompaniment of final shouts and whistles, the train glides out of the station and passengers settle down for the journey. As London begins to disappear her thoughts turn to the reunion ahead of her in a few days. Although married six months ago she has not seen her husband for almost four of those months. And despite a constant flow of letters in both directions she is anxious that, when they finally meet again, there should be no awkwardness. She knows that the best remedy for worry is work and she can easily and unobtrusively do some here where she sits.

And goodness knows, there is no shortage of potential material; just look around this carriage … and I want to get down that idea about Ruth Draper … very clever performance … complete transformation in a few seconds … must take lots of practice and endless rehearsals … which also reminds me …

Reaching into her bag, she produces a small, black-covered notebook. She opens it, idly noting that Rosalind has already tried to appropriate it by the simple expedient of writing her name and address on the inside cover – ‘Rosalind Christie, Ashfield, Torquay, Devon’. A further search produces a fountain pen. Unscrewing the top of the pen, she opens the notebook, flattens the pages and begins to read what she has already written.

Ideas 1931

Book

Poirot and a crime

a closed circle – one of them did it – he knows which – but now …

Could Why Didn’t they ask Evans fit in?

Hmm … can’t really remember much about this ‘closed circle’ … and ‘Poirot and a crime’ is not much help … probably full of ideas at the beginning of the year. Evans, Evans … that rings a bell although I don’t think I settled on any particular idea … although haven’t I got an Evans in Sittaford?… Let’s see …

She turns the page and continues reading, noting the underlined qualification at the beginning.

Tentative

Old lady (or man) sends for P – in a state of coma when he arrives

Last words – Poirot is left to find out

Evans (maid)

Also Evans (gardener)

and Evans – a baker or butcher or tradesman …

Oh, yes, of course … the last words of someone who is dying and they make no sense … not even to me at the moment, I must admit … but distinct possibilities here … infinite ones, in fact. I could have a lot of fun with this. Should it be another case for Miss M? … it sounds village-y, and Miss M would know about maids and gardeners and tradesmen. Although I haven’t given Poirot an airing since … let’s see … Blue Train, I think … and that was at least three years ago. Yes, that was his last case … of course End House will remedy that next … what did Edmund tell me … next February I think … Anyway, didn’t I have a blood-covered butcher in one of those Big Four episodes … and a baker seems an unlikely possibility … a gardener, perhaps. But would it carry a book or should I use it as just an element of a plot … or a short story maybe … although it would look great as a title: ‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?’