Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (18 page)

It is also possible that this novel is Christie’s adaptation, tongue somewhat in cheek, of that well-known cliché of classic detective fiction, the guilty butler. With
Three Act Tragedy
she managed a solution in which The Butler Did It – and at the same time, The Butler Didn’t Do It. And the other old chestnut, the secret passage, also gets an airing, although almost as an aside.

The notes for
Three Act Tragedy
are the last to outline the course of a novel accurately with little extraneous material or ideas not included in the published version. From
Death in the Clouds
onwards notes contain speculation and changes of mind, but the notes for titles up to, and including,
Three Act Tragedy
are relatively organised and straightforward.

Notebooks 33 and 66 contain the bulk of the plotting, 40 pages, but the brilliantly original basis for the book was sketched, four years before publication, in Notebook 41. This is the Notebook whose first page is headed ‘Ideas – 1931’, the first half-dozen pages of which include outlines for ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad/Spanish Chest’, ‘The Second Gong/Dead Man’s Mirror’ and a brief allusion to
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
, before the detailed draft for
Lord Edgware Dies
. In the middle of these we find the following:

Idea for book

Murder utterly motiveless because dead man and murderer unacquainted. Reason – a rehearsal

This unique idea was left to percolate for two years before the bulk of the novel was written during 1933. Almost inevitably, the background would have to be somewhat theatrical. And from the first page of the book Sir Charles Cartwright’s ability to assume a role onstage is emphasised. Mr Satterthwaite watches Sir Charles walk up the path from the sea and observes ‘something indefinable that did not ring true’ about his portrayal of ‘the Retired Naval man’; and this is, in effect, the foundation on which the novel is built.

Notebook 33 sketches, in cryptic notes, the opening scene of the book – Sir Charles, observed by Mr Satterthwaite, climbing the hill towards his house. This is followed by a list of the characters and, apart from the mysterious Richard Cromwell, who may be the forerunner of Oliver Manders, the names listed are close to those in the published book.

The Manor House Mystery

Ronald
[Sir Charles]
Cartwright walks up – shiplike rolling gait – clean shaven face – not have been sure
[if he actually was a sailor]
. Mr Satterthwaite smiling to himself

Egg/Ray Lytton Gore

Lady Mary Lytton Gore

Richard Cromwell

Mr and Mrs Babbington

Sir Bartholomew Frere
[Strange]

Capt. and Mrs Dakers

Angela Sutcliffe

Satterthwaite

Captain Dacres – bad lot – little man like jockey

Mrs Cynthia Dacres runs dress shops (Ambrosine)

Anthony McCrane
[Astor]
– playwright

Miss Hester
[Milray]
– secretary – dour ugly woman of forty-three

The title at the top of the page – ‘The Manor House Mystery’ – is a generic and inadequate one and does not appear again.
Three Act Tragedy
is more dramatic and is in keeping with the theatrical theme – an actor, a playwright, a dress designer, a masquerade and the motive of a rehearsal.

The all-important discussion of Ellis, the butler, and his mysterious disappearance is sketched, as is the possible connection between the two fatal dinner-parties:

Bit about butler

Chapter II

Interview with Johnson – mellow atmosphere. Then it must be this fellow, Ellis; tells all about butler – not there a fortnight – questioned by police – not seen to leave house but be left – looks fishy. Says Miss Lytton Gore told him about other death. Must be some connection but was likely to be the butler. Why did the fellow disappear if he hadn’t got a guilty conscience?

Port analysed – found correct. Inspector comes in – talks about nicotine poisoning.
[Second Act, Chapter 2]

London – Egg arrives over to dine with them – pale, wounded looking. The position – the three of us – questions. Are the deaths of Sir B
[artholomew]
and B
[abbington connected?]

Yes

If so, what people were at one and which at the other

Miss Sutcliffe, Captain and Mrs Dacres, Miss Wills and Mr Manders

You can wash out Angela and Mr Manders

Egg says can’t wash out Miss Sutcliffe. I don’t know her

Mr S says can’t wash out anybody

She
has washed out Mr Manders

Egg agrees
[Second Act, Chapter 7]

Notebook 66 opens when the investigation is well under way and the interviews with the suspects are divided between the self-styled detectives. The first page is headed:

Division of work

P suggests Egg should tackle Mrs Dacres; C
[harles Cartwright]
Freddie D
[acres]
and A
[ngela]
S
[utcliffe]
; S
[atterthwaite]
Miss Wills and O
[liver]
M
[anders]
. Says Miss Wills will have seen something. C. says S. do AS – will do the Wills woman. P suggests S. should do OM
[Third Act, Chapter 5]

Miss W
[ills]

Sir C. – birthmark on butler’s arm. She gets him to hand her the dish. As he goes out looks back – her smile was disquieting in the extreme. She writes in a little book.
[Third Act, Chapter 9]

An experiment – I will give the party. Charles stays behind – the glasses etc. Miss Will’s face – P appeals for anyone to tell anything they know
[Third Act, Chapter 11]

The third death, that of Mrs de Rushbridger, and the revelatory discussion of the play rehearsal are also sketched briefly.

Mr Satterthwaite and Poirot go to Yorkshire. Mrs R dead – a small boy got it from a man who said he got it from a loony lady – ‘Bit loony she was.’ She cannot speak now, says Poirot. This must be stopped – then is someone else in danger
[Third Act, Chapter 13]

Happy families – I ask for a pack of cards – I get them. Mrs Mugg – the Milkman’s wife – Egg explains. P says he hopes she will be very happy. She goes off to dress rehearsal of Angela Sutcliffe’s play by Miss Wills – Little Dog Laughed.

Tiens – I have been blind – the motive for the murder of Mr Babbington
[Third Act, Chapter 14]

There are two interesting points to consider about this novel. The first is a further variation on the Evans/Ellis issue. As discussed in the notes for
The Sittaford Mystery
and
Lord Edgware Dies
, the cryptic note in Notebook 41 – ‘Can we work in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?’ – could conceivably also apply to
Three Act Tragedy
. Ellis/Evans in
Lord Edgware Dies
and Evans in
The Sittaford Mystery
both provide vital clues that lead to the solution of the mystery. And if Poirot had been able to question the missing Ellis of
Three Act Tragedy
, he would almost certainly have prevented the death of Mrs De Rushbridger. But because he doesn’t, in reality, exist, it is obvious Why They Didn’t Ask Ellis.

The second, and little remarked upon, enigma is The Mystery of the Altered Motive. As discussed in
Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks
, the US and UK texts of
The Moving Finger
and
Murder is Easy
/
Easy to Kill
are considerably different. In
Three Act Tragedy
we find the same situation but the disparity is even more dramatic. In the UK edition of the book, during Poirot’s explanations in the final chapter, the motive attributed to Sir Charles, the supposed bachelor, is that, unknown to most people, he is actually married: ‘And there is the fact that in the Haverton Lunatic Asylum there is a woman, Gladys Mary Mugg, the wife of Charles Mugg’ (Sir Charles’ real name). And, Poirot explains, Sir Bartholomew Strange as ‘an honourable, upright physician . . . would not stand by silent and see you enter into a bigamous marriage with an unsuspecting young girl’ (Egg). During Chapter 12 of the Third Act, Sir Charles tells Egg about his real name but otherwise the reader has no reason to suspect that he already has a wife, albeit one confined to an asylum.

In the US edition, however, it is Sir Charles, and not his wife, who is insane and as Poirot clarifies, ‘In Sir Bartholomew he saw a menace to his freedom. He was convinced that Sir Bartholomew was planning to put him under restraint. And so he planned a careful and extremely cunning murder.’ And, as he is being led away, Sir Charles breaks down – ‘His face . . . was now a leering mask of impotent fury. His voice rang shrill and cracked . . .
Those three people had to be killed . . . for my safety
.’ Melodramatic descriptions aside, it must be admitted that of the two potential motives, this one is by far the more compelling.

The reason for this change is more difficult to explain. And it inevitably leads to the question ‘Which is the original version?’

The amended denouement means that certain passages in the book which foreshadow the altered motive are significantly different. The most crucial changes occur in Chapters 7 and 26 of the US edition. In Chapter 7 Sir Charles and Mr Satterthwaite interview the Chief Constable, Colonel Johnson. In the course of this conversation Sir Charles says, ‘I’ve retired from the stage now, as you know.
Worked too hard and had a breakdown two years ago
’; and extracts from Sir Bartholomew’s diary are quoted, including one significant one: ‘
Am worried about M . . . don’t like the look of things
’ (my emphasis). Chapter 26 includes a lengthy conversation between Poirot and Oliver Manders. None of these passages appear in the equivalent chapters (Second Act, Chapter 2 and Third Act, Chapter 14) of the UK edition. The first two changes provide the clues to Sir Charles’ breakdown, the M referring to his real name, Mugg, and showing Sir Bartholomew’s concern over Cartwright’s mental health. The third prepares the way for Manders to replace Sir Charles in Egg’s affections, although this new romantic scenario applies in either case.

However, as the book was published (both as a magazine serial and in book form) in the USA in advance of its UK publication it is likely that it was the latter edition that was altered. But the question remains: why?

In a letter (undated, as usual, but from internal evidence probably late 1972/early 1973) to her agent, Christie herself briefly refers to the problem and states, ‘I am studying the problem of
Three Act Tragedy
. . . in the Dodd Mead [the US edition] Sir Charles goes mad . . . I have a feeling that was what I originally wrote.’ But this is by no means conclusive; and the Notebooks throw no light on this intriguing mystery.

UNUSED IDEAS: TWO

This second batch of Unused Ideas feature foreign settings, both inspired by holidays taken by Christie.

THE HELLENIC CRUISE

There are two lengthy sketches in the Notebooks of a murder plot during a Hellenic cruise, possibly inspired by Christie’s own cruise to Greece in the late summer of 1958. Chronologically this makes sense: the first extract below is sandwiched between the pages of notes for
Cat among the Pigeons
, published in 1959; the second extract, from Notebook 15, appears alongside notes for 1961’s
The Pale Horse
.

Book with Hellenic cruise setting

A murderer

Possible scene of actual murder Ephesus or could be electrocuted during lecture on deck

People

Lecturers – little man with beard his wife calls him Daddee – a professor

Young schoolmaster type of man – uncouth and rather dirty – superior in manner

Miss Courtland – a Barbara type – two schoolmistresses travelling together – one has had a nervous breakdown

Mrs. Oliver??

The 2 spinsters idea could be combined with this. The ‘friend’ schoolmistress came on deliberately – have planned to kill someone going on cruise – camouflaging it by going with a friend, really sending money to friend anonymously to pay expenses. Alibis helped by the two of them being places – but M
[iss Courtland or, possibly, Murderer?]
makes friend believe that she occasionally has short lapses of memory – appear to be very devoted.

Motive?

Although a possible plot involving two female friends is a recurring motif in the Notebooks, the sketch here is different; here one friend is the dupe, rather than the partner-in-crime, of the other. The reference to ‘Barbara’ is probably to Barbara Parker, Max Mallowan’s long-time assistant and, after the death of Dame Agatha, his wife for the last year of his life. The idea of convincing someone that they suffer from memory loss had earlier appeared in ‘The Cretan Bull’, the seventh Labour of Hercules, and would reappear a few years later in
A Caribbean Mystery
when Molly Kendall is drugged into forgetfulness and hallucination. It would seem from the ambiguous phrase ‘appear to be devoted’ that the friend with the nervous breakdown in her background is set to be the dupe of Miss Courtland, the putative murderer. And the reference to electrocution ‘during lecture on deck’, not a very obvious murder method, would suggest that Christie had something definite in mind, although what it was remains a mystery.

The second outline, while retaining essentially the same characters, adds some new scenarios to the first:

Hellenic cruise – murder – where? Ephesus? During lecture in the evening on deck?

By whom committed – and why

A Miss Marple?

Wife decides to kill husband? Or she and her lover? Say she has had lovers – one, a foreigner? an American? Dismisses him abruptly because she knows he will react – actually he is framed by her and another lover whom she pretends she hardly knows? Possibly Cornish Mystery type of story? Academic background – woman like J.P.? or like M.C. Anyway 2 people in it – and a fall guy!

Or a Macbeth type of story – ambitious woman – urges on husband – husband turns out to have a taste for murder. Perhaps murder is done when someone is sleeping on deck – or Murder is Easy idea – monomaniac who believes everyone who opposes him dies – this is really suggested to him by woman who hates him.

One of lecturers little man with beard – his wife calls him Dadee – encounters young schoolmistress – rather dirty – Miss Cortland (a Barbara type! Good Company).

Mrs Oliver ?!!

Two Schoolmistresses travelling together (one has had nervous breakdown). One of them is murderer – she sent money anonymously to ill friend to enable her to come too – impresses on friend that she has ‘black outs’ short lapses if memory so that friend and she have alibis together

If Christie had used either of the inspirations from her own earlier titles –
Murder is Easy
and ‘The Cornish Mystery’ – we can be sure that she would have rendered them unrecognisable, as she did with
Death on the Nile
/
Endless Night
and
Dead Man’s Folly
/
Hallowe’en Party
.

Elements from each extract can be found elsewhere in Christie – the stage-managed dismissal has echoes of
Death on the Nile
and ‘two people and a fall guy’ is similar to ‘Triangle at Rhodes’. And there are some compelling new variations: the husband who ‘turns out to have a taste for murder’ after his initial reluctance and the anonymous gift of money to set up an alibi. The references to ‘J.P.’ and ‘M.C.’ have proved elusive but may simply refer to two of Christie’s fellow passengers on the cruise.

Miss Marple, a few years before her only foreign case,
A Caribbean Mystery
, makes a brief appearance. Interestingly, Mrs Oliver was intended to appear, whichever scenario was chosen. Ariadne Oliver, Agatha Christie’s alter ego, is a prolific detective novelist with a foreign detective, the Finnish Sven Hjerson, one of whose cases is
The Body in the Library
. Doubtless she would, like her creator, have been using the trip as a background for her next masterwork. In the event she did feature in
The Pale Horse
, published shortly afterwards. Both of these outlines could be a revisitation, 20 years later, of
Death on the Nile
– a group of people with emotional entanglements cut off from the world aboard a ship in a foreign country. The two female friends, here schoolmistresses, appear in each sketch, each time with more background detail.

THE GIRL-IN-THE-BAHAMAS

These examples, all from different Notebooks, show Christie experimenting with an intriguing idea before eventually deciding to send Miss Marple, who is not mentioned here, to essentially the same place, St Honore, and have her solve Major Palgrave’s murder in
A Caribbean Mystery
:

Girl gets job – sent out to Bahamas – plane brought back. She goes back to flat – another girl there acting as her

West Indies Book

Begins girl secretary – told by Company to go to Barbados (Tobago) on business – meet certain executives there – passage paid etc. Goes off from London Airport – Shannon etc. – then back again following evening – her flat occupied by someone else – she and boy friend decide to investigate

How about girl gets job – a flat is given her – after a month she is sent to Barbados – return of plane she goes to flat – finds dead body or finds she is supposed to have died – young man she telephones him – they discuss it – what is the point? Person to die first – a lawyer – head of solicitor’s firm? New member of a country solicitors? A Q.C.?

The common denominator of the West Indies was the
idée fixe
of these jottings, probably inspired by her holiday there in the early 1960s.