Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (27 page)

BOOK: Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks
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They Went to Baghdad

Quotation from girl’s book – Western approach – Olivia in plane – Sir Rupert Crofton Lee – great traveller and orientalist – his traveller’s cape and hood

 

Olive in the plane – behind Sir Rupert – his cape slips back – boil on neck – (perhaps he is flown on by RAF plane to Basrah)

 

Sketch (rough) – Olive arrives in Baghdad

 

Approaches

A. Olive – plane – Crofton Lee – boil

Tentatives

Olive arrives in Basrah – welcome by Mr. D – ordinary life – Sir Rupert – does not recognise her – supercilious she thinks

 

Start with A

Olive leaving England – Heathrow – Sir Rupert in plane – her thoughts – divorce – future – Baghdad – sensible – happy free life – uneasy feeling of something she doesn’t want to remember – then sees back of Sir R’s neck

 

Victoria Jones – a plain girl with an amusing mouth – can do imitations – is doing one of her boss – gets sack – finds young man – also sacked? Edward – ex-pilot – given me a job in an office

 

Parts settled – Victoria Jones in London and Edward

 

Vic. – Journey out – Sir Rupert – Cairo? Air hostess? – arrival in Baghdad

(A) Journey out – Victoria Mrs HC Sir R changes at Heliopolis – arrive Baghdad Aerodrome

Running alongside the Olive/Victoria approach was what Christie called the Eastern approach, in other words the events leading up to the scene in the consulate that sets the plot in motion:

 

Eastern approach – in the Market – Arabs – young man’s feelings – goes to Souk. In Consulate’s office waiting room – smell of fear – Richard knows it well – in war – looks around waiting room

 

2. Carmichael
Stewart
in Marshes – with Arabs – coming into civilisation

 

B. Carmichael – with Arabs – bazaar – something wrong

Approach B. Carmichael gets to Basrah – everything as planned – to South – passwords – all OK – to Consulate – fear – then along passage – upstairs – Richard watches him go – last time ever seen alive. Idea is for false Rupert to extract information from him

Richard – off boat at Basrah – waiting room – smell of fear –
man stumbles puts in his pocket – What
?

 

Start

A. Richard off boat – smell of fear – somehow or other something is passed to him (washing bag) – finds afterwards wonders what it is

B. In from Marshes – something wrong – does he put half – Message in Kuwait chest – specially made secret drawer – has been a conjurer – goes up steps – vanishes

 

Notebook 56 speculates about bringing the various strands of the plot together, although Janet McCrae does not feature in the novel. The illustration below, from the same Notebook, is similar to that drawn by Dakin in the first chapter of the book and is also the idea behind the well-known Tom Adams Fontana paperback cover from the late 1960s.

At the end of Chapter 1 of
They Came to Baghdad
Dakin doodles a sketch like this but the above is Christie’s own interpretation of the title from Notebook 56. The Tom Adams painting for the 1970’s Fontana paperback edition is a more elaborate and sinister version.

 

4 people bringing four parts of the puzzle

Schute’s
[Scheele]
evidence from America

Carmichael’s from Persia(?) Kashgar(?)

Sir Rupert’s from China

Janet McCrae’s from the Bahamas

 

1. Olive in the plane – behind Sir Rupert – his cape slips back – boil on neck (perhaps he is flown on by RAF plane to Basrah)

2. Carmichael Stewart in Marshes – with Arabs – coming into civilisation

3. Richard lands from ship – goes to Consulate – smell of fear

4. Crooks? In train? At Alep – Damascus? Stamboul – agents everywhere

Notebook 56 also considers the identity of the villain:

 

Is Crosbie real villain? Does he send Olive (or Vic) to Basrah on his own account?

Can Edward be young (Nazi) villain – uses Victoria. V. resembles Anne Schepp – that is why Edward picks her up

 

A. Does Edward (IT!) deliberately select Victoria

Or

B Edward and Victoria allies

If A, Victoria pairs with Richard? Deakin ?

If B, is villain Mrs Willard (plaster on arm?)

Overall, as the Collins reader rightly noted, the novel has great pace and readability and, if not taken seriously or examined in any detail, is a pleasant read. But it must be asked why Edward, in Chapter 2, should draw attention to ‘something fishy’ in the Baghdad set-up (thereby setting the whole novel in motion) when he is the (very surprising) villain of the piece. He could easily have invented another reason to persuade Victoria to follow him. This very basic flaw in the plot is, possibly, a reflection of the problems the book seems to have given in its creation. But as the Collins reader observed, the character of Victoria, as well as the depiction of life in Baghdad and on an archaeological dig, more than compensate.

They Do It with Mirrors

17 November 1952

Miss Marple goes to Stonygates, the reform home for young delinquents run by the husband of her childhood friend Carrie Louise. Although the atmosphere is tense, when murder is committed the victim is totally unexpected. More deaths follow before Miss Marple penetrates the murderer’s conjuring trick.

They Do It with Mirrors
was serialised six months before book publication in both the UK and the USA and was Christie’s second title of 1952, following a few months after
Mrs McGinty’s Dead
. Leaving aside the unlikely background – a reform home – for Miss Marple, the conjuring trick at the heart of the plot is clever; although even the mention of a conjuring trick risks giving the game away immediately. The subsequent killings are, like similar deaths in later novels of the 1950s –
4.50 from Paddington
,
Ordeal by Innocence
– unconvincing and read suspiciously like padding. The principle behind the misdirection involving Carrie Louise’s innocent tonic is similar in type to the misdirection in
After the Funeral
, the following year, concerning the death of Richard Abernethie. Having successfully deceived her readers for over 30 years, Agatha Christie could still devise new and infuriatingly simple tricks. And her presentation of clues remained as devious and daring as ever. Read the description of Lewis Serrocold opening the door of the locked study after the quarrel – and marvel anew.

Most of the notes, almost 30 pages, for
They Do It with Mirrors
are contained in Notebook 17, with brief references to the main plot device in another seven. The central idea behind this plot, the fake quarrel, was one that Christie nursed for a long time before finally incorporating it into a book. She considered numerous variations and various settings and the plotting was entangled, at different times, with both
Taken at the Flood
and
A Pocket Full of Rye.
As can be seen, that attraction went back over many years and oddly, it would seem that it was the title, or at least a reference to ‘mirrors’, that attracted her:

 

Jan 1935

A and B alibi A has attempted to murder B – really they both murdered C

 

Ideas for G.K.C.

Alibi by attempted murder. A tries murder B and fails (Really A and B murder C or C and D)

 

They do it with Mirrors

Combine with Third Floor Flat – fortune telling woman dead, discovered by getting into wrong flat

 

Plans Nov. 1948 Cont.

Mirrors

Approach – Miss M. on jury – NAAFI girl
37
– Japp or equal unhappy about case – goes to Poirot. The fight between two men – (maisonette) – one clatters down – goes up again in service lift and through door – shouts for help – badly wounded – thereby they prove an alibi

 

Mirrors

Basic necessity – two enemies who give each other alibi. Brothers – Cain and Abel

A split B’s head open once – A bad tempered cheerful ne’er do well; B Cautious stay at home

 

Mirrors

The antagonism between two people providing the alibi for one. Sound of quarrel overheard – struggle and chairs – finally he comes out – calls for doctor

 

Mirrors

The trick – P and L fake quarrel – overheard below (actually P. does it above) L. returns and stuns him – calls for help

The ‘fake quarrel’ trick extends back as far as Christie’s first book,
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
, where Alfred Inglethorp and Evelyn Howard feign an argument in order to allay suspicion.
Death on the Nile
and
Endless Night
also feature this deception. In
They Do It with Mirrors
the trick depends, like that of a conjuror, on the misdirection of an audience’s attention while the murder is actually committed elsewhere. As can be seen in the first example above, this brief note may well have inspired
Death on the Nile
as it preceded that novel by two years; and the ‘G.K.C.’ note was for a 1935 anthology
A Century of Detective Stories
, edited by G.K. Chesterton. The reference to ‘Third Floor Flat’ is to the 1929 Poirot short story of the same name; its possible combination with the ‘mirrors’ idea is echoed again in the example following, with the mention of the service lift. This dated extract is from Notebook 14, directly after the main notes for 1949’s
Crooked House
. The ‘Cain and Abel’ note is from the early 1950s; it appears a few pages before the rough notes for the adaptation of
The Hollow
as a play. The final example shows the connection with
A
Pocket Full of Rye
, as the initials refer to Percival and Lancelot from that novel.

Notebook 63 confirms that Christie considered the title a promising one and shows an elaboration of the idea as she experiments with various combinations of male/female and A/B. The reference to 1941’s
Evil under the Sun
shows that this version postdates 1937’s
Death on the Nile
.

 

They Do it with Mirrors (Good title?)

 

Combine with AB alibi idea – A and B, apparently on bad terms, quarrel

 

(a) Man and Woman (?) Jealousy? He pays attention to someone else? or she does? or married couple? (too like Evil under Sun)

 

(b) Two men or two women quarrelled about a man (or woman) according to sex

 

Result – clever timing – B phones police or is heard by people in flat or being attacked by A (A is really killing C at that moment!). C’s death must be synchronised beyond any possible doubt.

 

A stabbed by B – then B goes off to kill X – A does double act of quarrel – ending with great shout – ‘he’s stabbed me.’

 

A has alibi (given by the attacked B) – B has alibi (given by injury and A’s confession) –
[therefore]
suspicion is narrowed to D E or F

Then she tries out completely different plots, while retaining the promising title. The first one has echoes – sisters masquerading as ‘woman and maid’ – of the Miss Marple story, ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’, first published in 1942, and the second is somewhat similar to the Poirot case
Mrs McGinty’s Dead
. The third is a resumé of ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, with the addition of a quarrel and the substitution of Miss Marple for Poirot; and the final one is an original, and confusing, undeveloped scenario:

 

They do it with Mirrors

 

Idea?

Adv
[ertisement]
for identical twins. Really put in by twins – crooks who are
not
identical. Woman and maid (really sisters). The maid gives alibi etc. and talks for the first one

 

Mirrors

 

Starting Inspector (?) The Moving Finger or one of the others. Calls on Miss M – retiring – his last case – doesn’t like it – puts it to her – evidence to the P
[ublic]
P
[rosecutor]
overwhelming but he isn’t satisfied

 

Could Mirrors be triangle idea

Valerie – rich, immoral, man mad

Michael
Peter – Air ace – married to her

Marjorie – brown mouse

Douglas – her husband – rather anxious – keen on Valerie

Miss Marple

V
[alerie]
poisoned – it was meant for P
[eter].
Could there be quarrel overheard – M and D really M and P (pretending to be D)

 

Mirrors

Randal and
Nicholas
Harvey Derek – brothers – violent quarrel – over woman? N marries Gwynneth. Old lady killed by H and R during time when R is attacking H or by R and G

In Notebook 17 Christie arrives at the plan that she eventually adopted for the novel. She drafts the set-up twice in three pages and then proceeds to a list of characters which is remarkably close to that of the finished work:

 

BOOK: Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks
11.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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