Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks (30 page)

This disappearance business is an agency run by an old American – a kind of Gulbenkian
³⁹
– he pays scientists good sums to come to him – also plastic surgeons – who also operate on finger prints. A suspicion gets about that Henslowe is not Henslowe because he is not brilliant

And the devious Christie can be seen in the last note (‘Because he is
not
Henslowe?’). The obvious explanation is not the one she adopts: it is not that ‘Henslowe’ is really someone else, but that he is not the scientist that he purports to be, because his reputation was built on the genius of his dead first wife:

Olive sees real wife dying in hospital – dying words – enigmatic – but they mean something. Olive and Henslowe meet – he recognises her as his wife – why? Because he is
not
Henslowe?

Christie also toyed with a more domestic variation concerning the earlier murder that set most of the plot in motion:

Conman finds out about murder
[of Elsa]
and has a hold over him

Communist Agent?

A woman?

Just an ordinary blackmailer?

Henslowe marries again

Deliberately a communist?

Just a devoted woman?

His disappearance and journey to Morocco is planned deliberately by him.
[Therefore]
Olive when on his trail will eventually discover that the dead body they come across (actually the blackmailer) is a private murder by Henslowe and all the Russian agents stuff is faked by Henslowe

After four very traditional whodunits in the previous two years –
Mrs McGinty’s Dead
,
They Do It with Mirrors
,
A Pocket Full of Rye
,
After the Funeral – Destination Unknown
is a disappointment. Despite a promising opening the novel ambles along to a destination that is more unbelievable than unknown, with little evidence of the author’s usual ingenuity. The denouement of
They Came to Baghdad
unmasked an unexpected (if somewhat illogical) villain but there are no surprises at the climax of
Destination Unknown
. It is undoubtedly the weakest book of the 1950s.

The Unexpected Guest

12 August 1958

When Michael Starkwedder stumbles out of the fog and into the Warwick household, he finds Richard Warwick shot dead and his wife, Laura, standing nearby holding a revolver. Between them they concoct a plan to explain the situation before ringing the police. But who really shot Richard Warwick?

During the 1950s Agatha Christie reigned supreme in London’s West End.
The Hollow
led off the decade in June 1951, followed by
The
Mousetrap
in November 1952. October 1953 saw the curtain rise on
Witness for the Prosecution
;
Spider’s Web
opened in December of the following year and
Towards Zero
(co-written with Gerald Verner) in September 1956. In 1958 two new Christie plays appeared –
Verdict
in May and
The Unexpected Guest
in August. With the exception of
Verdict
all were major theatrical successes, two of them at least,
The Mousetrap
and
Witness for the Prosecution
, assuring Agatha Christie’s eternal fame as a playwright.

Spider’s Web
had been the first original Christie stage play since
Black Coffee
in 1930.
Verdict
and
The Unexpected Guest
continued this trend for new, as distinct from adapted, material, although both of these scripts are considerably darker in tone than
Spider’s Web
. To some extent all three feature attempts to explain away a mysterious death with less emphasis than usual on the whodunit element. And in
The
Unexpected Guest
Christie sets herself the added challenge of portraying a 19-year-old who is mentally disturbed. On a more personal note, the description of the victim, Richard Warwick, has distinct similarities to Christie’s brother, Monty. Both spent part of their adult life in Africa, both needed an attendant when they returned to live in England and both had the undesirable habit of taking pot-shots at animals, birds and, unfortunately, passers-by through the window of his home. In her
Autobiography
(Part VII, ‘The Land of Lost Content’) she recounts Monty’s description of a ‘silly old spinster going down the drive with her behind wobbling. Couldn’t resist it – I sent a shot or two right and left of her’; this is exactly Laura’s description in Act I, Scene i of Richard’s behaviour. There, it must be emphasised, all similarities ended, as Richard Warwick is painted as a particularly despicable character.

Verdict
, after a critical mauling due, in part, to a mistimed final curtain, lasted only one month but in August 1958, spirit unquenched, the curtain rose on the next offering from the Queen of Crime.
Verdict
was an atypical Christie stage offering; despite its title it is not a whodunit and has no surprise ending. With
The Unexpected Guest
she returned to more recognisable fare. Although it is, in part, a will-they-get-away-with-it type of plot, it also contains a strong whodunit element and a last-minute surprise.

Christie had, presumably, spent the intervening period, not in licking her wounds, but in setting out to prove her critics wrong by writing a new play to eradicate the failure of
Verdict
. Or so it seemed. But Notebook 34 shows, with an unequivocal date, that the earliest notes for this play had been drafted even before
The Mousetrap
had begun its unstoppable run. Three pages of that Notebook show that almost the entire plot of the play already existed. A more likely scenario, and one borne out by further notes below, is that the plotting of the play was already well advanced even before
Verdict
was taken off; it needed only a final polish.

1951 Play

Act I

Stranger stumbling into room in dark – finds light – turns it on – body of man – more light – woman against wall – revolver in hand (left) – says she shot him.

‘There’s the telephone –

Uh?

‘To ring up the police’

Outsider shields her – rings police – rigs room

People  Vera

             Julian (lover?)

             Benny (Cripple’s brother)

Act II

Ends with S[
tranger]
accusing V
[era]
of lying. Julian killed him – you thought I’d shield you – (she admits it) or led up to by his realising she is left handed; crime committed by right handed person

Curtain as –

‘Julian did it’

She – ‘You can’t prove it – you can’t alter your story’

‘You ingenious devil’!

Act III

Suspicion switches to Benny having done it. But actually it is woman. Ends with her preferring S
[tranger]
to Julian

Characters could be

Vera (Sandra)

Julian

Mrs Gregg  mother of victim

          Stepmother

Barny  feeble minded boy

Rosa  ”  ”  girl

Miss Jennson – Nurse

Julian’s sister

Lydia or niece of Julian’s – hard girl

This is, in rough outline, the plot of the play; and the characters correspond closely to the eventual cast list. The only element missing is the development of the part played by ‘the Stranger’; he does not even figure in the list of characters, although a ‘stranger stumbling into room’ is the opening of the play. And yet the part he plays is vital to the surprise in the closing lines of the eventual script. The explanation for this may be simply that the final twist had not occurred to Christie when she began drafting the play. This is in keeping with other titles; the shock endings to both
Crooked House
and
Endless Night
do not form a large part of the plotting of either novel and would seem to have emerged during, rather than being inspired by, the drafting of the book. But even without the final twist
The Unexpected Guest
is still an entertaining whodunit.

Notebook 53 also has a concise summation of the plot, this time including a list of possible murderers. These three pages appear, unexpectedly, between pages of extended plotting of
After the Funeral
and
A Pocket Full of Rye
, both of which were completed in the early 1950s and published in 1953. The general set-up here is reflected in the finished play, although neither victim nor killer has yet been decided. By now the part played by the ‘stranger’ has taken on a more important aspect; he is given a name, Trevor and is under consideration as the murderer.

Plan  The Unexpected Guest

Act I

Trevor blundering in – in fog or storm – Sandra against wall – pistol. He and she – he rigs things – rings police. Scene between them

Curtain – end of scene

Scene II

People being questioned by police

Julian Somers MP

Sandra

Nurse Eldon

Mrs Crawford

David Crawford – invalid

Or

David Etherington Sandra’s brother

Act II

Further questions

Julian and Sandra – Trevor’s suspicions. He accuses her – having tricked her with revolver

Damned if I’ll shield him

What else can you do – now? etc.

Act III

Mrs Crawford takes a hand. ‘Who really did it’ – (brightly)

Now who did?

1. Trevor the enemy from the past – his idea is to return and find body

2. Nurse? Told him about wife and Julian – his reaction is that he knew all about it – is brutal to her – she shoots him

3. Governess to child? Or to defective?

4. Defective has done it – or child

5. Mrs Crawford?

As further confirmation of the unpredictability of the Notebooks, the following extract, clearly dated November 1957, appears in Notebook 28, preceded by notes for
By the Pricking of my Thumbs
and followed by notes for
Endless Night
, both published in the late 1960s. How this gap of ten years can have happened in the middle of a Notebook and how a title from the previous decade can appear between notes for two titles from a later decade, is inexplicable; but it shows, yet again, the danger of drawing deductions or making explicit statements about the timeline of the notes, unless supported by incontrovertible proof.

There seems to be confusion in the following extract in the naming of the main female character. Earlier notes refer to her as Vera, as do the initials in this extract, but in the course of the notes she is also referred to as Ruth and/or Judith:

FOG

Nov 1957

M enters – R dead

V. revolver in hand – admits – the build up – tells her of MacGregor – dead man displayed in bad light – letter written – printed – left – then (M. rings up police?) V goes up stairs – paper bag trick – they come down – M. enters – discovery – M rings up police. Does Ruth – make some remark about lighter (Julian’s)

Scene II

Police – then family

Julian comes – lighter – he picks it up etc.

Act II

Police again or a police station – or his hotel and V. comes there?

Ends with Julian and V

His saying ‘You did not kill him – didn’t know even how to fire a revolver’

Act III

(Cast?) V
[era]

    M
[ichael and/or MacGregor]

    Jul
[ian]

    Police Insp.

    “  S
[ergeant]

    Mrs Warwick

    Judith Venn
[no equivalent]

    Bernard Warwick
[possibly Jan]

    Crusty
[possibly Miss Bennett]

    Angell – Manservant (Shifty)

Crusty works on Bernard or Judith or Bernard begins talking

Points to decide

Judith (angry because R. chucks her out). If so, Bernard is induced by her to confess or even boast. He is taken away. M. clears him and breaks down J.
[M]
says to V. (good luck with J.) he is M
[acGregor]

Or

Bernard boasts to killing him – he is killed – cliff? window? etc.

Case closed. Then M springs his surprise

As can be seen, at this point the play is referred to as ‘Fog’; and the same title appears in other Notebooks, once with the addition of ‘The Unexpected Guest’ in brackets. As a title ‘Fog’ has its attractions. In both the physical and metaphorical sense fog plays an important part in the play. ‘Swirls of mist’ are described in the stage directions and fog is necessary to lend credence to Starkwedder’s story of crashing his car; and, of course, the other characters, and the audience, are in a fog of doubt throughout the play. Unusually for a Christie play (with a UK setting) the scene is specifically set near the Bristol Channel, and the fog-horn sounds a melancholy note periodically throughout the action of the play. The stage directions specify that ‘the fog signal is still sounding as the Curtain falls’.

‘Greenshaw’s Folly’

December 1958

Miss Marple uses her powers of observation and armchair detection to solve the brutal murder of Miss Greenshaw, owner of the monstrous Greenshaw’s Folly. In doing so she uses her knowledge of theatre, gardening – and human nature.

The history behind this short story was outlined in
Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks.
Briefly, it was written as a replacement for the still unpublished novella ‘The Greenshore Folly’, which, in turn, had been written as a gift for the Diocesan Board of Finance in Exeter. Embarrassingly, it had proved impossible to sell the story (due, probably, to its unusual length) and Christie recalled the original and replaced it with one bearing the similar-sounding title ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’. It was published in the UK in the
Daily Mail
in December 1956; in the USA,
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
published it in March of the following year, referring to it as Christie’s ‘newest story’.