Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

‘The Market Basing Mystery’/‘Murder in the Mews’

‘The Submarine Plans’/‘The Incredible Theft’

‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’/‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’

‘Christmas Adventure’/‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’

‘The Greenshore Folly’ (unpublished)/Dead Man’s Folly

In other cases she challenged herself when adapting and expanding by changing the killer:

The Secret of Chimneys/Chimneys

‘The Second Gong’/‘Dead Man’s Mirror’

‘Yellow Iris’/Sparkling Cyanide

‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/Dumb Witness (see Appendix)

Some stage versions differ from their source novels…

Appointment with Death presents a new villain with a compelling and daring solution.

The Secret of Chimneys introduces many variations on the original novel, including a new killer.

Ten Little Niggers unmasks the original killer within a very different finale.

Meanwhile, there are more subtle links between certain works:

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Death on the Nile and Endless Night are all essentially the same plot.

The Man in the Brown Suit, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Endless Night all share a major plot device.

Evil under the Sun and The Body in the Library feature a common ploy.

After the Funeral and They Do It with Mirrors are both based on the same trick of misdirection.

Murder on the Orient Express, At Bertram’s Hotel and, to a lesser extent, The Hollow are all built on a similar foundation.

Three Act Tragedy, Death in the Clouds and The A.B.C. Murders all conceal the killer in similar surroundings.

And there are other examples of similarities between short stories and novels that have escaped notice in previous studies of the Queen of Crime:

‘The Tuesday Night Club’/A Pocket Full of Rye

‘A Christmas Tragedy’/Evil under the Sun

‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’/Ordeal by Innocence

‘The Love Detectives’/The Murder at the Vicarage

Points

Mr T-A. Talk with Lady T—asks about Mary

B. The story of murder led up to how?

C. Royde and justice (after Mr T has said: Many murders known to police)

D. Hotel—his rooms are on top floor

Work out sequence of evening

G. H. A. D. C. B. G. H.

It is notable how the E F G H scenes appear on an earlier page and the A B C D scenes on a later one. After they have all been tabulated, she then rearranges them to give the sequence she desires. At first, she intended the G and H scenes to follow A D C B but changed her mind, crossed them out and transposed them, squeezing them in, in front, at the left-hand margin of the page. A study of the relevant second section of the novel—‘Snow White and Red Rose’—will show that she followed this plan exactly:

 G. Coat buttons V

H. Moonlight V

A. Lady T VI

D. Hotel VI

C. Royde VI

B. Lead up VI

F. Mary and Audrey VII

E. Thomas and Audrey VIII

Work out sequence of evening G. H. A. D. C. B. G. H. [F E]

She follows this scheme in the plotting of, among others, Sparkling Cyanide, One, Two, Buckle my Shoe and Crooked House. But with her chaotic approach to creativity and creative approach to chaos, she sometimes abandons it.

Detailed plotting for Towards Zero—see opposite page.

Notebook 14 shows this scheme, up to a point, in use for Crooked House (see also Chapter 4). But this time she has added further complications—AA and FF. Ultimately she dispensed with the reordering of the letters and just reordered the scenes without the alphabetical guideline. And the AA and FF were merely afterthoughts to be inserted at a later stage.

A. Inquires into Ass[ociated] Cat[ering]—discreet at first—Chartered Accountant will get us what we want [Chapter 10/11]

AA Also Brenda—femme fatale—are sorry for etc. [Chapter 9]

B. Later?—on its In Queer St.—Get Roger there—Roger—his story—etc. [Chapter 11]

C. Child’s evidence—best evidence—there is—no good in court—children don’t like being asked direct questions. To you she was showing off [Chapter 12]

D. Charles and Josephine—asks about letters—I was making it up—won’t tell you—you shouldn’t have told police [Chapter 13]

E. Charles and Eustace—(Listens outside door—really a boring teacher) Eustace—his views—scornful of