Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

raison d’etre. At least judging from the Notebooks we have, however, this was far from the case. As we saw in Chapter 3, several characters were considered as possible murderers before Christie arrived at the perfect solution.

In her specially written foreword to the Penguin ‘Million’ edition of Crooked House Agatha Christie writes: ‘This book is one of my own special favourites. I saved it for years, thinking about it, working it out, saying to myself “One day when I have got plenty of time, and want to really enjoy myself—I’ll begin it.” I should say that of one’s output, five books are work to one that is real pleasure. Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure.’

If, indeed, she spent years thinking and working it out, none of those notes have survived. Notebook 14, which contains most of the notes for this title, also contains, very exceptionally, two instances of dates. A few pages before the Crooked House outline the dates ‘Sept. 1947’ and ‘20th Oct [1947]’ occur. The novel first appeared in an American serialisation in October 1948 and was published in the UK in May 1949. From internal evidence (a reference to Aristide’s will being drafted ‘last year’ in November 1946) and from the evidence of the Notebooks below, the book was completed late in 1947 or early in 1948. So the years spent ‘thinking about it and working it out’ are, in all probability, those spent in the mental process before pen was put to paper. The more than 20 pages of notes cover the entire course of the novel.

The first page of notes in Notebook 14 is also headed ‘Crooked House’ so it seems to have been the title from the beginning. And, indeed, it is difficult to think of a better one. But (as we saw earlier in this chapter) Notebook 56 lists, on its opening page, the germ of A Pocket Full of Rye, which includes a distinct reference to a crooked house—although it is possible that the intention was to have a crooked, i.e. dishonest, businessman and no reference to the novel of that name is intended.

Sing a song of sixpence—the crooked sixpence found (a Crooked man Crooked wife Crooked house)

Coming home—Parlourmaid—maid and son—collusion—maid killed to prevent her telling

Some pages before starting the serious plotting of this title we find two references to it:

Crooked House

Crippled soldier—with scarred face—old man is treating him for war wounds—but not war wounds—really a murderer

Plans Sept. 1947

Crooked House (The Alt[erations]). Done

It is not possible to date the first entry as this ‘crippled soldier’ scenario does not appear in any Christie title, but the next, on the following page, is headed unambiguously, showing that the bulk of the novel, if not the entire novel, was completed by this date with only the alterations to attend to. As we saw in Chapter 3, the crossing out of words is Christie’s usual indication that something has been completed; here, in the same ink, we have the word ‘Done’ added.

Two pages later the plotting begins. The family is set out in some detail, as is the Sophia/Charles set- up:

Old Aristide Kriston—Gnome but attractive—vitality—a restaurant keeper—then marries the daughter of a fox hunting squire—good looks—very fair and English.

Roger—Greek—clever—devoted to father

Clemency—woman scientist

Leo—fair handsome [possibly a forerunner of Philip]

Penelope—good humoured—motivated [possibly a forerunner of Magda]

Sophia

His second wife—Dorcas (Tabitha) [Brenda]

Laurence—the crippled tutor

[Told in] First person—Charles(?) in Foreign office—Sophia Alexander is in his department—her talk— attraction—Oh, we all live together in a little crooked house—he looks up nursery rhyme—sees her in London—or arranges so to do—murder of Grandfather. She refuses to marry him—because of murder—because I don’t know which of us did it?—anyone of us might. His father is A.C. [Assistant Commissioner]—Charles goes into it all—the old man—his marriage

There is a succinct, initial assertion on the second page of notes that ‘Harriet kills the old man’. However, consideration is subsequently given to five other characters—Brenda, the second wife; Clemency, Roger’s wife; the tutor Laurence; the formidable Edith de Haviland, Aristide’s sister-in-law; and Sophia—before eventually returning to the child-as-murderer ploy. The idea ‘Laurence—really no legs’ is not pursued, despite Christie’s fascination with this as a plot device (see ‘The House of Dreams’, page 303), and Laurence remains crippled only in the emotional sense. And although the killer was eventually named Josephine, this name does not appear until the thirteenth page of notes. She is earlier (as above) referred to as Harriet and/or Emma:

Dorcas—No [Brenda]

Clemency? Yes her motive—Fanatical—slightly mad

Or shall it be Clemency—No gain—they will be out on the world

Does Laurence do it—a cripple—Laurence—really no legs—therefore always different heights

Edith—Yes—possible

Sophia Possible Lack of moral fibre

Christie explores this idea further, although it is possible to infer—‘Yes—interesting’ in the first extract and ‘(if J)’, five pages later, in the second—that at this stage she had not definitely settled on Josephine (as she has now become) as the killer:

Emma [Josephine]—Yes—interesting—not normal—wants power—hated her grandfather for something particular—(wouldn’t let her do ballet dancing and you must start young?): Motive—adjust for her method—an abnormally high intelligence. If so is there a second murder—Yes—the old nurse (if Emma)

The weight over the door (if J) or definitely dies—little black book nursery.

Child’s ending—best evidence there is—no good in court—children don’t like being asked direct questions—to you she was showing off.

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

Josephine writing in her book. A.C. says—be careful of the child—there’s a poisoner about

Although there is no mention of Josephine in the early pages, when she is mentioned she is given a page to herself and her detective work. Throughout the novel we are told of her ghoulish curiosity, her eavesdropping, her knowledge of detective fiction, and, poignantly, her little black book containing, supposedly, her detective notes:

Does Harriet know that Uncle Roger has been doing this?

An odious child who always knows what’s going on

Josephine—the ghoul—she knows—I’ve been doing detective work

Finds Roger was going away—because I think because he’d embezzled money

And Edith hates Brenda—they wrote to each other—I know where they kept the letters

I didn’t like grandfather—ballet—dancing nono.

Although it is an important Christie title, due to its shocking denouement, Crooked House is not a formally clued detective story. The answer is very evident in retrospect—Josephine’s confident claim of her knowledge of the killer, her lack of fear, the dents on the wash-house floor from the experiments with the marble door-stop—but it is not possible to arrive at the solution by logical deduction. Despite this, the novel shows that even after a 30-year career Christie still retains her ability to surprise and entertain.

A Pocket Full of Rye 9 November 1953

Rex Fortescue is poisoned in his counting house; his wife is poisoned during afternoon tea of bread and honey; and the maid is strangled while hanging out the clothes. A macabre interpretation of the nursery rhyme brings Miss Marple to Yewtree Lodge to investigate the presence of blackbirds.

The notes for this novel are contained in five Notebooks, the bulk of them in Notebook 53, with shorter