Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

Some motifs from earlier novels recur. Mrs Nicoletis has a conversation with her unnamed killer much as Amy Murgatroyd did in A Murder is Announced; and Patricia Lane’s telephone call to Poirot as the killer attacks her recalls Helen Abernethie’s in After the Funeral and Donald Ross’s in Lord Edgware Dies. And there is another unlikely, and unnecessary, relationship revealed towards the end of the novel. It is along the lines of similar disclosures in Four-Fifty from Paddington and The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. Both Morgan and Osborne refer to the fact that there were plans, in the early 1960s, to turn this title into a musical. Unlikely as this may seem, some of the music was written and a title—‘Death Beat’—had been decided upon, but the project eventually came to nothing.

The incongruity of the stolen objects presents Poirot, and the reader, with an intriguing puzzle and the explanations are satisfying. But there are arguably too many characters and some of the foreign students are little more than stereotypes.

Each of the first five pages of notes for this book is headed ‘Holiday Task’, suggesting that it was written at a time when Christie should have been relaxing. And the plotting of it did not come easily, as endless permutations and much repetition is included. It does not read as if she had a very clear idea of the plot when she started. The first page of the notes has the glimmering of a plot, much of which remained, although there were to be many changes before she was happy with it. By the end of the first page she had reached a possible starting point with echoes—‘one thing needed others camouflage’—of The A.B.C. Murders:

Things have disappeared—a rather stupid girl ‘Cilly’ (for Celia or Cecelia)—very enamoured of dour student —going in for psychiatry—he doesn’t notice her. Valerie, a clever girl puts her up to stealing ‘He’ll notice you through silly things or rather—one really good thing’

Stealing—things keep disappearing—really just one thing needed others camouflage

Some early ideas were, thankfully, not pursued…

Hickory Dickory Dock

Complex about the word Dock—a terror story—danger—girl in job—finds out something

H.P. in train—girl gets him to go stealing

Holiday Task (Cont.) 23 Gillespie Road

Does Miss Lemon decide to go as Matron? Bored by retirement—asks Poirot’s advice

…and some later ones that sounded promising were also abandoned.

Hickory Dickory Dock

First death at one o’clock—Second at 2 o’clock

Important—2 murders

[First] happens quite soon after P’s lecture

Mrs. Nicoletis? Why? Blackmails? One of the gang and slipping?

Johnston?—Her trained mind has made certain deduction—etc.—possibly finds after with matter—a warning hold you tongue—

Aka bombo?

Nigel?

Patricia

Although she toyed with the idea of other characters as the eventual villain, Valerie was always a front- runner, either alone or with various combinations of other students:

1. Valerie—Master mind of racket—uses students—puts C up to it—Nigel in it with her? Or blackmails her or later N. one of victims

2. Nigel—finds out about racket—or in it with Valerie—childish excitable

Basic to the plot is a bet about obtaining poison and it must be admitted that some of the tactics suggested are horribly plausible, at least in the mid-1950s. The ‘doctor’s car’ idea was one that surfaced a few times throughout the Notebooks and the white coat used in the novel as camouflage to access a hospital drug cupboard is one obviously inspired by Christie’s personal experiences in University College Hospital during the Second World War:

The 4 methods—a bet is made—Argument

Nigel

Valerie

Len

Angus

They bring back

D[angerous] D[rugs] from car—Tube of morphine

Hosp. Patient—Phenobarbitol

Poison cupboard—Strych. Or Digi?

Bicarbonate bottle taken to put powder in—and

bicarbonate substituted?

Then drugs destroyed but not one of them—the hospital one?

By page 50 of Notebook 12 she has the plot under control and the following extract contains most of the elements of the eventual plot:

Main arguments

V. an organiser of smuggling into this country (jewels?) (drugs?) by means of students. Mrs. N is in it—buys houses for students—also a shop on corner nearby—where rucksacks are sold—which have false bottoms (stones imbedded in glue (or powdered heroin in rouleau [roll] of canvas).

Police are on V’s track—she passes something to Nigel—Bath salts—he examines this—finds heroin— replaces it with bicarbonate—and puts stuff in his bicarbonate bottle. Police come to house—V. destroys rucksack cuts it up—afterwards works on Celia.

And a few pages later she toys with some refinements (the saccharine and rucksack ideas and the involvement of Elizabeth Johnson were subsequently rejected):

Points to be resolved

Morphine (Acetate?) replaced by boracic acid—latter shows green flame when burned (Recognised by Celia?) [therefore] C. knows boracic was taken to replace morphia.

Pat found morphia—took B. [oracic] A[cid] from bathroom.

Saccharine? Did C. use this in coffee? Morphia tablets exchanged for sacchar

Val. runs smuggling racket (Killed C?)

E[lizabeth] J[ohnson] in with Val on smuggling