Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

Mystery, contains distinct similarities to this novel. As in the short story, an outside investigator arrives at the home of the murder victim, whose relatives are mutually suspicious, and discovers that the killer is a young man with an emotional connection to the elderly family retainer. Change the ‘son’ of the short story to ‘lover’ and the similarities to Kirsten Lindstrom and Jacko in Ordeal by Innocence, where Arthur Calgary arrives at the Argyle household, are striking. Although the story first appeared in December 1929, almost 30 years earlier, the parallels to Ordeal by Innocence are too many to be mere coincidence —the outsider detective, the elderly matriarch bludgeoned to death for money, the gnawing suspicion and distrust, the eventual disclosure of an unsuspected emotional and criminal partnership.

Ordeal by Innocence remains one of the best of the latter-day Christies. It is a crime novel, as distinct from a classical detective story, with deeply held convictions about truth and justice, guilt and innocence. It is marred only by the inclusion, in the last 20 pages, of two perfunctory crimes, a successful and an attempted murder. Coming, as they do, so near the end of the novel, they do not convince either as an illustration of the killer’s panic or

With her customary ingenuity, Agatha Christie resolved the thorny question of legal justice and moral justice. When Ordeal by Innocence was written, many aspects of life were more clear cut than they have subsequently become. If a character in a Christie novel were unmasked as a murderer, the reader could be sure that he or she would pay the ultimate price. With the death in prison of Jacko while serving a sentence for a crime he did not commit, Christie could be accused of a disservice to both natural and legal justice. Fifteen years earlier in Five Little Pigs, Caroline Crale is wrongly convicted, but it is with her own collusion in expiation for an earlier misdemeanour. Again, she dies in prison. And in Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952) the unsympathetic James Bentley is also wrongly convicted but is saved by Poirot before his execution. But in Ordeal by Innocence Jacko is finally shown to have been morally responsible, even if his was not the hand that struck the fatal blow.

as a suspense-building exercise; the Notebooks, however, give some insight into the inclusion of these murders.

The opening of the novel follows exactly the earliest jottings in Notebook 28, even to the amount of the fare paid to the boatman. The ferry used by Arthur Calgary is the one that still runs to this day at the end of Greenway Road just past the imposing gates of Dame Agatha’s summer residence.

Arthur Calgary—Crossing ferry—begins

The ferry came to a grinding halt against the shelving pebbles—A.C. paid fourpence and stepped ashore

Well, this was it—he could still, he supposed, turn back etc

An early page of Notebook 28 gets straight to the crime. This remains largely the same except for the detail of a poker instead of a sandbag. At this stage the character Jacko that appears in the book is still appearing in the Notebook as Albert:

Violent quarrel between Albert and Mrs A—he attacks her—she is nearly dead—K. sends him off to obtain an alibi. At 8 o’clock—with her again and kills her or he sticks her with a knife—she gets up—tells about him.

Possible course of real events—

Albert—determined to get money out of Mrs. Argyle makes up to Lindstrom—wants her to marry him—she agrees—Mrs. A—won’t help—Leo won’t help—he works on her—the sandbag from under the door—at 8.15 a form she does not understand—Mrs A bends over it—K socks her

The family members underwent name changes but are still recognisable, while Mr Argyle, Kirsten and Maureen are substantially the same as the finished novel. The calculation of Tina’s age shows that these notes were written in 1958:

Tina half-caste girl—(5 in 1940—23 now) married to local postman? Builder’s mason? farmer

Linda—married to a man since paralysed—she lives there [Mary]

Johnnie—a job in Plymouth comes over quite often

Albert—bad lot—unstable hanged convicted of murder of Mrs. Argyll [Jacko]

Mr Argyll—a scholar

Mr Argyle—(or Mr Randolph) Randolph Argyle? Ambrose Randolph?

Thin—ethereal—surrounded by books

Kirsten?

Her homely face—pancake flat—nose surrounded by bleached permanent w hair

How much better a nun’s coif and wimple?—not a contemplative lay sister—the kind who inspected you through a grille before admitting you to the visitor’s parlour—or Mother Superior’s presence

Calgary goes and sees—Maureen—(married to him?)—Silly common little girl—but shrewd—went to family when he was arrested—they didn’t know she he was married.

Mary—Tenement in New York—hatred of it all—mother out in street—car passed—Mrs A—adoption—then hotel life—nursery growing up—plans for her—meeting with Philip—no background—goes off marries him—he sets up in business—Fails—then polio—Mrs. Argyle—wants them there—he is quite ready to go—goes into hospital— Mary goes to stay at Sunny Point

The two subsequent victims are also considered. As the notes below show, however, the original intention was that either Philip or Tina would be the victim:

Who is killed? Philip poisoned—doesn’t wake up or Tina stabbed—she walks from Kirsty to Mickey— collapses

The poisoning of Philip was discarded in favour of stabbing. In view of the urgency of the killer’s situation, this was a more expedient course and one easily within the capability of the character in question. And a possible reason for inclusion of the unsuccessful attempt on Tina is that it provides a witness in the absence of any other proof of guilt. For those readers who doubt the medical possibility of the attempted murder of Tina, who continues to walk despite having been stabbed, there are two editions of the British Medical Journal, dated 28 January and 18 February 1956, among Christie’s papers with pages dealing with just this type of event. And both articles are marked. A careful reading of a very daring Chapter 22 should be enough to dispose of any accusations of cheating.

There were also a few ideas that never got further than Notebook 28:

Forged will—forged in favour of real murderer—but forged very badly? Or forged badly in favour of Albert.

Husband dislikes wife and hated the children. Wanted to marry someone? Or had son of his own.

She was going to alter will in favour of a foundation for orphans—which cut out husband.

And, finally, two intriguing ideas, both actually variations on the same theme…

Or was Albert her [i.e. Mrs Argyle’s] son

Is Kirsten Albert’s real mother?

Both of these would have worked and would, moreover, have made psychological sense. The former would have made a profoundly affecting scenario; the latter would perhaps have been more effective as a motivation for