Mrs Adela Chester asks Parker Pyne to convince her son, Basil, to abandon his girlfriend Betty, whom she considers unsuitable.
There are brief notes in Notebooks 66 and 20 for this lighthearted Parker Pyne short story. The only question was where to set it. A non-crime trifle, it was obviously written for the magazine market:
Excited woman wants M PP to stop her son marrying a girl—they won’t be happy—son asks whether PP will help him.
Corsica? Majorca?
A mother and her son—a girl he likes—parents—trousers—Madeleine comes out—this scene—the boy distracted
Despite warning the protagonists, Hercule Poirot is unable to prevent a murder in his Rhodes holiday hotel. But he can solve it by correctly interpreting the fatal triangle.
The genesis of this short story is complicated. There are variant texts in the US and the UK appearances, while there are copious notes for its dramatisation. And as it was expanded and altered for the novel
The triangle—Valerie C. loved by Commander C. and Douglas Golding
It went through a few changes before arriving at the version we know. These notes, complete with Christie’s sketches of the various ‘eternal triangles’, are on either side of those for ‘Problem at Pollensa Bay’. To complicate matters even more, two separate and totally different settings and sets of characters are listed:
Soviet Russia
Room at hotel—
In train—
The Triangle
George and Edna
Anna and Ivan
The Gordons—Lloyd and Jessica
Rhodes—Bathing—Emily Renault (Joan Heaslip)
The Courtneys—beautiful—faded—empty-headed The Goldings arrive—man—plain wife—a shock to discover they are on honeymoon—his devotion to Mrs C—bowled over—antagonism between him and C—a quarrel at dinner—everyone talking about it.
Quiet woman comes to PP…what shall she do? He says leave the island at once—you are in danger—(PP says to himself where has he seen her—remembrance of murder trial). Lee a chemist—Golding has his usual drink—gin and ginger tonic—Mrs Golding drinks it instead and dies
The setting of Soviet Russia (perhaps inspired by a brief foray there while returning from Ur in 1931) would have been unique for Christie and very unusual for crime fiction in general at the time. It is perhaps not surprising that this version was never developed. The other scenario is nearer to the published version, but it was still to go through further refinements. Note also that this early draft has it as a case for Parker Pyne.
Eventually in Notebook 66 we arrive at the ‘real’ version. The short precis below of the plot is in the middle of the notes for
Poirot story—Chantries—she beautiful, empty headed, he a strong silent man of personality—The Goldings—G infatuated with Mrs G—Mrs G in despair comes to Poirot—you are in danger. Various scenes if book—actually Chantries and Mrs G are lovers—the gin and tonic—Gold—is supposed to want to kill C—Mrs C drinks it instead—and dies
Note the words in the middle of this jotting—‘Various scenes if book’. She obviously thought, and correctly, that this situation had great potential for elaboration. And she did just that a few years later in
Finally, the following in Notebook 58 may seem like a rough note for ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, although it actually occurs in the middle of the jottings for A
Triangle idea (Rhodes)
Lovely siren—her husband—devoted, dark, cynical—little brown mouse, nice little woman, wife—plain stupid husband—dark husband really has liaison with mouse. They plan to do away with siren—stupid husband is to be suspected
There are similarities between the two—the quartet of two husbands and wives in an exotic beach setting. But in fact it is included at this point in the Notebook as a plot resume to herself as she considered possibilities for her new Caribbean quartet.
When Amy Leatheran accepts a nursing job on an archaeological dig looking after the neurotic Mrs Leidner she little suspects that she will be involved in the investigation of her patient’s murder. But how did the killer gain access to his victim when the room was under constant observation?
From the time of her marriage to Max Mallowan, Christie accompanied him annually to Iraq on his archaeological expeditions. These travels gave her background for her foreign travel novels but the one that most closely matches her own experiences is
The surviving notes are not extensive, less than 15 pages in total scattered over four Notebooks. Notebook 66 has a oneline jotting in a list dated January 1935; she wrote the novel during that year with hardback publication in July 1936:
Dig murder 1st person Hospital Nurse?
A list of characters given in Notebook 20 tallies with the published novel (although some of the men are not definitely recognisable), as does the basic situation outlined immediately following:
The People
1. Dr. L[eidner]
2. Mrs L[eidner]
3. Architect B. man of 35 taciturn attractive [Richard Carey]
4. Epigraphist P. moody man—hypochondriac or Priest (not really a priest!) [Fr. Lavigny]
5. Young man R. inclined to be garrulous or naive [David Emmott]
6. Miss Johnson—middle aged—devoted to L.
7. A wife—not archaeological—pretty—frivolous [Mrs. Mercado]
8. A dour young man G. [Carl Reiter]
The wife—very queer—Is she being doped against her own knowledge? Atmosphere gradually develops of intensity—a bomb may explode any minute
