Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

Horace Blatt (red faced magnate)

Miss Porter [Miss Brewster]

Mrs Springfelt [not used]

Major Barry

The reference to Appointment with Death above is slightly mystifying; there is no reference to this book in Evil under the Sun and no character in common, apart from Poirot. Christie may have toyed with the idea of introducing Jefferson Cope from the earlier novel and perhaps abandoned it in case it spoiled the reader’s enjoyment of Appointment with Death. The Gardeners, the compromise American characters she instead created, provide light relief throughout the novel.

She also utilises her alphabetical sequencing, here in working out short scenes of encounters rather than plot development. Although she does not follow the sequence exactly, the only scene not to appear in any form is E. Scene B is the allimportant one that Poirot remembers in Chapter 11 ii when he muses on five significant remarks uttered there:

Beginning

A. House built by etc. [Chapter 1 i]

B. H.P. watches bodies—Mrs Gardiner—reciting Beverly etc.—her husband says Yes, darling—Mr Barrett, Miss Porter and Miss Springer. Arlena—pushes off on her float. Major Barry—these red-headed gals—I remember in Poonah [Chapter 1 ii and iv]

C. The Marshalls arrive—Kenneth and Rosemary—an encounter

D. Linda thinks—her face—breakfast [Chapter 2 ii]

E. Miss Porter and Miss Springer—latter tells her friend what she overheard. You were with Desmond and Cristina and H.P. and Mrs Kane

F. Rosemary and H.P.—taste in wives [Chapter 2 i]

G. Christine Redfern and Desmond

H. Rosamund and Kenneth [Chapter 3 i]

One particularly intriguing element of the notes to this novel relates to the complicated alibis Christie attempted to provide for most of the characters. This caused much crossingout and rearranging and she changed the details quite considerably before she arrived at a version that pleased her. Two of her favourite unused ideas, the dishonest, collusive chambermaid and the two ‘arty’ friends, surfaced briefly before being discarded and returned to the ‘unused’ category, while she also experimented with other solutions before returning to the thoughts she had initially set out:

Alternative Plan

Arlena dies Christine disappears

Desmond and Christine go out on a float—early—or in their boat—Japanese sunshade. You do believe me, darling, when I tell you there’s nothing in it at all. No one sees them come back

Alternatives

A. Desmond kills Christine

First arranges body—then drowns her—gets rid of other woman—puts C’s body on rocks as though fallen from above—right spot indicated by stone (peculiar colour marking etc.) the night before.

B. Desmond and Gladys Springett do murder—(Christine is, perhaps, only fiancee?). Gladys and ‘friend’ are at Gull Cove—latter sketching—forever looking for flowers (or shells?). Goes through cave—acts the part of ‘the body’ and returns

C. Christine and Desmond are a pair of crooks. Money—banked in her name—her story of blackmail coming out when questioned by the Police

D. Is the chambermaid Desmond’s wife? ALL her stories false—about blackmail—about seeing Christine etc.—alters Linda’s watch

Where is everyone?

Blatt—out in boat—later sails found in a cave

Major Barry—drive his car into Lostwitch—business—market day—early closing—lots of people on beach

This sketch from Notebook 39 shows the mainland and the island (complete with compass points) and the route between the two. Also shown are the Hotel and Tennis Court, the Bathing Beach as well as Pixy Cove and Gull Cove. Note the change of mind about the last two locations.

The Gardiners—on beach (she goes up to get wool or he gets it for her)

Babcock—to church—signs book—but it could be previous day

Kenneth? Typing in room

Rosamund? Bathing? On float

Tennis—Christine, Rosamund, Kenneth, Gardiner

And many of the clues that feature in the novel (the bath that no one will admit taking, the candles, the sun- tan lotion bottle) appear in the Notebooks:

About Linda—Packet of candles—calendar—other things she remembers—green?

Bath?

Kenneth—typing at middle table

Bottle thrown from window

  Towards Zero

3 July 1944

Before murder interrupts a holiday weekend in Lady Tressilian’s house in Gull’s Point, we meet a disparate group of people. All of their destinies are inextricably linked as zero hour approaches. Superintendent Battle investigates a case where the solution seems obvious. But is it too obvious?

This page from Notebook 32 shows both Neville’s actions on the night of the murder in Towards Zero, and a rough diagram of the local geography, including the scene of his alibi-breaking swim.

Towards Zero is superb Christie. The plot resembles a series of Russian dolls with one concealed inside the other. The reader is presented with one solution and within that is another, and behind that yet another. The motivation and clue laying are masterly because the whole plot is predicated on the ‘wrong’ solution being uncovered and then disproved and the subsequent one being discovered. And there is yet another solution behind that.

Nine months before Zero Hour we meet, in a series of vignettes, a group of people; at first they seem totally disconnected. Then we realise that, for various reasons, they are all converging on Lady Tressilian’s house in September.

Sharing a plot device used years earlier in The Murder at the Vicarage and more recently in ‘Murder in the Mews’, this is a dark and emotional crime novel as well as a very clever detective story with subtle clueing and better-than-usual characterisations. Twelve years after its publication the novel was presented on stage with a slightly altered ending (although the same killer), but it was not one of Christie’s major stage successes.

The plotting for this novel is contained in two Notebooks, the majority of it in Notebook 32 and with a further ten pages in Notebook 63. Its genesis seems to have been painless and clear from the start, as the notes follow the finished book very closely and very little of the plotting from the Notebooks is not included. As can be seen from below, the notes are quite detailed and accurate. Even here, however, Christie came up with a few ideas that did not appear.