mother’s sister still alive and living in Woodlawn Common kills brother (or mental defective). Anyway Mifanwy saw a murder—tells her older friend Joyce. Joyce boasts about this at party as her adventure. Mifanwy was not at party—ill that day—cold?
Mrs Oliver is at Party—helping a friend—friend is:
Jean Buckley? Or Gwenda Roberts?
Her family consists of: Daughter of 14—Twin boys Henry and Thomas 12—A husband—Doctor? G.P.
Bobbing for apples? Looking glass? (future husband) Snap Dragon—talk about origins of these rites— snapdragon—should be Christmas
The following significant passage from Notebook 16 appears almost verbatim in Chapter 1. Here we see resonances of an earlier Christie as she teases and taunts the reader with hints of an earlier crime:
Joyce—‘Oo-er—I saw a murder once’
Grown up—‘Don’t say silly things, Joyce’
Beatrice ‘Did you really—really and truly?
Joan ‘Of course she didn’t—she’s just making it up’
Joyce ‘I did see a murder—I did—I did’
Ann ‘Why didn’t you go to the police about it, then’?
Joyce ‘Because I didn’t know it was a murder’
With the usual name changes—Mary Drake becomes Rowena and Sonia Karova is Olga Seminoff—she lists some of the characters:
Possible characters
Mary Drake—Giver of party (?)
Mother or step-mother of Joyce [Mrs Reynolds]
Alistair Drake—fair—good-looking—vague
Sonia Karova—Au pair girl came to Barrets Green four or five years earlier
The Drake—old Miss or Mrs. Kellway an Aunt lived with them—dies suddenly—left a will hand written, leaving money to Sonia—former wills left money to Alistair
Girl ran away—never found—or—girl’s body found—or au pair girl disappeared—went off with a young man
A school teacher—Miss Emlyn—her body found—seen with a man
The notes indicate that much of the plot eluded Christie for a long time, as again and again she tried to get a coherent outline:
A garden made out of a quarry by Mrs. Llewellyn Browne—rich eccentric elderly woman mad on gardens— sunk gardens—saw one in N. Ireland—spent a lot of money.
David McArdle—young, artistic landscape planner—rumoured to be an elderly woman’s fancy—to make money out of them.
Also au pair girl Alenka—looked after old lady—she was keen on David—(refer to
Au pair girl—looked after old Mrs. Wilberforce—Aunt dies—her will found later—hidden in Chinese jar—(under carpet?)—money left to Olga—A supposedly written by her—but it was a forgery
Mary Drake—rich runs place—husband—Julian—polio victim?—weak—works on board of hospital—draws beautifully—forges—or—is Mr. Drake her second husband—first one was polio victim—did she kill him? In order to marry No. 2
But eventually she settled on a scenario that pleased her, and on pages headed ‘May 20th’ and ‘31st’ (1969) we find the following:
Idea—Sonia (Olga) (Katrina) was friends with John Leslie Ferrier—he had a conviction for forgery. Michael induces Leslie to forge will—offers him money—Leslie then killed (knifed by Michael)—Or—Hit and Run by car. Mary in with him her husband killed (hit and run) Soon after he inherits—man in car—car was pushed from somewhere 15 miles away, Michael at a meeting in London
Sequence—
A. Mrs. L.B. makes will or codicil—Michael hears about it (from Olga)
B. Gets Leslie to forge a codicil—pays him money—knifes him after a row between jealous girls.
C. Death of Mrs. L.B. (overdose)
D. Death of polio nephew—his wife adored him—Mrs. Mary had people playing bridge.
E. Mrs. L.B. had written draft codicil of my will. She had written it—or shown it to girl—then changed its position (work out details). Possibly in library.
Ideas and Points May 31st
A. Cleaning woman goes to Mrs. Oliver about seeing codicil
B. Poirot opens letter—Hungarian Herzoslovakian friend—has visited family—Olga Seminova—young man Olga was going to marry
C. Poirot and Michael Wright—in wood—he was with Miranda.
D. Miss Byways and hedges—Doctor dispensary—has cooked up prescription—little bottle of pills
E. Leonard or Leopold was near Michael and Miranda—sly—knows something—nasty little eavesdropper—is Leopold the next victim? Leopold—scientific bent—eavesdropper—possible juvenile blackmailer—or his sister Ann
This is, in fact, the plot she adopted, although why Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe should have written a codicil and then hidden it is never fully explained in the novel. And is it at all likely that Leopold, an 11-year-old, should blackmail a double murderer, thereby becoming another victim?
The short story ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ hovers over the novel, as the extract below shows. Both feature an elderly lady ignoring her family to leave her fortune to a foreign companion and the subsequent scapegoating of the legatee. The ‘shells’ is a reference to the plot of the earlier story, where strychnine is concealed in an oyster and the shells later hidden in plain sight as a decoration in the garden:
What did Joyce see? Mary Drake comes out from back door—shells—sticks them by path
11
Poirot Investigates:
The Labours of Hercules
…a passion for getting at the truth. In all the world there is nothing so curious, and so interesting and so beautiful as the truth…
’The Affair at the Bungalow’ •
