Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

interested as the years go by in the preliminaries of crime. The interplay of character upon character, the deep smouldering resentments and dissatisfactions that do not always come to the surface but which may suddenly explode into violence.’ This is the template of The Hollow—a weekend of smouldering and complicated emotions erupting into murder. The character drawing in this novel is the most searching she has done to date. Five Little Pigs and Sad Cypress paved the way but in The Hollow, her powers of characterisation reached full flower to the detriment, unfortunately, of the detective plot. Five Little Pigs is the most perfect example of the marrying of the two, Sad Cypress still has a distinct detective plot with clues and alibis; but in The Hollow, the detection is minimal and Poirot is almost surplus to requirements.

When, some years later, Christie came to dramatise The Hollow for the stage, she dropped Hercule Poirot from it. And it is difficult not to agree with this decision. Of all his cases, he does not fit in here. It is inconceivable that he would have bought a house in the country and at no subsequent time is it even mentioned. And as this case involves little in the way of physical clues, he is almost entirely dependent on the characters. When Christie says in her Autobiography that he doesn’t fit, she is quite right. It was probably pressure from her publishers that caused her to insert him into this milieu; he hadn’t appeared in a novel since Five Little Pigs, three years earlier. He doesn’t enter the novel until almost 100 pages into it and, even more peculiarly, his French idioms are almost completely absent. Also dropped from the stage version is the character David Angkatell, who is completely superfluous and whose absence from the novel would have had no adverse effect either.

The notes in Notebook 13 are preceded by Death Comes as the End and followed by Taken at the Flood, a sequence reflected in the order of publication. The first point of interest in Notebook 13 is the fact that two alternate titles were under consideration for The Hollow. Both of them reflect elements of the finished novel. The events take place over what proves, indeed, to be a tragic weekend and the poignant memories of happier early days—a motif that runs throughout the novel—dominate the lives of many of the characters:

Tragic Weekend

Return Journey

Elizabeth Savarnake [Henrietta]

Lucy Angkatell

Gwenda—her niece [Midge]

John Christow/Ridgeway

Gerda Ridgeway

Veronica Cray

Edward

Henry Angkatell

Lady Angkatell in early morning—Gwenda—poor Gerda etc [Chapter I]

H.P. next door

The Hollow features strong echoes of Greenway in the descriptions of Ainswick, the Angkatell family home that dominates both the book and the lives of many of the characters. It is described in Chapter 18 as ‘the white graceful house, the big magnolia growing up it, the whole set in an amphitheatre of wooded hills’; and in Chapter 6: ‘the final turn in through the gate and up through the woods till you came out into the open and there the house was—big and white and welcoming’.

Note that the niece’s name, Gwenda, was abandoned (perhaps because of its similarity to Gerda) in favour of Midge. But it is also possible that there is a connection with Gwenda from Sleeping Murder, in view of the new timeline for the writing of that novel (see Chapter 7). And the alternative that was considered for (Dr) John Christow’s name, Ridgeway, was to become the name of the disease on which he was working.

The salient elements of the plot are succinctly captured in a half-dozen pages of Notebook 13:

John at consulting desk—gear changing—annoyance with G.—E. and her wonderful knack with cars

E. in studio

Edward—his nervousness—sly, clever creature

Points

Gerda in straightforward fashion because discovers liaison of John

Lady A—sheer vagueness

Edward—in love with Eliz.

Eliz. [Henrietta]—very cleverly tries to shield G

Bit of clay pointing to herself

Ends by Gerda trying to kill Eliz.

More practical details are teased out in Notebook 31:

Now strict mechanics

G. takes revolvers—shoots John—puts revolver in knitting bag—or puts revolver in fox cape and purse down below settee. Henrietta finds it—puts it back in collection

Inspector comes to Sir Henry—asks about revolver. Is another missing?

Sir H. stalls—finally says it is

Was it in a holster?

Yes

Holster found in road near V’s cottage—in bush?

Gerda takes out 2 revolvers—shoots him with one puts holster in V’s fur then shoots him—drops it in knitting bag and other by John’s body or follows John to cottage—drops holster—comes back after him to pool—shoots him—back at home hides revolver?

Recovers it at inquest? Gudgeon takes revolver from eggs—puts it in study

Henrietta does indeed try to shield Gerda, although she doesn’t resort to the piece-of-clay gambit. Nor is there an attempt to incriminate Veronica Cray by placing the gun in her fur cape, although in the stage adaptation the gun is found in Veronica’s handbag. With her customary fertility of invention, Christie sketches a few possible scenarios for the disposal of the incriminating gun and holster, elements from each of which—the two revolvers, Sir Henry’s missing revolver, Gudgeon and the eggs—she subsumed into the novel.

Christie introduces, in Notebook 32, an already reordered alphabetical sequence (but without, for some reason, any F, G or I) although it is not followed exactly in the novel. Note that here she is referring to the story as ‘Echo’, reflecting the last line of the Tennyson quotation:

End of Echo

H.P. on seat around pool—Inspector’s men crashing about—Grant comes to him—making a monkey of him

A. Must find pistol fired just before—Mrs. C no time to hide it—must have hidden it near [Chapter 26]

B. All of them with motive—Lady A and David—Edmund and Henrietta. P. says solution—away not towards— from not to. G[rant] says sometimes I think they all know—P says They do know. [Chapter 26]

C. Lady A—about truth—would be satisfied [Chapter 27] H. Midge breaks off engagement [Chapter 27]

D. P. at home—Inspector—they find pistol [Chapter 26]

E. Midge and Edward and gas [Chapter 28]