Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

‘And that, mon ami, was the meaning of her dying words. I comprehend well enough the English to know that it is a door that is ajar, not a picture. The old lady is trying to tell Ellen of her suspicions. The dog—the picture above the jar on the mantelpiece with its subject—‘Out all night’ and the ball put away in the jar. That is the only ground for suspicion she has. She probably thinks her illness is natural—but at the last minute has an intuition that it is not.’

He was silent for a moment or two.

‘Ah! if only she had posted that letter. I could have saved her. Now—’

He took up a pen and drew some notepaper towards him.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I am going to write a full and explicit account of what happened and post it to Miss Mollie Davidson with a hint that an exhumation will be applied for.’

‘And then?’

‘If she is innocent—nothing—’ said Poirot gravely. ‘If she is not innocent—we shall see.’

viii

Two days later there was a notice in the paper stating that a Miss Mollie Davidson had died of an overdose of sleeping draught. I was rather horrified.[20] Poirot was quite composed.

‘But no, it has all arranged itself very happily. No ugly scandal and trial for murder—Miss Wheeler she would not want that. She would have desired the privacy. On the other hand one must not leave a murderess—what do you say?—at loose. Or sooner or later, there will be another murder. Always a murderer repeats his crime. No,’ he went on dreamily ‘it has all arranged itself very well. It only remains to work upon the feelings of Miss Lawson—a task which Miss Davidson was attempting very successfully—until she reaches the pitch of handing over half her fortune to Mr James Graham who is, after all, entitled to the money. Since he was deprived of it under a misapprehension.’

He drew from his pocket the brightly coloured rubber ball.

‘Shall we send this to our friend Bob? Or shall we keep it on the mantelpiece? It is a reminder, n’est ce pas, mon ami, that nothing is too trivial to be neglected? At one end, Murder, at the other only—the incident of the dog’s ball…’

Select Bibliography

Of the many books written about Agatha Christie, the following have been most helpful:

Barnard, Robert, A Talent to Deceive (1980)

Campbell, Mark, The Pocket Essentials Guide to Agatha Christie (2006)

Morgan, Janet, Agatha Christie (1984)

Osborne, Charles, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie (1982)

Sanders, Dennis and Lovallo, Len, The Agatha Christie Companion (1984)

Sova, Dawn B., Agatha Christie A to Z (1996)

Thompson, Laura, Agatha Christie, An English Mystery (2007)

Toye, Randall, The Agatha Christie Who’s Who (1980)

Index of Titles

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

The A.B.C. Murders

‘Accident’

‘The Adventure of the Baghdad Chest’

‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’

‘The Adventure of the Clapham Cook’

‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’

‘The Affair at the Bungalow’

After the Funeral

Afternoon at the Seaside (play)

Akhnaton (play)

And Then There Were None, see Ten Little Niggers

‘The Apples of the Hesperides’

Appointment with Death

Appointment with Death (play)

‘The Arcadian Deer’

At Bertram’s Hotel

‘The Augean Stables’

An Autobiography

Behind the Screen

The Big Four

‘The Bird with the Broken Wing’

Black Coffee (play)

‘Blindman’s Buff’

‘The Blue Geranium’

The Body in the Library

The Burden

Butter in a Lordly Dish (play)

By the Pricking of my Thumbs

‘The Capture of Cerberus’

Cards on the Table

A Caribbean Mystery

‘The Case of the Caretaker’

‘The Case of the Distressed Lady’

‘The Case of the Missing Will’

‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’

‘The Case of the Regular Customer’, see ‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds’

Cat among the Pigeons

Chimneys (play)

‘Christmas Adventure’

‘A Christmas Tragedy’

‘The Clergyman’s Daughter’

The Clocks

‘The Companion’

‘The Cornish Mystery’