Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

6 The Girl in the Train: Murder Aboard

Death in the Clouds • ‘Death on the Nile’ (short story) • Four-Fifty from Paddington • ‘Problem at Sea’

Modes of transport provided an attractive setting for Christie throughout her career. As early as The Secret Adversary the sinking of the Lusitania is the starting point of a complicated plot and two years later, in 1924, The Man in the Brown Suit is set largely on a ship. Some of her most famous titles are set aboard modes of transport—trains (Murder on the Orient Express), ships (Death on the Nile) and planes (Death in the Clouds). The advantages with this type of setting are obvious: it provides a credible means of isolating suspects, it eliminates Scotland Yard and its technical know-how which could, in some cases, short-circuit the plot, and, in the case of Agatha Christie, it also puts to good use her personal experience. They also provide variety as a background, which, at the time, tended to revolve around country houses, offices and villages.

Aboard SS Fayoum Lady Grayle approaches Parker Pyne with a story of being poisoned by her husband. But is it just a story?

The notes for ‘Death on the Nile’ are contained in Notebook 63:

Wife confides to P (…or clergyman)

That she thinks her husband is poisoning her. She has money—apparently duel between husband and P—really husband is victim—wife is dupe—young man paying attention to niece is engineering it all—making love to auntie

The death scene in this short story has strong echoes of The Mysterious Affair at Styles and the overall plot has distinct similarities with ‘The Cornish Mystery’. The resemblances are so strong that this extract could indicate ‘The Cornish Mystery’. But the wife in ‘Death on the Nile’ has money whereas Mrs Pengelly, from the former, has not, so I believe that this is a sketch for the exotic version of the plot.

One notable revelation from the above extract was that Christie intended the story to involve Hercule Poirot (‘P. P.’ was her shorthand for Parker Pyne). In fact it was published as a Parker Pyne story; the idea was abandoned probably because Poirot had appeared in ‘The Cornish Mystery’ almost ten years earlier.

And two further pages of notes in Notebook 63 also reveal that Christie considered a dramatisation of the story:

Play PP version Death on the Nile

Lady Grayle—hard boiled—45

Sir George—50 good fellow—sportsman

Miss McNaughton—hospital nurse

Pam—lovely, nice

Michael—Sir G’s secretary

Dr. Crowthorne

Act II

She is poisoned—Miss M thinks it is Sir G—Doctor takes charge—strychnine found on Sir G—Miss M loses her head

Act III

Young people—Pam says Miss M did it—puts it up to doctor—he gets to work on her—Michael and Doctor

These notes follow the story closely, with no indication of the elaboration which would have been necessary for a ten-page short story. The reason for this may be deduced from the surrounding pages of the Notebook, where Christie experimented with other possible dramatic scenarios. On either side of this sketch there are similar brief outlines for stage adaptations (none of which were pursued) of Three Act Tragedy, ‘Triangle at Rhodes’ and ‘The House at Shiraz’, as well as an original, Command Performance. And earlier, and later, in the same Notebook there are detailed notes for the dramatisation of the novel Death on the Nile. Interestingly, with the exception of Three Act Tragedy, all of the titles share a foreign setting.

The mysterious and silent death of Madame Giselle high over the English Channel on a flight from Paris challenges Hercule Poirot—especially as he is a suspect. His investigation involves a visit to Paris, a blowpipe, a detective novelist and a wasp.

All of the notes for this title are included in Notebook 66 and comprise 30 pages with some fascinating diagrams. The notes follow fairly closely the plan of the novel, although there are some minor deviations mentioned below. Oddly, an allimportant list of the passengers’ possessions, which contains the main clue in the novel and which first draws Poirot’s attention to the killer, is not included in the notes.

The first page succinctly states the plot:

Aeroplane Murder—A special knife with thin pointed blade. Man gets up—goes into lavatory (blue pullover) comes back in white coat—darting like a steward—leans over talks about menu card stabs man—gives low sneeze at same time—goes back—returns in blue pullover and sits down again

From the beginning of the notes the killer is a man and, perhaps surprisingly, even the detail of the blue pullover he wears is retained. The idea of a low sneeze (an echo of The Murder at the Vicarage) was, however, discarded and the victim changed to a woman.

In later pages the plot is further elaborated:

Chapter II

The steward—discovers the body—asks for doctor. B[ryant] comes

HP at his elbow—the ways—the Duponts suggest it—Mr Ryder agrees—mark on neck—P picks up thorn—Mr Clancy—blowpipe—arrow poison.

Arrival at Croydon—everyone kept in first car—Inspector—in plain clothes—another Inspector—Japp—

Why, it’s Mr Hercule Poirot—Or asks stewards who he is—they say they know him by sight etc.

Some pages earlier the idea of a blowpipe or an arrow as a murder weapon was considered. But, with typical Christie ingenuity, they were both to be used as a weapon for stabbing:

Stabbed by an arrow " by dart (poison) from blow pipe

This appears as Idea C on a list of plot ideas. Idea H on the same list is ‘Aeroplane murder’. When she settled down to plotting Death in the Clouds Christie incorporated the blowpipe dart idea, while the arrow idea was used many years later in ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’. In Mrs McGinty’s Dead, Mrs Oliver complains bitterly about pedantic readers who write to her to point out mistakes in her books. She instances the blowpipe she used in her novel The Cat it was who Died, ‘where I made a blow-pipe a foot long and it’s really six feet’ (Chapter 12). This sounds very like a rueful Agatha Christie!

Most of the characters were also settled from early on although, as happens with most titles, names were to change. Some were dropped altogether and replaced. I have indicated below the probable changes:

People on the plane

Mr Salvey and Mr Rider—Business acquaintances [James Ryder and, possibly, Daniel Clancy]

Mr Ryder Long—a dentist [Norman Gale]

Lady Carnforth—a gambler—husband won’t pay her debts [Countess of Horbury]

Jane Holt—a girl who has a humdrum career who has won a prize in the Irish Sweep [Jane Grey]

M. Duval—pere et fils—Archaeologists [the Duponts]

Venetia Carr (who wants to marry Carnforth) [Venetia Kerr]

James Leslie younger brother of Carnforth [possibly replaced completely by Dr. Bryant]

Madeleine Arneau—maid to Lady Carnforth [‘Madeleine’]

And during the subsequent investigation, the plot developments are observed, although not their final sequence:

Then Lady Carnforth—Japp and P—P stays behind and gets her to suggest his staying behind—tells her the truth and frightens her [Chapter 19]

Venetia Carr—P and J?—P plays on her dislike of Lady C [apart from a brief appearance in Chapter 12 Venetia Kerr does not feature again]

Mr Ryder—all fairly straightforward—business difficulties etc. [Chapter 18]

The Duponts—M. Dupont is to lecture at Antiquarian Society but perhaps they see them in Paris [Chapter 22]

Bryant—Japp interviews him—P goes as patient—may be a drug supplier—or someone who has done an Illegal operation—or guilty of non-professional conduct [Chapter 20/23]

Clancy—received the little man very hospitably—very chatty [Chapter 15]

An odd point about the interrogation of witnesses is that Venetia Kerr is not questioned either by Poirot or any of his fellow-investigators. Note also her address—Little Paddocks, 15 years later the scene of a dramatic murder in A Murder is Announced. And the subterfuge adopted by the Countess of Horbury to disguise her cocaine—labelling it ‘Boracic powder’—is the same as that adopted by the criminal 20 years later in Hickory Dickory Dock.

With her customary plot fertility, Christie came up with a few possibilities for Gale’s partner in crime:

Motive

Inheritance of money by daughter Anne

A. Anne is Jane Holt—Jane Holt and Angell [Norman Gale] plan the murder

B. Anne is Jane Holt—she is unaware of this—but Angell determines to marry her

C. Angele Morisot is Anne—she is in it with Angell—creates disturbance by coming in and speaking to her mistress at moment of murder—also gives damaging evidence against her

D. Angele Morisot is Anne—but is not guilty—she is engaged to Angell but never sees him on liner. He gets engaged to her under a false name—James Clare—a novelist—has a flat in London

E. Real False Angele Morisot presents herself with full proofs of identity to recover fortune (Real one Jane)

The most striking is the idea of Jane Grey as a fellow criminal, which would have provided an attractive surprise element. It was however abandoned in favour of the maid, and Idea C was utilised.

These sketches from consecutive pages of Notebook 66 show great attention to detail during the plotting of Death in the Clouds. Vitally, Norman Angell’s seat in the earliest two sketches is beside the WCs…

…but he is subsequently moved to the opposite end of the cabin, as dictated by the plot. Note the inclusion of the pilot’s cabin, the kitchen and pantry, the WCs, and the fact that some seats face each other.

The notes stop at Chapter 16, although the chapters in the notes do not correspond exactly to those in the novel. And, oddly, Norman Gale is never actually named in the notes as the killer.

The notes for Death in the Clouds feature diagrams illustrating the disposition of the passengers in the plane seats. Both from these and the novel as a whole, it can be seen that the interior of a plane cabin in the 1930s was very different to that of a modern plane. There are only 18 seats and a mere 11 passengers and of the possible nine aisle seats, only two are occupied. And a feature common to all three sketches is the arrangement of Jane and Angell (as Norman

Gale was known at that stage). They are always shown sitting opposite each other in window seats, away from the aisle, as dictated by the plot. The chances of Gale being identified on his admittedly daring walk through the plane on the way to and from his commission of the crime are remote; as he reasonably guessed, Jane was likely to spend the interim checking her appearance. A greater danger, and one that has not been commented upon, was from the other stewards. It was much more likely that they would have spotted an ‘extra’ steward.

Mrs Clapperton is found dead in her cabin during a holiday cruise and Poirot’s solution depends on his most unusual witness ever.

The first note for this story appears in Notebook 66 and is dated January 1935, a year before publication. The elaboration later in the same Notebook includes much of the detail of the completed story:

Ventriloquist—on boat…Col C. very good with cards—says he has been on music hall stage etc. Wife dies in cabin but her voice heard inside after she has been killed

Man tells steward to lock cabin—body already inside—later comes back and Cabin lock Calls to wife—she answers apparently (ventriloquist). Hypodermic beside her—and pricks on her bare arm

One point of difference between the notes and the finished story is that the hypodermic as a murder method is replaced by stabbing. While the ventriloquism idea is a clever one it would not have carried a novel and Christie was right to use it only for a short story.

When Simon Doyle marries wealthy Linnet Ridgeway, and not Jacqueline de Bellefort, the consequent train of events culminates in triple murder aboard a Nile steamer. Hercule Poirot, also travelling on SS Karnak, has observed the tragedy unfolding and investigates one of his most famous cases.

Although published late in 1937, this classic Poirot title was written up to two years earlier. A letter from Edmund Cork dated 29 April 1936 expressed delight at Christie’s news that Death on the Nile was finished. Unfortunately, there is no Notebook with notes for the plot of this famous title. We do, however, have, in Notebook 30, a list of potential characters—including one very significant one—and a brief note about possible plot development. Most of the ideas originally intended for inclusion were waylaid into other titles.

Plans

Death on the Nile

Miss Marple?

Mrs P (ex wardress of American prison)

Mathew P son—nice

Mrs Mathew P—nice

Miss P nervy hysterical girl

Master P Boy of 20—excitable

Dr. Pfeiffer—doctor and toxicologist

Mrs Pfeiffer—recently married to him—35—attractive—with past

Marc Tierney—archaeologist—a little apart from the rest

Mrs Van Schuyler—boring American woman elderly snobbish

Mrs Pooper cheap novelist

Miss Harmsworth—girl companion to Miss Van Schuyler

Miss Marple

Rosalie Curtis sickly girl

Mrs Gibson—non stop talker

The first and biggest surprise in this list is the (double) inclusion of Miss Marple—first with, and later without, a question mark—rather than Hercule Poirot. Prior to this, the only novel in which Miss Marple had appeared was The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and her next novel appearance, The Body in the Library, was still a further five years away in 1942. Moreover, the 1932 short story collection The Thirteen Problems, set firmly in the parlours of St Mary Mead, could hardly be seen as a preparation for an exotic Egyptian adventure. In 1937 the Nile was as exotic to the majority of Christie readers as Mars is to her current audience: very few travelled abroad for holidays, if, in fact, they took holidays at all, and the days of the package holiday remained a distant mirage. So to transport Miss Marple from the (admittedly relative) safety of St Mary Mead to the banks of the Nile and subsequently to the Temple of Karnak, Abu Simbel and Wadi Haifa may have been seen as a journey too far—hence Poirot was substituted. Miss Marple eventually gets to solve a case abroad but not until almost 30 years later, when her nephew Raymond sends her on a holiday to the fictional island of St Honore. There she solves A Caribbean Mystery, her only foreign case.

In contrast, at this stage Poirot was a seasoned traveller—and, of course, a foreigner to begin with. Since his arrival in Britain he had solved cases in a variety of distant locations—France (The Murder on the Links, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Death in the Clouds), Yugoslavia (Murder on the Orient Express) and Italy (The Big Four and ‘Triangle at Rhodes’). His most recent case had involved solving a Murder in Mesopotamia. Indeed he had already visited Egypt and the Valley of the Kings while solving ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’ in 1923. All things considered, Poirot was a much more likely sleuth to board SS Karnak for a particularly blood-soaked journey down the Nile.

Some of the remaining names also provide material for speculation:

Mrs P (ex wardress of American prison)

Mathew P son—nice

Mrs Mathew P—nice

Miss P nervy hysterical girl

Master P Boy of 20—excitable

In these five characters can be seen the seeds of the Boynton family from 1938’s Appointment with Death (see Chapter 8). Mrs P is described as a wardress in an American prison exactly as, two years later, the monstrous Mrs Boynton would be; the ‘nice’ son, Mathew and his wife Mrs Mathew, are the forerunners of Lennox and Nadine Boynton, while the ‘nervy and hysterical’ Miss P corresponds to Ginevra. Raymond is the last remaining male of the Boynton family although he could hardly be described as an ‘excitable boy’. It is interesting that, although Christie decided against using this family in Death on the Nile, when she did utilise them she placed them in another foreign setting, this time Petra.

Mrs Van Schuyler—boring American woman elderly snobbish

And in a later note:

Mrs Van Schuyler—a well known confidence trickster

Miss Harmsworth—girl companion to Miss Van Schuyler

The only character to remain as described—with a modification from Mrs to Miss—is Miss Van Schuyler, although her idiosyncrasy changes from confidence trickery to kleptomania. Miss Harmsworth became Cornelia Robson, the unfortunate niece of that ghastly snob.

Mrs Pooper cheap novelist

The unhappily named Mrs Pooper eventually became Salome Otterbourne, who specialised in outspoken novels of love and sex. One of her titles, ‘Snow upon the Desert’s Face’, is almost the same as the early, unpublished non-crime novel written by Agatha Christie herself, Snow upon the Desert. This was probably a personal joke inserted by Christie for the amusement of her family.

Rosalie Curtis sickly girl

Rosalie Curtis may well have changed to Rosalie Otterbourne, daughter of the ill-fated Salome.

Some possible plot developments are sketched on the pages following the cast list. Note that ‘P’, i.e. Poirot (‘but P proves that…’), has now firmly replaced Miss Marple:

Dr. Pfeiffer’s wife has been recognised—he decides to do away with Mrs. Oger

Wife of (Dr. Pfeiffer) herself is thief or murderer etc.—makes up story that someone has stolen ring or poison etc. and brooch A.M. seen in glass. She knows that A.M. is in lounge with others at that time but P proves that M.A. is real lettering

or

M.A. idea and yellow dress M.A. has not yellow dress—woman with yellow dress has not initial A.M.

Dr. Elbes—very ill man—had known her at St. John’s prison Pfeiffer mentions his researches the castor oil plant

Now then A. Who killed her?

B. Why?

Although the Pfeiffers were never to feature in any Christie work, some of these ideas were to resurface in other books—a stolen ring in Hickory Dickory Dock and the prison wardress in Appointment with Death.

But the main idea is the symmetrical letters of the alphabet and how confusion can arise depending on whether they are seen directly or through a mirror. A half page of Notebook 30 lists all of these letters, ‘H M A W I O T U V Y’, and a further list of possible female names starting with each one. (X is omitted presumably on the basis that names beginning with X are rare.) Christie finally settled on Isabel Oger, hence the reference to Mrs Oger above. This idea was eventually incorporated into Dumb Witness, also published in 1937, although with completely different names. Whether it was ever in fact intended as a plot device for Death on the Nile is debatable, despite the fact that the scenario Christie sketched involved the Pfeiffers from the list of characters for that novel. Adding to this doubt is the fact that there are no characters on the list with either the initials AM or MA.

Almost the final note for this title in Notebook 30 reads:

The Plan

Nellie is heard saying ‘I wish she were dead—will never be free till she’s dead.

Nellie is one of the names appearing on the list of reversible initials (‘Helen, Wilhelmina’) but the words she utters are very similar to the opening line, overheard by Hercule Poirot, of Appointment with Death. ‘You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ This, taken in conjunction with the Mrs P’s former profession and the make-up of her family, can be seen to form the basis of the later novel.

While travelling to visit her friend Miss Marple, Elspeth McGillicuddy witnesses a murder committed on a train running parallel with hers. During the search for the body, attention focuses on Rutherford Hall, home of the Crackenthorpe family. Miss Marple and her agent Lucy Eylesbarrow investigate.

All the notes for this title are contained in four Notebooks—3, 22, 45 and 47—amounting to 40 pages. Four-Fifty from Paddington was received at Collins in late February of 1957. The date at which it is set, and its writing, are contemporaneous. The story opens on 20 December (1956)—‘It was quite dark now, a dark dreary, misty December day—Christmas was only five days away’ (Chapter 1)—but apart from Miss Marple attending Christmas dinner at the Vicarage where she discusses local maps with Leonard Clement, the vicar’s son, there is no further mention, or atmosphere, of the holiday season.

This book went through more title changes than any other of her books. At various times it was 4.15, 4.30 and 4.54, before eventually becoming Four-Fifty from Paddington. The manuscript is headed ‘4.54 from Paddington’, mainly because, as Christie explained in a letter to her Edmund Cork dated 8 April (1957), there was no actual train at that time. She agreed that ‘Four-Fifty from Paddington’ or even ‘5 o’clock from Paddington’ were better titles.

The extract below from Notebook 47 would seem to predate similar notes as this one has no names (apart from Miss Marple), but the basic idea is the one followed in the finished novel. The blackly comic final question is a classic musing of Christie the arch-plotter. A few pages later notes for ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ and The Unexpected Guest are pursued and the train idea is shelved. As ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ was first published in December 1956, this supports the contention that the notes for Four-Fifty from Paddington did not pre-date its composition by very much.

Train—seen from a train? Through window of house. Or vice versa?

Train idea

Girl coming down by train to St. Mary Mead sees a murder in another train drawn up alongside—a woman strangled. Gets home—talks about it to Miss Marple—Police? Nobody strangled—no body found.

Why—2 possible trains one to Manchester—one a slow local. Where can you push a body off a train

Notebook 3 sketches the basic idea (with Mrs Bantry in place of Mrs McGillicuddy) but Notebook 45 has a succinct and accurate version of the opening chapter of the novel:

The Train

Mrs McGillicuddy—a friend of Miss Marple’s—going to stay with her—in train from Paddington—another train on other line—but same direction—that’s overtaken—hang together for a moment, through window of compartment level with hers—a man strangling blonde girl—then—train goes on.

Mrs MG very upset—tells ticket collector—Station master? Oh! Jane I’ve seen a murder

Uniquely among Christie’s books, we are informed from the outset of Four-Fifty from Paddington that the murderer is a man. A mere four pages into Chapter 1 the reader is told: ‘Standing with his back to the window and to her was a man. His hands were round the throat of a woman who faced him and he was slowly, remorselessly, strangling her.’ With such an unequivocal statement the possibility that the figure seen could have been a woman in disguise is never seriously considered and Christie knew her readers well enough to know that they would feel totally cheated if that transpired to be the solution. Therefore, with the exception of Emma Crackenthorpe (the motive) and Lucy Eylesbarrow (the investigator), all the main characters are male. The problem this presented was to make the men broadly similar as physical beings while distinguishing them as characters. She reminds herself of this in Notebook 22:

Must get clear on men

Three dark men—all roughly 5ft 10 to 6 ft Loose jointed

People Cedric eldest?

Harold married no children

Alfred

Bryan Eastley Ex pilot—Husband of Edith (dead)

Father of Alistair or stepfather?

2 sons of old man—good boy (in Bank) Artist—or scene designer or producer

Cedric—a Robert Graves—rolling stone, uninhibited—(eventually to marry Lucy Eylesbarrow)

Sir Harold Crackenthorpe—busy man—director of Crackenthorpe Ltd. Well to do—not really? On rocks?

Bryan? R.A.F. Wing Command D? At a loose end

Alph[red] Dark slender—the crooked one—black market in war—Ministry of Supply

The ‘Robert Graves’ reference is to Christie’s real-life friend and neighbour, the author of I, Claudius among others. Graves was a critical fan and the dedicatee of Towards Zero. This reference also clarifies the question left unanswered at the end of the novel—which of the men will Lucy eventually marry?

There were seemingly minor points to consider but ones that impacted on the plot—how to ensure the necessary darkness for the commission of the crime and how to account for the presence in the house of two young boys. The question of possible dates is considered in two Notebooks:

Points to settle

Date of journey possibly Jan 9th or thereabouts Points to take in—holidays (boys) New Year (Cedric) Time of getting dark (train)

Dates

Holidays? April—Stobart-West and Malcolm there

So murder end of February? Say—24th 26th

The eventual decision to place the murder just before, and the investigation just after, Christmas answered all the concerns—the early darkness, as well as the presence of the two young boys and Cedric.

But the biggest problem about Four-Fifty from Paddington is the identity of the corpse. It is a problem for Miss Marple, the police, the reader and, I suspect, for Agatha Christie herself. We do not know for certain until the novel’s closing pages whose murder is actually under investigation. And it must be admitted that it makes what would otherwise have been a Grade A Christie novel, something of a disappointment. It also raises the question of how, divine intervention aside, Miss Marple can possibly know the story behind the murder. The original reader at Collins, who reported on the manuscript, admitted that ‘unless I am being very stupid I cannot see how anyone could have known that murderer’s motive’. He was not ‘being very stupid’ as it is not possible to deduce the identity of the killer, or the motive, although, in retrospect, both are perfectly acceptable. The following note shows that Christie had two ideas about the possible identity of the corpse—Anna the dancer or Martine—and, reluctant to abandon either, eventually used aspects of both:

Is dead woman Anna the dancer or not?

Is Anne = Mrs Q—or is Anna red herring arranged by Q

Is woman killed because she is Martine and has a son or because she is Q’s wife and he plans to marry

But the devotion of even the most ardent Christie fan is severely tested when Martine is finally identified.