Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

Apart from Agatha Christie’s enormous known output there is also a number of works that are largely unknown, except to the most ardent fans. These titles are all scripts, either for the stage or radio, and have all been either performed or published. And all of these titles feature in the Notebooks, some of them to a large degree.

Agatha Christie is still the only crime novelist to have had an equally successful career as a playwright. Indeed, arguably the greatest monument to her success is a play, The Mousetrap. The majority of her plays are well known but there are still a few surprises.

Akhnaton is a non-crime script from 1937 based on the reallife Pharoah Akhnaton of Egypt. The little-known Rule of Three contains three utterly contrasting one-act plays, Christie’s only venture into this form. And the final title in this chapter is the last play that she wrote, Fiddlers Three. Neither play received encouraging reviews, although both contain much interesting material.

For future consideration are the totally unknown radio plays Personal Call and Butter in a Lordly Dish, and Chimneys. The latter is her own adaptation, and reworking with a new villain, of the 1925 novel The Secret of Chimneys; the former two original plays written directly for radio. None of the three is currently available in any form.

Over 40 years after her career began Christie was still experimenting when Rule of Three was first presented at the Duchess Theatre, London. Reviews were not good however and apart from Fiddlers Three, which never had a West End run, it lowered the curtain on her golden age of theatre. It is now an unknown Christie because it has seldom been staged since. But Rule of Three shows that, even after a lifetime of hoodwinking her audience, she still had the ability to surprise and entertain. Each of the three plays represents a different aspect of Christie and, moreover, aspects that are very unexpected and atypical. Of the three plays, Afternoon at the Seaside is the most unlikely play ever to have come from the pen of Agatha Christie; The Rats is not a whodunit but a claustrophobic will-they-get-away-with-it; while The Patient is the essence of Christie.

As early as 1955, seven years before its first presentation, in Notebook 3 Christie was including Rule of Three in a list of ‘Projects’. The same list also anticipates what were to become Four-Fifty from Paddington (‘New Book Miss M?’ below) and the next Westmacott novel, eventually titled The Burden. At that stage the three projected plays were to be adaptations of existing, and mutually contrasting, stories; both ‘Accident’ and ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’ are from The Listerdale Mystery and ‘S.O.S.’ is included in The Hound of Death. It is worth noting that ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’ has a thematic connection—the disappearance of jewels on a beach—with the play eventually decided upon, Afternoon at the Seaside; and both are lighthearted in tone. The grim poisoning short story ‘Accident’ had already been adapted in 1939 by Margery Vosper as Tea for Three.

General Projects 1955

Angle of Attack Mary Westmacott

The Unexpected Guest Play 3 Acts

Three Plays (Rule of Three?)

1. Accident?

2. Rajah’s Emerald?

3. S.O.S.?

New Book Miss M? P?-

By Notebook 24, two of the eventual titles, C and B below, were included in the following jotting, ‘S.O.S.’ (although with a question mark) still remaining as the third. Inexplicably, they are listed on the page in reverse alphabetical order; when presented The Rats is performed first, followed by Afternoon at the Seaside, and culminating with The Patient.

Rule of Three 3 1-Act plays for P.S.

C. The Patient

B. Seaside Holiday—I do like to be beside the seaside

A. S.O.S.? [sic]

The Locket

Christmas Roses

Green Paint Or Telephone Call—

‘P.S.’ was Peter Saunders, her long-time producer. Though the remaining references are elusive, the ‘telephone call’ in the second list is probably the seed of The Rats, where the telephone sets the trap into which the rats are lured; and ‘Green Paint’ may be a cryptic reference to the proposed innovation she had in mind for the end of The Patient (see below).

Adulterous lovers Sandra and David each receive a phone call inviting them to the flat of a mutual acquaintance. When they try to leave they discover that they are locked in—and there is a dead body in the Kuwait Chest.

The Rats is not a whodunit although there are a few mysterious deaths, explained by the end of the play. The most obvious similarity is to the Poirot story ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’, and its later and more elaborate version, ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’. In that story a suspicious husband hides in the chest hoping to catch his wife and her lover in flagrante; in The Rats, when the Sandra and David realise that they have been lured to the flat, they suspect a similar trap. But the play develops in a more macabre fashion. It does retain the clue of the little heap of sawdust beneath the chest that gives Poirot ‘furiously to think’ in the short story. Notebook 24 contains almost five pages of notes:

The Rats

Flat belongs to the Torrances—rather bare—a Kuwait chest is centre—high up into roof- built in cupboards—a dark divan covered with curtains etc.—a long ply wood table— some modern chairs—one or two pieces of Persian pottery—a big Arab long nosed beak nosed coffee pot

Body in cupboard—Baghdad Chest—Oh! My God—It’s Robert—Police will come—girl and man discover body of her husband—Alec arrives—a Mischa like person—says he got phone call

Although there have been gay characters in Christie before this (Mr Pye in The Moving Finger, Murgatroyd and Hinchcliffe in A Murder is Announced and Horace Bundler in ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’), Alec in The Rats is the most unequivocal and stereotypical example and far more sinister than, for example, Christopher Wren in The Mousetrap. He is described in the script as ‘the pansy type, very elegant, amusing, inclined to be spiteful’ and his love for Sandra’s former husband is openly discussed. The Mischa reference, above, is puzzling.

A family afternoon on the beach culminates in the capture of a jewel thief and some unexpected revelations—and a resolve to go elsewhere for next year’s holiday.

Of the three plays in Rule of Three, Afternoon at the Seaside is the most unlikely for Agatha Christie to have written. It has been compared to a saucy seaside English postcard, set as it is entirely on a beach and involving, at one stage, a female character changing into her swimsuit onstage. The plot, for Christie, is slight and the humour is at times forced. It is definitely Christie on autopilot—but there is one surprise, representing a new variation on an old Christie theme. Ironically the notes for it are extensive, extending to almost 40 pages, albeit with a lot of repetition. There is much speculation about the naming both of the families (the aptly named Mr and Mrs Sour, described as ‘whiners’, become Mr and Mrs Crum) and the beach huts:

Sea View (Mon Repos) Wee Nook

Mrs. Montressor Mr Wills Mrs Wills Genevieve Batat

At the Seaside

Iniskillen Bide a Wee Mon Repos

Mr Sour Wilkinson Arlette

Child Mr Robbins Incognita

Mrs Sour Mrs. Robbins Yvonne

(Whiners) Wilkinson

But further into the notes there are flashes of the Queen of Crime in the unmasking, not of the villain, but of the policeman—or to be strictly accurate, the policewoman:

Read in paper—robbery at Aga Khan—emeralds/sapphires—

Beach

Mon Desir

Policewoman Alice Jones acting as vamp

Young man and his girl quarrel—another young man and they bring down deck chairs—

Some ideas are reminiscent of the Christie of old, even for this short, untypical effort. And, obviously, her ability to spin variations on a theme has not deserted her. The ‘switch of trousers’ idea has distinct echoes of ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’ from The Listerdale Mystery:

Does detective arrive—search the huts? Find emeralds?

Or does old Grubb find it in bucket?

Or child kick pile of sand—Grubb picks out emeralds

God bless my soul

Reasonable possible ideas

Or switch of trousers—Percy gets in the wrong ones

Somers (weakly and gentlemanly—really cat burglar)

Or counterfeit money

Or put into wrong hut

Does Percy get hit with beach ball

Or blackmail

Mrs Wingfield is paralysed as a result of a fall from the balcony of her home. Her doctor has found a way to communicate with her and is about to do so in the presence of her family. But someone doesn’t want her to tell the truth of that fateful afternoon.

It is a shame that so few Christie fans are familiar with The Patient, as, in many ways, it is the essence of Christie—a closed setting, a limited family circle of suspects, a crafty distribution of suspicion; and all in 40 minutes. It also contains one of her most artfully concealed clues. Unlike the other two plays in this trilogy, it is a pure whodunit with a stunning curtain line. Yes, it is contrived (an immobilised patient communicating via a once-for-Yes-twice-for-No light switch) but so are many other detective plots, including some of her own best titles. Notes for the play appear in Notebooks 22 and 24:

The Patient

Nursing Home—Doctor and Nurse (Patient there? Or wheeled in later)

Is latter the one who has established communication—

Sales talk by Inspector—jewellery disappeared

Mrs. X badly injured—paralysed—unable to communicate—ingenious nurse pressure of fingers—apparatus with red bulb—Patient wheeled in—

Patient wheeled in—nurse by her (Bond) or interne

Questions spelled out Murder

Mirror

Bathroom

Saw someone Yes

Someone you knew Yes

Is that person in the room now Yes

Spell out the name A—B

B- Yes

Collapse reported by nurse? interne?—

Take off the mask—I know well enough who you are Curtain falls—My God—you!

Alternative end—gloves—coated in phosphorescent paint—hold up your hands—Lights out—Guilty Hands!

Even at this late stage in her theatrical career Christie was experimenting, as the last two notes above show. Incredibly, she wanted the curtain to fall, or the lights to black out, before the murderer was unmasked. This, if it had been allowed to continue, would have been the ultimate Christie twist—though the shock was to be somewhat mitigated by a recording of her own voice asking the audience whom they thought the killer was.

A sketch and notes for The Patient from Notebook 64. Note the reference to ‘S. O.S.’ the short story from The Hound of Death that, like The Patient, also features an unusual method of communication.

Not surprisingly, however, the idea was not a winner. It was abandoned after a flurry of telegrams to the author, who was abroad during the pre-London tryout in Aberdeen. With a track record of glittering theatrical success behind her, it does seem a very odd concept to have introduced; it would be like reading one of her novels and finding the last chapter missing.

It is very important that businessman Jonathan Panhacker should live until Wednesday 18th as he has made a financial arrangement with his son, Henry, to inherit £100,000 on that date. When he unexpectedly dies, the Fiddlers Three conspire to make sure he is still ‘alive’ for a few more days.

This is the last play written by Agatha Christie and the only one not to receive a West End run. After a glorious and record-breaking playwriting career, this last work was a sad curtain call. Her previous dramatic offering, Rule of Three (see above), was not particularly well received and it was ten years before she again felt tempted to try a script. Fiddlers Three is a two-act comedy thriller but, unfortunately, it has not enough of either to be a successful blend and falls between two uneasy extremes. It has a complicated history. In its first incarnation, Fiddlers Five, it premiered on 7 June 1971; the following year on 3 August a revamped version was presented as Fiddlers Three. In the intervening year Christie amalgamated some characters to reduce the number of Fiddlers.

The set-up is relatively straightforward. If Jonathan Panhacker lives until Wednesday 18th his financial arrangement with his son, Henry, to inherit £100,000 on that date will come to pass. In his turn, Henry has promised to invest the money in a business scheme with Sam Fletcher and Sam Bogosian. When Jonathan suddenly drops dead, Henry, Sam and his secretary, Sally, the Fiddlers Three of the title, scheme to keep him ‘alive’ until the 18th. This involves a double impersonation, a dubious death certificate and a revelation about an earlier murder. Complications arise in the second act when various people who knew Jonathan arrive at their hideaway hotel demanding to see him.

Like many of Christie’s later, and weaker, titles it contains good ideas but her earlier genius for exploiting them has deserted her; if she had written this play 20 years before she would have developed the plot in a more convincing manner. There is an unlikely impersonation and some unconvincing business with pill bottles before the play culminates in the unmasking of an improbable murderer. It cannot be coincidence that many of her later plays—Spider’s Web, The Unexpected Guest, Verdict, The Rats and Fiddlers Three—feature this type of a will-they-get-away-with-it situation even if she frequently manages to reveal a murderer also.

Unsurprisingly, her producer Peter Saunders was not anxious to present it in the West End, correctly presuming that it would receive a critical mauling. As it was, the local press was hardly kinder and phrases such as ‘entertaining, amusing but undemanding play’, ‘lightest vein—bordering on farce’ and ‘the plot is predictable, witless and shallow’ peppered what reviews there were.

As early as October 1958, the first seeds were sown in Notebook 15, although it would be over a dozen years before she began to cultivate it seriously. Obviously, even this late in her career, she was revisiting her faithful Notebooks to find exploitable ideas:

Oct. 1958

Projects

A Play—light-hearted (a Spider’s Web type) Where?—girl’s school?

Or Cheating Death parties? Pretending a death? or smuggling away a natural death—devoted fluffy secretary?—a silly type deliberately chosen? Boardroom—K. doubles as wife and corpse—wig etc.—Grand muddle—

The ‘girl’s school’ idea surfaced as Cat among the Pigeons, published the following year. And the ‘Cheating Death parties’ was briefly pursued in Notebook 39 below. ‘Smuggling away a natural death’ was the one that provided the basis of Fiddlers Three.

Notebook 4 contains most of the plotting, but, as with the later book titles, the notes themselves are vague and unfocussed although the list of characters is accurate. A minor mystery about this play is the naming of the two main characters; Panhacker and Bogosian are two of the most unusual names in the entire Christie output.

Scene—an office

Mr Willis Stanley a bit off- story

His friend Mr. Bogosian

Nellie (M) devoted rather talkative and scatty

The Penthouse owner—Very rich man lives in W. Indies

His son or nephew? Make over all his English assets

Going to finance—only a fortnight to go

Then goes up after lunch—or is lift out of order—so he comes in here—sits in other room—found dead

M. says it will be her husband or brother—Go out to buy me

an onion [to induce tears]

Jeremy Brooker Brown

That’s all right—he’s got to be alive—Geraldine—Go on upstairs with things

Gina

Sally Lee

Sam Fletcher

Jan Bogosian

Henry Panhacker

Solomon Panhacker

An Air Hostess

Detective Inspector Wylie

Mr. Moss

Various titles were considered and This Mortal Coil appears on an early script:

This Mortal Coil

Operation Deadline

Sixpence Off

Deadline

Fiddle de Death

In Notebook 39, under the mysterious heading ‘M and J Play’, we find two attempts at a ‘death duties’ play. The first sketch has echoes of ‘Jane in Search of a Job’, originally published in August 1924 and collected ten years later in The Listerdale Mystery:

Death duties—girl is dead—great fortune is coming to her—idea is she has to appear alive for one more week. Man advertises for young lady—5ft 7in, fair—hair slight build, blue eyes etc. First scene interesting girls whittled down—one is chosen to impersonate girl—J

The second is nearer to the eventual plot, but this was not developed until Notebook 4 where it becomes recognisably Fiddlers Three:

Death Duties—a natural death body has to be hidden for a week—impersonation by M or J—undertaker helps. Office—M and her two employers

Mr Leonard—big, bouncy, common

Mr Arkwright—melancholy—dreary

They are in a jam—what to do

Sally!

Spanning a period of 16 years, the play concerns the attempts of the young King Akhnaton to introduce a new religion to Egypt. His failure spells tragedy for himself, his queen and, ultimately, Egypt.

There are almost 50 pages of notes for this title, mainly in Notebook 61. Called by Christie’s husband, Sir Max Mallowan, ‘the most beautiful play’ she ever wrote, it is based on the real-life Pharoah Akhnaton of Egypt in 1375 BC Although written in 1937 it was not published until 1973, with a blurb written by Agatha Christie herself. Shortly after its completion Christie sent it to the actor (later Sir) John Gielgud. His reply, which she kept, expressed his admiration for the play while declining to become involved in a production. In fact Akhnaton was never professionally produced, but it was seen in the Westcliff Agatha Christie Theatre Festival in 2001; the one-off presentation used a minimum of setting and props and was, in essence, an elaborate reading.

Although by no means a typical Agatha Christie play, it does contain Christie-like elements—there is a death by poisoning, masterminded by an unsuspected villain using an innocent party.

There are 40 pages of notes for this play. These include extensive background material as well as sketches for the play itself. The very first page of notes begins with a cast list (in the published version Mutnezmet, Nefertiti’s sister, has become Nezzemut), and this is followed by a sketch of the opening scene:

Queen Tyi

Horemheb

Eye

Nefertiti

Mutnezmet

Tutankhamun

The father of Tyi

The mother of Tyi

The High Priest of Amon

The High Priest of Re

A Priest of Ptah

Act I Scene I

Amenhotep the Magnificent is near to death—the king of Mitanni sends the image of Ishtar of Niniveh to Egypt (second time such a procedure happened) in hopes that the Goddess might exorcise the evil spirits which were causing the King’s infirmity. The Goddess passes through. Horemheb talks with the father and mother of Tyi talk together. The High Priest of Ammon talks to Horemheb—on evils of foreign marriage—Queen Tyi appears with her son.—

The early pages of Notebook 61 show seven scenes for Act I, four for Act II and two for Act III. A redrafting ten pages later brings it closer to the published version, which has three scenes each for the first two Acts and four for the third with an Epilogue. The notes show this Epilogue as the last scene of the play.

In between the drafts there are notes on

Indulgences—A verdict of acquittal sold by Scribes—pardoned names inserted in the blanks.

Heart scarab—‘O my heart rise not up against me as a witness’

Gold collars as gifts—

The book From Fetish to God by Budge is also mentioned on the very first page and there are page references to it throughout the notes. This research is similar to that undertaken by Christie for Death Comes as the End from books loaned to her by Stephen Glanville, the dedicatee (see Chapter 7):

Visit by Tyi in 12th year of A’s reign—description of clothes P.155

Tribute?—A scene showing it being brought’ P.151

Description of Palace for scene P.138

One of the earliest quotations, presumably from this book, is reproduced with minor variations to form almost the closing lines of the play. The last traces of Akhnaton are erased, soon to be replaced by ‘the divine Amon, King of Gods’:

How bountiful are the possessions of him who knows the gifts of that God (Amon). Wise is he who knows him. Favoured is he who serves him, there is protection for him who follows him.

Exhibit F: The House of Dreams: Unused Ideas

Four-Fifty from Paddington • ‘Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’ • ‘Miss Marple Tells a Story’

There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that detective novelist Nicholas Blake (in real life the Poet Laureate Cecil Day Lewis) offered to buy some plot ideas from Christie but she replied that she intended using them all herself. The Notebooks are littered with such ideas and what follows are some of those that never got further than the page on which they appeared. Some haunted her—the non-identical twins, the chambermaid, the arty friends—as they appeared again and again.

Twins—point is not identical—Twins identical—one killed in railway smash?

Identical twins—claimant assumes identity of sister (killed in railway smash) rich widow

These are just two of the ten versions of the ‘twins’ idea that litter the Notebooks. A railway smash and a false identity are minor features of Murder in Mesopotamia. Twin sisters also feature in Elephants Can Remember and on a more lighthearted note, twins are the solution to one of Tommy and Tuppence’s Partners in Crime cases.

Mirrors

Man or woman—she gets post or chums up with another woman—they come to hotel together.

Background of one is all right—cathedral town etc. Have been in A.R.P. together—they give alibi to man

The heading ‘Mirrors’ confirms what a diffuse history They Do it with Mirrors had. The only tenuous connection to that novel is the idea of giving an alibi to someone.

Nitro benzene—point is—it sinks to bottom of glass—woman takes sip from it—then gives it to husband

Camphor in capsule

Murder by lipstick—lip burnt first—cigarette given wrong end first

Strychnine or drug absorbed through skin

Influenza depression virus—Stolen? Cabinet Minister?

Lanolin poison? Strychnine? The poison that makes everything yellow (applied to dress—very misleading as another girl had yellow dress (1931)

Lanoline rubbed into skin

Despite its heading, this page from Notebook 19 has no connection with any ‘Mirrors’ title. It is the page open on Christie’s lap in this 1946 photograph.

These are just a few of the ideas using various forms of poison, Christie’s favourite method of despatch throughout her career. ‘Murder by lipstick’ is particularly imaginative.

Chambermaid in hotel accomplice of man—evidence always accepted and clinches case

Chambermaid story—a hotel—Torquay? Riviera? Spain? Majorca? English better

The chambermaid idea, of which the above are just two examples, appears ten times in the Notebooks. Evidently the idea of a dishonest chambermaid was one that held possibilities for Christie as she utilised it in both ‘The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’ and ‘Miss Marple Tells a Story’. But neither of those fits the plot device of any of the above. The second one is vague enough to fit anything.

Legless man—sometimes tall—sometimes short

The ‘legless man’ motif is another idea that appears in ten Notebooks although nothing was ever made of it. The idea behind this device was that such a person could alter his appearance very dramatically, thereby making identification difficult. Christie’s fellow detective novelist John Dickson Carr used this plot device definitively in his 1938 novel The Crooked Hinge.

Stabbed through eye with hat pin

This very gruesome idea is untypical of Christie, its attraction probably the difficulty of spotting the means of death. It also appears in three other Notebooks.

Isotope idea—Carbon 14—hypodermic injection (for typhoid?) normal procedure. He (?) is going abroad appointment—with local doctor—his place is taken by impostor who gives so-called typhoid injection.

This idea, inspired by a visit to a laboratory during a US visit in the 1960s, has strong echoes of One, Two, Buckle my Shoe in the impersonation of a doctor in order to poison a patient.

Committee crime—Mr Llewellyn—tiresome woman—makes speech—drinks glass of water

Glass of water—Dr Haydock…Suicide because of anonymous letter? At Harton Parva—the vicar’s sister—vinegary woman—the school teacher—at village shop vicar’s sister gets groceries—lays down letters—girl slips one in

These jottings appear in the same Notebook, the first one in a list of projected Miss Marple short stories. And it seems very much Miss Marple’s territory. The seeds of The Moving Finger can be seen in the ‘suicide because of anonymous letters’ idea and the method of inserting a letter in an otherwise innocent bundle appears in Chapter 13 of that novel.

Disappearance of actress—strange behaviour of head gardener

This wonderfully enigmatic combination of ideas appears in Notebook 65 alongside the notes for Ten Little Niggers, although it dates from much earlier in Christie’s career. The suspicious head gardener, very much Miss Marple territory, does make a brief appearance in ‘Ingots of Gold’ from The Thirteen Problems.

A blonde millionaire’s daughter kidnaps herself so as to get away to marry young man

This surfaces three times in the Notebooks, each time specifying a blonde perpetrator. It sounds relatively non-criminal and may have been intended as a light-hearted story, not unlike one of Tommy and Tuppence’s early adventures—‘A Pot of Tea’.

Tom, Dick or Harry come to Bridge—point—none of them existed!

Tempting though it is to believe that this is a reference to Cards on the Table, it appears in a list headed ‘Ideas 1940’, four years after that title. It is difficult to see what Christie had in mind here.

Infra Red photograph

This unusual idea may have been inspired by her interest in photography during her archaeological work with Sir Max Mallowan. It appears in a list of possible Miss Marple stories, although it would not appear to be one with which Miss Marple might be familiar.

Dangerous drugs stolen from car—doctor very upset—excitement in village

Dangerous drugs stolen from doctor’s car—X goes touring in car—follows a doctor in strange town—or Doctor himself is criminal—later marries dead patient’s wife or daughter

Although it never appears as a plot device in its own right, this scenario is one of those mentioned in Hickory Dickory Dock as a means of getting hold of poison. Our old friend the doctor (statistically the most homicidal profession in Christie) resurfaces here and although the idea was jotted down in the late 1930s, the second note may be the inspiration for Dr Quimper in Four-Fifty from Paddington. This idea appears in five Notebooks.

A false Hercule P.—he is in some hotel lunching re-growing one of his moustaches which have been burnt—wild out of the way spot

The ‘wild out of the way spot’ may be the setting of ‘The Erymanthian Boar’, the snowbound top of a Swiss mountain, but the moustache regrowing was never explored despite its appearance in two other Notebooks.