Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

12 The Body in the Library: Murder by Quotation

Death on the Nile, Endless Night • The Hollow • The Man in the Brown Suit • The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd • The Mysterious Affair at Styles • The Pale Horse • Sad Cypress • Taken at the Flood

Throughout her life Agatha Christie was a voracious reader. Her childhood was filled with books and Postern of Fate discusses them at length—The Cuckoo Clock, Four Winds Farm, Winnie the Pooh, Little Grey Hen, The Red Cockade, The Prisoner of Zenda. Her Notebooks are littered with lists of books, which apart from many crime titles, included novels by Graham Greene, Alan Sillitoe, Muriel Spark, Rumer Godden, John Steinbeck and Nevil Shute. So it is not surprising that some of her titles, including those of the Mary Westmacotts, derive from quotations from a variety of sources—Shakespeare, Flecker, Tennyson, Blake, Eliot. Apart from titles, extracts appear throughout her books, and some novels (The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side and Appointment with Death) end poignantly with appropriate quotations.

Elinor Carlisle is on trial for the murder of Mary Gerard.

The case against her seems foolproof as only she had the means, motive and opportunity to introduce poison at the fatal lunch. Dr Lord thinks there is more to it than meets the eye and approaches Hercule Poirot.

This sketch appears, inexplicably, in Notebook 35 during the plotting of Five Little Pigs (1943) but is unmistakably the cover design for Sad Cypress (1940). Alongside the tree is, possibly, a coffin—of cypress wood perhaps, as per the quotation?

Although published in March 1940, Sad Cypress had appeared in serial form in the USA at the end of the previous year. It is another example of a novel with characters more carefully drawn than many other novels, and although there is a clever plot device at the core there is less emphasis on clues and timetables and the minutiae of detection. As other commentators have pointed out, however, there is also a flaw in the plot; and there is a second problem.

Notebook 20 has a version of the plot device of Sad Cypress and it is unequivocally stated, and dated, in Notebook 66. As early as this 1935 date, note that the murderer was to be female:

Rose without thorns—a thornless white rose mentioned by front door—later apomorphine injected by murderer into herself

Jan 1935

A. Rose without thorn mentioned by front door—later murderess injects apomorphine into herself—draws attention to prick as having been caused by thorn

Four pages later in the same Notebook we find a second reference to it showing that, over two years later, it was still in the planning process:

Feb 1937

A (as before)

A. Illegitimate daughter—Begins hospital nurse attending old wealthy woman—(she learns about daughter supposedly d[aughter] of gardener) then kills off patient by sweets sent from niece—later niece and Mary antagonistic over a young man—nurse poisons Mary—Evelyn (niece) thought to have done it.

Notebook 21 adds some detail, while item G on an alphabetical list in Notebook 66 also includes a similar plot device—but in a very different setting:

Retired hospital nurse—apomorphine stunt—Evelyn Dane—inherits from Aunt—Mary is really daughter—actually companion—Jeremy is cousin who has loved Evelyn and now loves Mary—Nurse pretends to be surprised to see Mrs. D’s picture—she attended her for the birth of a child etc.

Poison—man injects apomorphine after sharing some dish—small tube with morphia on it found later—really apomorphine. Family reunion—old father killed—who did it?—he has whisky and soda for tea—others have tea—fresh tea

The family reunion mentioned in the latter extract was changed but the idea of disguising the poison in freshly brewed tea was retained.

Like some other works, the Notebooks contain little that is different from the finished novel, leading to the suspicion that there were discarded notes that no longer exist. Apart from some name changes—Roger becomes Roddy, Mrs Dacres is changed to Mrs Welman and the first Nurse becomes O’Brien—the notes follow the course and detail of the novel almost exactly:

Beginning

Elinor in London—anonymous letter—accusing undue influence—Elinor about to destroy it—then rings up Roger

Old Mrs. Dacres very ill—nurses in charge of case—gossip Mrs. Nurse Chaplin—a local nurse—Nurse Hopkins—they talk together—A photograph Mrs. D—asks for—signed Lewis—her husband’s name was Roger Henry

Somewhat sudden death of old lady—suspicious absence of morphine?—Nurses not sure—she dies intestate

The characters also were settled early on and, apart from their names, did not change. The eternal triangle too was defined from the beginning:

The relations—in house

Mary Dane [Gerrard]—daughter of gardener—acted as companion

Evelyn her niece arrives—and Roger Dacres—nephew by marriage

She is a real character—hard up—fascinating—antagonism between her and Mary

Roger falls in love with Mary—Eve gives her a sum of money—Mary comes to life—Nurse Chaplin advises her to make a will

Dr. Lord—good-looking young man—fall in love with Elinor?

The nurses—Moira O’Brien resides in house—Nurse

Hopkins from village—comes every morning to give a hand.

As Nurse C leaves—Mary accompanies her—says her Auntie in Australia is a hospital Nurse

Mary’s death? She is at cottage—Elinor asks her to come up to the house for lunch—a cold lunch—Sandwiches—Nurse offers to make them a nice cup of tea—(apomorphine in kitchen)—the sandwiches—Mary to have salmon ones as she is a Catholic—gets her excited and then drowsy—Nurse Hopkins doesn’t like the look of her—sends for doctor—difficult to get him—morphine poisoning

One of the flaws in the plot of Sad Cypress is that at the fatal lunch the killer cannot know that Elinor Carlisle will not also drink the poisoned tea along with Mary. The short note in Notebook 21 to the effect that ‘Mary to have salmon ones as she is a Catholic’ may have been an early solution to the problem of ensuring that only the intended victim ingested the poison, by attempting to guarantee that Mary would be limited in the type of sandwich (assumed erroneously to be the means of poisoning) she could eat. However, as the murder occurs on a Thursday (Chapter 7), Mary would not, in fact, be limited in her choice; the restriction on eating meat applied only to Fridays. And, in the event, the killer did not prepare the supposedly poisoned sandwiches anyway, so could not have stage-managed that aspect of the scene. It does seem as if this is a definite problem.

But there is a further problem, also of a practical nature—how could Nurse Hopkins have known that Elinor would call herself and Mary from the Lodge to the house for the fatal lunch? And how did she have a hypodermic and apomorphine with her? Her original plan to poison Mary in her own (Hopkins’) cottage, as surmised by Poirot in the final chapter, does not answer the question either, as that scenario, even if it were to include Elinor, would be so unlikely as to be suspicious. Unfortunately the Notebooks give no indication as to whether Christie considered this difficulty.

The aftermath of the murder is also accurately reflected in Notebook 21, with little deviation from the finished novel:

Death of old lady—no will—her fortune goes to Elinor as next of kin

E and Roger—a little stiffness—she says it doesn’t matter which of us has it—he again feels there is a coolness between them.

R. and Mary—incipient love affair—she is pleased—Mary’s young man Edmund is angry—they quarrel

Elinor sees them together—R. is ringing her

Elinor gives Mary £1000 pounds—she accepts

And ultimately…

Dr. Lord comes to Poirot—insists it wasn’t her—can’t be Hopkins she had nothing to do with sandwiches—just made tea which they both drank—little bit of paper with morphine under the stove—the kitchen—it was open—someone could have got in there while the others were down in the Lodge

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ moves on

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Shortly after Jerry Burton and his sister move to the idyllic village of Lymstock, a series of anonymous letters horrifies the inhabitants and culminates in the death of the local solicitor’s wife. The vicar’s wife decides to send for an expert in wickedness—Miss Marple.

This is another example of a novel narrated by a male. Apart from the Hastings novels, seven other titles (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Murder at the Vicarage, The Moving Finger, Crooked House, Endless Night; and both The Pale Horse and The Clocks are partly male-narrated) have male narrators while only two (Murder in Mesopotamia and, for the most part, The Man in the Brown Suit) have female ones. While it is by no means extraordinary for a female writer to write as a male, this may have been dictated from the beginning of Christie’s career when, having created Hastings as Poirot’s chronicler, she grew accustomed to the idea of telling the story as a male. It would have been inconceivable for Poirot to have a close female friend with whom he lived and shared his cases. And equally inconceivable, but for different reasons, is the possibility that they would be recounted by his wife! In The Moving Finger it is also odd that Jerry Burton narrates the entire story without ever telling us anything about his background or that of his sister. Apart from the fact that he was a pilot and that Joanna has a busy social life we learn nothing about them.

Miss Marple was indicated as the detective from the beginning, which makes her non-appearance until Chapter 10 (of the UK edition) all the more peculiar. It is almost a cameo appearance, less than a dozen pages. The setting, however, is very much Miss Marple territory and Lymstock is the typical English village associated with Agatha Christie. Apart from St Mary Mead the number of similar villages in Christie novels is actually surprisingly small, despite the common perception that they are all set in such surroundings.

The Moving Finger also has the most unusual denouement of any Christie novel. We learn who the killer is before Miss Marple’s explanation. The ploy to trap the murderer is known to the reader as we watch him attempt another killing. This is at variance with similar ruses in, for example, The Body in the Library, Cards on the Table and Towards Zero, where the reader is unaware of the identity of the victim of the trap.

There are only 15 pages of Notebook devoted to The Moving Finger and, apart from a few fleeting references elsewhere, most of these pages are in Notebook 62. It does not seem to have presented many technical problems and the plotting progresses smoothly. And she follows her (then) normal pattern of assigning letters to scenes.

The initial appearance is dated, although not very precisely, 1940:

Ideas (1940)

Poison pen—letters in village—‘repressed spinster’ indicated—really plot by someone to discredit her—(a resourceful mother?) Miss Marple

Although the ‘repressed spinster’ as the source of the anonymous letters is much discussed in Lymstock as, indeed, the killer hoped, the ‘discrediting’ idea was abandoned; perhaps it had too many echoes of the recent Murder is Easy, where the killer hoped that the murders would discredit the real target, a person with a strong motives for removing all of the victims.

Christie began work on the novel the following year, as shown by a subsequent note, and the general set-up closely follows Notebook 62. In a typical piece of Christie misdirection, she uses the minor crime of anonymous letters as camouflage for the more deadly crime of murder. This is the same principle of camouflage adopted by the killer in The A.B.C. Murders, although in that novel a series of murders is used to camouflage one particular killing. The town, the people and their names, the events and the first murder all appear in the book as they do in the Notebook:

Anonymous letters—deliberate—finally woman commits suicide as a result of letter—really killed (by husband?)

Books 1941 Miss M? or told in 1st person

Poison Pen—all round village—unhappiness etc.—wife of lawyer (?) gets one—kills herself—really is killed by husband—and he then puts letter in her pocket—its subject matter is untrue

Suspected of writing letters—Vicar’s sister? wife—schoolmistress—doctor’s wife sister?—Hearty spinster—maidservant—maidservant is next killed because she saw something or knew something

Description of town—market town known better days—they take bungalow—the letters come—not sister—wonders if there is much of this sort of thing about—what about if a shot in the dark hits the bulls eye?

Resume of people they meet

Dr. Thomas—his sister—dark fierce ‘manly looking’ woman—little Mr Pye—Vicar—his wife—goes home to find Mrs. Symmington calling

In the notes for this novel we again see the method of assigning letters to scenes, although in this case no rearrangement of them is specified in the Notebook:

Progress Moving Finger Points

A. J [erry] discovers book of sermons cut out pages [Chapter 9 v]

B. Megan goes home [Chapter 7 ii]

C. Maid knows something—scene between her and Elsie H [olland]—Joanna overhears comes back and tells J? Did she come back that afternoon? Does she come and ask advice from Partridge? She is killed—deliberate [Chapter 7, but not exactly as described here]

D. Tea with Miss Emily—big raw-boned dragon looks after her [Chapter 7 iv]

E. Vicar? His wife—vague—slightly bats? Hits nail on head—poor Aimee very unhappy woman [Chapter 5 i]

F. Institute? Someone typing—J goes in—finds Aimee who ‘heard’ someone leave [Chapter 10 ii]

G. J going off to sleep ‘No S[moke] W[ithout] F[ire]’—smoke—smoke screen—War—‘scrap of paper’ Nurse told him as little boy—etc [Chapter 8 i]

H. Spiteful rumour about—Elsie means to be No. 2 [Chapter 9 ii]

I. The posted letters—Aimee’s written at Institute—one of them is IT—substituted—(did she drop them and pick them up in High St.—S[ymmington] there) (E[mily] B[arton] at Institute too) [Chapter 13 ii]

As can be seen, the order changed considerably—the mutilated book of sermons (scene A) is not discovered until Chapter 9—and the scenes are scattered through the book. Scene C is an ingenious twist on the person who ‘knows something’ and then becomes the next victim. Here, instead of knowing or seeing something dangerous to the killer, the maid ‘knows something’ because she saw nothing. It is the fact that she saw nothing when she should actually have seen something that seals her fate.

The Moving Finger is another title that Christie considered dramatising. Notebook 45 consists of rough preliminary notes including a list of the characters of the novel and tentative settings. But the novel is very ‘mobile’, with many scenes set in the streets and houses of Lymstock. The multiple potential settings, as shown by the note below, created immediate problems in devising a successful dramatisation of this title:

Scene?

Maisonette or divided house?

Garden of same used by both

Room in police station

Symmington’s house

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood red heath, The red ribb’d ledges drip with a silent horror of blood And Echo there, whatever is ask‘d her, answers ‘Death’.

Tennyson, Maud

Poirot is not amused by the scene at the swimming pool—the sprawled man and the woman with the revolver standing over him. He assumes that it has been arranged for his benefit until he realises that it is not a tableau and that he is looking at a dying man…

Poirot quotes the Tennyson poem in Chapter 18 and although it is more blood-drenched than the novel, Henrietta sees the relevant symbolism. Interestingly, the last line of the poem also appears in Notebook 3 in an entry dated October 1972, when Christie was planning what was—to be her final novel.

The very earliest glimmering of the plot of The Hollow can be seen in a throwaway line in Notebook 13—‘Poirot asks to go down to country—finds a house and various fantastic details’—hidden among an A-Z list of other ideas. The very fact of Poirot going ‘down to country’ is the first clue but the fantastic details are the elements of the tableau that greets him when he calls to The Hollow—the dying man sprawled by the swimming pool, the blood dripping into the pool itself, the woman standing over him holding the revolver, and the other onlookers in the drama, one holding a basket of eggs and another holding a basket of dahlia heads.

Described in somewhat unexciting terms on the original blurb as ‘a human story about human people’, The Hollow is almost a Mary Westmacott title. It resembles a ‘straight’ novel more than a detective story and, indeed, has less in the way of clues and detection than almost any other Poirot title. In an article for the Ministry of Information in 1945 Christie wrote: ‘Naturally one’s methods alter. I have been more 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

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]

J. P and Henrietta find leather holster [Chapter 29]

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Gordon Cloade is killed in an air raid and his new young wife, Rosaleen, inherits a fortune. When a mysterious death brings Hercule Poirot to Warmsley Vale he realises that the Cloade family, badly in need of money, has good reason to kill her. So why was it not Rosaleen who died?

Taken at the Flood was another novel (like Four-Fifty from Paddington and Ordeal by Innocence) whose title gave trouble. The original suggestions were The Incoming Tide or There is a Tide, until it was discovered that the new Taylor Caldwell novel was called There is a Time. This probably explains why not once, in the course of 30 pages of notes, scattered across 13 Notebooks, is the title Taken at the Flood (or its eventual US equivalent There is a Tide) mentioned. In the body of the novel the quotation appears in Book II, Chapter 16. In fact, the genesis of the title and, indeed, the book itself, is far more complicated. In a letter dated September 1947 Christie’s agent refers to a ‘revised’ version of Taken at the Flood and the ‘marvellous job in altering it’. This tantalising reference must remain a mystery, as there is nothing in either the Notebooks or the surviving correspondence to clarify it.

The plot of Taken at the Flood is one of Christie’s most intricate. To begin with, none of the deaths are as they initially seem. The first death, presumed a murder, is an accident; the second, presumed a suicide, is in fact a suicide (although seasoned Christie readers will suspect murder); and the third, presumed suicide, is a murder. This combination of explanations is unique in the Christie output.

What’s more, both Frances and Rowley Cloade, independently of each other, complicate the real killer’s plan with sub-plots of their own, each of which ends with the violent death of their co-conspirators. Then there is confusion about the identity of the first corpse. Is he Enoch Arden? Is Robert Underhay still alive? Is he the man found dead in the Blue Boar? And if he isn’t, who is that corpse? This plot device is shared, brilliantly, in One, Two Buckle my Shoe, and much less successfully in Four-Fifty from Paddington.

Some of this complexity is mirrored in the notes, due mainly to the fact that they are intertwined for much of the time with those for They Do It with Mirrors and Sleeping Murder. In the notes, the working title for Taken at the Flood hovered between ‘Cover Her Face’, the one-time title for Sleeping Murder, and ‘Mirrors’, shorthand for They Do It with Mirrors. Each is used three times but in all cases with the character names and plot of Taken at the Flood. It is worth remembering that none of the three titles is very specific; all could, with minimal tweaking, apply to any Christie title, whereas titles such as Murder on the Orient Express or Lord Edgware Dies are precise and could not be considered interchangeable.

In the opening pages of Notebooks 19 and 30 we find the genesis of the Cloade family situation:

Cover her Face

Characters

The Cloades

Nathaniel—solicitor—embezzling money [Jeremy]

Frances—His wife daughter of- Lord Edward Hatherly father Lady Angarethick—says her family are all crooks

Jeremy—ex-pilot—lawless—daring [probably the origin of

David Hunter]

Jane Brown—Girl of character engaged to Jeremy? [Lynn]

Susan Cloade—(or a widow?) Cool—discerning [Adela or Katherine]

Rosaleen Hunter

Nathaniel Clode

Frances Clode—(aristocratic wife)

Susan Ridgeway

A Cloade—war widow—breeds dogs

As usual, however, names were to change. The example above, from Notebook 30, is the only use of the name ‘Rosaleen’ anywhere in the notes and it is used with her Hunter, rather than Cloade, surname. Throughout the Notebooks she is referred to as Lena, itself a diminution of Rosaleen. The ‘Cloade war widow’ who breeds dogs may have been inspired by Christie’s own daughter Rosalind, a devoted dog lover and breeder, whose first husband, Hubert Prichard, perished in the war.

Notebook 13 illustrates Christie’s frequently adopted alphabetical system:

A. Mrs. Marchmont asks Lena for money—(gets it?) [Book I Chapter 5]

B. Frances asks—David interrupts—her reaction—for the moment he feels afraid

David and Lena look out of window—sees Lynn. Lena sees too?

He goes off- interview with Lynn—then him and Lena again [Book I Chapter 6]

C. Hercule Poirot—Aunt Kathie—spirit guidance [Prologue]

D. The farm—Lena and Rowley—he looks at it just as he looks at her—(planning its death?) she goes away—stranger comes—asks way to (?) Furrowtown—goes passed it—face is familiar to Rowley [Book I Chapter 8]

E. Rowley goes up to White Hart—Beatrice the barmaid photo of L. and Edmund—Frances and Jeremy—photo—to get H.P’s address [Book I Chapters 11 and 12]

F. David reading letter—get your things packed—go up to London—stay there—I’ll deal with this [Book I Chapter 10]

G. David and E.A.—veiled blackmail—D. says get out of here [Book I Chapter 9]

H. Where is money to be paid? London? Tube? Poirot—seat? etc.—Bessie overhears (David goes to London—to see Lena Tube—Rowley in crowd) [not used]

I. Rowley visits Poirot—urges him to come to Warmsley Heath [Book II Chapter 1]

J. Death of E.A.—David suspected—arrested?—button in dead man’s hand [Book II Chapter 5]

K. Lena and the Church [Book II Chapter 6]

L. Poirot and Lynn—people much the same—don’t change [Book II Chapter 12]

Although most of these, slightly rearranged, appear in the published novel, there are a number of minor differences: scene H does not feature at all; Furrowtown in scene D becomes Furrowbank in the book; it is not a button (scene J) that is found in the room but a cigarette lighter with the initials DH; and scene C in the novel precedes much of the action.

Rosaleen’s religion, apart from being a major factor in her personality, is also an important plot device. Her Roman Catholicism, and its attendant guilt, haunts all of her conversation with David. Read again their scenes in light of the solution and much of the dialogue takes on a different meaning. And it is the scene at the church that gives Poirot one of his clues:

Lena—depressed—says—very worried I’ve been—wants to see priest—asks him—doesn’t go to confession

Priest—Lena—(or clergyman) Go to confession—I’m in mortal sin

Lena gets conscience—her letter—planning of death wickedness—I want to make what reparation I can

Girl and R[oman] C[atholic] church—P sees her

Taken at the Flood is another novel for which quite a few intriguing ideas were rejected:

Lena in London—D. telephones her—goes to station—sees station master—Swings out of express as it leaves—returns to White Hart though window—Knifes E.A.—leaves as clue something he has already missed (lighter?)—goes to call box

L. telephones Anne 9.18

D. “ “ “ (London wants you)

Here we see the set-up of the faked telephone call that establishes Hunter’s alibi. But he doesn’t knife ‘E.A.’ (Enoch Arden) as he finds him already dead from a head wound when he gets there. For much of the notes, meanwhile, Rowley is the villain:

Rowley arranges L’s suicide (in London) has to go to see a bull etc

Does Rowley play the part of Underhay in London—with Lena

While he is not indictable at the end of the novel, Rowley does have two deaths on his conscience. But his playing the part of Underhay in London could be seen as a complication too far. Another suggestion was that Rowley and Frances should work together:

Rowley—jealous of David—has plans—he and Frances agree to blackmail—but Rowley’s idea is to inherit—so Lena must die

In fact Rowley and Frances work independently in the novel, although without any idea of killing Rosaleen.

Possibly button from Lena’s dress found by E.A.’s body—or does Rowley take it away. Shot heard as Anne and R and D are approaching house. Suggested that R could have laid timing fuse to cartridge

A timing fuse to fake a gunshot, thereby confusing the time of death, is a plot device in The Murder at the Vicarage, but otherwise Christie depended only rarely on mechanical means to achieve her effects (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd being a notable exception) and, thankfully, did not start here.

Although it is preceded by a number of rejected ideas—Nathaniel/Jeremy does not resort to blackmail and murder—the last line of the following note does reflect the reality of the novel. Major Porter, a poignant portrait, agrees, through poverty, to perjure himself but later, in a final futile attempt to regain his self-respect, kills himself:

Cover her Face

Nathaniel who has embezzled a lot of trust funds—wife is Rose—‘county’—shrewd—fond of him but knows his weakness—gallant and sticks to sinking ship. Says at last ‘Of course I always knew he was a crook’…Family all rather crooked—but Rose is straight—(nice!). Enoch is steady character he has come across—conversation in club inspires him to hire Enoch to sound out Lena and levy blackmail. Enoch turns screws on him—he kills Enoch—(a) tries to fasten crime on Lena—or (b) suicide—then goes to Porter—gets him to identify dead man as Underhay Porter desperately poor agrees.

The following, while an interesting plot twist, would have been a difficult one to carry off:

U. is alive—reads inquest—arrives at Doon—sees—Lena—falls in love with her?

It would mean Underhay falling in love with the woman masquerading as his dead wife and, effectively, robbing his fortune.

But the most intriguing of the ideas Christie rejected concern the book’s possible title:

Cover her eyes face—mine eyes dazzle—she died young—outburst by David. Why?

Exactly—why? Why would David Hunter have exclaimed these words? The quotation ‘Cover her face—mine eyes dazzle—she died young’ is from The Duchess of Malfi, and concerns the murder of a sister by a brother. Presumably David would have used it upon the death of Rosaleen—his ‘sister’? Now we understand why Cover Her Face was considered as a title. Or perhaps it was the other way round—Christie saw it as a good title, which it is, and was anxious to work it in? Whatever is the case, echoing, as it does, the critical scene in Chapter 3 of Sleeping Murder (see Chapter 7), it can be seen as further confirmation that Sleeping Murder was written later than formerly assumed.

And I looked, and behold a Pale Horse, And his name that sat on him was Death

Revelation 6:8

A list of names is found on the body of a murdered priest but what do they have in common? Is there such a thing as murder by suggestion? Are the elderly women in Much Deeping really practising black magic?

Although written in 1960 and published the following year, The Pale Horse had an inspiration from many years earlier. Mr P was a pharmacist who, almost 50 years earlier, instructed Agatha Christie in the preparation and dispensing of drugs. One day he showed her a dark-coloured lump that he took from his pocket, explaining that it was curare and he carried it around with him because it gave him a feeling of power. As she writes in her Autobiography: ‘He struck me, in spite of his cherubic appearance, as a possibly dangerous man. His memory remained with me so long that it was still there waiting when I first conceived the idea of writing my book The Pale Horse.’

One of the strongest titles of the last 15 years of her career, The Pale Horse has a horribly plausible plot, a very unusual poison and a genuine feeling of menace over and above the usual whodunit element. At first it seems as if Agatha Christie has changed literary tracks and is writing black magic but, as with many of her titles, what you think you see is not what you get.

Notebook 58 has two pages of Notes on ‘Voodoo’ just before the notes for The Pale Horse. Phrases such as ‘Blood Pact—the sacrifice of a pig—snake vertebrae mingled—the asson or sacred rattle—Legba, the God who removes the barrier—Abobo, a ritual exclamation’ are all noted. The application of these researches can be seen in Chapter 6 of the novel.

Although the notes are scattered over five Notebooks, the basic plot was established early on, as were some of the characters. Notebook 38 contains a sketch of the opening pages although the woman is not found dead, but dies shortly after Father Gorman’s ministrations. It seems that from the beginning thallium was to be the murder method. And the coffee bar scene, with the important hair-pulling incident, appears in the novel exactly as it does here:

The Thallium Mystery

Start somehow with a list of names e.g.

Sarah Montfort

Anthony West

Mrs. Evershed

Lilian Beckett—

Jaspar Handingly—All of them dead

A woman—hospital nurse—found dead—the place ransacked—she says list—all dead

They are all dead

Begins—coffee bar—the girls fight—one pulls out fistful of other one’s hair

Police? Girl is good sport—says didn’t really hurt

The formula—paid agents—women who go round—report on medicine bottles etc.—they do several houses in neighbourhood—report on the N.H. service

She then worked on the mechanics of the business of the ‘death broker’—a good description—as well as some of his potential ‘customers’. She did not pursue the thought of using Poirot but settled for her second possibility—‘plain’, in other words not part of a series:

Book

Thallium? Series of poisonings going back over years? Hair falling out only symptom in common

Poirot?

Plain?

A ‘Death Broker’—you pay—the person concerned goes—by various natural causes

Idea like killing off jury (or Ten Little Niggers?)

No apparent connection—But there is one. What?

The idea of the Murder Syndicate arranged by (?) Osborne—a strange dual personality—a respectable family—not a bad lot—leaves home, wild, comes back the Prodigal Son—but middle class respectability not enough for him—when Father dies—well off- opens branches in 3 districts run by his assistants—he is at other ones always—actually has a second life abroad?

It is not entirely clear if Dr Corrigan, mentioned in the following extract as a possible partner in crime, was to have been a relation of Ginger’s, but Osborne was the villain of the piece from the start. And the outline below is accurately reflected in the published novel, although not all of the elements—Dr C is not ‘in it’ (he is a police surgeon) and Venables’ name is not on the original list—were incorporated and three ‘witches’ names were to change:

Ideas

(1) Ginger is Ginger Corrigan—Heiress to money?

(a) Her would-be killer is in Fete party—man’s wife

(b) Doc. C.[orrigan] is in it—he and Osborne? Object—to set up big research unit abroad

(2) Osborne—a double life character—father was respectable prosperous old fashioned pharmacist—other O. ran off as boy—went on stage—impersonator

Rough idea of how the racket is worked—The organisation? Double life—a chemist (shop)

A rich man—crippled—collects silver—his name will be ‘on list’ (false)—his niece or nephew will be framed.

Others—1st Business man—office—or meet in park

2nd weird sisters—ritual

3rd employed person to make enquiries as to medicines etc. by victims—Consumer research it—replacing of some medicament by thallium

Head man Dr. C? Osbourn

False head adam’s apple—Mr Vuillaumy [Venables] Rich eccentric

Next:

Samuel disbarred lawyer

3 W[eird] Sis[ters]

Thelma French—Sybil White (or Greek name)—Alison Wilde—cook—village witch

Does Osborne come to Fete from Bournemouth—accosts—comes to Mark—rang up Dr. Corrigan

or police? Saw the man—describes him—scene in chemist’s shop at Bournemouth

One intriguing possibility for this novel was the introduction of Miss Marple. This is not as unlikely as may at first seem. The novel features quite a number of elderly women in a small village, as well as her old friend from The Moving Finger, Mrs Dane Calthrop, so Miss Marple would have felt quite at home. Christie toyed with two ideas for involving her, both very feasible—as a neighbour of one of the victims or as a great-aunt to Mark Easterbrook:

The Pale Horse Extra notes

Near Miss Marple one of the ‘Names’ lives

Is ‘Mark’ Miss M’s great nephew (Raymond’s son)

Three ‘weird’ sisters—living at the ‘Pale Horse’ formerly an inn—inside is picture framed—formerly the Inn Sign at end Mark (?) cleans it—the rider skeleton appears—Miss M gives quotation from Revelations

Thelma Grey is owner of Pale Horse—her family came from Ireland—witchcraft—her gr-gr-gr-etc. aunt burnt as a witch (probably all lies somebody says!). She talks about witchcraft—and what it is

Finally, Notebook 6 has an unexpected jotting:

Pale Horse Play?

Expresso 2 girls—Andrew startled

That’s all—nothing more exists. It is difficult to see how the novel could have transferred successfully to the stage. Perhaps the discussion on Macbeth and its Three Witches encouraged Christie to consider an adaptation but, practical difficulties aside, it was not a suitable case for dramatisation.

Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack’d from side to side ‘The curse has come upon me,’ cried The Lady of Shalott.

Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott

What was it that film actress Marina Gregg saw in her home, Gossington Hall in St Mary Mead, that caused her to ‘freeze’, just before a murder was committed there? Further attempts on Marina’s life and three more deaths follow before Miss Marple can explain the look of doom.

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side is the last of the village murder mysteries. Christie began work on this in late 1961 and by January of the following year was well advanced. But when the manuscript was submitted, in April 1962, there was a spate of concerned correspondence between her agent and publishers and at one stage it was doubtful if the book would be ready in time for the Christmas market. The early mention of German measles in the first draft was considered such a giveaway, although its complete omission was felt to be unfair, that a rewrite was called for. The first person to read it when the manuscript was received at Collins successfully predicted not only the killer but the motive also, long before the first murder was committed. And after its publication the problem rumbled on with the receipt of a letter from an angry American reader bitterly complaining about the motive and its lack of sensitivity to a tragedy in the life of the well-known actress Gene Tierney. Despite a reply from Edmund Cork to the effect that Agatha Christie knew nothing about this until long afterwards, the accusation is still resurrected from time to time.

The first six pages of Notebook 39 contain an embarrassment of riches in the shape of plot ideas. The first page is confidently headed ‘Miss M Book’ and in the course of the following pages the plot devices of The Clocks, A Caribbean Mystery and The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side are all sketched, along with echoes of ‘The Case of the Caretaker’ (where Dr Haydock encourages her to unravel a ‘nice’ murder) as well as a short idea—the girl and the nasty fall—that appears as a throwaway scene in Chapter 2 of The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side:

Dr Haydock—getting old—Miss M says can’t knit—Dr H suggest unravel—you’ve always had an interest in murder to say nothing of more than your fair share of it. Proceeds to tell her a story.

At the Development—a girl looking over a house has a nasty fall—has man with her pushed her

Dr H’s story—Is it story of Clocks—typist—blind woman—dead man

Miss M with Jenny in West Indies—the frog faced Major—his gossip—glass eye—appears to be looking different direction from what he really is

Eventually she settles on the ‘Development Murder’ (as it is referred to throughout) as her next novel and gets down to the serious plotting. This is the 71-year-old Agatha Christie still working at full creative stretch at an age when most people have retired:

Jessica Knight—M asks her to go to chemist? Then she gets up, slips her coat on and goes for walk. The Development—entering a strange country—scraps of talk—near accident? Man and girl—looking at cottage—her fall—Heather Badcock

Notebook 4 has the germ of the idea that is the main plot device of the book:

The Rubella idea—Reason for crime—child has been born defective owing to one natal infection—while the ‘fan’ has grim determination not to miss meeting her idol

And Notebook 8 develops this further with a rough sketch of the first few chapters:

Development Murder

Chapter I Miss Marple and Development—her walk—when old place was Protheroes—the Bantry’s—young women who remind her of various people—then a Hilda Glazebrook—one of those tiresome gushing women. Patience Considine—Actress and Film star—Hilda’s hero worship—bit about German measles—no ill effects—P’s look—as though frozen

The contentious four words (‘bit about German measles’) appear very near the beginning of the notes, indicating Christie’s intention of playing dangerously fair with the reader. In the event she rewrote this and other similar references, and avoided mentioning German measles until very near the end of the novel.

The bulk of the plotting of this title is in Notebook 52, although from the ease of the sequence it would seem that she already knew where she was going with it. Once the setting of Gossington Hall and its new inhabitant was decided, and the rubella idea established, the book was smoothly drafted:

Miss M unravelling—Marina Gregg buys Bantrys old house—Mrs B in lodge

Her husband Arthur Rossiter (?) quiet intelligent man—dark horse?

Heather Beasly (?) in a ‘development’ house—Miss M—out walking—falls down—Heather picks her up—cup of tea—talk etc. about Marina Gregg? Story of H. going with measles etc.—Mr Beasley bank clerk? Insurance agent? House agent? School teacher?

Encounter between M[arina] and H[eather]—husband there (Does Mrs B recount all this later to Miss M?)

Some nonsense H said (first mention of G measles?)—Well M answered her—but there was a minute or two—and she said it quite absent-mindedly and as though she was thinking of something else—mechanically—said it so often before—but her eyes staring—over Heather’s head—as though she saw something—something terrible—at what?

Well—staircase

Who was coming up

The idea of looking over the shoulder and seeing something amazing/frightening/puzzling features in a few Christie novels and in each case she comes up with a credible and completely different situation. The earliest example is in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, followed a few years later by another instance in The Man in the Brown Suit. Significant other cases in point are included in Appointment with Death and Death Comes as the End. Two years after The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, she presents us, and Miss Marple, with a similar puzzle when Major Palgrave sees something disturbing over Miss Marple’s shoulder in A Caribbean Mystery. The answer to that riddle is her most daring and original solution to the over-the-shoulder theme and may, indeed, have been inspired by the reference to Nelson in the extract below.

A minor point about The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side is the fact that Mrs Bantry relates all of the dramatic events of the reception back to Miss Marple. Why did Christie not arrange, under some pretext, that Miss Marple attend the party herself? This could have been easily set up and would have overcome the necessity to construe Marina’s actions as filtered through a third, and sometimes fourth, person. But perhaps this is the very reason that she did not. Miss Marple would have seen too much and too easily. As it is, the jogging of the arm and the dropping of the sleeping draught into the glass is glossed over, although in reality it would have been difficult to stage-manage. This is also one of the few examples of the use of a fictitious poison in a proprietary medicine.

For the most part the people Christie originally listed (or versions thereof) appear in the finished book:

Now People

Kathleen Leila Carlyn [Margot Bence]—adopted child from slum family—mother wrote letter—then her own [Marina’s] child comes—she makes settlement on adopted children—girl and 2 boys—

Does Lara come to board with Cherry—(a pal her sister has picked up) or working somewhere as hairdresser or as a photographer (best?)

Ella Schwarz [Zeilinsky]—social secretary—in love with Jason

Heather’s husband Arthur

Mary Bates—a widow—husband dead in a rather peculiar way (car accident?)

Carlton Burrowes—surprise guest—used to know Marina

Who were on stairs or coming up?

Ms Sage—just over his head—frozen stare—at what—or whom?

A. Picture on wall—subject? Death of Nelson!!

B. Carlton Burrowes—Alfred Klein—one a friend

C. The other brought by him

D. A photographer girl from Homes and Gardens

E. Ella Schwarz

F. Arthur Badcock

G. Mary Baine

H. Very elderly man

She recovers herself—usual charm to Heather—Dormil—uses it on her—H. puts it down (to talk) M. puts hers down—to stretch out both hands turning round—knocks H’s drink—have mine—tomato juice instead

The ‘Homes and Gardens’ photographer, Margot Bence, carries echoes of the adopted children in Ordeal by Innocence from four years earlier. And the widow Mary Bates (subsequently listed as Baine) does not figure in the story; Carlton Burrowes may be an early version of Ardwyck Fenn.

The biggest surprise is the inclusion in the above list of the ‘Death of Nelson’ (complete with double exclamation marks) as the subject of the all-important picture on the stairs. In the novel it is the Madonna and Child motif of the painting that causes both Marina to ‘freeze’ and Miss Marple’s theory to be vindicated. Is it possible that at this stage in the planning Christie had not decided on the reason for the look of doom? Unlikely as it might appear, this would seem to be the case, as some of the other options for the ‘frozen’ stare are listed and eventually included in the novel.

And, finally, Miss Marple explains…

Miss M says—I’ve been very stupid—medical book—shuts it

The Meeting—Miss M wants to stand on stairs—the light—‘I understand better now’

She took an overdose? Very easy to do—or perhaps someone gave it to her

To Dermot—Very simple Doom has come upon me cried was Heather—doom came on her as a direct result of what she once did—many years ago—meaning no harm but lacking consideration—thinking only of what an action meant to her. She did because she went to an Entertainment to see and meet Marina Gregg at a time when she was suffering from German measles

Every Night and every Morn Some to Misery are born Every Morn and every Night Some are born to Sweet Delight, Some are born to Sweet Delight, Some are born to Endless Night.

Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’

Penniless Michael Rogers woos and marries Ellie, an enormously wealthy American heiress. They build a dream house in the country but their blissful existence is ruined by a spate of unpleasant incidents. A fatal accident follows and a monstrous plot is gradually revealed.

The Collins reader, in a report dated 23 May 1967, found Endless Night ‘prodigiously exciting to read. The atmosphere is doom-laden from the beginning and all the minor tricks and ornaments are contrived to heighten the effect.’ Phrases such as ‘dazzling sleight-of-hand’, ‘handled with great assurance’ and ‘Mrs. Christie has, as always, been very clever’ are scattered through the report.

In an interview for The Times in the month following publication Christie admitted, ‘it’s rather different from anything I’ve done before—more serious, a tragedy really. In some families one child seems born to go wrong…Usually I spend three or four months on a book but I wrote Endless Night in six weeks. If you can write fairly quickly the result can often be more spontaneous. Being Mike wasn’t difficult.’ She began drafting in America in late 1966 when she accompanied Sir Max, who was on a lecture tour.

Endless Night is Agatha Christie’s final triumph. It was the last great novel that she was to write and is the greatest achievement of her last 20 years. It is also an astonishing book to have appeared from a 75-year-old writer at the end of a long and illustrious career. It is astonishing for a few reasons: it is written by an elderly upper middle class woman in the voice of a young working class male; it recycles her most famous trick 40 years after she originated it; it is totally unlike anything else she ever wrote; and finally, it is a return to the multiple death scenarios of Ten Little Niggers and Death Comes as the End. By the end of the novel all the main protagonists are dead—Ellie, Greta, Mrs Lee, Santonix, Claudia Hardcastle; and Michael is behind bars, at best, for life.

The plot is an amalgam of at least four earlier plot ideas.

First, with a narrator—Michael Rogers—as the villain of the piece, comparisons with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd are inevitable. It should be remembered that even before this, Agatha Christie had experimented with the narrator-murderer device in 1924 in The Man in the Brown Suit. There, Sir Eustace Pedlar narrates part of the novel through extracts from his diaries, before his eventual unmasking as the villain. The ploy came to fruition in 1926 with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a village murder mystery narrated by the local doctor, who is unmasked by Poirot as a blackmailer and a murderer. Forty years later she added another twist to it with Endless Night.

While The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a whodunit, however, Endless Night is most decidedly not. For much of its length it seems to be merely a novel with menacing undertones, and only at its conclusion is it perceived as a carefully plotted crime novel. It is thus utterly unlike anything that Agatha Christie had written before and so, a repetition of the Ackroyd trick was not a possibility that anyone considered. This makes its impact all the more impressive. Nobody expected her to repeat her dazzling trick of 40 years earlier. But it should be remembered that Agatha Christie made a career out of doing what nobody expected.

Second, Endless Night’s plot set-up is identical to Death on the Nile. Two lovers collude to install a charming villain into the life of a wealthy heiress; the plan is to marry and subsequently kill her. The lovers fake a serious argument and are, to all appearances, at daggers drawn. Although the mechanics of the murder in each case are totally different, the similarities are too obvious to ignore and unlikely to be mere coincidence. In Endless Night there is also an unexpected development when Michael begins to harbour unexpected feelings for the ill-fated Ellie.

Third, its greatest, and most obvious, similarity is to the Marple short story ‘The Case of the Caretaker’, first published in January 1942. There we have a wealthy heiress, Louise Laxton, marrying the local ne’er-do-well and being murdered in exactly the same way as Ellie Rogers. (There are two versions of this short story—the second, unpublished version is slightly more elaborate.) In many ways, Endless Night is an expanded form of ‘The Case of the Caretaker’, but told in such a way as to make it a new story.

Fourth, The Mysterious Affair at Styles also features a collusive couple who stage a very public argument, thereby convincing listeners, and readers, that they hate each other. They, like their counterparts in Endless Night, have doctored the victim’s existing medication, allowing both of them to be absent at the time of the crime.

The earliest note below dates from 1961 and appears in a list of ideas that includes A Caribbean Mystery, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side and The Clocks:

Husband—wants to marry rich wife—get rid of her—employs someone to threaten her—grudge—he intercepts sweets—etc. saves her life several times—her death in the end comes through fear—running from a ‘ghost’—she falls

Although there are strong hints in this jotting of A Caribbean Mystery (‘saves her life several times’), the idea of marrying a rich wife and employing someone to threaten her is the basis of Endless Night.

The following year it is listed with her proposed titles for 1963 and 1964, after The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side had been delivered to Collins. There is no mention yet of the eventual title and the references to it throughout the notes are always as ‘Gypsy’s Acre’, the scene of the legend that seems, from the dedication, to have provided the germ of the book. Nor is there any indication at this early stage of the method of telling—one of the main features of the novel. Note also that ‘Gypsy’s Acre’ is listed as X—an indication, perhaps, that she intended to work on this before the other two, which are listed as Y and Z.

1962

Notes for 3 books

Y. The Clocks (?)

Z. Carribean [sic] Mystery

X. Gypsy’s Acre

X Gypsy’s Acre

Piece of land and road—tea at pub—story about accidents there—husband plans to kill wife—faked motor accident?

Two years before publication we find a further elaboration. And, indeed, much of this early jotting finds its way into the novel. The gypsy, the story, the horse, the ‘accident’ and the death are all utilised in Endless Night

Oct 1st 1965

A. Gypsy’s Acre

Place where accidents happen—etc.—A woman seen (gypsy?) by husband—asks people—really has heard story already—but pretends it is the first time—a bit upset—a sceptical young fellow—but therefore more easily upset. Wife interested—not nervous—then one day, wife sees gypsy figure—and so on—working things up. Does gypsy figure catch bridle of horse—(stick pin in). Husband at accident—someone sees it from window—she is badly injured—shock—dies—really morphine

One definite omission from the novel is the reference to the husband as ‘a sceptical young fellow’; this is not a description that could ever apply to Michael Rogers. And of course he is not present at Ellie’s ‘accident’. Note also that at this stage there is still no mention of the husband as the architect of his wife’s death, much less as the narrator of the story.

Notebook 28 adds an important plot device or, to be strictly accurate, borrows it from ‘The Case of the Caretaker’:

The Cyanide Murder—capsules—the tranquilliser. Someone dies (W)—falls down stairs—thrombosis?—heart?—an open window. Body found 2 or 3 hours after death. Y—gives friend one of her capsules; Z—dead—a link is apparent between Z and W—this leads everyone astray

Originally this idea was to have been a different type of book but, as can be seen from below, the cyanide capsule was instead subsumed into Endless Night. The jotting also observes the important medical fact that the body must be either in the open air or not seen by a medical person until some time after death, in order for the potassium cyanide fumes to dissipate.

By October 1966 the novel was taking shape in the form in which we know it. Before she settled on Greta, however, Christie experimented with various other female characters, although it is difficult to see either of them as Ellie Rogers, the heiress to a multi-million pound fortune:

1966—Oct.—(in U.S.A.) Projects—Gypsy’s Acre Adventurer—Jason—good looking—Australian? American? His meeting with old Mrs. Lee—the story—Accident Mile or Claire Holloway—teaches at a Girl’s School or College—her old friend Anne—Marie—Claire—cousin—Jason—or an au pair girl Sidonie—her brother or Hildegarde—point is Hildegarde and J—are in it together—contrived accident. H is a Valkyrie girl. Use Pot. Cyanide idea—capsule

The idea of a good-looking foreigner, Jason, is abandoned for Michael Rogers, a drifter from a working class background. I can only speculate that the 75-year-old Christie felt more comfortable narrating in the voice of a fellow-countryman than in that of a ‘foreign adventurer’. And as soon as she adopts a change of name from Hildegarde to Greta we have arrived at the lethal pairing at the heart of the novel. In fact, Greta is compared to a Valkyrie a few times in the course of Endless Night.

But some ideas were abandoned and never progressed further than the Notebooks:

Gypsy’s Acre—up for sale—auction—talk at pub where auction is held. Auctioneer a stranger to neighbourhood—hints round about—it goes for very little—auctioneer puzzled. Old man tells him You’m foreigner here—accidents—bad luck on it—Old Mrs. Lee

‘Whoever you’re acting for, you’ve done a bad turn to him—no credit to him—he’ll be dead within the year—(They have been paid by someone wanting to get it cheap)

Does auctioneer have accident getting home—young man with pince-nez like Ed(ward) Bolan—clever—Hotel built? Or flats—with room service or home for old people—? Or old house used for that—Fleet House—girl at house (Mothercare type) hospital nurse—finds old lady dead—from the home

Eventually, we get to the final and vital idea that was to set Endless Night apart from virtually everything else that Agatha Christie wrote. Note that originally she intended the narrator to be an architect intent on building a house, but in the novel the role of Ellie’s architect was given to the enigmatic Santonix instead:

Idea? Told in first person—by an architect

‘I first heard about Gypsy’s Acre from old Simon Barlow’ etc. looks at it. The perfect house—meets girl

What do you want

I want thirty thousand pounds

What for?

To build a house

Without its unreliable narrator this would have been a different, and possibly indifferent, novel. After all, the eternal triangle idea, and two sides of that triangle conspiring to kill the third, is new neither to literature in general nor to crime fiction in particular, much less to Agatha Christie. The originality lies in what further trick the writer can weave around it. And just at the end of her career, when everyone assumed that Agatha Christie had played all the tricks she possibly could, she surprised everyone—yet again. If Endless Night had been told in the third person much of its devastating impact would have been defused.

This page from Notebook 66 is one of many examples in the Notebooks of Agatha doodling the three intertwined fishes, as sketched by Lois Hargreaves in ‘The House of Lurking Death’ (Partners in Crime). The symbol was subsequently used as the cover design on the Greenway Collected edition of Agatha’s books, begun in the late 1960s and published throughout the 1970s.