The Capture of Cerberus

Why was it never published?

There can be little doubt that the political situation of the time and the poorly disguised picture of Adolf Hitler in section iii was the main (and probably only) reason for the rejection of the story. Unusually for Christie, it is blatantly political from the first page, mentioning not just the impending war but also the previous one: ‘The world was in a very disturbed state—every nation alert and tense. At any minute the blow might fall—and Europe once more be plunged in war.’ Later in the story we are told about ‘August Hertzlein…[who] was the dictator of dictators. His warlike utterances had rallied the youth of his country and of allied countries. It was he who had set Central Europe ablaze…’ And in case there is any lingering doubt he is later described as having ‘a bullet head and a little dark moustache’.

This would have been considered much too close to the actual state of the world and one of its inhabitants in 1939 to be considered escapist reading. Why Christie chose to write this story will never be known, as there is little evidence elsewhere in her work that she was particularly political. And the rejection by The Strand may have rankled more than she cared to admit as this very assassination scenario is utilized in the ‘Good Fat Hen’ chapter of One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, published the following year while the Countess Vera is fondly recalled by Poirot in the ‘Maids Are Courting’ chapter of the same novel. The writing of novel and short story would have been contemporaneous.

Two pages showing the two sets of notes for ‘The Capture of Cerberus’. The left-hand page (Notebook 44) refers to the version published in The Labours of Hercules, and the right-hand page (Notebook 62)…

…to the newly-discovered earlier version included in the Appendix. Note the difference in handwriting over the almost 10-year period.

In an interview for her Italian publishers, Mondadori, conducted soon after the publication of Passenger to Frankfurt in 1970, she writes, ‘I have never been in the least interested in politics.’ So why did she not simply tone down the portrait and change the name? Ironically, Chapter 17 of that novel contains more than a passing reference to the main idea of the short story. Is it possible that, 30 years after it had been rejected, Agatha Christie unearthed her idea and inserted it into a very different book? And that, long after The Strand had ceased publication, she had the last laugh?