SOLUTIONS REVEALED
4.50 from Paddington • Five Little Pigs • The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side • Three Act Tragedy
This selection features a number of relatively short but intriguing possibilities.
THE ‘HANDED TO’ IDEA
Interesting idea that many murderers are loose. Experiment by saying to people ‘Getting away with murder’ etc.
Dropped teacup just as it is being handed to someone. Inference – the hander has dropped it (wife or husband recently conveniently dead) – really the ‘handed to.’ Experimenter shortly after has near escapes – being gunned for. Result – investigation – more near escapes – actually investigations also apply to ‘recipient’ this not seen till by surprise at end
This outline seems to date from the early 1950s, as it appears on a page in the middle of plotting 1952’s They Do It with Mirrors. Here Christie experimented with yet another variation on misdirecting the reader. In many of her poisoning dramas – Three Act Tragedy, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, Five Little Pigs – the ‘hander’, not surprisingly, was the killer, but the ‘handed to’ is a new twist. This would have needed careful setting-up on the part of the writer, not to mention careful stage-managing on the part of the murderous ‘recipient’. Two novels of the early 1950s feature a misdirection of the reader from the very start. After the Funeral and They Do It with Mirrors both mislead the reader into believing something that is completely false, although the author never explicitly states it. The above scenario is similar in design.
THE LOCUM DOCTOR
Next Detective novel
Villain is doctor (locum) – Lies about time of death. But he is the one to suspect murder – not satisfied with cause of death – therefore he is free of suspicion and can add poison to a ‘sample’ he has taken – and which can only have been prepared by
wife
foreign girl in house
etc.
Actually that preparation was harmless – poison was administered by doctor himself in something else – before – or later (capsule?). Motive – will marry daughter – plain – devoted. 2 person crime – he and daughter?
Book – Dr. Scofield – called in after discovery of body – gives time of death incorrectly. Dr. S (who is locum) suspects what real doctor (busy careless chap) has not – chronic poisoning by member of household. Takes sample of food (or vomit) – sends for analysis – sure enough there is poison – he gives a warning to household – that night the old man dies – Poison? Bashed? Appearance of robbery – doctor fixes time of death at such a time (wrong). Police surgeon arriving later can only give wide latitude of time
The first of these notes appears in Notebook 53 alongside notes for the 1954 radio play Personal Call and the novels They Do It with Mirrors, After the Funeral and Destination Unknown, all published 1952–4. So it is reasonable to assume that the notes date from the early to mid 1950s. And some of the ideas do feature in 1957’s 4.50 from Paddington. Dr Quimper adds poison to the curry sample, having doctored the drinks jug earlier, with the intention of marrying the devoted daughter (and heiress), although in the book she is unaware of his plan. But it has to be asked why the villainous doctor of the first extract should draw attention to a murder instead of certifying it a ‘natural’ death.
The ‘foreign girl in house’ scapegoat appears in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’, and will surface again in Hallowe’en Party. Oddly, the second sketch directly precedes the main plotting for 4.50 from Paddington, although there is less connection between the two.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM
British Museum Story
S.S., Keeper of Babylonian Dept., has been stealing objects and replacing them with electrotypes in parchment unheard of in B.M. laboratories. Sir James Dale, director, gets wind of this but decides to hush the matter up. Dobson who has been passed over for director is suspected as he has been very bitter – he went to see Sir James last thing with a dagger he wanted to buy for the Museum – wound is like one made by such a dagger.
Slightly batty old gentleman (Olin?) gives show away by handling some stuff of his and saying it didn’t feel right
The idea of a short story set around the British Museum appears in three other Notebooks but this, from Notebook 30, is the most elaborate version. The setting had an obvious appeal for Christie because of her connection, via her husband Max Mallowan, with the Museum and it might have been possible to have had some quiet fun with the characters. The idea of ‘electrotypes’ surfaced in Murder in Mesopotamia.
THE BOMBED BUILDING
Man trapped under bombed building – Nurse at AT crawls in and rescues him. He says do you want to be rich? She thinks funny idea.
Now!
He presses something into her hand – paper? Formula? Afterwards man visits her – asks – she senses danger – the paper? Hides it.
This dates from early in the Second World War, appearing on a list between the ideas for The Moving Finger and Towards Zero. It sounds more spy story than detective story with its overtones of secret formulas, and the Nurse may well be a prototype for Hilary Craven in Destination Unknown and Victoria Jones in They Came to Baghdad. The ‘bombed building’ idea is the starting point for Taken at the Flood.