скачать книгу бесплатно
Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making: Stories and Secrets from Her Archive - includes an unseen Miss Marple Story
John Curran
Agatha Christie’s life and career told through the decades, from the never-before-published original ending to her first book to the unused ideas for her last, complete with two unpublished Agatha Christie stories - including a lost Miss Marple.In this follow-up volume to the acclaimed Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, Christie archivist and expert John Curran leads the reader through the six decades of Agatha Christie's writing career, unearthing some remarkable clues to her success and a number of never-before-published excerpts and stories from her archives.Starting his investigation in the 1920s, John Curran examines the conventions of detective novels as they existed then and how Agatha Christie's publisher talked her into changing the ending of her very first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a move that almost certainly changed the fortunes of not only her career but the future of the whole crime writing genre. For the very first time, this book prints Agatha's original ending, painstakingly transcribed from her notebooks.Every decade saw Agatha Christie's success grow to new heights. The emergence of the world-famous Collins Crime Club in 1930 brought with it the very first Miss Marple mystery, the austerity of the 1940s had Agatha Christie preparing to kill off Hercule Poirot, and the 1950s saw her experiment increasingly with formats influenced by more modern thrillers. Focusing on the detail of more than 20 Christie novels to illustrate this, John Curran shows the evolution of Agatha's writing through the decades, including the influence of the swinging sixties and seventies, concluding the book with a look at Agatha's last notebook, using his Christie knowledge to speculate about what she had in mind based on her brief notes for an unwritten final book.Also includes a number of short stories from the archives reproduced in full, including the unpublished The Man Who Knew, How I Created Hercule Poirot, and an early draft for a Miss Marple story, The Case of the Caretaker's Wife.
Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making
Stories and Secrets from her Archive
John Curran
Dedication
For
Mathew, Lucy and Mahler,
without whom …
Contents
Cover (#ulink_0ab38847-78c4-53cf-998a-33ea156f57b4)
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
1 Rule of Three
2 The First Decade 1920–1929
Unused Ideas – One
3 Favourite Stories and ‘The Man Who Knew’
4 The Second Decade 1930–1939
Unused Ideas – Two
5 ‘How I Created Hercule Poirot’
6 The Third Decade 1940–1949
Unused Ideas – Three
7 Miss Marple and ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’
8 The Fourth Decade 1950–1959
Unused Ideas – Four
9 Agatha Christie and Poison
10 The Fifth Decade 1960–1969
Unused Ideas – Five
11 The Dark Lady …
12 The Sixth Decade 1970–1976
Unused Ideas – Six
13 Agatha Christie’s Booklists
Appendix 1: Agatha Christie Chronology
Appendix 2: Alphabetical List of Agatha Christie Titles
Index of Titles
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
From Notebook 4 a tantalising glimpse of a project, never realised, from the 1960s. See Unused Ideas Three.
PREFACE
Victoria Station, March 1931
Although she is by now an experienced traveller, the sights, sounds and even smells of the great railway station never fail to excite her. This is the start of her journey and she takes a moment to savour the sense of anticipation that bustling railway stations have always engendered in her – harassed and luggage-laden passengers hurrying along platforms, imperious-looking porters issuing instructions and shouting to invisible colleagues, the great trains snorting and bellowing clouds of smoke. She walks purposefully along the continental platform and hails a porter. As soon as she is installed in her seat she has an opportunity to observe, at her leisure, her fellow passengers. She can’t help speculating about the life of these strangers with whom she is to share a few hours in close proximity. This covert observation has, by now, become almost an occupational hazard and provided she is left to her own devising it’s all potential material. Now let’s see …
The moth-eaten looking man sitting opposite … studying his railway timetable and jotting down the details as he turns the pages could be … an office worker planning his holiday? a Civil Servant checking a business trip? a salesman plotting his sales route? His only luggage is a smallish case … probably for his samples … too small for encyclopaedias … brushes, perhaps, or … pens or … hosiery?
And that very handsome young man opposite … reading … what, exactly? It’s not a book … or a magazine … it seems to be typed pages, loosely bound, printed on only one side of the page and laid out very specifically. And he is studying it intensely and underlining sections of it … a business report? A manuscript perhaps and he’s correcting it? No … the corrections seem too regular. Ah, I’ve got it – it’s a script and he’s marking his lines … he’s an actor and that makes sense … matinee-idol good looks.
The older, haughty-looking woman in the far corner … seems to be waiting for someone, as evidenced both by her exasperated demeanour and by the continual checking of her wristwatch and her scanning of the platform for … her husband? No … no wedding ring … a friend, maybe … a travelling companion?
A harassed-looking older woman, struggling with a fox terrier on a lead and carrying a suitcase, a handbag, an umbrella and an assortment of magazines, hurries along the platform. In response to an imperious gesture she clambers into the carriage, managing to drop the magazines as she does so. Any lingering doubt as to her status is removed by the recriminations which follow.
Yes, definitely a companion … almost certainly a paid companion … nobody else would accept that sort of abuse.
At last, to the accompaniment of final shouts and whistles, the train glides out of the station and passengers settle down for the journey. As London begins to disappear her thoughts turn to the reunion ahead of her in a few days. Although married six months ago she has not seen her husband for almost four of those months. And despite a constant flow of letters in both directions she is anxious that, when they finally meet again, there should be no awkwardness. She knows that the best remedy for worry is work and she can easily and unobtrusively do some here where she sits.
And goodness knows, there is no shortage of potential material; just look around this carriage … and I want to get down that idea about Ruth Draper … very clever performance … complete transformation in a few seconds … must take lots of practice and endless rehearsals … which also reminds me …
Reaching into her bag, she produces a small, black-covered notebook. She opens it, idly noting that Rosalind has already tried to appropriate it by the simple expedient of writing her name and address on the inside cover – ‘Rosalind Christie, Ashfield, Torquay, Devon’. A further search produces a fountain pen. Unscrewing the top of the pen, she opens the notebook, flattens the pages and begins to read what she has already written.
Ideas 1931
Book
Poirot and a crime
a closed circle – one of them did it – he knows which – but now …
Could Why Didn’t they ask Evans fit in?
Hmm … can’t really remember much about this ‘closed circle’ … and ‘Poirot and a crime’ is not much help … probably full of ideas at the beginning of the year. Evans, Evans … that rings a bell although I don’t think I settled on any particular idea … although haven’t I got an Evans in Sittaford?… Let’s see …
She turns the page and continues reading, noting the underlined qualification at the beginning.
Tentative
Old lady (or man) sends for P – in a state of coma when he arrives
Last words – Poirot is left to find out
Evans (maid)
Also Evans (gardener)
and Evans – a baker or butcher or tradesman …
Oh, yes, of course … the last words of someone who is dying and they make no sense … not even to me at the moment, I must admit … but distinct possibilities here … infinite ones, in fact. I could have a lot of fun with this. Should it be another case for Miss M? … it sounds village-y, and Miss M would know about maids and gardeners and tradesmen. Although I haven’t given Poirot an airing since … let’s see … Blue Train, I think … and that was at least three years ago. Yes, that was his last case … of course End House will remedy that next … what did Edmund tell me … next February I think … Anyway, didn’t I have a blood-covered butcher in one of those Big Four episodes … and a baker seems an unlikely possibility … a gardener, perhaps. But would it carry a book or should I use it as just an element of a plot … or a short story maybe … although it would look great as a title: ‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?’
She leaves ‘Evans’ for a moment, looks up and stares absent-mindedly at the passing countryside. Outside snow is still lying on many of the fields, a fleeting reminder of the snowbound setting of yet-to-be-published The Sittaford Mystery. She returns to her notebook and turns the page.
Yes, here we are … I knew I jotted down a note somewhere … this one I do remember …
Idea for book
Murder utterly motiveless
Because dead man and murderer
Unacquainted –
Reason – a rehearsal
I’m sure this is really original but it needs careful treatment. Let’s leave that for the moment … not sure where to go from there … tricky set-up but I think the idea is promising … worth thinking about it carefully …
She looks speculatively again at the final word of the note and then glances across at the good-looking man opposite, still ostensibly studying his script.
My good-looking friend is examining his reflection in the window … he knows the young girl opposite is watching him … seems to enjoy it … used to people watching him … matinee-idol good looks … matinee … actor … rehearsal. How about an actor for the murder-as-rehearsal idea? Seems to make sense … but victim or murderer? Mmm … possibilities here although I’m not sure of carrying off a theatre milieu. Maybe just an actor and his social circle …
She turns another page and looks reminiscently at what she has previously written.
Man stabbed in room – everyone there – behind screen – gagged first.
Man induced to hide in other man’s rooms (his wife coming there) has tea first (drugged)
Hmmm, yes, that one we all wrote … was it last year?… the body found behind the screen when the blood flowed out from beneath it … lots of people in the room. Blood on the Screen or Under the Screen or something … Trouble with those combined efforts … you have to remember that someone else is going to take over after you so you can’t do everything, or even anything, you want … Dorothy always wants it all very structured and organised … I can’t really work under those circumstances and I think I can do something else with that same basic idea …
Man hides in chest – (but bores hole to see through) has previously had a dinner with friend …
Must finish this off … Edmund is sure The Strand will take it … which would be nice … and I have most of it sketched here … just a matter of writing it up. But I want to get Ruth Draper down on paper.
She flicks through a few pages until she finds a blank one, unscrews the top of her pen, writes and firmly underlines:
Book
Man Killed – says Jane Wilkinson (actress) beautiful amoral – ‘Only way is for me to kill him’
Carlotta Adams – her imitations – (including Jane) ‘Would do anything for money’
Crime discovered – either victim says it was Jane – or man servant saw her – or girl secretary saw her
However, Jane has alibi – quite unbreakable – dinner
Carlotta Adams also dies – before Poirot can see her – a simple poison
Right, that’s my basic situation. Now I wonder if I could work in the ‘Evans’ dying words idea, if the victim says Jane’s name … and I could call one of the servants Evans … must be careful about Poirot not getting to see Carlotta before she dies … now, some more detail …
An actress Jane W comes to see Poirot – engaged to Duke of Merton
Martin Squire – pleasant hearty young fellow – an admirer of Miss Wilkinson’s – he is seen next evening having supper with Carlotta
Lord Mountcarlin
Other man (Duke? Millionaire?)
Bryan Martin actor in films with her
Lord Mountcarlin’s nephew Ronnie West (debonair Peter Wimseyish)
Miss Carroll Margaret Carroll middle-aged woman A Miss Clifford
Not convinced about some of those names but I can remedy that later … ‘Evans’ is still a possibility but I’m not sure in which capacity … and I need some more suspects … what about the old reliable, the butler? or maybe a maid of Carlotta’s? And I think I’d better have Japp, especially if I set it in London … which is the most likely possibility if I have theatres and actors and actresses and rehearsals … he could be the official investigator. Rehearsals … now, I wonder … should I combine Ruth Draper and the rehearsal idea … or are they each good enough to carry a book on their own? I think they are …
Japp comes to see Poirot – threats – P says quietly ‘Who heard them?’ – J hedges? But perfect alibi – party Amersham
She pauses briefly and considers what she has written, reflecting on possible opening scenes. Turning the page she continues covering the smaller-than-usual pages in flowing, black handwriting.
