Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making - Includes Two Unpublished Poirot Stories. John Curran
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One, Two, Buckle my Shoe 4 November 1940
Hercule Poirot’s dentist’s appointment coincides with the murder of his dentist. A shoe buckle, a disappearance and more deaths follow before he can say ‘Nineteen, twenty, My plate’s empty.’
One, two, buckle my shoe Three, four, shut the door Five, six, pick up sticks Seven, eight, lay them straight Nine, ten, a big fat hen Eleven, twelve, men must delve Thirteen, fourteen, maids are courting Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen Seventeen, eighteen, maids in waiting Nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty…
The notes for this novel are contained in four Notebooks with the majority (over 75 pages) in Notebook 35. They alternate for much of that Notebook with the notes for Five Little Pigs. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe is Christie’s most complicated novel. It features a triple impersonation and a complex murder plot with its beginnings in the distant past. The novel turns on the identity of a dead body but, unlike Four-Fifty from Paddington, it is a tantalising, rather than an aggravating, question.
The only aspect of this novel that does not ring true is, ironically, the use of the nursery rhyme. It is strained and unconvincing and, apart from the all-important shoe buckle, the rhyme has little or no significance other than providing chapter titles. This is confirmed by the following extract from Notebook 35 where Christie jots down the rhyme and tries to match ideas to each section. As can be seen, they are not very persuasive and in fact few of them, apart from the shoe buckle, went into the novel:
One Two Buckle my Shoe—the Shoe Buckle—think of it—the start of this case
The Closed Door—something about a door—either room locked or something not heard through closed door when it should have been.
Picking up sticks—assembling clues
Lay them Straight—order and method
A good fat hen—the will—read—rich woman it was who died—murdered woman—fat elderly—two girls—man recently coming to live with rich relative?
Men must Delve—Digging up garden—another body—discovered buried in garden—wrong owner of shoe buckle?
Maids a courting—2 girls—heiresses of Fat Hen? Or would have been connected by husband of fat hen—in collusion with maid servant
Maids in the kitchen—servant’s gossip
Maids in Waiting?
My Plate is Empty
End
Clue—a shoe buckle
An example of the type of organised listing that occurs throughout the Notebooks, the plot of One, Two, Buckle my Shoe occurs as Idea H on a list from A to U. This list looks to have been written straight off with three or four ideas to a page in the same handwriting and with the same pen. Most of them have more detail included but Idea H below is exactly as it appears (the possibility of combining it with the twins or chambermaid idea—see also ‘The House of Dreams’, page 303—was not pursued).
Ideas
A. Poirot’s Last Case—history repeats itself—Styles now a guest house [Curtain]
B. Remembered Death—Rosemary dead [Sparkling Cyanide]
C. Dangerous drug stolen from doctor’s car. [See Hickory Dickory Dock below and ‘The House of Dreams’]
D. Legless man—sometimes tall—sometimes short
E. Identical twins (one killed in railway smash)
F. Not identical twins
G. A murderer is executed—afterwards is found to be innocent [Five Little Pigs/Ordeal by Innocence]
H. Dentist Murder Motive? Chart substitution? Combine with E? or F? or J?
I. Two women—arty friends—ridiculous—one is crook
J. Chambermaid in hotel accomplice of man
K. Stamps—but stamps on letter [‘Strange Jest’]
L. Prussic acid
M. Caustic potash in cachet
N. Stabbed through eye with hatpin
O. Witness in murder case—quite unimportant—offered post abroad
P. Third Floor Flat idea
Q. Figurehead of ship idea
R. Prussic acid—‘Cry’ in bath
S. Diabetic idea—insulin (substitute something else) [Crooked House]
T. Body in the Library—Miss Marple [The Body in the Library]
U. Stored blood idea, wrong blood
A few pages later, the germ of the plot emerges although, as can be seen from the question marks, the idea was hazy. As we saw in Chapter 3, Christie considered a multitude of possibilities in working out its plot. But apart from a name change this short musing is the basis of the novel:
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