Agatha Christie’s Complete Secret Notebooks. Агата Кристи

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      Dentists killed – 1 London – 1 County

      A few pages later in the same Notebook, also in connection with One, Two, Buckle my Shoe, she tries further variations on the same theme, this time introducing ‘Sub Ideas’.

      Pos. A. 1st wife still alive –

      A. (a) knows all – co-operating with him

      (b) does not know – that he is secret service

      Pos. B 1st wife dead – someone recognises him – ‘I was a great friend of your wife, you know –’

      In either case – crime is undertaken to suppress fact of 1st marriage and elaborate preparations undertaken

      C. Single handed

      D. Co-operation of wife as secretary

      Sub Idea C

      The ‘friends’ Miss B and Miss R – one goes to dentist

      Or

      Does wife go to a certain dentist?

      Miss B makes app[ointment] – with dentist – Miss R keeps it

      Miss R’s teeth labelled under Miss B’s name

      Also from Notebook 35, but this time in connection with Five Little Pigs, we find very basic questions and possibilities under consideration:

      Did mother murder –

      A. Husband

      B. Lover

      C. Rich uncle or guardian

      D. Another woman (jealousy)

      Who were the other people

      During the planning of Mrs McGinty’s Dead, the four murders in the past, around which the plot is built, provided an almost infinite number of possibilities and she worked her way methodically through them, considering every character living in Broadhinny, the scene of the novel, as a possible participant in the earlier murders. In this extract from Notebook 43 she tries various scenarios, underlining the possible killer in each case.

      Which?

      1. A. False – elderly Cranes – with daughter (girl – Evelyn)

      B. Real – Robin – son with mother son [Upward]

      2. A. False Invalid mother (or not invalid) and son

      B. Real – dull wife of snob A.P. (Carter) Dau[ghter]

      3. A. False artistic woman with son

      B. Real middle-aged wife – dull couple – or flashy Carters (daughter invalid)

      4. A. False widow – soon to marry rich man

      5. [A] False man with dogs – stepson – different name

      [B] Real – invalid mother and daughter – dau[ghter] does it [Wetherby]

      And, later in the same Notebook, she considers which of her characters could fit the profiles of one of the earlier crimes, the Kane murder case:

      Could be

      Robin’s mother (E. Kane)

      Robin (EK’s son)

      Mrs Crane (EK)

      Their daughter (EK’s dau)

      Mrs Carter (EK’s dau)

      Young William Crane (EK’s son)

      Mrs Wildfell (EK’s dau)

      In Notebook 39 Christie rattles off six (despite the heading) plot ideas, covering within these brief sketches kidnapping, forgery, robbery, fraud, murder and extortion:

      4 snappy ideas for short Stories

      Kidnapping? [The Adventure of] Johnnie Waverley again – Platinum blonde – kidnaps herself?

      Invisible Will? Will written on quite different document

      Museum robbery – celebrated professor takes things and examines them? – or member of public does

      Stamps – Fortune hidden in them – gets dealer to buy them for him

      An occurrence at a public place – Savoy? Dance? Debutantes tea? Mothers killed off in rapid succession?

      The Missing Pekingese

      The accurate dating of this extract is debatable. The reference ‘missing Pekingese’ is to ‘The Nemean Lion’, collected in The Labours of Hercules but first published in 1939. This, taken in conjunction with the reference to the ‘Debutantes tea’, probably indicates a late 1930s date when Christie’s daughter, Rosalind, would have been a debutante. Only two of the other ideas appear in print (‘Invisible Will’ in ‘Motive vs Opportunity’ in The Thirteen Problems and ‘Stamps’ in ‘Strange Jest’ and Spider’s Web), although not quite as they appear here.

      In Notebook 47 Christie is in full flight planning a new short story, possibly a commission as she specifies the number of words. The following is all contained on one page and was probably written straight off:

      Ideas for 7000 word story

      A ‘Ruth Ellis’ … idea?

      Shoots man – not fatally – other man (or woman) eggs her on

      Say this 2nd person was –

      A. Sister in law? Brother’s wife – her son or child would get this money and not be sent to boarding school away from her influence – a gentle soft motherly creature

      B. A mannish sister determined brother should not marry Ruby

      C. Man (with influence over Ruby) works her up while pretending to calm her. X has some knowledge concerning him. He wants to marry X’s sister

      D. Man formerly Ruby’s lover/husband – has it in for her and X

      Unfortunately, she did not pursue this idea and no story resulted; she returned, four pages later, to plotting The Unexpected Guest, so the extract probably dates from the mid-1950s. (Ruth Ellis was the last woman to hang in the UK, in July 1955 after her conviction for the shooting of her lover David Blakely.)

       Destinations Unknown

      When she sat down to consider her next book, even before she got as far as plotting, Christie would list possible settings. The following extract appears in Notebook 47 a few pages before notes for 4.50 from Paddington (‘seen from a train’) and so would seem to date from the mid-1950s:

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