Agatha Christie’s Complete Secret Notebooks

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:

Book

Scene

Baghdad?

Hospital

Hotel [At Bertram’s Hotel]

Flat Third Floor Flat idea

Baghdad Chest idea [‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’ and The Rats]

Small house in London husband and wife, children etc.

Park Regent’s Park

School Girl’s school [Cat among the Pigeons]

Boat Queen Emma? Western Lady

Train seen from a train? Through window of house or vice versa? [4.50 from Paddington]