Читать книгу Agatha Christie’s Complete Secret Notebooks - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 36

In Cards on the Table Mrs Oliver is asked if she has ever used the same plot twice.

‘The Lotus Murder,’ murmured Poirot, ‘The Clue of the Candle Wax.’

Mrs Oliver turned on him, her eyes beaming appreciation.

‘That’s clever of you – really very clever of you. Because, of course, those two are exactly the same plot – but nobody else has seen it. One is stolen papers at an informal weekend-party of the Cabinet, and the other’s a murder in Borneo in a rubber planter’s bungalow.’

‘But the essential point on which the story turns is the same,’ said Poirot. ‘One of your neatest tricks.’

So it is with Christie. She reused plot devices throughout her career; and she recycled short stories into novellas and novels, often speculating in the Notebooks about the expansion or adaptation of an earlier title. The Notebooks demonstrate how, even if she discarded an idea for now, she left everything there to be looked at again at a later stage. And when she did that, as she wrote in An Autobiography, ‘What it’s all about I can’t remember now; but it often stimulates me.’ So she used the Notebooks as an aide-mémoire as well as a sounding board.

Two pages of random word puzzles, probably the rough work for a crossword.

The first example below dates from the mid-1950s and relates to the short stories ‘Third Floor Flat’ and ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’; it is surrounded by notes for ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ and 4.50 from Paddington. The second example, concerning ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’, is from early 1960 and the last one, concerning ‘The Shadow on the Glass’, probably from 1950:

Development of stories

3rd Floor Flat – murder committed earlier – return to get post and also footprints etc. accounted for – service lift idea? Wrong floor

Baghdad Chest or a screen?

Idea? A persuades B hide B

Chest or screen as Mrs B – having affair with C – C gives party – B and A drop in – B hides A – kills him – and goes out again

Extended version of Xmas Pudding – Points in it of importance

A Ruby (belonging to Indian Prince – or a ruler just married?) in pudding

A book or a play from The Shadow on the Pane idea? (Mr Q)

The following are examples of Christie’s reworked ideas, many of which are discussed in this book. Some elaborations are obvious:

‘The Case of the Caretaker/Caretaker’s Wife’/Endless Night

‘The Plymouth Express’/The Mystery of the Blue Train

‘The Market Basing Mystery’/‘Murder in the Mews’

‘The Submarine Plans’/‘The Incredible Theft’

‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’/‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’

‘Christmas Adventure’/‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’

‘The Greenshore Folly’/Dead Man’s Folly

In other cases she challenged herself when adapting and expanding by changing the killer:

The Secret of Chimneys/Chimneys

‘The Second Gong’/‘Dead Man’s Mirror’

‘Yellow Iris’/Sparkling Cyanide

‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/Dumb Witness

Some stage versions differ from their source novels …

Appointment with Death presents a new villain with a compelling and daring solution.

Chimneys introduces many variations, including a new killer, on The Secret of Chimneys.

And Then There Were None unmasks the original killer within a very different finale.

Meanwhile, there are more subtle links between certain works:

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Death on the Nile and Endless Night are all essentially the same plot.

The Man in the Brown Suit, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Endless Night all share a major plot device.

Evil under the Sun and The Body in the Library feature a common ploy.

After the Funeral and They Do It with Mirrors are both based on the same trick of misdirection.

Murder on the Orient Express, At Bertram’s Hotel and, to a lesser extent, The Hollow are all built on a similar foundation.

Three Act Tragedy, Death in the Clouds and The ABC Murders all conceal the killer in similar surroundings.

And there are other examples that have, thus far, escaped notice:

‘The Tuesday Night Club’/A Pocket Full of Rye

‘A Christmas Tragedy’/Evil under the Sun

‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’/Ordeal by Innocence

‘The Love Detectives’/The Murder at the Vicarage