Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks by John Curran
Authors: John Curran
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the average opium den. Apart from The Big Four , and the more politically correct Poirot case ‘The Lost Mine’in 1923, no ‘Chinamen’ play a part in any of Christie’s detective novels. Unfortunately, she succumbs to stereotype in The Big Four where, as well as some cringe-inducing scenes with Oriental characters and ‘speech’, the chief villain, ‘the greatest criminal brain of all time’, is Chinese. But these stories had appeared some years earlier, pre-dating Knox.
Knox 3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
This Rule is taken to mean that no solution may turn on the existence of a secret passage. It was designed to eliminate the possibility of an exasperated reader hurling his detective novel across the room as the detective explains how the killer gained access to his closely guarded victim through such a passage, the existence of which was unknown up to that point. Christie is not above introducing the odd secret passage almost as a challenge to the cliché, but their very introduction long before the solution is in keeping with the tenet of this Rule. The Secret of Chimneys , Three Act Tragedy and ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’all feature, but openly and not covertly, a secret room or passage. The play Spider’s Web features a sliding panel with a concealed cavity; but its use pokes gentle fun at this convention.
Knox 10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
This Rule was formalised in an effort to avoid the disclosure that Suspect A, who had a cast-iron alibi for the night of the crime, was the guilty party because his alibi was provided by a hitherto unheard-of twin brother. Tongue firmly planted in literary cheek, Christie cocks a snook at this convention in ‘The Unbreakable Alibi’in Partners in Crime. This is her take on the alibi-breaking stories of her contemporary Freeman Wills Crofts. And look at the ingenious double-bluff of Lord Edgware Dies . The Big Four also has an episode featuring a twin – one Achille Poirot . . .
Van Dine 20. A list of devices, which no self-respecting detective story writer should avail himself of . . .
The bogus séance to force a confession
At the end of Peril at End House Poirot arranges something very like a séance in End House, but it is really a variation on his usual ‘all-the-suspects-in-the-drawing-room’ ploy – although he does manage to elicit a confession. At the other end of a story is the séance in The Sittaford Mystery , where such an event is cleverly stage-managed in order to set a plot in motion.
The unmasking of a twin or look-alike
In Partners in Crime , Christie has Tommy and Tuppence tweak this Rule in ‘The Unbreakable Alibi’.
The cipher/code-letter
In The Thirteen Problems Christie features a very clever version of the code-letter in ‘The Four Suspects’ and in the last book she wrote, Postern of Fate , Tommy and Tuppence find a hidden message that begins their final case.
The comparison of cigarette butts
‘Murder in the Mews’ features not just this idea but also the clue of the cigarette smoke, or, more accurately, the absence of cigarette smoke.
Knox 2. All supernatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
Van Dine 8. The problem of the crime must be solved by strictly naturalistic means.
These two Rules are, in effect, the same and are more strictly adhered to, but Christie still sails close to the wind on various occasions, especially in her short story output. The virtually unknown radio play Personal Call has a supernatural twist at the last minute just when the listener thinks that everything has been satisfactorily, and rationally, explained. Dumb Witness features the Tripp sisters, quasi-spiritualists, but apart from her collection The Hound of Death , which has a supernatural rather than a detective theme, most of Chritie’s stories are firmly rooted in the natural, albeit sometimes evil, real world. The
Knox 3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
This Rule is taken to mean that no solution may turn on the existence of a secret passage. It was designed to eliminate the possibility of an exasperated reader hurling his detective novel across the room as the detective explains how the killer gained access to his closely guarded victim through such a passage, the existence of which was unknown up to that point. Christie is not above introducing the odd secret passage almost as a challenge to the cliché, but their very introduction long before the solution is in keeping with the tenet of this Rule. The Secret of Chimneys , Three Act Tragedy and ‘The Adventure of Johnny Waverley’all feature, but openly and not covertly, a secret room or passage. The play Spider’s Web features a sliding panel with a concealed cavity; but its use pokes gentle fun at this convention.
Knox 10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
This Rule was formalised in an effort to avoid the disclosure that Suspect A, who had a cast-iron alibi for the night of the crime, was the guilty party because his alibi was provided by a hitherto unheard-of twin brother. Tongue firmly planted in literary cheek, Christie cocks a snook at this convention in ‘The Unbreakable Alibi’in Partners in Crime. This is her take on the alibi-breaking stories of her contemporary Freeman Wills Crofts. And look at the ingenious double-bluff of Lord Edgware Dies . The Big Four also has an episode featuring a twin – one Achille Poirot . . .
Van Dine 20. A list of devices, which no self-respecting detective story writer should avail himself of . . .
The bogus séance to force a confession
At the end of Peril at End House Poirot arranges something very like a séance in End House, but it is really a variation on his usual ‘all-the-suspects-in-the-drawing-room’ ploy – although he does manage to elicit a confession. At the other end of a story is the séance in The Sittaford Mystery , where such an event is cleverly stage-managed in order to set a plot in motion.
The unmasking of a twin or look-alike
In Partners in Crime , Christie has Tommy and Tuppence tweak this Rule in ‘The Unbreakable Alibi’.
The cipher/code-letter
In The Thirteen Problems Christie features a very clever version of the code-letter in ‘The Four Suspects’ and in the last book she wrote, Postern of Fate , Tommy and Tuppence find a hidden message that begins their final case.
The comparison of cigarette butts
‘Murder in the Mews’ features not just this idea but also the clue of the cigarette smoke, or, more accurately, the absence of cigarette smoke.
Knox 2. All supernatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
Van Dine 8. The problem of the crime must be solved by strictly naturalistic means.
These two Rules are, in effect, the same and are more strictly adhered to, but Christie still sails close to the wind on various occasions, especially in her short story output. The virtually unknown radio play Personal Call has a supernatural twist at the last minute just when the listener thinks that everything has been satisfactorily, and rationally, explained. Dumb Witness features the Tripp sisters, quasi-spiritualists, but apart from her collection The Hound of Death , which has a supernatural rather than a detective theme, most of Chritie’s stories are firmly rooted in the natural, albeit sometimes evil, real world. The
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