Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making - Includes Two Unpublished Poirot Stories

It is another example of one of Christie’s favourite early plot devices—the summoning of Poirot to the scene of a suspected crime only to discover when he arrives that he is too late. As early as 1923 she first used this idea in The Murder on the Links, and subsequently in ‘The Cornish Mystery’, Dumb Witness and ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’ (see the Appendix). It can be seen why—it has an emotional and a practical impact. The summoner, who has promised to explain the situation in detail, is now unable to do so and Poirot has a moral, as well as a practical, imperative to solve the crime. There is also the plot device of the victim having known ‘too much’, always a good way to start a detective story. In ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’, the appearance of a Russian character would have been very unusual in detective fiction of the day. In fact, the appearance of any foreigner (including Poirot) is always viewed with suspicion by the inhabitants of small villages throughout the Christie canon. And, of course—as can be seen in Dumb Witness—this allowed Christie to subvert, yet again, the readers’ prejudices.

The eponymous main character, Mary Delafontaine, became a byword in Christie’s shorthand, appearing in abbreviated form in the course of plotting Third Girl and Ordeal by Innocence respectively, even though she was used in the final plot of neither novel:

Mary Del.—Arthur (innocent husband)—Katrina—suspicious, passionate—for money looks after old boy

Olivia (The Mary Delafontaine wife)

The name was also used for one of the victims in The Pale Horse; she is a friend of Mrs Oliver in Chapter 1 and she appears on Father Gorman’s doomed list in the following chapter.

Ten Little Niggers 6 November 1939

Ten strangers are invited to a weekend on an island off the coast of Devon. Their host fails to appear and a series of deaths among their fellow-guests make them realise that one of them is a killer following the macabre nursery rhyme that hangs in each bedroom.

Ten little nigger boys went out to dine One choked his little self and then there were nine; Nine little nigger boys sat up very late One overslept himself and then there were eight; Eight little nigger boys travelling in Devon One said he’d stay there and then there were seven; Seven little nigger boys chopping up sticks One chopped himself in half and then there were six; Six little nigger boys playing with a hive A bumble bee stung one and then there were five; Five little nigger boys going in for law One got in Chancery and then there were four; Four little nigger boys going out to sea A red herring swallowed one and then there were three; Three little nigger boys walking in the Zoo A big bear hugged one and then there were two; Two little nigger boys sitting in the sun One got frizzled up and then there was one; One little nigger boy left all alone He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

Ten Little Niggers (also known as And Then There Were None) is Agatha Christie’s most famous novel, her greatest technical achievement and the best-selling crime novel of all time. Of all the ‘nursery rhyme’ titles this is the one that sticks closest to its origins. Although Christie adopted the ‘He got married and then there were none’ ending for the stage adaptation, she used the original ending for the climax of the novel. The existence of the rhyme is a constant theme throughout the novel, especially when the characters realise what is happening. The manner of each death cleverly echoes the rhyme, the only slightly jarring note being the death of Blore where the difficult Zoo idea is somewhat stretched.

With the writing of this book Christie set herself a challenge and in her Autobiography she describes how the difficulty of the central idea attracted her: ‘Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning…It was clear, straightforward, baffling and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation…the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been.’

As we saw in Chapter 2, this ‘tremendous planning’ is not evident from Notebook 65, the only one to feature this novel. This Notebook does, however, include interesting details of various characters that did not make it into the completed book. And, on the evidence of the Notebooks alone, it would seem to be the characters themselves that gave most trouble. At no stage are ten characters listed. At first there are eight (I have added probable names to both lists, although Vera Claythorne, Emily Brent, Philip Lombard and General MacArthur appear in the novel as listed in the Notebook, although minor background details were to change):

When Collins began to advertise Ten Little Niggers in Booksellers Record in July 1939, they called it, quite simply, ‘the greatest story Agatha Christie has ever written’. But their item in the Crime Club News incurred the wrath of the writer herself and she wrote from Greenway House on 24 July to William Collins to protest. She felt that too much of the plot was revealed, pointing out that ‘any book is ruined when you know exactly what is going to happen all the way along’. She also includes a veiled threat when she reminds him that she is just about to sign a contract for her next four books and is unwilling to do so unless they can guarantee that this error of judgement will not be repeated. Despite the fact that Collins declared it to be ‘certainly the greatest detective story that the Crime Club has ever published and probably, we believe, the world will declare it the greatest detective story ever written’, they included too many revelations. It is obvious what she means. They write about the island, the rhyme, the disappearing china figures, the realisation that the killer is among them and, most damning of all, the fact that the last one to die is not necessarily the villain. One’s sympathies are entirely with Agatha Christie; all they omitted was the name of the killer.

Ten Niggers

Doctor—drunk at op—or careless [Dr Armstrong]

Judge—unjust Summing Up [Judge Wargrave]

Man and Wife—Servants (did in old lady) [Mr and Mrs Rogers]

Girl—whose lover shot himself [Vera]

Husband and wife—Blackmailing

Allenby—Youngish man—dangerous alert [Lombard]

At a later stage, to judge from the change from pencil to pen and the slightly different handwriting, she tries again. This time she includes 12 characters:

1. Vera Claythorne—Secretary at school—has applied at agency for holiday post

2. Mr Justice Swettenham in first class carriage [Judge Wargrave]

3. Doctor—telegram from Gifford—Can you join us—etc. [Dr Armstrong]

4 5. Capt and Mrs Winyard—Letters—mutual friend Letty Harrington—Come for weekend

6. Lombard—visited by solicitor or confidential agent—offered one hundred guineas—take it or leave it

7. University student who runs over children—a bit tight—arrives in car [Anthony Marston]

8. Llewellyn Oban—Committed perjury in murder case—man executed [Blore]

9. Emily Brent—turned out maidservant—later drank oxalic acid—letter from someone starting guest house and is a friend of hers—free stay

10 11. Man and wife servant [Mr and Mrs Rogers]

12. General MacArthur—killed 30 men unnecessarily in war

Each of the lists includes a husband-and-wife combination, Capt. and Mrs Winyard in the latter list, and these were the ones to be dropped. The second listing is much nearer to that of the novel although it is possible to discern the germ of the characters in the first tentative listing.

Two further refinements to the plot are included between characters 8 and 9 in the Notebook. Most of the guests to the island are lured by arrangements or invitations made by a Mr or Mrs Owens, sometimes with the initials ‘U.N.’ or, as Justice Wargrave says at the end of Chapter 3, ‘by a slight stretch of fancy: UNKNOWN’. The initials undergo a few variations and the first note below is probably the seed of this idea. The second note refers to the diminishing collection of china figurines on the dining-room table:

Ulick Noel Nomen

Ten Little Niggers on dinner table

After a blank page the notes begin with Chapter 9 and, over the next six pages, trace the course of the rest of the novel including the scene at Scotland Yard. This means that the last seven murders (from Rogers onwards) are all covered in this relatively short space, lending further support to the theory that the plotting for the book was done elsewhere and Notebook 65 represents the almost-finished plot.

Chapter IX

Judge takes charge—exhibits a good deal of quickwittidness [sic]—Armstrong and Wargrave—Judge has an idea. The storm comes on—all of them huddled into a room—nerves crackling. Next morning—no Rogers—no sign of him—breakfast not laid. Men search island—at breakfast—suddenly Vera sees—Seven Six niggers. Growing suspicion of Emily—a face watches her—a wasp stings her—dead bee on floor. Everyone terrified—all keep together. Where’s old Wargrave—they find him dressed up in red robe and wig. He and Blore carry him up—the dining room—still 5 niggers. The 3 of them—criminal must be Armstrong. Finally: body washed up Armstrong! Blore crushed by falling rock. Vera and Lombard—one of us—her fears—self preservation—she gets his revolver—finally she shoots him—at last—safe—Hugo

The investigation—

The other deaths Owen? V and L last? Mrs R[ogers] and AM [Marston] all dead—

Morris dead too—he did all arrangements—committed suicide—dead—

Young man suggests Wargrave—Edward Seton was guilty—Old Wargrave was queer

Epilogue—Letter in bottle—he describes how it was done

One idea that was abandoned was that of a ‘watcher’ throughout the action. After the death of Emily Brent we read in the Notebook that ‘A face watches her’; and at the climax of the story, when Vera goes up to her room the notes read ‘Goes up to her bedroom—the noose—man steps out of darkness’. In retrospect the reader can imagine the killer ‘watching’ the

An interesting footnote is provided by Christie’s great American contemporary fellow crime-writer Ellery Queen. In his In the Queen’s Parlor (1957) he discloses how, twice during his writing career, he had to abandon a book-in-progress when he read the latest Agatha Christie. Francis M. Nevins in his study of Queen, Royal Bloodline, confirms that one of these was a plot based on the same idea as Ten Little Niggers.

unfolding of his plan, both before and after his supposed death, but it appears from these brief references that Christie toyed with the idea of mentioning the nameless ‘watcher’. Far more effective and less melodramatic, however, is the concept she adopted at the end of Chapter 11, and again in Chapter 13, when she allows us to share the thoughts of the six remaining characters, including the killer’s, but without identifying the thinker.

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: