I am afraid that I have got into the habit of averting my attention whenever Poirot mentions his little grey cells. I have heard it all so often before.
(Captain Hastings tiring of Poirot – and he had another 24 novels and 30 years still to go)

‘I understood that you were an investigator of – crime, M. Poirot?’
‘Of problems, Lord Edgware. There are problems of crime, certainly. There are other problems.’ (Chapter 4)

‘Hastings, I would give a great deal to know what is behind that affair. There is something – I swear there is something.’
(The ‘there’s more to this than meets the eye’ trope, Chapter 4)

Poirot related the steps we had taken and the conclusion we had. (simple description of the theory-making that most of the books mostly consist of, Chapter 16)

‘The butler! Really, you surprise me.’ (one of the story’s many red herrings, Chapter 17)

It would awaken suspicion in an oyster. (Chapter 8)

Poirot made sympathetic noises, somewhat suggestive of a hen laying an egg. (Chapter 17)

‘Sorry, M. Poirot.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘But you did look for all the world like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.’ (Chapter 22)

‘Lord Edgware Dies’ is Agatha Christie’s seventh Hercule Poirot novel. It is once again narrated by his comically dense sidekick, Captain Hastings, who Poirot routinely insults and mocks but who he also needs to help him solve his cases, as he at one point explains (see below).

Setup

One morning George Alfred St. Vincent Marsh, fourth Baron Edgware, is found dead in the study of his home near Regent’s Park. He had been stabbed in the neck from behind while he was sitting at his desk. The doctor says he was stabbed the evening before. On that evening the butler had locked up because he thought the master had gone to bed.

Both his butler and maid testify that earlier on the fateful evening they saw Lord Edgeware’s disaffected wife, the famous American actress Jane Wilkinson, arrive, go into his study, spend some time with him, then sweep out. Now Jane stands to benefit from the murder since she inherits Edgeware’s fortune so she becomes suspect number one.

The only trouble is that she has a watertight alibi: she was at a dinner party hosted by Sir Montagu Corner out in Chiswick in the company of a dozen others, for the whole evening.

Now, the narrative had opened with Poirot and Hastings at the theatre attending a performance by the noted American female impressionist Carlotta Adams, which included an utterly convincing impersonation of Jane Wilkinson, her walk, and accent and mannerisms. Aha.

There’s lots of other clutter and confusion about the case so it takes Poirot a few hours to realise that it wasn’t Wilkinson who the butler and maid saw going into Lord Edgware’s study, it was Carlotta, impersonating Wilkinson. Someone paid Carlotta to do an impersonation of Wilkinson, dress like her, walk like her and visit her husband during the hours when the murder was committed, in order to implicate her.

As soon as Poirot realises this, he realises that Carlotta herself is in danger from the real murderer and races in a taxi with Hastings to her rooms but arrives too late. Carlotta herself has been found dead that same morning, apparently from an overdose of the sleeping draught, veronal.

We learn that earlier on the fatal evening, Wilkinson had been loudly telling her friends that she was too tired to go to Lord Corner’s dinner. Only at the last minute did she change her mind and decide to go.

So someone in Wilkinson’s close personal circle was under the impression she would be at home alone all evening, so that if they paid Carlotta to impersonate her visiting Edgware, and then somehow murdered Edgware soon afterwards, the guilt would fall very clearly on Wilkinson. She would be convicted for the crime and the inheritance would go to someone else depending, as always, on the precise terms of Edgware’s will.

Two people obviously stand to gain, namely 1) Miss Geraldine, Edgware’s daughter by his first wife (who ran off and left him) and who, Poirot discovers, hated her father with a passion; or his nephew, Captain Ronald Marsh, a ne’er-do-well who, in the standard way, led a dissolute lifestyle, had run up gambling debts, who had asked his uncle for a loan a few months earlier but had instead had his allowance cut off, so was bubbling with anger and revenge.

But the plan had gone awry because of Jane’s whimsical impetuousness i.e. changing her mind at the last minute and going to Corner’s dinner, contrary to everything she has been telling her friends. This is why the murderer’s plan had gone horribly wrong.

There is another major factor I haven’t mentioned yet. This is that, on the day Lord Edgware was murdered, Poirot had actually been to see him. At dinner after the theatre where they’d watched Carlotta perform, the night before, Poirot and Hastings had ended up at the same restaurant (the Savoy) as Jane Wilkinson (who had been at the same performance and so watched herself being lampooned) and she came over to their table. She introduced herself and, after initial chat, had asked Poirot if she could commission him for a simple task: could he go see Lord Edgware and persuade him to grant her, Wilkinson, a divorce. She has hated her marriage to Edgware who she describes as a sadistic monster, and has tried countless lawyers and arguments, but all have fallen on deaf ears.

So the next day Poirot and Hastings go to visit Edgware which gives us a sense of the man himself and the strange atmosphere of his household. I’m not sure how much Christie could say, just how much she was hampered by the censorship of the day, but the strong implication is that Edgware was a pervert: 1) his bookshelves are packed with classics of sadism and medieval torture; 2) his butler is an improbably beautiful young man (shades of Oscar Wilde and Dorian Grey); and 3) as they depart Hastings casts a glance back into his study and sees Edgware has an extraordinary primal expression of rage on his face.

That suave, smiling face was transformed. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarl, the eyes were alive with fury and an almost insane rage. (Chapter 4)

Poirot concludes:

‘I fancy that he is very near the border line of madness, Hastings. I should imagine he practises many curious vices and that beneath his frigid exterior he hides a deep-rooted instinct of cruelty.’ (Chapter 4)

Anyway, personal impressions aside, the remarkable thing about the visit is that, far from putting obstacles in their way, Edgware immediately agrees to divorce Wilkinson and goes on to say that he wrote her a letter to that effect six months earlier. Both Poirot and Hastings are flabbergasted and so is Wilkinson when they report back to her. What had changed his previously obstructive attitude, and who had been concealing it from Wilkinson i.e. did someone intercept the letter he wrote her?

As usual with my Christie reviews, I’ll stop summarising there, just as the text enters the world of theories and speculations, as not only Poirot and Hastings develop theories, but so does Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, not to mention secondary characters such as Miss Geraldine, as Captain Marsh (who now inherits the title Lord Edgware), Wilkinson’s former lover Bryan Martin, and so on and so on.

The text consists of visits to all these secondary characters, the new information and clues they provide, and the ever-changing theories they trigger among the investigators. until the reader is thoroughly confused and Poirot dramatically pulls the rabbit out of the hat and (in what Hastings calls his ‘lecture’ voice) reveals whodunnit and how.

Cast

• Jane Wilkinson, Lady Edgeware — talented young American actress well known in London; impulsive and supremely egotistical, knowing or caring nothing for anyone else, for example, supremely disinterested in who murdered her husband or why; she lives at the Savoy Hotel
  • Ellis, her maid ‘a neat middle-aged woman, with glasses and primly arranged grey hair’
• Carlotta Adams – ‘an American girl with the most amazing talent for single-handed sketches, unhampered by make-up or scenery’; ‘Soft, dark hair, eyes a rather colourless pale blue, pale face, and a mobile, sensitive mouth. A face that you liked but that you would find it hard to know again, if you were to meet her, say, in different clothes.’
  • Alice Bennett – Carlotta’s servant, who finds her dead in bed the morning after Lord Edgware is murdered
• Miss Jenny Driver – friend of Carlotta’s, runs a hat shop in Moffatt Street, just off Bond Street, named Genevieve. ‘A small vivacious creature with flaming red hair’, ‘She was a pugilistic little creature. She reminded me in some ways of a fox terrier’
• Bryan Martin – movie star, ‘a tall, extremely good-looking man, of the Greek god type’, at one time Jane Wilkinson’s boyfriend, but now she’s moved onto the rich Lord Merton
• The Duke of Merton – ‘A young man of monkish tendencies, a violent Anglo-Catholic, he was reported to be completely under the thumb of his mother, the redoubtable dowager duchess. His life was austere in the extreme. He collected Chinese porcelain and was reputed to be of aesthetic tastes. He was supposed to care nothing for women’ – ‘twenty-seven years of age. He was hardly prepossessing in appearance, being thin and weedy. He had nondescript hair, going bald at the temples, a small, bitter mouth and vague, dreamy eyes. There were several crucifixes in the room and various religious works of art. A wide shelf of books seemed to contain nothing but theological works. He looked far more like a weedy young haberdasher than like a duke.’
• Lord Edgeware – ‘a tall man of about fifty. He had dark hair streaked with grey, a thin face and a sneering mouth. He looked bad-tempered and bitter. His eyes had a queer, secretive look about them.’ “I enjoy the macabre. I always have. My taste is peculiar.”
• Alton, Lord Edgeware’s butler – ‘one of the handsomest young men I have ever seen. Tall, fair, he might have posed to a sculptor for Hermes or Apollo. Despite his good looks, there was something vaguely effeminate that I disliked about the softness of his voice’
• Miss Carroll – Lord Edgware’s secretary, ‘a pleasant, efficient-looking woman of about forty-five. Her fair hair was turning grey, and she wore pince-nez, through which a pair of shrewd blue eyes gleamed out on us.’
• Miss Geraldine Marsh, LE’s daughter – ‘a tall, slender girl, with dark hair and a white face’, ‘tall, thin, white-faced girl, with her big haunting black eyes’
• Captain Ronald Marsh – Lord Edgware’s nephew, ‘extravagant. Got into debt. There was some other trouble’ – inherits the title on his uncle’s death
• Mr Widburn – ‘a tall, cadaverous man’ visiting London who’s know Lord E and also Sir Montague Corner
• Mrs Widburn – ‘a plump, fair, gushing soul’
• Mr Moxon – Wilkinson’s solicitor
• Dr Heath – doctor who attended on Carlotta, ‘a fussy elderly man somewhat vague in manner’
• Sir Montagu Corner – whose dinner party Jane Wilkinson attended the evening her husband was murdered. ‘He had a distinctly Jewish cast of countenance, very small, intelligent black eyes and a carefully arranged toupee. He was a short man—five foot eight at most’
• Donald Ross – an actor they meet at Sir Montagu’s house, ‘a young fellow of about twenty-two, with a pleasant face and fair hair’
• Corner’s butler – ‘a tall, middle-aged man of ecclesiastical appearance’
• The taxi driver – ‘an old man with a ragged moustache and spectacles. He had a hoarse, self-pitying voice’

Poirot’s approach

‘Do you not know, my friend, that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desires and aptitudes? Mais oui, c’est vrai. One makes one’s little judgments – but nine times out of ten, one is wrong.’ (Chapter 1)

Poirot’s process has two parts, which can be summarised as:

1. order and method – do all the facts fit into the theory?
2. psychology – even if your theory corresponds with all the facts, do the actions ascribed to people match their psychology; are they psychologically plausible?

1. Order and method

Throughout the story Poirot is sharply contrasted with hapless Inspector Japp. Japp displays indefatigable energy, rushing all over the place, insisting on interviewing not only the major characters but tracking down peripheral figures no matter how marginally connected with the key events. In fact Poirot does his fair share of interviewing, too, but Christie is at pains to show how, having once assembled the key facts, Poirot spends just as much time in reflection, on pondering a narrative which takes account of all the facts, no matter how inconvenient.

‘I have noticed that, when we work on a case together, you are always urging me on to physical action, Hastings. You wish me to measure footprints, to analyse cigarette ash, to prostrate myself on my stomach for the examination of detail. You never realize that by lying back in an armchair, with the eyes closed, one can come nearer to the solution of any problem. One sees then with the eyes of the mind.’ (Chapter 1)

On several occasions we see Japp excitedly outlining his theory of events to Poirot and when Hastings or Poirot point out facts which don’t fit the narrative, Japp simply ignores them, sweeps them aside, says he’ll sort them out later.

POIROT: You think that covers all the facts?
JAPP: Well, naturally there are a lot of things we don’t know yet. It’s a good working hypothesis to go on with… (Chapter 16)

Japp skimps and settles for second best, a good enough fit:

‘Pity there’s no apparent motive, but a little spade work will soon bring it to light, I expect.’

‘No, I’m more than ever convinced it was the Adams girl. I’ve got nothing to prove it as yet, though…’

But it’s precisely these kinds of facts, the inconvenient details, the details which don’t fit and which Japp ignores, which Poirot spends his time sitting in an armchair revolving over and over in his mind till he can integrate them into a finished story.

‘There is something here I do not comprehend…’ (Chapter 25)

This is what he means by his much repeated mantra of reducing all the evidence to order and method.

‘But come, let us walk along the Embankment. I wish to arrange my ideas with order and method.’ (Chapter 4)

Japp thinks you must be always doing, finding, interviewing, examining the site etc – but he doesn’t devote nearly enough energy to reflecting on the evidence that he finds. His over-abundant energy is directly linked to his impatient, slapdash approach to theory. As the novel progressed I began to notice how many times they face off about this:

POIROT: You have a furious energy, Japp. It amazes me.
JAPP: Yes, you’re getting lazy. You just sit here and think! What you call employing the little grey cells. No good; you’ve got to go out to things. They won’t come.
(Chapter 17)

And Poirot to Japp:

‘You have the confidence—always the confidence! You never stop and say to yourself: ‘Can it be so?’ You never doubt—or wonder. You never think, “This is too easy!”’

2. Psychological consistency

Even when he and Hastings have devised a theory or narrative which accounts for most of the facts, there’s a last major stumbling block or test which is: do the actions ascribed to people in the theoretical model fit what we know about them? Are they psychologically plausible?

On numerous occasions the narrative perfectly matches what they know of the events, but Poirot still resists closure because he is convinced that so-and-so may be a thief but is not a murderer. Not only the facts must be explained by the theory, but the theory must match the psychology of the actors, as observed and analysed by Poirot. Over the years this has become the most interesting part, for him.

‘The psychology of character is interesting,’ returned Poirot, unmoved. ‘One cannot be interested in crime without being interested in psychology. It is not the mere act of killing; it is what lies behind it that appeals to the expert.’ (Chapter 1)

It’s this insistence on a believable psychology which separates Poirot most from the police. The police are only looking for enough evidence to secure a conviction whereas Poirot wants all the evidence plus psychological plausibility. And it’s this which he means when he refers to his much repeated phrase of employing the ‘little grey cells’ of the brain to solve a crime, rather than a magnifying glass or fingerprints.

‘At such moments the brain should be working feverishly, not sinking into sluggish repose. The mental activity — it is so interesting, so stimulating! The employment of the little grey cells is a mental pleasure. They and they only can be trusted to lead one through fog to the truth.’ (Chapter 1)

Poirot sings the power of the human brain:

‘Yes, yes, we can know. We shall know! The power of the human brain, Hastings, is almost unlimited.’ (Chapter 26)

Although that said, there are moments when Poirot’s egotism takes over and his claims to psychological expertise sound ridiculous.

‘Yes, Madame la Duchesse, I understand very well. I comprehend the mother’s heart. No one comprehends it better than I, Hercule Poirot.’ (Chapter 19)

It’s because all the facts have to fit together and the psychology of the players has to be right, that Poirot is so hard to please, hence his many laments on the same lines:

‘This seems the plain sailing and the above board. But there is something wrong. Somewhere or other, Hastings, there is a fact that escapes us. It all fits together, it is as I imagined it, and yet, my friend, there is something wrong.’ (Chapter 20)

As Japp is quick to complain:

‘The truth is you like things to be difficult. Here’s your own theory proved, and even that does not satisfy you. You are an odd sort of cove… Nothing ever satisfies you.’ (Chapter 20)

And:

‘He’s always been fond of having things difficult. A straightforward case is never good enough for him. No, it’s got to be tortuous.’ (Chapter 22)

3. Withholding his hand

I suppose there’s one final aspect to it all, which is that Poirot plays his cards very close to his chest, close as an oyster’, as Japp puts it. He doesn’t give much away and waits till the last minute to make his Big Reveal. To some extent this is just a function of the detective story as a genre, which strings people along until it’s quite ready to give up its secrets.

‘I wish you’d tell me what your theory – or your little idea – is?’
Poirot shook his head gently.
‘That is another rule. The detective never tells.’ (Chapter 17)

Poirot’s OCD

‘We will go round at once, my friend,’ he said; and, lovingly brushing an imagined speck of dust from his hat, he put it on his head. (Chapter 11)

Poirot’s obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is obviously assigned to him as a physical correlative of the mental obsession by which everything, every fact and observation and detail, must fit into the theory, with no discrepancies, nothing left out, nothing ruining the finished pattern of the story. It’s a simple enough device but, if anything, it’s noticeable how little she mentions it, only 3 or 4 times in this novel.

He greeted us both heartily. ‘Just going to have breakfast, I see. Not got the hens to lay square eggs for you yet, M. Poirot?’ This was an illusion to a complaint from Poirot as to the varying sizes of the eggs which had offended his sense of symmetry. (Chapter 5)

Old married couple

Hastings moans about Poirot like his wife, as if they are a married couple who get on each other’s nerves. This is humorous or, after a while, a bit tiresome, depending on taste.

Japp groaned. I felt a sneaking sympathy with him. Poirot can be intensely irritating at times. (Chapter 5)

I have a horror of doing anything conspicuous. The only thing that affects Poirot is the possibility of the damp or the heat affecting the set of his famous moustache.
(Chapter 10)

Poirot has the most irritating habit of joking at the wrong moment. (Chapter 12)

For example, it is obviously meant to be comic that he has had enough, more than enough, of listening to Poirot going on and on about the importance of ‘the little grey cells’, in fact he’s heard it so often that he thinks he will go mad if he has to hear it one more time.

I had fear an allusion to the little grey cells and was thankful to be spared it. (Chapter 3)

‘My questions, mon ami, are psychological. The little grey cells of the brain—’
‘Poirot,’ I said desperately. I felt that I must stop him at all costs. I could not bear to hear it all over again. (Chapter 14)

Hastings’s weakness for young ladies

As entirely predictable as Poirot’s catchphrases, his immense self-regard and stroking his moustaches, is Captain Hasting’s weakness for attractive young women. Considering that he’s married (he got married (he got married in the second Poirot novel, The Murder on the Links) and considerably older than these young women, it is all in questionable taste. Here he is finding himself haunted by a brief glimpse of Miss Geraldine in Lord Edgware’s house.

I recalled the startled face of the girl who had stood in the doorway. I could still see those burning dark eyes in the white face. That momentary glimpse had made a great impression on me. (Chapter 12)

And here is Poirot, just as predictably mocking his friend’s weakness.

‘You have always the tender heart, Hastings. Beauty in distress upsets you every.’ (Chapter 14)

And:

‘For the last hour I have been in a ladies’ beauty parlour. There was a girl there with auburn hair who would have captured your susceptible heart at once.’ (Chapter 25)

Hastings’s usefulness

And yet for all his mocking, Poirot needs Hastings to help him function, and this novel contains the fullest explanation yet of why:

‘No human being should learn from another. Each individual should develop his own powers to the uttermost, not try to imitate those of someone else. I do not wish you to be a second and inferior Poirot, I wish you to be the supreme Hastings. And you are the supreme Hastings. In you, Hastings, I find the normal mind almost perfectly illustrated.’
‘I’m not abnormal, I hope,’ I said.
‘No, no. You are beautifully and perfectly balanced. In you sanity is personified. Do you realise what that means to me? When the criminal sets out to do a crime his first effort is to deceive. Whom does he seek to deceive? The image in his mind is that of the normal man. There is probably no such thing actually —it is a mathematical abstraction. But you come as near to realizing it as is possible. There are moments when you have flashes of brilliance, when you rise above the averse, moments (I hope you will pardon me) when you descend to curious depths of obtuseness, but, take it all for all, you are amazingly normal. Eh bien, how does this profit me? Simply in this way. As in a mirror I see reflected in your mind exactly what the criminal wishes me to believe. That is terrifically helpful and suggestive.’ (Chapter 14)

And his stupidity

There are examples too many to mention where Poirot does or says something and Hastings thinks he’s losing it, barking up the wrong tree, is getting old and losing his powers. In every case, it is Hastings who is wrong. Here’s an example. They ask Jane Wilkinson’s maid, Ellis, to come for an interview. Half way through:

His hand, running aimlessly along the mantelshelf, caught a vase of roses and it toppled over. The water fell on Ellis’s face and head. I had seldom known Poirot clumsy, and I could deduce from it that he was in a great state of mental perturbation.

By this stage we have learned that whenever Hastings concludes anything, it is wrong. Poirot, of course, spilled the vase onto Ellis to that, in the confusion, he could swap her glasses for a pair found near the body of the murdered Carlotta. I.e. it was a cunning plan which Hastings completely misunderstood.

One major challenge with reading the Poirot novels is putting up with the fact that Hastings is meant to know him better than anyone, spends decades in his company, observes him in calm or stressful situations thousands of times, and yet continually, from start to end of every novel, completely misunderstands and misinterprets everything that Poirot does.

The text’s bookishness

‘Nothing here,’ Japp was saying. And Poirot replied with a smile: ‘Alas! not the cigarette ash —nor the footprint —nor a lady’s glove—nor even a lingering perfume! Nothing that the detective of fiction so conveniently finds.’ (Chapter 7)

‘The police are always made out to be as blind as bats in detective stories,’ said Japp with a grin. (Chapter 7)

‘I called to see my uncle yesterday morning. Why? To ask for money. Yes, lick your lips over that. And I went away without getting any. And that same evening — that very same evening — Lord Edgware dies. Good title that, by the way. Lord Edgware Dies. Look well on a bookstall.’
(The wastrel nephew, Captain Marsh, Chapter 13)

‘I always find alibis very enjoyable,’ he remarked. ‘Whenever I happen to be reading a detective story I sit up and take notice when the alibi comes along.’ (Chapter 13)

‘You are like someone who reads the detective story and who starts guessing each of the characters in turn without rhyme or reason.’ (Chapter 14)

‘”Having no reason to fear the truth,” as the heroes in books always say.’ (Ronnie Marsh, Chapter 21)

‘I see, Holmes,’ I remarked, ‘that you have tracked the ambassadorial boots.’ (Chapter 25)

Or pulp:

‘You could have knocked me over with a feather when he stepped up to the man and said: “I believe you,” for all the world as though he were acting in a romantic melodrama.’ (Japp describing Poirot’s behaviour, in Chapter 22)

Poirot’s rum Baba

We went to a little restaurant in Soho where he was well known, and there we had a delicious omelette, a sole, a chicken and a Baba au Rhum of which Poirot was inordinately fond.
(Chapter 14)

Bon mots

Sir Montagu was the type of man to whom intelligence consisted of the faculty of listening to his own remarks with suitable attention.

Dope

Drugs played a big part in the novel before this one, ‘Peril End House’, in which a major character, Frederica ‘Freddie’ Rice, is a recovering drug addict, introduced to it by her hardened addict husband (‘He was completely debased. He was a drug fiend. He taught me to take drugs. I have been fighting the habit ever since I left him’); and chocolates laced with cocaine nearly kill off the lead character, Magdala ‘Nick’ Buckley.

Drugs aren’t nearly so central here, but are casually mentioned. When the actor, Donald Ross, discusses Carlotta’s death, he says he read in the newspaper that she overdosed.

‘You knew Carlotta Adams, did you not?’
‘No. I saw her death announced in the paper tonight. Overdose of some drug or other. Idiotic the way all these girls dope.’ (Chapter 15)

And:

‘There’s been a mention in the papers of the little gold box with the ruby initials. Some reporter wrote it up. He was doing an article on the prevalence of dope-taking among young actresses. Sunday paper romantic stuff.’

Cocaine: moral panics about drugs (and sex) are always with us.

Christie’s butlers

I think it’s in ‘The Seven Dials Mystery’ that there are three different butlers – rulers of three different posh houses, each depicted with Christie’s droll sense of humour – and they alerted me to look out for the butlers in all her books – not as important contributors to the plot, but for adding to the comedy and humorous tone of the stories. Lord Montagu’s butler is ‘a tall, middle-aged man of ecclesiastical appearance’ and later:

The butler inclined his head and withdrew, pontifical to the last. (Chapter 15)

It’s against this backdrop of old, discreet, almost invisible family retainers, that Lord Edgware’s butler, young and Adonis-like, shines out all the more vividly (and suspiciously).

Antisemitism?

I’ve highlighted the slurs or questionable descriptions of Jewish characters which litter Christie’s novels. This is no exception. Sir Montagu Corner is one.

I looked with some interest at Sir Montagu Corner. He had a distinctly Jewish cast of countenance, very small, intelligent black eyes and a carefully arranged toupee. He was a short man—five foot eight at most, I should say. His manner was affected to the last degree…

As we sipped [brandy] Sir Montagu discoursed. He spoke of Japanese prints, of Chinese lacquer, of Persian carpets, of the French impressionists, of modem music and of the theories of Einstein. Then he sat back and smiled at us beneficently. He had evidently thoroughly enjoyed his performance. In the dim light looked like some genie of medieval days. All round the room were exquisite examples of art and culture.

And now, Sir Montagu,’ said Poirot. ‘I will trespass on your kindness no longer but will come to the object of my visit.’ Sir Montagu waved a curious claw-like hand.
‘There is no hurry. Time is infinite.’

‘Claw-like hand’? I take the point that Montagu is a caricature, like all Christie’s characters, in this case an oddity, an eccentric, a super-refined millionaire who has retired from the city to his suburban retreat where he lives in a rarefied atmosphere of luxury and aesthetic perfection, a detective story Des Esseintes. But still… there is a noticeable anti-Jewish vibe in all her novels. Here’s Inspector Japp:

‘Captain Marsh now, his lordship as now is. He’s got a motive sticking out a yard. A bad record too. Hard up and none too scrupulous over money. What’s more he had a row with his uncle yesterday morning. He told me that himself, as a matter of fact, which rather takes the taste out of it. Yes, he’d be a likely customer. But he’s got an alibi for yesterday evening. He was at the opera with the Dortheimers. Rich Jews. Grosvenor Square.’

Why mention that they’re Jews? Because he’s just being factual, painting details, in the same way he didn’t really have to specify Grosvenor Square. But it’s there. Like an occasional nudge in the ribs and knowing smile.

Clichés and stereotypes

But then her books are made out of stereotypes and tropes, of all kinds of types, genders, ethnicities.

In ‘Peril At End House’, old Sir Matthew Seton is said to be ‘the second richest man in England’. I laughed out loud when I read in this story that Jane Wilkinson’s inamorato, Lord Merton, is ‘one of the richest men in England’. Nothing but the best for Agatha. Well, if you’re going to have rich people, they might as well be stereotypical rich people.

It’s yet another reminder of how the stories are assembled from a relatively limited range of stock types and scenarios (the old millionaire, the resentful daughter, the wastrel son, the contested will, and so on and so on). What’s so impressive is the way Christie managed to recombine the same 20 or so stock types and stereotypes over a career spanning nearly 60 years.

The fiend!

Hard to pick the top cliché where so many jostle for attention, but one which stood out in the previous one in the series, ‘Peril at End House’, is the way Christie gets Poirot to hype up the murderer, to make them out to be a Moriarty, a Napoleon of crime, a Satan, a fiend in human form etc. It happens in the final stretches of the novel as a deliberate and obvious way of ramping up the tension, excitement and entertainment. If you succumb to it, that is. In ‘Peril’ we had:

‘Oh! the devil! The clever, cruel devil! To think of that! Ah, but he has genius, this man, genius!’ (Peril at End House, Chapter 17)

Here Poirot melodramatically declares:

‘The murderer, see you, Hastings, is as cunning as a tiger and as relentless.’ (Chapter 26)

Recycling

In ‘Peril at End House’ Hastings is shocked when Poirot reads someone else’s private correspondence.

‘Poirot,’ I cried, scandalised. ‘You really can’t do that. It isn’t playing the game.’
‘I am not playing a game, mon ami.’ His voice rang out suddenly harsh and stern. ‘I am hunting down a murderer.’ (Chapter 13)

Exactly the same reaction here, when Poirot reads a letter Lord Merton is writing.

‘It’s not – not playing the game.’
‘I do not play games. You know that. Murder is not a game. It is serious.’ (Chapter 18)

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Credit

‘Lord Edgware Dies’ by Agatha Christie was published in 1933 by the Collins Crime Club.

Related links

• Lord Edgware Dies online (PDF)
• Agatha Christie website

Related reviews

• Agatha Christie reviews
• 1930s reviews