All posts tagged Leahampton

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (1927)

‘Pardon my Stevensonian manner.’

‘Begin right at the beginning, if you will, please. I have a very trivial mind. Detail delights me. Ramifications enchant me. Distance no object. No reasonable offer refused…’
(Wimsey’s rambling manner)

‘I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for natural inquisitiveness, don’t you see, which might otherwise strike inward and produce introspection an’ suicide. Very natural, healthy pursuit—not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the mind.’ (Chapter 4)

‘You’re a noticing one, aren’t you?’ said Mrs Cropper. ‘Make a good waiter, you would—not meaning any offence, sir, that’s a real compliment from one who knows.’
(Chapter 10)

Plot summary

This is the third Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. It is a very long, convoluted story about a will which involves understanding a complex family tree which goes back to the late eighteenth century.

It opens with Wimsey and his good friend, Detective Charles Parker, having a meal in a cheap Soho restaurant and arguing about the behaviour of a doctor in a murder case. Their argument prompts a chap dining alone at the next table to introduce himself as a doctor who has had a similar experience and Wimsey promptly asks him to tell his story.

He was physician to an elderly lady dying of cancer who’d had several operations. She was attended by a nurse who he fell in love with and he thought the old girl had months left to live. But then the woman’s great-niece dismissed the nurse, and two servants, replaced her with a new nurse and took over full-time care of her herself. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the old lady died, leaving everything to her great-niece.

The physician was, understandably, suspicious and insisted on a post-mortem and full inquest. However, both found no evidence of foul play and his conscientiousness rebounded on him as the small village community closed ranks to defend the great-niece and accuse him of meddling, throwing in the idea that he had neglected caring for the lady because of his affair with her first nurse. His clients started to drop him and eventually he was forced to sell the practice altogether which is why he finds himself unemployed in a cheap restaurant in Soho.

Wimsey is immediately grabbed by this (to be frank) boring and banal story and won’t let it go. The unnamed physician finishes his story and leaves without introducing himself or giving the names of any of the people in his tale.

So Wimsey gets in touch with a new character, a spinster lady named Miss Alexandra Katharine Climpson, to investigate, by going to Somerset House and searching for deaths which match these circumstances. (It is typical of Wimsey, and Sayers’ sense of humour, that Wimsey pranks his friend Detective Parker by inviting him to come and meet old Miss Climpson in phrases which make it seem as if he has taken a mistress and set her up in a swanky flat, which Parker believes until the door to the flat in question is opened by a sweet little old lady, and he turns to see Wimsey’s face beaming at him.

After a lot of sifting Miss C identifies the participants as follows: the old lady who died was Miss Agatha Dawson; her great-niece is Mary Whittaker; the doctor who talked to them in the restaurant is Dr Edward Carr; the nurse he fell in love with and who was then dismissed is a Miss Philliter; the two servants who were dismissed are Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed. The small town where this all took place is Leahampton in Hampshire.

Wimsey then instructs Miss C to go down to Leahampton, take a room somewhere and make enquiries among the old gossips of the town about the Agatha Dawson affair – which she promptly does, taking a room with Mrs Budge of ‘Fairview’, and attending tea parties with the vicar, Mr Tredgold and his charming wife, and meeting such village luminaries as Miss Murgatroyd, Mrs Peasgood and so on. ‘Gossip’ is the word the characters themselves use.

‘It really is terrible, living in a little town like this,’ went on Miss Findlater, ‘so full of aspidistras, you know, and small gossip. You’ve no idea what a dreadfully gossipy place Leahampton is, Miss Climpson.’ (Chapter 5)

Miss C writes back to Wimsey that there’s no sense of foul play or no more than circulates in any circle of gossipy old ladies. At the same tea party she meets Miss Whittaker and is immediately impressed:

The first impression which Miss Climpson got of Mary Whittaker was that she was totally out of place among the tea-tables of S. Onesimus. With her handsome, strongly-marked features and quiet air of authority, she was of the type that ‘does well’ in City offices. She had a pleasant and self-possessed manner, and was beautifully tailored—not mannishly, and yet with a severe fineness of outline that negatived the appeal of a beautiful figure. (Chapter 5)

Miss C discovers that clever Miss Whittaker has a fan, an acolyte, the devoted Miss Findley who is encouraging her plan to quit Leahampton and set up a chicken farm where they can both live close to the soil (!)

Despite Parker pointing out that there is no evidence of any crime being committed, Wimsey is intrigued and decides to put a ‘fishing’ advert in the press to see what happens. It reads:

Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed, formerly in the service of Miss Agatha Dawson, of ‘The Grove,’ Wellington Avenue, Leahampton, are requested to communicate with J. Murbles, solicitor, of Staple Inn, when they will hear of SOMETHING TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.’

What happens is that a few days later the dead body of Bertha Gotobed turns up in undergrowth in Epping Forest. The local cops think she died of a heart attack since there are no marks on the body, no sign of foul play. But Wimsey is galvanised. He is now convinced that someone murdered Miss Dawson and is now covering their tracks by bumping off any witnesses.

Bertha’s landlady is called in to identify the body and confirms that the other Gotobed sister, Evelyn, got married and moved to Canada with her husband.

In a tree nearby Wimsey finds a very posh ham sandwich wrapped in paper, posher than Bertha’s class, alongside a bottle of Bass beer. And in her handbag a £5 note, again much above her station. In those days you could trace notes and the cops identify this one as one of a series paid out to a Mrs Forrest, living in South Audley Street.

So off Wimsey and Parker go to question her, Wimsey frivolously posing under the pseudonym Mr Templeton. Mrs Forrest is rich and self-possessed and explains that she is in the process of divorcing her husband and has an active lover. Wimsey makes a fuss about fixing drinks for them (behind a fashionable screen) and takes the opportunity of secreting a glass she’s handled out the window in order to retrieve it later and get her fingerprints and see if there are any fingerprints on the beer bottle: there aren’t…

Parker is still puzzled why Wimsey cares so much about the case and Wimsey explains that he has an entire library of books about murders and murderers, but they are only about the ones we know about. What about the thousands and thousands who get away with it because no crime is even suspected? This may be one of those. He is interested in it:

‘Because I believe this is the case I have always been looking for. The case of cases. The murder without discernible means, or motive or clue.’ (Chapter 8)

The plot is long and convoluted and long before the end I was wondering why I was bothering. Suffice to say it is about the old girl’s money, about the will she left, and involves her very extended family in so convoluted a manner that the book requires an extensive and confusing family tree of the Dawson family to help you understand…

Cast

  • Lord Peter Wimsey
  • Mervyn Bunter – his faithful man servant (served under him in the Great War)
  • Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard – ‘He’s the one who really does the work’, a ‘restraining presence’ on Wimsey’s over-exuberant impetuosity – ‘When he worked with Wimsey on a case, it was an understood thing that anything lengthy, intricate, tedious and soul-destroying was done by Parker’
  • Dr Edward Carr – doctor to Miss Agatha Dawson
  • Agatha Dawson – old lady dying of cancer, had had several operations, was reckoned to last another 6 months or so, but her great-niece dismissed her nurse, and two carers, the Gotobed sisters, and then Miss D suddenly dies
  • Miss Whittaker – the niece
  • Miss Findlater – devoted fan of Miss Whittaker, ‘a slight, fair girl, with a rather sentimental look—plump and prettyish’ – a ‘very gushing and really silly young woman’
  • Nurse Philliter – original nurse and carer for Miss Dawson, fell in love with Dr Carr, became engaged, was then dismissed
  • Miss Katherine Climpson – ‘a thin, middle-aged woman, with a sharp, sallow face and very vivacious manner. She wore a neat, dark coat and skirt, a high-necked blouse and a long gold neck-chain with a variety of small ornaments dangling from it at intervals, and her iron-grey hair was dressed under a net, in the style fashionable in the reign of the late King Edward’
  • Sir Andrew Mackenzie – Chief of Scotland Yard
  • Mr John Murbles – solicitor and friend of Wimsey, featured in ‘Clouds of Witness’, resident at Staples Inn
  • Superintendent Walmsley – officer in charge of the scene of Bertha’s body
  • Dorcas Gulliver – landlady of the murdered Bertha Gotobed
  • John Ironsides – was to have married Miss Bertha, a clerk on the Southern Railway
  • Mrs Forrest, living in South Audley Street – classy lady one of whose five pound notes was found in Bertha’s purse, getting divorced and has a lover yet inexplicably tries to seduce Wimsey
  • Mrs Piggin – landlady of the Fox and Hounds in Crofton
  • Jim Piggin – husband and landlord
  • Ben Cobling – 87, Miss Clara Whittaker’s groom for forty years
  • Mrs Cobling – 85, ‘a delightful old lady, exactly like a dried-up pippin’
  • Mr Probyn – Miss Whittaker’s solicitor and managed all Miss Dawson’s business in Croftover Magna, now retired to the Villa Bianca, Fiesole
  • Bishop Lambert of the Orinoco Mission
  • the Rev. Hallelujah Dawson – ‘an elderly West Indian of… humble and inoffensive… appearance’
  • Esmeralda – Cockney street urchin who protects Wimsey’s parked car for half a crown
  • Mr Towkington of Gray’s Inn – expert on property law – ‘a large, square man with a florid face and a harsh voice’
  • J. F. Trigg – solicitor in Bedford Row
  • Mrs Marion Mead – false name Mary Whittaker gives to the lawyer Trigg when she invites him to the empty house in Hampstead
  • Sir James Lubbock – scientist consulted by Wimsey in the research for his book, ‘The Murderer’s Vade-Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death’
  • Sir Charles Pillington – Chief Constable of Hampshire
  • Mr Andrews – local photographer roped in to take photos of the body of Vera Findlater
  • local doctor – a ‘tutster’ who examines the body of Vera Findlater
  • Dr Faulkner – sent by Scotland Yard to double check the local man’s verdict, ‘a lean, grey badger of a man, business-like and keen-eyed’
  • Mr Stanniforth – Sacristan of the church of Saint Onesimus
  • Dewsby – head of the fingerprint department at Scotland Yard

Wimsey trivia

Wimsey is 37 (Chapter 15).

In the first book Wimsey very much smoked a pipe. Now he smokes stylish cigarettes, Sobranes. And cigars. Parker smokes a well-worn briar pipe.

Lord Peter paused, in the very act of ringing the bell. His jaw slackened, giving his long, narrow face a faintly foolish and hesitant look, reminiscent of the heroes of Mr P.G. Wodehouse. (Chapter 6)

Wimsey has bought a new car:

‘The new Daimler Twin-Six,’ said Lord Peter, skimming dexterously round a lorry without appearing to look at it. ‘With a racing body.’

Wimsey’s blether

In a characteristically arcane literary reference, Wimsey nicknames his new car ‘Mrs Merdle’ because it is very quiet or ‘makes no row’, and Mrs Merdle, in Charles Dickens’ novel ‘Little Dorrit’, is an arriviste i.e. newly rich, and causes a minor scandal by very noisily taking his seat in the theatre and his wife tells him to stop making a row. To be honest, this reference is so obscure I don’t really understand it…

But that may be part of the point of Wimsey’s countless fleeting cultural references, part of the point is the speed with which he drops them and races on, leaving most of his interlocutors thinking he’s mad.

‘It’s quite all right,’ he said apologetically, ‘I haven’t come to sell you soap or gramophones, or to borrow money or enroll you in the Ancient Froth-blowers or anything charitable. I really am Lord Peter Wimsey—I mean, that really is my title, don’t you know, not a Christian name like Sanger’s Circus or Earl Derr Biggers. I’ve come to ask you some questions, and I’ve no real excuse, I’m afraid, for butting in on you—do you ever read the News of the World?’
Nurse Philliter decided that she was to be asked to go to a mental case, and that the patient had come to fetch her in person. (Chapter 4)

Or else talks in elliptical telegraphese as here when he summarises his theory about Bertha Gotobed’s demise:

Said Wimsey: ‘We suggested shock, you know. Amiable gentleman met at flat of friendly lady suddenly turns funny after dinner and makes undesirable overtures. Virtuous young woman is horribly shocked. Weak heart gives way. Collapse. Exit. Agitation of amiable gentleman and friendly lady, left with corpse on their hands. Happy thought motor-car; Epping Forest; exeunt omnes, singing and washing their hands. Where’s the difficulty?’ (chapter 8)

Or just general-purpose facetiousness, as here when he rings up Dr Carr:

‘Hullo! hullo—ullo! oh, operator, shall I call thee bird or but a wandering voice?… Not at all, I had no intention of being rude, my child, that was a quotation from the poetry of Mr Wordsworth… well, ring him again… thank you, is that Dr Carr?… Lord Peter Wimsey speaking… oh, yes… yes… aha!… not a bit of it… We are about to vindicate you and lead you home, decorated with triumphal wreaths of cinnamon and senna-pods…’

Presumably this is intended to be funny and endearing but well before I was halfway through this novel I’d concluded that Wimsey really is a tiresome berk and to give up reading any more.

‘Be thou as chaste as ice and have a license as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. I am not a dangerous driver. Buck up and get your leave. The snow-white horsepower foams and frets and the blue bonnet—black in this case—is already, in a manner of speaking, over the border.’ (Chapter 11)

‘Sorrow vanquished, labour ended, Jordan passed. Buzz off, my lad. No, Charles, I will not wait while you put on a Burberry. Back and side go bare, go bare, hand and foot go cold, so belly-god send us good ale enough, whether it be new or old.’

He often sounds a bit like the Fool in King Lear i.e. so arcane and scatter-brained as to sound mad.

‘Well, well—we’ll have a spot of lunch and write a letter to Mr Probyn and another to my good friend Bishop Lambert of the Orinoco Mission to get a line on Cousin Hallelujah, Smile, smile, smile. As Ingoldsby says: ‘The breezes are blowing a race, a race! The breezes are blowing—we near the chase!’ Do ye ken John Peel? Likewise, know’st thou the land where blooms the citron-flower? Well, never mind if you don’t—you can always look forward to going there for your honeymoon.’ (Chapter 12).

Or:

‘Well now, as to the medical problem—the means. I must say that up to now that appears completely insoluble. I am baffled, Watson (said he, his hawk-like eyes gleaming angrily from under the half-closed lids). Even I am baffled. But not for long! (he cried, with a magnificent burst of self-confidence). My Honour (capital H) is concerned to track this Human Fiend (capitals) to its hidden source, and nail the whited sepulchre to the mast even though it crush me in the attempt! Loud applause. His chin sank broodingly upon his dressing-gown, and he breathed a few guttural notes into the bass saxophone which was the cherished companion of his solitary hours in the bathroom.’
Parker ostentatiously took up the book which he had laid aside on Wimsey’s entrance.
‘Tell me when you’ve finished,’ he said, caustically.

It’s almost as if he’s brain damaged.

Wimsy’s flippancy

Sayers loses no opportunity to make Wimsey frivolous and flippant. He is given to extended comic fantasias, satirically quoting poems, adverts, newspapers headlines, in youthful high spirits, while his interlocutors have to wait until he’s quite finished before they can get a word in. And the reader, also, has to wait before he gets to the point.

This can get tiresome. Take this reply to Parker who says there’s nothing to the death of this old lady, to which Wimsey is saying that, on the contrary, he suspects there is. But this is how he puts it

‘You’ve got an official mind, Charles,’ replied his friend. ‘Your official passion for evidence is gradually sapping your brilliant intellect and smothering your instincts. You’re over-civilised, that’s your trouble. Compared with you, I am a child of nature. I dwell among the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove, a maid whom there are (I am shocked to say) few to praise, likewise very few to love, which is perhaps just as well.’ (Chapter 6)

All of which is a humorous misapplication of a famous poem by William Wordsworth, She dwelt among the untrodden ways if, humorous, that is, you find this kind of long-winded, literary byplay humorous. In the same way that the following quote is a humorous reference to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, ‘The Raven’.

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying the same thing, Charles. It bores me so. It’s like the Raven never flitting which, as the poet observes, still is sitting, still is sitting, inviting one to heave the pallid bust of Pallas at him and have done with it.’ (Chapter 14)

Bookishness

Like Agatha Christie, Sayers has her characters repeatedly make references to books, crime stories, murder mysteries and so on, thus emphasising the artificiality of the entire story.

‘Oh, by one of those native poisons which slay in a split second and defy the skill of the analyst. They are familiar to the meanest writer of mystery stories.’

‘Outlet,’ said Wimsey, energetically, ‘hi! taxi!… outlet—everybody needs an outlet—97A, St. George’s Square—and after all, one can’t really blame people if it’s just that they need an outlet. I mean, why be bitter? They can’t help it. I think it’s much kinder to give them an outlet than to make fun of them in books—and, after all, it isn’t really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as most people seem to get nowadays.’ (Chapter 3)

‘That’s so. Well, there’s only one thing that could prevent that happening, and that’s—oh, lord! old son. Do you know what it works out at? The old, old story, beloved of novelists—the missing heir!’ (Chapter 11)

‘[She] gets the said minions to polish her off before she can do any mischief.’
‘Yes, but how?’
‘Oh, by one of those native poisons which slay in a split second and defy the skill of the analyst. They are familiar to the meanest writer of mystery stories.’ (Chapter 11)

Or references to specific books:

At intervals the patient Bunter unpacked himself from the back seat and climbed one of these uncommunicative guides to peer at its blank surface with a torch—a process which reminded Parker of Alan Quartermain trying to trace the features of the departed Kings of the Kukuanas under their calcareous shrouds of stalactite. (Chapter 12)

Epigraphs

Of course the most bookish thing about this novel is the epigraphs. Each of the 23 chapters is prefaced by epigraphs from a deliberate and show-off range of sources, including half a dozen or more from Shakespeare, George Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Don Quixote, Samuel Butler, Tennyson, Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, as well as outliers such as Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the popular novelists Gilbert Frankau and Edmund Pearson, the 17th century jurist Sir Edward Coke, the statesman Edmund Burke, 18th century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

As you can see, this is an ostentatiously eclectic and showy selection.

Sherlock

This bookish referentiality is epitomised by repeated references to Sherlock Holmes, as if invoking his name somehow lays his ghost, whereas it tends to do the opposite and trigger comparisons of the present novel with Conan Doyle’s masterpieces, against which it mightily suffers.

‘Good gracious!’ cried Charles, ‘it’s perfectly obvious—’
‘Shut up, Sherlock,’ said his friend,

‘Anyhow, curious cases are rather a hobby of mine. In fact, I’m not just being the perfect listener. I have deceived you. I have an ulterior motive, said he, throwing off his side-whiskers and disclosing the well-known hollow jaws of Mr Sherlock Holmes.’ (Chapter 2)

‘I told you I’d be turnin’ up again before long,’ said Lord Peter, cheerfully. ‘Sherlock is my name and Holmes is my nature.’ (Chapter 4)

‘I must say that up to now that appears completely insoluble. I am baffled, Watson (said he, his hawk-like eyes gleaming angrily from under the half-closed lids).’
(Chapter 19)

Lesbians?

Delving deeper into the Dawson family, Wimsey and Parker discover that old Agatha lived for many years with Clara Whittaker, a fierce, mannish rider to hounds. Is there any hint that they were lesbians? Or was two unmarried women living together for many years taken at face value a hundred years ago?

Lord Peter and Parker looked with considerable interest at the rather grim old woman sitting so uncompromisingly upright with the reins in her hand. A dour, weather-beaten old face, but certainly handsome still, with its large nose and straight, heavy eyebrows. And beside her, smaller, plumper and more feminine, was the Agatha Dawson whose curious death had led them to this quiet country place. She had a sweet, smiling face—less dominating than that of her redoubtable friend, but full of spirit and character. Without doubt they had been a remarkable pair of old ladies. (Chapter 11)

And here’s her devoted old groom remembering her:

‘Straight as a switch, with a fine, high colour in her cheeks and shiny black hair—just like a beautiful two-year-old filly she was. And very sperrited. Wonnerful sperrited. There was a many gentlemen as would have been glad to hitch up with her, but she was never broke to harness. Like dirt, she treated ’em. Wouldn’t look at ’em, except it might be the grooms and stablehands in a matter of ’osses. And in the way of business, of course. Well, there is some creatures like that…. The Lord makes a few on ’em that way to suit ’Is own purposes, I suppose. There ain’t no arguin’ with females.’

And his wife’s view:

‘Often she used to say to me, ‘Betty,’ she said, ‘I mean to be an old maid and so does Miss Clara, and we’re going to live together and be ever so happy, without any stupid, tiresome gentlemen.’ And so it turned out, sir, as you know…’

And the Chief Constable’s:

He put his hand down behind the cushions of the car and pulled out an American magazine—that monthly collection of mystery and sensational fiction published under the name of The Black Mask.
‘Light reading for the masses,’ said Parker.
‘Brought by the gentleman in the yellow boots, perhaps,’ suggested the Chief Constable.
‘More likely by Miss Findlater,’ said Wimsey.
‘Hardly a lady’s choice,’ said Sir Charles, in a pained tone.
‘Oh, I dunno. From all I hear, Miss Whittaker was dead against sentimentality and roses round the porch, and the other poor girl copied her in everything. They might have a boyish taste in fiction.’

The female perspective

Old spinster Mrs Climpson is given a number of insights or perceptions about the female experience. Early on she has a sad piece of autobiography about the severe limitations placed on women of her generation, which reminded me of Virginia Woolf’s powerful feminist polemic, Three Guineas.

‘A dear old friend of mine used to say that I should have made a very good lawyer,’ said Miss Climpson, complacently, ‘but of course, when I was young, girls didn’t have the education or the opportunities they get nowadays, Mr Parker. I should have liked a good education, but my dear father didn’t believe in it for women. Very old-fashioned, you young people would think him…

‘My dear father would be surprised to find his daughter so business-like. He always said a woman should never need to know anything about money matters, but times have changed so greatly, have they not?’ (Chapter 3)

And other miscellaneous insights from an ageing spinster’s point of view:

With her long and melancholy experience of frustrated womanhood, observed in a dreary succession of cheap boarding-houses, Miss Climpson was able to dismiss one theory which had vaguely formed itself in her mind. This was no passionate nature, cramped by association with an old woman and eager to be free to mate before youth should depart. That look she knew well—she could diagnose it with dreadful accuracy at the first glance, in the tone of a voice saying, ‘How do you do?’ (Chapter 5)

And:

Miss Findlater has evidently quite a ‘pash’ (as we used to call it at school) for Miss Whittaker, and I am afraid none of us are being flattered by such outspoken admiration. I must say, I think it rather unhealthy—you may remember Miss Clemence Dane’s very clever book on the subject?—I have seen so much of that kind of thing in my rather WOMAN-RIDDEN existence! It has such a bad effect, as a rule, upon the weaker character of the two… (Chapter 8)

And:

‘If Mary Whittaker were to marry, she would marry a rabbit.’ (Miss Climpson’s active mind quickly conjured up a picture of the rabbit—fair-haired and a little paunchy, with a habit of saying, ‘I’ll ask the wife.’ Miss Climpson wondered why Providence saw fit to create such men. For Miss Climpson, men were intended to be masterful, even though wicked or foolish. She was a spinster made and not born—a perfectly womanly woman.)

Miss Climpson had little difficulty in reconstructing one of those hateful and passionate “scenes” of slighted jealousy with which a woman-ridden life had made her only too familiar. “I do everything for you—you don’t care a bit for me—you treat me cruelly—you’re simply sick of me, that’s what it is!” And “Don’t be so ridiculous. Really, I can’t stand this. Oh, stop it, Vera! I hate being slobbered over.” Humiliating, degrading, exhausting, beastly scenes. Girls’ school, boarding-house, Bloomsbury-flat scenes. Damnable selfishness wearying of its victim. Silly schwärmerei swamping all decent self-respect. Barren quarrels ending in shame and hatred.

Miss Findlater the feminist

She talks to Miss Findlater who is a feminist:

‘If you only knew what a stupid lot they are! Anyway, I’ve no use for men!’ Miss Findlater tossed her head. ‘They haven’t got any ideas. And they always look on women as sort of pets or playthings. As if a woman like Mary wasn’t worth fifty of them! You should have heard that Markham man the other day—talking politics to Mr Tredgold, so that nobody could get a word in edgeways, and then saying, ‘I’m afraid this is a very dull subject of conversation for you, Miss Whittaker,’ in his condescending way. Mary said in that quiet way of hers, ‘Oh, I think the subject is anything but dull, Mr Markham.’ But he was so stupid, he couldn’t even grasp that and said, ‘One doesn’t expect ladies to be interested in politics, you know. But perhaps you are one of the modern young ladies who want the flapper’s vote.’ Ladies, indeed! Why are men so insufferable when they talk about ladies?’

‘I mean to be an old maid, anyhow,’ retorted Miss Findlater. ‘Mary and I have quite decided that. We’re interested in things, not in men.’

‘Men’s friendships—oh yes! I know one hears a lot about them. But half the time, I don’t believe they’re real friendships at all. Men can go off for years and forget all about their friends. And they don’t really confide in one another. Mary and I tell each other all our thoughts and feelings. Men seem just content to think each other good sorts without ever bothering about their inmost selves.”
Probably that’s why their friendships last so well,’ replied Miss Climpson. ‘They don’t make such demands on one another.’

‘I cannot help feeling that it is more natural—more proper, in a sense—for a man and woman to be all in all to one another than for two persons of the same sex. Er—after all, it is a—a fruitful affection,’ said Miss Climpson, boggling a trifle at this idea, ‘and—and all that, you know, and I am sure that when the right MAN comes along for you—’

‘Bother the right man!’ cried Miss Findlater, crossly. ‘I do hate that kind of talk. It makes one feel dreadful—like a prize cow or something. Surely, we have got beyond that point of view in these days.’

The male view

‘We talked for some time, Inspector, and I will not conceal from you that I found Miss Grant a very interesting personality. She had an almost masculine understanding. I may say I am not the sort of a man who prefers women to be brainless. No, I am rather modern in that respect. If ever I was to take a wife, Inspector, I should wish her to be an intelligent companion.’

Or our boys being more conventionally sexist:

‘When a woman is wicked and unscrupulous,’ said Parker, sententiously, ‘she is the most ruthless criminal in the world—fifty times worse than a man, because she is always so much more single-minded about it.’
‘They’re not troubled with sentimentality, that’s why,’ said Wimsey, ‘and we poor mutts of men stuff ourselves up with the idea that they’re romantic and emotional. All punk, my son. Damn that ’phone!’

Or Mrs Piggin, landlady of The Fox and Hounds in Crofton:

‘They don’t make them like that nowadays. Not but what these modern girls are good goers, many of them, and does a lot of things as would have been thought very fast in the old days,’

Newspapers

Christie mocks newspapers, giving her fictional newspapers satirical names. Mind you, so did lots of comic authors. In Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop, William Boot works for the ‘The Daily Beast’. Anyway, in this story Detective Parker reads his news in the Daily Yell. Less humorous alternatives are the ‘Evening Views’ and the ‘Evening Banner’.

It girls

Never had he met a woman in whom ‘the great It’, eloquently hymned by Mrs Elinor Glyn, was so completely lacking.

Elinor Glyn was a bestselling author of popular romances which were often a trifle racy. She popularized the concept of the ‘It girl’, and had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture ‘

Credit

‘Unnatural Death’ by Dorothy L. Sayers was published in 1927.

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Posted by Simon on October 31, 2025

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N or M? by Agatha Christie (1941)

Said Tuppence. ‘I don’t think the Intelligence is anything like what it was in our day.’
Tommy said gravely: ‘It will attain its former brilliance now we’re back in it.’
(Chapter 2)

‘I’m a widower,’ said Tommy with dignity. ‘My wife died ten years ago at Singapore.’
‘Why at Singapore?’
‘We’ve all got to die somewhere. What’s wrong with Singapore?’
(Chapter 2)

‘I’m with you, Meadowes. I’m with you. Women are all very well in their place, but not before breakfast.’
(Crusty old Major Bletchley, Chapter 2)

‘I have often noticed that being a devoted wife saps the intellect,’ murmured Tommy.
‘And where have you noticed that?’ demanded Tuppence.
‘Not from you, Tuppence. Your devotion has never reached those lengths.’
(Chapter 2)

Flattery, in Tuppence’s opinion, should always be laid on with a trowel where a man was concerned.
(Chapter 7)

‘It’s an idea, that.’
‘I know—but it’s awfully like a spy story. It doesn’t seem real somehow.’
(Chapter 8)

The Tommy and Tuppence series

I hadn’t fully understood the place of Tommy and Tuppence in Agatha Christie’s oeuvre i.e. that she wrote 5 novels and a collection of short stories about them i.e. that they constitute a series, in much the same way as there’s the Poirot series and the Miss Marple series, albeit on a much smaller scale (Poirot 33 novels, 51 short stories; Marple 12 novels, 20 short stories; Tommy & Tuppence 5 novels and 12 short stories).

Tommy and Tuppence’s first adventure

Pukka ex-soldier Tommy Beresford (wounded twice in the Great War) and Prudence ‘Tuppence’ Cowley (daughter of an archdeacon), first appeared in Christie’s second published novel, The Secret Adversary, in 1922. This is a high-spirited spy adventure romp overflowing with all sorts of silliness. From one angle the best bit is the opening chapter where old friends Tommy and Tuppence bump into each other in London, discover that they’re both unemployed and stony broke, and whimsically decide to hire themselves out as freelance problem solvers under the high-spirited name The Young Adventurers Ltd.

They’ve barely done so before they are, indeed, roped into an awfully big adventure, involving a secret international organisation devoted to undermining British society and overthrowing the government which only they can save us from. Two hundred thrilling, ridiculous pages later, you will not be surprised to learn that they do indeed a) expose the evil mastermind behind the fiendish conspiracy and b) save the day.

Tommy and Tuppence return

In a sense the interesting thing about Tommy and Tuppence is that she then dropped them for nearly 20 years, as she moved away from her early international espionage novels to develop the character of Hercule Poirot and subject the crime or detective novel to all kinds of experiments and innovations in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s.

Thus ‘N or M?’, the second Tommy and Tuppence novel, was published in 1941, 19 years after we first met our plucky adventurers. The second interesting thing about it is that Christie let her characters age so that when we meet them again, 19 years have passed in the fictional world as in the real world. They are now a comfortable middle-aged couple with two grown-up children, Derek and Deborah.

Britain at war

And Britain is at war again. It’s a war novel. Maybe that explains the gap. ‘The Secret Adversary’ invoked the paranoid mood of the immediate post-war period, with political chaos across the continent and widespread unrest in Britain. As that faded away, so did Christie’s interest in it and her detective novels become more private and small-scale. Hmm. That probably doesn’t stand up to serious investigation but it’s a rought thought…

But the eruption of the Second World War and the revival of the same atmosphere of fear and anxiety and paranoia maybe made her recall her two adventurers who had thrived in the same atmosphere two decades earlier.

Mr Grant explains the mission

Anyway, the opening setup is fairly flimsy and designed to get us to the actual situation as quickly as possible. So the war has started and both Tommy and Tuppence are frustrated because they’ve tried to get jobs, Tommy in the Army, Tuppence in any other capacity, and both been rejected on the grounds of age. It’s while grousing about this one evening that there’s a knock on the door of their service flat and a ‘Mr Grant’ introduces himself. ‘A broad-shouldered man with a big fair moustache and a cheerful red face’, Grant tells them he is an associate of Lord Easthampton, the title awarded to the man who, as plain ‘Mr Carter’, had been Tommy and Tuppence’s controller during their first adventure all those years ago.

Having established his bona fides, Grant announces that he has a job for Tommy who is, of course, delighted. He asks for privacy and so Tuppence obediently leaves the room – only to nip round to an adjoining room and listen through the door.

Grant tells Tommy that ‘they’ are going to give him a cover story and he’s to tell everyone, including his wife, that he’s being sent to Scotland to carry out office work. In reality, he’ll then double back and come all the way south across England, through London and on to the South Coast, because this is where the mission is really located.

Grant tells him that British Intelligence know about a quite alarming number of spies and fifth columnists at work in Britain, quite high up, in all the services.

We know that there are at least two highly placed in the Admiralty—that one must be a member of General G——’s staff—that there are three or more in the Air Force, and that two, at least, are members of the Intelligence, and have access to Cabinet secrets. We know that because it must be so from the way things have happened. The leakage—a leakage from the top—of information to the enemy, shows us that.

The trouble is that, precisely because these traitors are embedded in the system, they know all the usual undercover operatives and have access to all secret service files about missions and so on. What they really need is an amateur, an outsider, someone unknown – and this is where Tommy comes in!

He is to replace a man they had on the job but who was just recently run over and killed. Apparently an accident but very possibly because he was getting too close and so had to be eliminated. This chap’s name was Farquar and before he died he managed to utter the cryptic phrase:

“N or M. Song Susie”

Grant reassures him that this means a lot more than first glance. The intelligence services know that the initials N and M refer:

to two of the most important and trusted German agents. We have come across their activities in other countries and we know just a little about them. It is their mission to organise a Fifth Column in foreign countries and to act as liaison officer between the country in question and Germany. N, we know, is a man. M is a woman. All we know about them is that these two are Hitler’s most highly trusted agents and that in a code message we managed to decipher towards the beginning of the war there occurred this phrase – “Suggest Nor M for England. Full powers.”

So much for the first half of the message. This Farquar fellow had a return ticket to the south coast resort of Leahampton in his pocket. On the coast! Good location for spies to be dropped or picked up or organise enemy landings etc.

Like all the other south coast resorts Leahampton has lots of private hotels and guesthouses and among them is one called Sans Souci. Intelligence think that when Farquar, whose foreign languages weren’t very good, said ‘Song Suzi’ he was in fact referring to this guest house.

So Tommy’s mission is simple. Check in at the Sans Souci guesthouse in sleepy Leahampton and nose around to see if anyone or anything seems suspicious. He will be given a false identity, as a ‘Mr Meadowes’, the rest is up to him.

Grant has just finished explaining all this along with the practical details of trains and tickets, when Tuppence noisily slams the front door (having in fact never left the flat and overheard everything). Grant leaves and Tommy delivers his cover story i.e. he’s being sent to Scotland, they discuss it, Tommy packs etc, next day he kisses Tuppence goodbye and goes to get his train.

At the Sans Souci

Tommy stays a night in Scotland then, as planned, doubles back through England and arrives in Leahampton, makes his way to the Sans Souci guesthouse and checks in. Two important points:

First, although it’s taken a while to explain, the initial setup is over in half a dozen pages and the novel settles down to what you quickly realise is actually a very familiar format, that of the closed circle’ murder mystery’. According to Wikipedia the closed circle or closed circle of suspects:

refers to a situation in which for a given crime (usually a murder), there is a quickly established, limited number of suspects, each with credible means, motive, and opportunity. In other words, it is known that the criminal is one of the people present at or nearby the scene, and the crime could not have been committed by some outsider. The detective has to solve the crime, figuring out the criminal from this pool of suspects, rather than searching for an entirely unknown perpetrator.

My point is that the situation is almost identical: at the Sans Souci guesthouse are 7 or 8 guests, plus the landlady and her teenage daughter, and Tommy, Grant and the reader have all been led to believe that at least one of them is an enemy spy – but which one? As you might expect the next 200 pages are spent – exactly as in one of her murder mystery novels – slowly revealing the dodgy background and suspicious behaviour and odd remarks which eventually come to make all of them seem as if they might be the baddy.

Second point is this: Tommy has barely checked in before he discovers that Tuppence is also a guest at the Sans Souci!!! What? How? Why? She’s checked in under the false name of ‘Mrs Patricia Blenkensop’ with a pack of lies about being a widow with three adult children.

When he first sees her Tommy is thunderstruck but they both stick to their assumed identities. But the first chance they get alone together Tommy quickly interrogates her. The answer is simple: she eavesdropped on his conversation with Grant, overheard the whole plan, and refused to be left out. There you have Tuppence’s character in a nutshell: ballsy, defiant, independent etc. Tommy is secretly pleased and also proud of his indomitable wife.

Once Tommy’s got over the shock, the book settles down into the closed circle format I mentioned, with both Tommy and Tuppence separately getting to know and sound out all the other guests, observing and even following them without being noticed etc.

NB: Grant makes an arrangement that on certain afternoons he will position himself at the end of the Leahampton pier so he can rendezvous with either Tommy or Tuppence, who can brief him on their latest findings, while he reports back on any news from his end.

So who are the guests, what are their backstories, which ones are most suspicious?

Cast

  • Tommy Beresford – the hero, masquerading as ‘Mr Meadowes’
  • Prudence ‘Tuppence’ Beresford – the heroine, masquerading as ‘Mrs Patricia Blenkensop’
  • Derek and Deborah – their grown-up children
  • Mr Grant – British Intelligence
  • Lord Easthampton aka Mr Carter – their former intelligence handler, now retired

At Sans Souci

Mrs Perenna – the landlady ‘rather untidy looking, a woman of middle-age with a large mop of fiercely curling black hair, some vaguely applied makeup and a determined smile showing a lot of very white teeth’ – it emerges that her first husband

Sheila Perenna – her daughter, tall, very violently anti-patriotic, thinks patriotism is stupid, thinks war is stupid – it emerges that all of this stems from the fact that her father was an Irish patriot, executed by the British:

‘His name was Patrick Maguire. He—he was a follower of Casement in the last war. He was shot as a traitor! All for nothing! For an idea—he worked himself up with those other Irishmen. Why couldn’t he just stay at home quietly and mind his own business? He’s a martyr to some people and a traitor to others. I think he was just—stupid!’
Tommy could hear the note of pent-up rebellion, coming out into the open.
He said: ‘So that’s the shadow you’ve grown up with?’
‘Shadow’s right. Mother changed her name. We lived in Spain for some years. She always says that my father was half a Spaniard. We always tell lies wherever we go. We’ve been all over the Continent. Finally we came here and started this place…’

Mrs O’Rourke – a very large woman with a thick Irish accent – ‘a terrifying mountain of a woman with beady eyes and a moustache gave him a beaming smile’

Major Bletchley – blustering patriot, no time for the damned Hun, ‘eyed Tommy appraisingly and made a stiff inclination of the head’

Commander Haycock – equally blustery patriotic old friend of Bletchley’s who takes him to visit Haycock’s house, ‘Smuggler’s Rest’ – the latter is immensely proud that it was, apparently, the base of a German spy during the First World War, chap named Hahn who Haycock helped expose

  • Appledore – his butler, only had him a few months: tall

Mr von Deinim – German refugee from the Nazis, his father and brother arrested by the Nazis, works at a local chemical works where he is researching antidotes to poison gas: ‘a young man, very stiff, fair-haired and blue-eyed, got up and bowed’; deeply troubled at how he is treated, how everyone looks at him askance, so much so that he confides in Tuppence that he thinks about killing himself – but although Grant says his story checks out, Tuppence comes across him twice talking with a tall, anxious woman with a foreign accent; Deinem claims she was just asking for directions but Tuppence had watched them for a while and knew it was more than that

Miss Minton – ‘an elderly woman with a lot of beads, knitting with khaki wool, smiled and tittered’

Mrs Blenkensop – ‘more knitting—an untidy dark head which lifted from an absorbed contemplation of a Balaclava helmet’

Mr. and Mrs. Cayley – she fusses over him all the time

Mrs Sprot – a young mother with her ‘adorable’ 2-year-old daughter, Betty, who is just learning to talk – ‘the woman hasn’t got the brains of a hen’

Later characters

  • the maid – eye witness
  • Vanda Polonska – a Polish refugee
  • Mrs Calfont – a thin-lipped, gimlet-eyed woman who had been dealing for some months with refugee relief
  • Inspector Brassey – local copper

Timeline

The events of the book take place during the summer of 1940, and daily developments in Leahampton are correlated with the day-by-day events of the German invasion of France. Thus we hear about the German invasion, that the French are holding them but they are creating a ‘bulge’ in the line, then the breakthrough and race towards Paris. During Chapter 8 we hear about the start of the evacuation of Dunkirk (26 May 1940), the fall of Paris (5 June 1940), capitulation of the French government (22 June 1940).

Developments

Albert arrives

Fans will remember that in the first novel, Tommy and Tuppence are helped out by a young Cockney lad who works in the apartment block of the chief villainess. He’s easy to recruit because he’s an ardent reader of lurid crime fiction and so slips into the role of spy and fixer like a fish to water.

Well, he reappears in this novel, now, like the main characters, nearly 20 years older, married and the landlord of a pub in Kennington (The Duck and Dog). Being a working class character, Albert is the salt of the earth – like I’m always saying, Christie’s narratives are constructed from all manner of stock types and stereotypes. More to the point, Albert comes in handy as the novel hurtles towards its climax because he is a complete outsider, not staying as Sans Souci, not known by any of the other characters, and so can be brought in in the last act, to do important spying and message-taking jobs.

Betty is kidnapped

In a bizarre development, harmless Mrs Sprot’s little girl, Betty, is kidnapped. One evening the adults are playing cards, Mrs S realises it’s past Betty’s bedtime. When she goes to look for her in her room, any other room, and the garden, Betty is nowhere to be seen. Several of the guests spill out into the road to look for her and see a butcher’s boy on a bike chatting to a housemaid. The housemaid says yes, she saw Betty walking off hand in hand with a strange woman half an hour earlier.

Some of the guests suggest she calls the police but Mrs Sprot then reveals that in her bedroom she found a message tied round a stone and thrown in through the window. It is a crudely written ransom note, telling her not to go to the police or Betty will be killed.

The guests hold a council of war into which Mrs Perenna arrives. Having had her husband shot by the British authorities she is sceptical about the police and says they must act themselves to recover the child. Bletchley suggests they go over to see Commander Haycock. Haycock takes control of the situation and first of all drives them all to the nearest railway station where they quiz the staff and people waiting but no-one saw a woman with a small child.

Then a stranger (a Mr Robbins) comes up and says he’s overheard all the questioning and says that half an hour ago he saw a woman and child answering the description walking up his road, Ernes Cliff Road towards the fields ending in cliffs. So everyone piles into Haycock’s car which drives up Ernes Cliff Road. From here they spot the woman using binoculars and drive beyond the track onto the turf and drive fast towards the woman.

The woman, cornered, steps back towards the cliff and clutches Betty. They all agree her face is twisted with anger and hatred and she yells something but in a foreign language no-one understands. Haycock has a revolver but says he daren’t take a shot and risk injuring the girl. At that moment a shot rings out and the woman falls to the grass, shot through the head, releasing Betty.

What just happened? Who is this foreign woman? Why on earth did she kidnap Betty? Why throw a message wrapped round a stone through Mrs Sprot’s window? What was the purpose of the ransom note, to extort money, or had Mrs Sprot unwittingly overheard something? And how did mumsy feeble Mrs Sprot suddenly become a top marksman?

In the event there’s an inquest, where the coroner treats Mrs Sprot very kindly and gets the jury to return a verdict of justifiable homicide i.e. she is let off. The dead woman is identified as a Polish refugee, Vanda Polonska, verified by a Mrs Calfont, ‘a thin-lipped, gimlet-eyed woman who had been dealing for some months with refugee relief.’

The local senior policeman brought in on the case, Inspector Brassey, testifies that Polonska came over with married cousins of hers who have both subsequently been arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act for seeking work near a naval base with a view to spying on it.

But as to why she kidnapped a harmless two-year-old, no-one has a clue.

Tommy is abducted

Tommy takes up an invitation to go play a round of golf with Commander Haycock. His aim is to pump him for more information about Major Bletchley who he suspects of being just a bit too perfectly the British buffer. After a round and lots of amiable chatter, Haycock invites Tommy back to the Smuggler’s Rest for drinks.

Now bear in mind that Haycock makes a massive deal of telling all his guests that the place was designed and built by a man who turned out to be a German spy during the first war, and who Haycock endlessly boasts about spotting and turning in to the authorities.

Well a series of things happen: a) Tommy discovers that Haycock has a butler, a crisp, efficient rather German-looking man named Appledore, who he only took on a few months earlier, after he answered an ad. b) In a calculated gamble, Tommy slips into the conversation an innocent reference to the fact that when you apply for a passport, the form asks you ‘What is your name, answer N or M’. To his surprise (and rather like in a cartoon) the butler Appledore stumbles and drops his tray, spilling sticky creme de menthe on Tommy’s sleeve. d) Just for a second Haycock goes into an insensate fury of abuse of his servant. Moments later he has recovered and is more bluff. But for that moment Tommy thinks he sees the rage of the arrogant Prussian Junker against his servant, and suddenly realises maybe Haycock is N.

e) Finally, after washing his sleeve in the bathroom, upon coming out he steps on a bar of soap which has ended up on the floor and slips whilst trying to keep his balance, right across the floor of the bathroom and bangs into the side of the bath. This promptly opens to reveal a secret vault. Suddenly in a flash, Tommy puts all the evidence together and realises Haycock is the spymaster. All the bluster about revealing a German spy all those years ago was a clever double bluff.

Haycock tries to recover by telling Tommy in a matey way that he’s going to tell him something confidential, and then claiming that he himself is, in fact, a spy, doing dangerous undercover work for British Intelligence (he gives the agent number M142 BX) and makes Tommy swear to secrecy. Tommy (still masquerading under his fake name of Meadowes) does his best to come over as innocent and fascinated and wanting to know more. In reality he is panicking about whether Haycock will even let him leave the building. He makes it to the doorstep just as some fellow golfers walk past the end of the path and Tommy hails them, and so shakes Haycock’s hand, promises to keep his secret and makes his escape.

He chats with the golfers all the way to gate to Sans Souci where they part company. He is just congratulating himself on having escaped, and planning to tell all this to Grant next time they meet when he feels a crashing blow to his head and everything goes black. (Fans will remember that in the first novel Tommy is also knocked out in the first novel, ‘The Secret Adversary’, waking up to find himself in a cell.)

Deborah is incautious

For the first and only time the narrative cuts away to the workplace of Tommy and Tuppence’s grown-up daughter, Deborah Beresford. She is working in coding. She is puzzled because she’s gotten letters from Mummy telling her that she is staying with her Aunt Gracie in Cornwall. However a friend recently returned from Cornwall and told Deborah that her mother is not staying with her Aunt Gracie and never has.

Now none of this would matter if Deborah didn’t (very stupidly) decide to share this with the nice young man she works with, Tony Marsdon. Tony joshes Deborah that her mum’s probably run off with some fellow, which makes her cross. The Whole Point of the conversation is that Deborah then crosses a line when she rabbits on that someone the other day told her they’d seen her mother in Leahampton. And this makes Tony freeze.

Tony, his match held to a cigarette, paused suddenly and the match went out.
‘Leahampton?’ he said sharply. ‘Yes. Just the last place you could imagine Mother going off to. Nothing to do and all old Colonels and maiden ladies.’
‘Doesn’t sound a likely spot, certainly,’ said Tony.
He lit his cigarette and asked casually:
‘What did your mother do in the last war?’

Aha. Leahampton obviously means something to Tony so is he a) in British Intelligence and somehow knows about the Leahampton investigation, or b) much more ominously, is the implication that he is one of the many German fifth columnists, and realises someone’s onto them?

Later that day Deborah gets back to her digs and is irritated to find that someone has taken the photo of her mother (Tuppence) from the frame on her chest of drawers. Christie has to make her extremely dim not to put 2 and 2 together, but the reader does. Suddenly, we feel that Tuppence is in just as much danger as her husband.

Approaching climax

Just to up the ante, Chapter 11 (there are 16 chapters) opens back in Leahampton with Grant telling Tuppence that the fourth of the month coming is ‘the date fixed for the big attack on this country’ i.e. the invasion. So in the last five chapters we need to find out a) who the real N and M are, b) what their role is in helping to organise the German invasion, c) whether Tommy is still alive, d) whether Deborah’s indiscretion will get Tuppence into trouble.

As usual, I will not summarise the final chapters for the usual reasons which are 1) it gets more and more complicated and is only worth summarising if you do it thoroughly, 2) to avoid spoilers. You can read it yourself online.

What I will say is that the finale not only reveals who from the closed circle of suspects are the foreign agents N and M – but ends with a characteristically complicated and, as far as I could see, utterly unnecessary revelation that one of the characters listed above had adopted the identity of his friend who he was a dead ringer for but who committed suicide – none of which is really relevant to the main plot but is a very characteristic example of Christie way overcomplicating her ‘solutions’, and her particular addiction to people adopting false identities, impersonating others and acting a part.

In fact towards the end, Tuppence is approached by the young man Tony Marsdon who tells her she has to get dressed up in the disguise of a German infiltrator (which she does) in order to go and meet a dentist, who is in fact one of the main characters, himself masquerading as an English civilian and who himself knows that Tuppence has dressed up in disguise, and in fact knows that she is Tuppence Beresford masquerading as Mrs Blenkinsop who has then put on a load of makeup and prosthetics to look like the German infiltrator. Three levels of disguise confront three levels of disguise. It’s like a Shakespeare comedy on steroids.

Summary

Cartoon entertainment. Bubblegum lolz. Preposterous nonsense.

Compare and contrast with the infinitely more sophisticated spy stories of Somerset Maugham in Ashenden. Or the far more atmospheric spy stories of young Eric Ambler. Or the wartime adventure novels of Hammond Innes. Next to all these nearly contemporary novels, what distinguishes Christie’s work is the comedy – hers are essentially comic figures who get caught up in something which purports to be serious but never really feels like it.

Here’s the loveable Cockney character Albert reflecting on the war:

The state of affairs in general seemed to him quite wrong. The war was all wrong to begin with. ‘Those Germans,’ thought Albert gloomily and almost without rancour. ‘Heiling Hitler, and goose-stepping and overrunning the world and bombing and machine-gunning, and generally making pestilential nuisances of themselves. They’d got to be stopped, no two ways about it!’

Tuppence’s character

In my ignorance and before I started reading her novels, I thought Agatha Christie was all Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. I had no idea she created such a series of feisty, no-nonsense, independent women, among which is Tuppence Cowley – as demonstrated throughout the story: from her refusing to be locked out of the adventure, taking matters into her own hands, and volunteering for the dangerous mission at the end, keeping her cool when facing death and so on.

When her daughter’s boyfriend hesitates about whether to involve her in a risky venture, Tuppence quickly sets him straight:

She smiled kindly at him.
‘My dear boy, I know exactly how you feel. That it’s all very well for you and Deborah and the young generally to run risks, but that the mere middle-aged must be shielded. All complete nonsense, because if anyone is going to be liquidated it is much better it should be the middle-aged, who have had the best part of their lives. Anyway, stop looking upon me as that sacred object, Deborah’s mother, and just tell me what dangerous and unpleasant job there is for me to do.’
‘You know,’ said the young man with enthusiasm, ‘I think you’re splendid, simply splendid.’
‘Cut out the compliments,’ said Tuppence. I’m admiring myself a good deal, so there’s no need for you to chime in.’
(Chapter 13)

Credit

‘N or M?’ by Agatha Christie was published by the Collins Crime Club in November 1941.

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by Simon on September 8, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by Simon on September 8, 2025

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