‘It is peaceful. The sun shines. The sea is blue. But you forget, Miss Brewster, there is evil everywhere under the sun.’
(Poirot in sententious mode)
Rosamund said suddenly: ‘Sometimes—things seem unreal. I can’t believe, this minute, that it ever happened…’
(One or other character says this in every novel)
‘I do think the people who make puzzles are kind of mean. They just go out of their way to deceive you.’
(The American Mrs Gardener is referring to jigsaw puzzles but clearly, in a Christie joke, this can be applied to detective novels)
‘Motive and opportunity.’
(Chief Constable Weston stating the fundamental goals of a murder enquiry, Chapter 6)
Plot summary
The Jolly Roger hotel
The Jolly Roger hotel is located on Leathercombe Island just off the Devon coast. With the rise of seaside holidays in the 1920s it has become very popular but likes to think of itself as an exclusive sort of place, certainly in the view of its owner Mrs Castle, with her ‘almost offensively refined manner of speech’. The hotel’s pretentious aspirations are helped by the way it can only be reached from the mainland via a causeway which is underwater at high tide.
Improbably enough, world famous detective Hercule Poirot is taking a summer holiday there (instead, as a character points out, at the more believable Riviera) and finds himself – surprise, surprise – thrown into the middle of a murder mystery!
Hotel guests
The setup is pretty straightforward. The first couple of chapters introduce us to the dozen or so guests at the hotel, superficially a heterogeneous lot although you quickly recognise stock Christie types: the gabby Mrs Gardener and her monosyllabic husband; the tough no-nonsense middle-aged woman (a lesbian?) Miss Brewster; an old Major who bores on about his time in India; a fiercer-than-usual vicar who disapproves of immorality etc.
The love triangle
But central to the story is an eternal triangle: bluff handsome Kenneth Marshall, in his 40s, recently married former stage star Arlena Stuart (‘She appeared in Revue and musical shows’), a stunningly glamorous flirt, in her 30s. Also staying at the hotel are Patrick Redfern, lean and bronzed, and his new wife, Christine Redfern, pale and ineffectual. From the moment the Marshalls arrive, Patrick is bewitched by Arlena, follows her around the beach like a puppy and more or less ignores his wife. All the other guests, like the chorus of an ancient play, comment on this central action and how it will end badly, building up the tension (just like in a Greek play).
The murder
And it does end badly because one sunny day Arlena is discovered dead, brutally strangled, at Pixy Cove, a rarely-visited cove round the headland from the main hotel beach. Poirot himself helped her push off the little ‘float’ she took and paddled round the headland. She made a point of asking Poirot not to tell anyone he’d seen her, as if she was heading for a secret assignation.
Poirot then observed Patrick come down to the beach and pace up and down as if waiting to meet her, before chunky Miss Brewster arrived and Patrick persuaded her to take a rowboat and row round to the cove, which is where they both discovered Arlena’s body. They initially thought she was lying calmly sunbathing before Patrick went closer and realised she was dead, at which point he panic-strickenly told Miss Brewster to row back to the hotel and call the police.
Chief suspects
So: who killed Arlena Stuart? The obvious suspects are:
1) her husband, Ken, goaded beyond endurance by her very public infidelity. Moreover, in his police interview we learn that two years ago Arlena was left the hefty sum of £50,000 by an ‘admirer’, Sir Robert Erskine. As she appears to have died without a will, this sum will go directly to her husband, Ken. There’s your old-fashioned motive – material gain – right there.
Except that he has an alibi: he was in his bedroom at the precise time of the murder (the police doctor estimates time of death between 10.45 and 11.45) writing letters on his typewriter. Hotel staff heard and saw him. And at noon he sallied out to play a game of mixed doubles tennis with Mrs Redfern, Miss Darnley and Mr Gardener.
2) Christine Redfern, goaded by her husband’s very public infidelity – but her alibi is that she was painting at Gull Cove in the company of young Linda Marshall, until she returned to the hotel to take part in the mixed double tennis starting at noon.
3) I’ve just mentioned Linda, Ken’s 16-year-old daughter by an earlier marriage. Christie shows her in half a dozen scenes in her bedroom being a self-conscious adolescent and utterly hating Arlena for taking her Daddy away from her and making him behave so unnaturally.
4) Patrick Redfern had possibly moved from the infatuation stage to realising he was being played with by Arlena, and coming to hate her and the damage it was doing his marriage. But his alibi is that he was in plain sight on the main beach for some time before persuading Miss Brewster to row a dinghy round to Pixy Cove where they both discovered the body.
5) Is it the Reverend Lane who, at every appearance, is made to look more like a religious fanatic, quick to describe Arlena as the embodiment of Evil, ‘a woman such as Jezebel and Aholibah’ etc?
And in any case, surely these are too obvious. Might not one of the hotel guests have some secret reason for wanting to kill Arlena? Or might the murderer come from quite outside the closed circle of hotel guests – Arlena had, after all, left a string of exploited embittered men across the Home Counties. Not to mention jealous (female) rivals in the bitchy world of West End theatre. Or could the murder result from complex historical events which rope in people from the other side of the planet, as in the preposterous denouement of ‘Sad Cypress’? Frankly anything is possible.
So the usual procedure clunks into operation: the triumvirate of Poirot, the police inspector leading the investigation, Inspector Colgate, and the country’s Chief Constable, Colonel Weston, set up shop in a hotel room and interview all the guests one by one, establishing their movements on the morning of the murder plus wider relationships and opinions of the murdered woman. This takes up about a quarter of the novel and is then followed, just as predictably, by Poirot’s own personal conversations and probing of the suspects, at random moments, accompanied by a trickle of further revelations which keep moving the goalposts and introducing no end of red herrings.
Although all the details are novel, the overall shape is incredibly formulaic, one more reason why readers then and now find the novels so homely and reassuring.
Cast
- Mrs Gardener – American, can’t stop talking, and knitting
- Odell C. Gardener – American, hardly says anything except to comment on how ‘very sensitive’ his wife is
- Miss Emily Brewster – ‘a tough athletic woman with grizzled hair and a pleasant weather‐beaten face’; ‘a voice like a man’s. She is gruff and what you call hearty’
- Major Barry – fatal tendency to embark on long Indian stories
- Mr Lane – ‘a tall vigorous clergyman of fifty odd. His face was tanned and his dark grey flannel trousers were holidayfied and disreputable’ – unlike the amiable vague vicars of previous novels, Lane is a born-again fanatic, obsessed with Satan, Sin and Evil, and quick to describe Arlena as an embodiment of Evil
- Patrick Redfern – ‘a good specimen of humanity. Lean, bronzed with broad shoulders and narrow thighs, there was about him a kind of infectious enjoyment and gaiety—a native simplicity that endeared him to all women and most men’
- Mrs Christine Redfern – ‘an ash blonde and her skin was of that dead fairness that goes with that colouring. Her legs and arms were very white’, ‘She had a fair serious face, pretty in a negative way and small dainty hands and feet’
- Arlena Stuart – real name Helen Stuart, stage name Arlena Stuart – ‘tall and slender. She wore a simple backless white bathing dress and every inch of her exposed body was tanned a beautiful even shade of bronze. She was as perfect as a statue. Her hair was a rich flaming auburn curling richly and intimately into her neck. Her face had that slight hardness which is seen when thirty years have come and gone, but the whole effect of her was one of youth—of superb and triumphant vitality. There was a Chinese immobility about her face, and an upward slant of the dark blue eyes. On her head she wore a fantastic Chinese hat of jade green cardboard’ – ‘the eternal Circe’
- Kenneth Marshall – man of about forty, fair‐haired and sun‐tanned. He had a quiet pleasant face and was sitting on the beach smoking a pipe and reading The Times‘
- Linda Marshall – his self-conscious 16-year-old daughter
- Rosamund Darnley – business name is Rose Mond Ltd, a celebrated dressmaker; Poirot ‘admired Rosamund Darnley as much as any woman he had ever met. He liked her distinction, the graceful lines of her figure, the alert proud carriage of her head. He liked the neat sleek waves of her dark hair and the ironic quality of her smile’ – old family friend of Kenneth Marshall, their families lived next to each other
- Mr Horace Blatt – ‘a large man with a red face and a fringe of reddish hair round a shining bald spot’, ‘It was Mr Blatt’s apparent ambition to be the life and soul of any place he happened to be in’ – ‘a rich man. He talks a good deal—about Mr Blatt. He wants to be everybody’s friend’
- the Mastermans and the Cowans, two families with young people
- Mrs Castle – owner and proprietress of the Jolly Roger Hotel, ‘a woman of forty odd with a large bust, rather violent henna red hair, and an almost offensively refined manner of speech’
- George the handyman – ‘George attends to the bathing beach. He sees to the costumes and the floats. William is the gardener. He keeps the paths and marks the tennis courts and all that’
- Henry in the bar
- the cook and two under her
- Albert, the Maitre d’, with three staff
- Gladys Narracott – hotel chambermaid, ‘a woman of thirty, brisk, efficient and intelligent’
Cops
- Inspector Colgate
- Dr Neasden – police surgeon
- Chief Constable Colonel Weston
- Chief Inspector Ridgeway – ‘who’s in charge of the dope business, and he was no end keen’
The importance of the character of the murderee
Hercule Poirot answered before either of the others could speak. He said: ‘You do not comprehend, Captain Marshall. There is no such thing as a plain fact of murder. Murder springs, nine times out of ten, out of the character and circumstances of the murdered person. Because the victim was the kind of person he or she was, therefore was he or she murdered! Until we can understand fully and completely exactly what kind of a person Arlena Marshall was, we shall not be able to see clearly exactly the kind of person who murdered her. From that springs the necessity of our questions.’
Poirot’s method
Every novel contains at least some explanation of Poirot’s method. Christie must have got bored having to ring the changes on such an essentially limited subject. Here she does it via the device of having Poirot get involved with garrulous old Mrs Gardener doing a jigsaw. Poirot helps her by placing a white piece into the black cat. Mrs Gardener objects that it’s a black cat but Poirot points out that it certainly is, except for the tip of its tail, which is white. Which leads on to Mrs G asking:
‘about detecting, I would so like to know your methods—you know, I’d feel privileged if you’d just explain it to me.’
Hercule Poirot said: ‘It is a little like your puzzle, Madame. One assembles the pieces. It is like a mosaic—many colours and patterns—and every strange‐shaped little piece must be fitted into its own place.’
‘Now isn’t that interesting? Why, I’m sure you explain it just too beautifully.’
Poirot went on: ‘And sometimes it is like that piece of your puzzle just now. One arranges very methodically the pieces of the puzzle—one sorts the colours—and then perhaps a piece of one colour that should fit in with—say, the fur rug, fits in instead in a black cat’s tail.’
Heroin
Two-thirds of the way through an enormous red herring is introduced into the story when a consignment of heroin is found stashed in a cave on the cove where Arlena was killed. For a while the police run with the theory that Arlena stumbled across a drug smuggling gang and was bumped off or, even more far-fetched, that she was part of a drug smuggling gang. Christie has Inspector Colgate explain to his boss that he’s been in touch with Scotland Yard about it, where he:
‘saw Chief Inspector Ridgeway who’s in charge of the dope business, and he was no end keen. Seems there’s been a good bit of heroin coming in lately. They’re on to the small distributors, and they know more or less who’s running it the other end, but it’s the way it’s coming into the country that’s baffled them so far.’ (Chapter 11)
As usual, what interest me is not very much the plot (after 20 or so pages of being a serious theory about the murder, the whole dope angle is quietly dropped) it’s the social history of the thing: i.e. that heroin smuggling (and therefore, illegal consumption) was a problem for the police as long ago as the 1930s.
Fawlty Towers
As I keep saying, I’m not that interested in the ‘murders’ or the mysteries surrounding them in Christie’s novels, though I can see that they presented, and still present, entertaining crossword or Sudoku-style puzzles for readers who like that sort of thing.
I read them more for the comedy, which is present throughout at multiple levels, from the blatant comedy of broad comic characters down to Poirot’s sly looks and half-smiles. Even at the most serious moments, Christie gives him his green cat’s eyes or has him rearrange the objects on a mantelpiece or light one of his tiny, tiny cigarettes – all which bring a smile to the lips of the seasoned reader.
The novels themselves are packed with characters who feel so stock and stereotyped they continually verge on caricature.
And they are comedies in the technical sense that, although one or two people die, the story is rounded off with complete closure, all the loose ends are tied up, and the reader is left with a deep smile of reassurance on their face.
Of the broad character / caricature type is the old Major in the story, Major Barry, who at the drop of a hat is liable to embark on yet another of his long boring stories about his time in India. Here’s an example which demonstrates what fun Christie had mimicking the voice of such a pompous old Army bore:
‘Matter of fact this business reminds me of a case in Simla. Fellow called Robinson, or was it Falconer? Anyway he was in the East Wilts, or was it the North Surreys? Can’t remember now, and anyway it doesn’t matter. Quiet chap, you know, great reader—mild as milk you’d have said. Went for his wife one evening in their bungalow. Got her by the throat. She’d been carryin’ on with some feller or other and he’d got wise to it. By Jove, he nearly did for her! It was touch and go. Surprised us all! Didn’t think he had it in him.’
(Chapter 7)
Suddenly I realised this is the Major from Fawlty Towers. Fawlty Towers is set in a hotel in Torquay (where Agatha was born and raised) and features a bunch of recurring characters very much like the characters you meet in classic Christie (the nagging wife, the moustachio-ed foreigner, the old Major, the temperamental chef, the two nice old spinster ladies, the sexy maid, the handsome guest, and so on).
Bookishness
There are none of the usual references by one or other character to the whole thing resembling a detective novel, but there is the statutory comparison with Sherlock Holmes which occurs in nearly but not quite all of Christie’s novels. In fact there are two references. The first comes from the blabbermouth Horace Blatt:
‘Hullo, Poirot, didn’t see you at first. So you’re in on this? Oh well, I suppose you would be. Sherlock Holmes v. the local police, is that it? Ha, ha! Lestrade – all that stuff. I’ll enjoy seeing you do a bit of fancy sleuthing.’ (Chapter 9)
Then Mrs Darnley.
‘Ha!’ said Poirot. ‘So nobody took a bath. That is extremely interesting.’
‘But why should anyone take a bath?’
Hercule Poirot said: ‘Why, indeed?’
Rosamund said with some exasperation: ‘I suppose this is the Sherlock Holmes touch!’
Hercule Poirot smiled.
Vocab
Not very systematically, I’m interested in 1920s and 1930s slang. In this one, I was interested in the recurrence of the word ‘stunt’
‘Let’s have ’em all in and get it over as soon as possible. Never know, might learn something. About the blackmailing stunt if about nothing else.’
Inspector Colgate whistled. He said: ‘Now we’re getting places, all right! Depend upon it, this dope stunt is at the bottom of the whole business.’
Weston said: ‘If the Marshall woman’s death is the result of her getting mixed up, innocently or otherwise, with the dope‐running stunt, then we’d better hand the whole thing over to Scotland Yard.’
And the verb ‘wash out’ meaning something like ‘excluded’, ‘removed from the list’ (of suspects):
Inspector Colgate said gloomily: ‘Then that washes her out.’
Inspector Colgate said: ‘I think, sir, that we can wash out the first two entries.’
‘Miss Darnley saw him at twenty minutes past, and the woman was dead at a quarter to twelve. He says he spent that hour typing in his room, and it seems quite clear that he was typing in his room. That washes Captain Marshall right out.’
‘Nothing to fit in with the blackmail theory?’
‘No, sir, I think we can wash him out as far as that’s concerned.’
‘But when it came down to brass tacks the husband was washed right out of the picture. The body was discovered by one of these women hikers—hefty young women in shorts. She was an absolutely competent and reliable witness—games mistress at a school in Lancashire.’
Credit
‘Evil Under The Sun’ by Agatha Christie was published by the Collins Crime Club in June 1941.
Related links
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