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Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie

by Bruce Pendergast

445 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0132; ISBN 1-4120-2304-1; US$33.00, C$37.58, EUR27.00, £19.00

Whether a casual reader or an ardent fan of Agatha Christie, you will find Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie a useful and intriguing reference book.

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About the Book

Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie is a reference book covering Christie's 238 stories. It provides data never before published about both important and trivial facts. Dedications, time periods, and locations have been laboriously researched, and provided with "time warp" explanations. Even trivial data such as newspapers (100 in all), pubs (95) and automobiles (136) are shown as well as each story in which they are listed. English sayings totalling 259 are shown with the book(s) in which they appear, including a brief explanation of their meaning.

Yet Guide is much more than a list of facts. It is an informative reference book about Christie's writings. As well, different perspectives on many of the perplexing mysteries within her mysteries are provided.

Finally, Guide is not an alphabetical list of stories or characters. Instead, it lists many entrancing "errors" of sketches and text with comments explaining where possible the reasons for their existence. Most importantly, "Guide" does not betray any book's endings nor the identity of the villain, a rule that genuine Christie devotees always try to uphold.

About the Author

Bruce Pendergast, born in 1933 in Toronto, Canada, is a retired professional engineer. He started writing as a hobby when he joined Rotary in 1980 where he wrote the weekly bulletin during the 14 years he was a Rotarian. Retiring from his engineering company in 1997, he has spent his retirement years writing four books, the first of which is Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie. His other three books are all entirely different, one being a fictional murder mystery, one a puzzle book, and the fourth a whimsical, autobiographical book of anecdotes.
Bruce and his wife Marilyn have been married since 1959 and live in the small city of Guelph, Ontario, approximately 60 miles west of Toronto. They have two grown children, David and Suzanne.

Excerpts

FOREWORD

Back in the early 40's, when, as a young boy, I began to appreciate the wonder that books could bring, I was introduced to Agatha Christie mysteries. My mother, an ardent mystery fan, loved Christie's stories and when a pocketbook edition of the annual Christie mystery would show up, (thankfully, they were dime novels at the time for we had little money during World War II), she would harvest her pennies, visit the book store and rush home with her latest Christie adventure. I would patiently wait the day or so it took her to read it, then voraciously devour it as fast as my primitive reading ability would permit. A perplexing feature of this family ritual was the frustration I experienced; my mother must have had a mind in synchronization with Mrs. Christie's for she could invariably guess the culprit early in the book. I, on the other hand, sometimes didn't get it even after the denouement! Happily, it didn't diminish my enthusiasm for her writings.

As the next twenty or so years rocketed by, I would occasionally pick up a mystery but other interests prevailed; high school, university, job, girl friend, marriage - all the diversions that accompany growing up. Then, one magical evening in 1957, I took my girlfriend, now, in 2004, my wife of 44 years to the play, "Witness for the Prosecution" at a small but famous theatre in Toronto, the Crest. The magic of that wonderful play, with its multitude of surprise endings captivated us. I had found two loves, my future wife and the ingenious mind of Agatha Christie. Coincidentally, the movie of the same name with Charles Laughton was playing at about the same time and so we both were once again entranced. But I was more than entranced; I was hooked.

Thus the creation of this book about the peculiarities of Christie mysteries was not really a surprise. It was when I was re-reading one of my Christie volumes that I noticed an unusual error. One of Parker Pyne's clients was 45 on page 1 yet he suddenly aged three years after only five minutes of conversation. That was in The Case of the City Clerk from Parker Pyne, Detective. Nothing much, just a small flaw, Freudian slip, lapse of memory, whatever. Then I noticed another "time warp" and another and yet another. Thus was born the embryo which multiplied into this book. Other oddities appeared. Some I call unanswered questions, some are errors and some are amazing sketch impossibilities. Regardless of their nature, I hope they are as intriguing to the reader as they are to me.

The writing of this book was accompanied by a most disturbing dichotomous feeling. As an ardent fan of Mrs. Christie and her wonderful convoluted puzzles, I was at the same time disturbed by the act of putting to paper mistakes and other aberrations I found in her books. It was like the ultimate mixed emotion; watching your motherin- law go over a cliff in your new Rolls Royce. Yet as each mystery was read and re-read, more categories appeared, and were so noted. However, lest it be thought that this book is nothing more than a list of errors, let me put the reader's mind at rest for inside these pages are many more facts about Dame Agatha Christie than merely those mistakes. I like to think of Everyman's Guide as more a celebration of Mrs. Christie and her superb stories rather than a critique. Yet it must be admitted, the gaffes, albeit usually minor ones, are in fact shown.

When one writes a book of criticism, even a benign one such as this, one has to expect a barrage of slings and arrows of outrage from the Christie faithful. I welcome them. If Christie fans find errors in this book, as I am sure they will, I will accept their criticisms with the same good grace that I trust those same fans will when they recognize the feet of clay of their heroine, Dame Agatha. It is however embarrassing that Mrs. Christie in her autobiography shows more than mild contempt for critics of her books and through Ariadne Oliver in Dead Man's Folly says, in answer to suggested changes from an imaginary critic, "All right, then write it yourself if you want it that way!" Then, adding further fat to this humiliating fire, she takes a posthumous shot at this book and indirectly at myself, when, in Mrs. McGinty's Dead she again has her alter ego, Ariadne Oliver say, "Sometimes I think there are people who read books only to find errors in them". I am chastised. Let's face it; it is far easier to criticize than to create an original story. So, readers, take your best shots.

On the subject of thank-yous, there are several reference books, authors, and a nameless library worker to whom I owe debts of gratitude. First, to Anne Hart, the author of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot as well as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple I say thank you twice, firstly for writing those delightful books and secondly for patiently telling me by phone, from far-off Newfoundland, how to start the torturous task of getting a book published.

My first Christie reference "bible" was The Agatha Christie Who's Who by Randall Toye, almost a neighbour. I also thank him for the wealth of information contained in that book which saved me endless hours.

I send a third thank you to an anonymous library worker who helped me with the enormous number of time warps. He pinpointed the Easter of years gone by, the date of an August full moon in the early 30's and even the meaning and date of the English Bank Holiday and Whitsuntide.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to Elizabeth Pergram, The Research Assistant at the Huntington Library in Pasadena California who explained that the famous painting Pinky was not by Gainsborough but rather by Sir Thomas Lawrence. This saved me from making an embarrassing gaffe in reference to the book Endless Night.

But I save the best three for the last. A young Norwegian Christie fan, David Redvaldsen, with whom I frequently correspond, pointed out that two stories in which I had assumed errors had occurred were in fact, correct and it was not Mrs. Christie but I who was in error. One book was Peril at End House and I had assumed, incorrectly, that Niki Buckley couldn't have created the first scene in the book regarding a spent bullet and a bullet hole in her hat. David showed me that indeed I was wrong so I send my thanks to him for his correction. A second book, Murder on the Orient Express also had what I thought was a minor error involving the gluttony of Bouc the conductor of the train and again David led me down the correct path.

After joining the Agatha Christie Society, I answered a letter to the Christie Chronicle (the Society's magazine) from John Hyatt of Chichester who cleared up what would have otherwise been an embarrassing gaffe. I had written him, giving him as an example of a flaw, the mention of Darnley in Five Little Pigs, assuming that Mrs. Christie had mistakenly referred to a character, Rosamund Darnley from a previous book, Evil Under the Sun. I send my eternal thanks to John for pointing out that the Darnley in Evil under the Sun was NOT the Darnley referred to in Five Little Pigs.

And what is that about? Well, in Five Little Pigs, Philip Blake is reminiscing about Caroline Crale, the supposed murderess of her husband, Amyas Crale. Amyas's widow Caroline was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison only to die after a year in jail. Blake compares her to Mary Queen of Scots and says; "Caroline was a rotter. - I think Mary Queen of Scots must have been a bit like her. - A scheming woman who planned the murder of Darnley and got away with it. Caroline was like that - a cold calculating planner." So who planned the murder of Darnley? Mary Queen of Scots or Caroline? Of course it was Mary rather than Rosamund Darnley from Evil Under The Sun. The Darnley of the story was Lord Darnley, Mary's 22-year-old husband whom Mary connived to have executed. I had thought it was a Freudian slip in which Mrs. Christie wrote Darnley instead of Crale. Fortunately I deleted that potential embarrassment before the presses rolled, although I shudder to think of the other blunders that haven't been caught. I'm happy to say that that one was avoided thanks to John Hyatt. But let the chips fall upon the others.

Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Hyatt explained another obvious fact to a naive writer like me. While I had toiled many hours trying to identify the dates and location of the mysteries, he burst my bubble by pointing out Mrs. Christie didn't care about accuracy anyway so some dates simply didn't make sense. In fact, in her autobiography as well as through Ariadne Oliver she admits that such details are of little importance. In Chapter 17 of Cards on the Table Ariadne Oliver says, "People write to me and say I've got all the wrong flowers out together. As if it mattered-" insisting accuracy is of little importance. On the other hand, when writing her earlier books Mrs. Christie had no idea they would become so popular, and so it is my opinion she watched her chronological P's and Q's more fastidiously in her later books and that practice is revealed in the less frequent time warps in those stories. Chapter 5 "What year is it? Are we in a time warp?" explains how this book tries to separate the chronological wheat from the chaff, hopefully resulting in a reasonably accurate depiction of the dates of each adventure. This task was not quite as difficult as it may seem since most of Christie's books are current, that is the stories usually took place at the approximate time they were written. It will be seen in chapter 3 of this book, that an observant reader can usually quite easily guess the dates of the stories simply by noting some of the characters or items mentioned therein. For example, in Ordeal by Innocence, a young boy mentions Sputnik which held the world's attention when it became the first man-made satellite to circle the earth in October 1957 thus determining within a year or two the date of the action of that book.

Mrs. Christie also pointed out that as one ages, spans of ten years seem more like two years, and even uses that human foible in more than one of her books. As years pass, each of us compresses time. So that same chapter 5 is a labour of futility if timing errors don't matter. Nonetheless the books were researched, so whether important or not, time warps are listed. The frustrating aspect of them is that most dates can be determined with some detective work yet every once in a while, they conflict. Where they do, those with the most supporting evidence have been assumed correct.

In conclusion, it should be pointed out that this book was written by a Canadian and thus has perhaps a slightly different perspective on some of the items herein recorded. This is particularly true when it comes to chapter 12, "Newspapers, Pubs and Cars." Having grown up during World War II and directly after, my early teen interest in cars was obviously influenced by the enormous influx of British automobiles during the late 1940's. So let the reader beware for some of the comments are less than generous when describing those tiny imports. However, since probably ninety percent of Christie books are written by British authors, I don't suppose one voice from the wilderness will cause too much concern.

In conclusion, I believe this is a DIFFERENT book about Dame Agatha Christie, laden as it is with descriptions of minor errors and other blemishes but all recorded with admiration for and appreciation of the hundreds of hours of pleasure Mrs. Christie's books have given me and millions of others.

I repeat; it is so easy to criticise and so difficult to create.

DESCRIPTION OF CHAPTERS IN "EVERYMAN'S GUIDE TO THE MYSTERIES OF AGATHA CHRISTIE."

Chapter 1: "I dedicate this book to-." Due to Mrs. Christie's popularity, there have been many different publishers of her stories. Thus, a single story may have different dedications in different editions. This chapter shows each dedication, the possible reasons why some have different dedications and astounding contradictions that occur in some multiple dedications.

Chapter 2: "What is wrong with this picture?" In Mrs. Christie's earlier books, there were sketches to aid the reader in solving the crime. Altogether there were 17 diffferent sketches including one map. Amazingly, 13 of those 17 illustrations had glaring errors and in one case a single sketch had no less than five errors! Altogether there were 24 mistakes. Oddly, several mislead rather than assist the reader. This chapter shows the sketches, discusses the errors, and provides some intriguing philosophies about the reasons for their existence.

Chapter 3: "It gets curiouser and curiouser." Chapter 3 covers the many different peculiarites that reside within Christie books. It lists chronologically all the famous people (not the books' characters), both real & imaginary, as well as products & trade names. There are 179 different people/groups and their appearances give the reader a minor history lesson for one can almost guess the book's date from the character's name. There are 80 products/trade names which also gives an idea of their market prominence by the date of the book. As well, chapter 3 tells of unusual non-sequitors, coincidences (of which Mrs. Christie was quite proud), lists of convenient pocket contents, and descriptions of unrelated curiousities & oddities.

Chapter 4: "Where in the world are we?" Not everyone knows that Mrs. Christie's books almost always told the reader the location of the story. But it doesn't end there, for many locales are imaginary. As well, many are real and to add a further complication, in some books there are both real and imaginary cities, towns etc. This chapter provides the locale of each story. Each of the 238 stories in the 88 volumes have the location pinpointed with only 18 locations unknown.

Chapter 5: "What year is it? Are we in a time warp?" This chapter provides the date of each story as precisely as possible. It also deals with the "time warps" that occupy her stories, which are occasions where two dates or times contradict each other. Over half of Christie's stories have such contradictions. This chapter tries to determine which statements are spurious and which are correct. The second half of this chapter deals with time warps other than the stories' dates. In other words, actual timing errors. Incredibly, in her 88 books, there are 84 time warps other than those dealing with the date. These are described and explained.

Chapter 6: "Gay-Lesbianism, Incest, Menage-a-trois, Illicit Affairs." Unless one is a very observant Christie fan, sexual romps would go unnoticed. But there are a multitude of intrigues that fall under these categories. In fact, there are some habits which so defy description they are listed under the all-encompassing, "Ambiguous sexual proclivities". It is a little-known fact that Mrs. Christie, in spite of her Victorian upbringing wrote a play about incest. Her publisher refused to publish it since he felt it would tarnish her image as a writer of "clean" mysteries. This chapter lists many examples of the aberrations & sexual preferences in her books.

Chapter 7: "I can't really swallow that, can you?" Because of the convoluted and complex plots woven into Christie stories, some incredible happenings were included to make the denouement fit the story. However, those incidents were in some cases so far-fetched that some critics felt their lack of credibility was a greater sin than the cleverness of the denouement was a virtue. This chapter lists those hard-to-believe occurrences complete with story-related comments.

Chapter 8: "Are you Crazy or Just Dim?" A theme running through Christie books contrasts insanity with stupidity. Those born to the manor such as Ladies, Lords, etc., who have a mental problem are merely batty or at worst, criminally insane. But if of the serving class, such as a scullery maid or cook, the problem is one of stupidity. Sometimes these poor souls are described as "adenoidal," implying bad adenoids was a mental rather than physical affliction. This chapter lists characters who are insane and/or stupid (and there are plenty) & shows how the definition of their problem is always determined by the level of their social standing.

Chapter 9: "Look me in the eye whe you say that." Charles Osborne, a famous scholar of opera, classical music & Christie mysteries, wrote "The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie" which provides a fresh view of many of Christie's stories. One of his observations was that in "two or three of her books," one character looks over the shoulder of another to whom he or she was speaking. Often this is a clue to the mystery's solution. However, the truth is Mrs. Christie used this ploy 35 times in 26 different books. This chapter lists them & describes their significance.

Chapter 10: "Simply mistakes: nothing else for it." This chapter is a list of factual errors IN ADDITION TO time warp & sketch errors. They are not errors of judgement but real mistakes. One example describes the narrator and a policeman leaving a police station and walking to the village's edge a mile away when suddenly, "he turned sharply as Owen Griffith came into the police station." Most mistakes, however are much more complex than that example. In all there are over 150 errors. Some are impossible scenarios, others are simply mechanical or numerical errors. These are described and commented on in this chapter.

Chapter 11: "Sayings." During the 55 years Mrs. Christie wrote her books, she included 259 English sayings. However, many have sinced crossed the Atlantic suc that only 47 remain uniquely British. The chapter lists & explains them, & shows the book(s)in which they appear.

Chapter 12: "Papers, Pubs, and Cars." This chapter lists chronologically 100 different newspapers, 93 different pubs, and 124 cars. It humourously contradicts Mrs. Christie's claim that the cars of her youth were more reliable than later models. This is proven spurious by the 19 car breakdowns that occur in her books, each of which is described in this chapter.

Chapter 13: "Racism? Yes, sorry to say." Chapter 13 lists examples of rampant racism found in her stories. Early examples were usually anti-Semitic for in the 20's and 30's ridiculing Jews and their supposed traits was considered acceptable. Later, slurs are aimed at almost every nationality and/or race. Oddly enough, the funniest insult is aimed at Canadians. Lord Caterham says, out of nowhere, "I don't get on with Canadians-never did. Especially those who have spent much time in Africa." Where he would find Canadians who had spent much time in Africa in 1924 is itself a mystery. Other examples are commented on, usually humourously.

Chapter 14: "Dame Agatha in her Books." While Agatha said she used only one friend, Belcher, as an inspiration for a character, evidence suggests otherwise. This chapter names 15 people who were obvious models for her characters. Even her toys, Truelove and Mathilde and the garden shed or greenhouse, KK show up in Postern of Fate. The chapter describes her mild prejudices against doctors, lawyers, agents, and publishers. Examples of her dislike of luncheons, speeches and social gatherings are shown usually via Mrs. Oliver though she also expressed her views through Miss Marple, and other lesser-known characters.

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