III
It was while I was working in the dispensary that I first conceived the idea of writing a detective story. The idea had remained in my mind since Madgea€?s earlier challengea€“and my present work seemed to offer a favourable opportunity. Unlike nursing, where there always was something to do, dispensing consisted of slack or busy periods. Sometimes I would be on duty alone in the afternoon with hardly anything to do but sit about. Having seen that the stock bottles were full and attended to, one was at liberty to do anything one pleased except leave the dispensary.
I began considering what kind of a detective story I could write. Since I was surrounded by poisons, perhaps it was natural that death by poisoning should be the method I selected. I settled on one fact which seemed to me to have possibilities. I toyed with the idea, liked it, and finally accepted it. Then I went on to the dramatis personae. Who should be poisonedWho would poison him or herWhenWhereHowWhyAnd all the rest of it. It would have to be very much of an intime murder, owing to the particular way it was done; it would have to be all in the family, so to speak. There would naturally have to be a detective. At that date I was well steeped in the Sherlock Holmes tradition. So I considered detectives. Not like Sherlock Holmes, of course: I must invent one of my own, and he would also have a friend as a kind of butt or stoogea€“that would not be too difficult. I returned to thoughts of my other characters. Who was to be murderedA husband could murder his wifea€“that seemed to be the most usual kind of murder. I could, of course, have a very unusual kind of murder for a very unusual motive, but that did not appeal to me artistically. The whole point of a good detective story was that it must be somebody obvious but at the same time, for some reason, you would then find that it was not obvious, that he could not possibly have done it. Though really, of course, he had done it. At that point I got confused, and went away and made up a couple of bottles of extra hypochlorous lotion so that I should be fairly free of work the next day.
I went on playing with my idea for some time. Bits of it began to grow. I saw the murderer now. He would have to be rather sinister-looking. He would have a black bearda€“that appeared to me at that time very sinister. There were some acquaintances who had recently come to live near usa€“the husband had a black beard, and he had a wife who was older than himself and who was very rich. Yes, I thought, that might do as a basis. I considered it at some length. It might do, but it was not entirely satisfactory. The man in question would, I was sure, never murder anybody. I took my mind away from them and decided once and for all that it is no good thinking about real peoplea€“you must create your characters for yourself. Someone you see in a tram or a train or a restaurant is a possible starting point, because you can make up something for yourself about them.
Sure enough, next day, when I was sitting in a tram, I saw just what I wanted: a man with a black beard, sitting next to an elderly lady who was chattering like a magpie. I didna€?t think Ia€?d have her, but I thought he would do admirably. Sitting a little way beyond them was a large, hearty woman, talking loudly about spring bulbs. I liked the look of her too. Perhaps I could incorporate herI took them all three off the tram with me to work upona€“and walked up Barton Road muttering to myself just as in the days of the Kittens.
Very soon I had a sketchy picture of some of my people. There was the hearty womana€“I even knew her name: Evelyn. She could be a poor relation or a lady gardener or a companiona€“perhaps a lady housekeeperAnyway, I was going to have her. Then there was the man with the black beard whom I still felt I didna€?t know much about, except for his beard, which wasna€?t really enougha€“or was it enoughYes, perhaps it was; because you would be seeing this man from the outsidea€“so you could only see what he liked to showa€“not as he really was: that ought to be a clue in itself. The elderly wife would be murdered more for her money than her character, so she didna€?t matter very much. I now began adding more characters rapidly. A sonA daughterPossibly a nephewYou had to have a good many suspects. The family was coming along nicely.
I left it to develop, and turned my attention to the detective. Who could I have as a detectiveI reviewed such detectives as I had met and admired in books. There was Sherlock Holmes, the one and onlya€“I should never be able to emulate him. There was Arsene Lupina€“was he a criminal or a detectiveAnyway, not my kind. There was the young journalist Rouletabille in The Mystery of the Yellow Rooma€“that was the sort of person whom I would like to invent: someone who hadna€?t been used before. Who could I haveA schoolboyRather difficult. A scientistWhat did I know of scientistsThen I remembered our Belgian refugees. We had quite a colony of Belgian refugees living in the parish of Tor. Everyone had been bursting with loving kindness and sympathy when they arrived. People had stocked houses with furniture for them to live in, had done everything they could to make them comfortable. There had been the usual reaction later, when the refugees had not seemed to be sufficiently grateful for what had been done for them, and complained of this and that. The fact that the poor things were bewildered and in a strange country was not sufficiently appreciated. A good many of them were suspicious peasants, and the last thing they wanted was to be asked out to tea or have people drop in upon them; they wanted to be left alone, to be able to keep to themselves; they wanted to save money, to dig their garden and to manure it in their own particular and intimate way.
Why not make my detective a BelgianI thought. There were all types of refugees. How about a refugee police officerA retired police officer. Not too young a one. What a mistake I made there. The result is that my fictional detective must really be well over a hundred by now.
Anyway, I settled on a Belgian detective. I allowed him slowly to grow into his part. He should have been an inspector, so that he would have a certain knowledge of crime. He would be meticulous, very tidy, I thought to myself, as I cleared away a good many untidy odds and ends in my own bedroom. A tidy little man. I could see him as a tidy little man, always arranging things, liking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round. And he should be very brainya€“he should have little grey cells of the minda€“that was a good phrase: I must remember thata€“yes, he would have little grey cells. He would have rather a grand namea€“one of those names that Sherlock Holmes and his family had. Who was it his brother had beenMycroft Holmes.
How about calling my little man HerculesHe would be a small mana€“Hercules: a good name. His last name was more difficult. I dona€?t know why I settled on the name Poirot, whether it just came into my head or whether I saw it in some newspaper or written on somethinga€“anyway it came. It went well not with Hercules but Herculea€“Hercule Poirot. That was all righta€“settled, thank goodness.
Now I must get names for the othersa€“but that was less important. Alfred Inglethorpea€“that might do: it would go well with the black beard. I added some more characters. A husband and wifea€“attractivea€“estranged from each other. Now for all the ramificationsa€“the false clues. Like all young writers, I was trying to put far too much plot into one book. I had too many false cluesa€“so many things to unravel that it might make the whole thing not only more difficult to solve, but more difficult to read.
In leisure moments, bits of my detective story rattled about in my head. I had the beginning all settled, and the end arranged, but there were difficult gaps in between. I had Hercule Poirot involved in a natural and plausible way. But there had to be more reasons why other people were involved. It was still all in a tangle.
It made me absent-minded at home. My mother was continually asking why I didna€?t answer questions or didna€?t answer them properly. I knitted Granniea€?s pattern wrong more than once; I forgot to do a lot of the things that I was supposed to do; and I sent several letters to the wrong addresses. However, the time came when I felt I could at last begin to write. I told mother what I was going to do. Mother had the usual complete faith that her daughters could do anything.
a€?Oh?a€she said. a€?A detective storyThat will be a nice change for you, wona€?t itYoua€?d better start.a€?
It wasna€?t easy to snatch much time, but I managed. I had the old typewriter stilla€“the one that had belonged to Madgea€“and I battered away on that, after I had written a first draft in longhand. I typed out each chapter as I finished it. My handwriting was better in those days and my longhand was readable. I was excited by my new effort. Up to a point I enjoyed it. But I got very tired, and I also got cross. Writing has that effect, I find. Also, as I began to be enmeshed in the middle part of the book, the complications got the better of me instead of my being the master of them. It was then that my mother made a good suggestion.
a€?How far have you got?a€she asked.
a€?Oh, I think about halfway through.a€?
a€?Well, I think if you really want to finish it youa€?ll have to do so when you take your holidays.a€?
a€?Well, I did mean to go on with it then.a€?
a€?Yes, but I think you should go away from home for your holiday, and write with nothing to disturb you.a€?
I thought about it. A fortnight quite undisturbed. It would be rather wonderful.
a€?Where would you like to go?a€asked my mother. a€?Dartmoor?a€a€?Yes,a€I said, entranced. a€?Dartmoora€“that is exactly it.a€?
So to Dartmoor I went. I booked myself a room in the Moorland Hotel at Hay Tor. It was a large, dreary hotel with plenty of rooms. There were few people staying there. I dona€?t think I spoke to any of thema€“it would have taken my mind away from what I was doing. I used to write laboriously all morning till my hand ached. Then I would have lunch, reading a book. Afterwards I would go out for a good walk on the moor, perhaps for a couple of hours. I think I learnt to love the moor in those days. I loved the tors and the heather and all the wild part of it away from the roads. Everybody who went therea€“and of course there were not many in wartimea€“would be clustering round Hay Tor itself, but I left Hay Tor severely alone and struck out on my own across country. As I walked I muttered to myself, enacting the chapter that I was next going to write; speaking as John to Mary, and as Mary to John; as Evelyn to her employer, and so on. I became quite excited by this. I would come home, have dinner, fall into bed and sleep for about twelve hours. Then I would get up and write passionately again all morning.
I finished the last half of the book, or as near as not, during my fortnighta€?s holiday. Of course that was not the end. I then had to rewrite a great part of ita€“mostly the over-complicated middle. But in the end it was finished and I was reasonably satisfied with it. That is to say it was roughly as I had intended it to be. It could be much better, I saw that, but I didna€?t see just how I could make it better, so I had to leave it as it was. I re-wrote some very stilted chapters between Mary and her husband John who were estranged for some foolish reason, but whom I was determined to force together again at the end so as to make a kind of love interest. I myself always found the love interest a terrible bore in detective stories. Love, I felt, belonged to romantic stories. To force a love motif into what should be a scientific process went much against the grain. However, at that period detective stories always had to have a love interesta€“so there it was. I did my best with John and Mary, but they were poor creatures. Then I got it properly typed by somebody, and having finally decided I could do no more to it, I sent it off to a publishera€“Hodder and Stoughtona€“who returned it. It was a plain refusal, with no frills on it. I was not surpriseda€“I hadna€?t expected successa€“but I bundled it off to another publisher.