V
After I had dealt satisfactorily with the last chapter of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I returned it to John Lane, then, once I had answered a few more queries and agreed to a few more alterations, the excitement receded into the background, and life went on as it would with any other young married couple who are happy, in love with each other, rather badly off, but not too much hampered by the fact. Our times off at weekends were usually spent in going to the country by train and walking somewhere. Sometimes we made a round trip of it.
The only serious blow that befell us was that I lost my dear Lucy. She had been looking worried and unhappy, and finally she came to me rather sadly one day and said, a€?Ia€?m terribly sorry to let you down, Miss Agathaa€“I mean, Maa€?am, and I dona€?t know what Mrs Rowe would think of me, buta€“well, there it is, Ia€?m going to get married.a€?
a€?Married, LucyWho to?a€?
a€?Someone I knew before the war. I always fancied him.a€?
I got more enlightenment from my mother. As soon as I told her, she exclaimed, a€?Ita€?s not that Jack again, is it?a€It appeared that my mother had not much approved of a€?that Jacka€?. Hea€?d been an unsatisfactory suitor of Lucya€?s, and it had been decided by her family that it was a good thing when the couple quarrelled and parted company. However, they had come together again now. Lucy had been faithful to the unsatisfactory Jack and there it was: she was going to get married and we should have to look for another maid.
By this time such a thing was even more impossible. No maids were to be found anywhere. However, at last, whether through an agency or a frienda€“I cana€?t remembera€“I came across someone called Rose. Rose was highly desirable. She had excellent references, a round pink face, a nice smile, and looked as though she was quite prepared to like us. The only trouble was she was highly averse to going anywhere where there was a child and a nurse. I felt that she had to be prevailed upon. She had been with people in the Flying Corps, and when she heard that my husband had been in the Flying Corps too she obviously softened towards me. She said that she expected my husband knew her own employer, Squadron-Leader G. I rushed home and said to Archie, a€?Did you ever know a Squadron-Leader G.?a€?
a€?Not that I can remember,a€said Archie.
a€?Well, you must remember,a€I said. a€?You must say that you came across him, or that you were buddies, or something like thata€“wea€?ve got to have Rose. Shea€?s wonderful, she really is. If you knew the awful creatures I have seen.a€?
So in due course Rose came to look upon us with favour. She was introduced to Archie, who said some complimentary things about Squadron-Leader G., and was finally prevailed upon to accept the position.
a€?But I dona€?t like nurses,a€she said warningly. a€?Dona€?t really mind childrena€“but nurses, they always make trouble.a€?
a€?Oh Ia€?m sure,a€I said, a€?that Nurse Swannell wona€?t make trouble.a€I was not so sure, but on the whole I thought that all would be well. The only person Jessie Swannell would make trouble for would be me, and that I could stand by now. As it happened, Rose and Jessie got along well together. Jessie told her all about her life in Nigeria, and the joy it had been to have endless niggers under her control, and Rose told her all that she had suffered in her various situations. a€?Starved, I was, sometimes,a€said Rose to me one day. a€?Starved. Do you know what they gave me for breakfast?a€?
I said that I didna€?t know.
a€?Kippers,a€said Rose gloomily. a€?Nothing but tea and a kipper, and toast and butter and jam. Well, I mean, I got so thin I was wasting away.a€?
There was no sign of Rose wasting away nowa€“she was pleasantly plump. However, I made sure that when we had kippers for breakfast two kippers were always pressed upon Rose, or even three, and that eggs and bacon were served to her in lavish quantities. She was, I think, happy with us and fond of Rosalind.
My grandmother died soon after Rosalinda€?s birth. She had been much herself up to the end, but then got a bad attack of bronchitis, and her heart was not strong enough to recover from it. She was ninety-two, still able to enjoy life, not too deaf, though very blind by this time. Her income, like my mothera€?s, had been reduced by the Chaflin failure in New York, but Mr Baileya€?s advice had saved her from losing all of it. This now came to my mother. It was not much by this time, because some of the shares had depreciated through the war, but it gave her ?￡3a€“400 a year, which, with her allowance from Mr Chaflin, made things possible for her. Of course everything got far more expensive in the years after the war. Still, she was able to keep on Ashfield. It made me rather unhappy not to be able to contribute my small income towards the upkeep of Ashfield, as my sister did. But it was really impossible in our casea€“we needed every penny we had to live on.
One day, when I was speaking in a worried voice about the difficulties of keeping up Ashfield, Archie said (very sensibly): a€?You know, really it would be much better for your mother to sell it and live elsewhere.a€?
a€?Sell Ashfield!a€I spoke in a voice of horror.
a€?I cana€?t see what good it is to you. You cana€?t go there very often.a€?
a€?I couldna€?t bear to sell Ashfield, I love it. Ita€?sa€“ita€?sa€“it means everything.a€?
a€?Then why dona€?t you try and do something about it?a€said Archie. a€?What do you mean, do something about it?a€?
a€?Well, you could write another book.a€?
I looked at him in some surprise. a€?I suppose I might write another book one of these days, but it wouldna€?t do much good to Ashfield, would it?a€?
a€?It might make a lot of money,a€said Archie.
I didna€?t think that was likely. The Mysterious Affair at Styles had sold close on 2000 copies, which was not bad at that time for a detective story by an unknown author. It had brought me in the meagre sum of ?￡25a€“and this not for the royalties on the book, but from a half share of the serial rights, which had been sold, rather unexpectedly, to The Weekly Times for ?￡50. Very good for my prestige, said John Lane. It was a good thing for a young author to have a serial accepted by The Weekly Times. That might be, but ?￡25 as the total income from writing a book did not encourage me to feel that I was likely to earn much money in a literary career.
a€?If a book has been good enough to take, and the publisher has made some money by it, which I presume he has, he will want another. You ought to get a bit more every time.a€I listened to this and agreed. I was full of admiration for Archiea€?s financial know-how. I considered writing another book. Supposing I dida€“what should it be about?
The question was solved for me one day when I was having tea in an A.B.C. Two people were talking at a table nearby, discussing somebody called Jane Fish. It struck me as a most entertaining name. I went away with the name in my mind. Jane Fish. That, I thought, would make a good beginning to a storya€“a name overheard at a tea shopa€“an unusual name, so that whoever heard it remembered it. A name like Jane Fisha€“or perhaps Jane Finn would be even better. I settled for Jane Finna€“and started writing straight away. I called it The Joyful Venture firsta€“then The Young Adventurersa€“and finally it became The Secret Adversary.
Archie had been quite right to settle in a job before he resigned from the Flying Corps. Young people were desperate. They had come out of the Services and had no jobs to go to. Young men were always ringing our doorbell, trying to sell stockings or offering some household gadget. It was a pathetic sight. One felt so sorry for them that one often bought a pair of rather nasty stockings, just to cheer them up. They had been lieutenants, naval and military, and now they were reduced to this. Sometimes they even wrote poems and tried to sell them.
I conceived the idea of having a pair of this kinda€“a girl who had been in the A.T.S. or the V.A.D. and a young man who had been in the army. They would both be rather desperate, looking for a job, and then they would meet each othera€“perhaps they would already have met in the pastAnd thenThen, I thought, they would be involved ina€“yes, espionage: this would be a spy book, a thriller, not a detective story. I liked the ideaa€“it was a change after the detective work involved in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. So I started writing, in a sketchy kind of way. It was fun, on the whole, and much easier to write than a detective story, as thrillers always are.
When I had finished it, which was not for some time, I took it to John Lane, who didna€?t like it much: it was not the same type as my first booka€“it would not sell nearly so well. In fact they were undecided whether to publish it or not. However, in the end they decided to do so. I did not have to make so many changes in this one.
As far as I remember it sold quite well. I made a little in royalties, which was something, and again I sold the serial rights to The Weekly Times, and this time got ?￡50 doled out to me by John Lane. It was encouraginga€“though not encouraging enough to make me think that I had as yet adopted anything so grand as a profession.
My third book was Murder on the Links. This, I think, must have been written not long after a cause celebre which occurred in France. I cana€?t remember the name of any of the participants by now. It was some tale of masked men who had broken into a house, killed the owner, tied up and gagged the wifea€“the mother-in-law had also died, but only apparently because she had choked on her false teeth. Anyway, the wifea€?s story was disproved, and there was a suggestion that it was the wife who had killed her husband, and that she had never been tied up at all, or only by an accomplice. It struck me as a good plot on which to weave my own story, starting with the wifea€?s life after she had been acquitted of the murder. A mysterious woman would appear somewhere, having been the heroine of a murder case years ago. I set it in France, this time.
Hercule Poirot had been quite a success in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, so it was suggested that I should continue to employ him. One of the people who liked Poirot was Bruce Ingram, editor at the time of The Sketch. He got in touch with me, and suggested that I should write a series of Poirot stories for The Sketch. This excited me very much indeed. At last I was becoming a success. To be in The Sketcha€“wonderful! He also had a fancy drawing made of Hercule Poirot which was not unlike my idea of him, though he was depicted as a little smarter and more aristocratic than I had envisaged him. Bruce Ingram wanted a series of twelve stories. I produced eight before long, and at first it was thought that that would be enough, but in the end it was decided to increase them to twelve, and I had to write another four rather more hastily than I wanted.
It had escaped my notice that not only was I now tied to the detective story, I was also tied to two people: Hercule Poirot and his Watson, Captain Hastings. I quite enjoyed Captain Hastings. He was a stereotyped creation, but he and Poirot represented my idea of a detective team. I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes traditiona€“eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Jappa€“and I now added a a€?human foxhounda€?, Inspector Giraud, of the French police. Giraud despises Poirot as being old and passe.
Now I saw what a terrible mistake I had made in starting with Hercule Poirot so olda€“I ought to have abandoned him after the first three or four books, and begun again with someone much younger. Murder on the Links was slightly less in the Sherlock Holmes tradition, and was influenced, I think, by The Mystery of the Yellow Room. It had rather that high-flown, fanciful type of writing. When one starts writing, one is much influenced by the last person one has read or enjoyed.
I think Murder on the Links was a moderately good example of its kinda€“though rather melodramatic. This time I provided a love affair for Hastings. If I had to have a love interest in the book, I thought I might as well marry off Hastings! Truth to tell, I think I was getting a little tired of him. I might be stuck with Poirot, but no need to be stuck with Hastings too.
The Bodley Head were pleased with Murder on the Links, but I had a slight row with them over the jacket they had designed for it. Apart from being in ugly colours, it was badly drawn, and represented, as far as I could make out, a man in pyjamas on a golf-links, dying of an epileptic fit. Since the man who had been murdered had been fully dressed and stabbed with a dagger, I objected. A book jacket may have nothing to do with the plot, but if it does it must at least not represent a false plot. There was a good deal of bad feeling over this, but I was really furious and it was agreed that in future I should see the jacket first and approve of it. I had already had one slight difference with The Bodley Head, and that was in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, over the spelling of the word cocoa. For some strange reason, the house spelling of cocoaa€“meaning by that a cup of cocoaa€“was coco, which, as Euclid would have said, is absurd. I was sternly opposed by Miss Howse, the dragon presiding over all spelling in The Bodley Head books. Cocoa, she said, in their publications, was always spelt cocoa€“it was the proper spelling and was a rule of the firm. I produced tins of cocoa and even dictionariesa€“they had no impression on her. Coco was the proper spelling, she said. It was not until many years later, when I was talking to Allen Lane, John Lanea€?s nephew, and begetter of Penguin Books, that I said, a€?You know I had terrible fights with Miss Howse over the spelling of cocoa.a€?
He grinned. a€?I know, we had great trouble with her as she got older. She got very opinionated about certain things. She argued with authors and would never give way.a€?
Innumerable people wrote to me and said, a€?I cana€?t understand, Agatha, why you spelled cocoa a€?cocoa€in your book. Of course you were never a good speller.a€Most unfair. I was not a good speller, I am still not a good speller, but at any rate I could spell cocoa the proper way. What I was, though, was a weak character. It was my first booka€“and I thought they must know better than I did.
I had had some nice reviews for The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but the one which pleased me best appeared in The Pharmaceutical, Journal. It praised a€?this detective story for dealing with poisons in a knowledgeable way, and not with the nonsense about untraceable substances that so often happens. Miss Agatha Christie,a€they said, a€?knows her job.a€?
I had wanted to write my books under a fancy namea€“Martin West or Mostyn Greya€“but John Lane had been insistent on keeping my own name, Agatha Christiea€“particularly the Christian name: he said, a€?Agatha is an unusual name which remains in peoplesa€memories.a€So I had to abandon Martin West and label myself henceforth as Agatha Christie. I had the idea that a womana€?s name would prejudice people against my work, especially in detective stories; that Martin West would be more manly and forthright. However, as I have said, when you are publishing a first book you give way to whatever is suggested to you, and in this case I think John Lane was right.
I had now written three books, was happily married, and my hearta€?s desire was to live in the country. Addison Mansions was a long way from the park. Pushing the pram there and back was no joke, either for Jessie Swannell or for me. Also there was one permanent snag: the flats were scheduled to come down. They belonged to Lyons, who intended to build new premises on the site. That is why the lease was only a quarterly one. At any moment notice might be given that the block was to be pulled down. Actually, thirty years later, our particular block of Addison Mansions was still standinga€“though now it has disappeared. Cadby Hall reigns in its stead.
Among our other activities at the weekend, Archie and I sometimes went by train to East Croydon and played golf there. I had never been much of a golfer, and Archie had played little, but he became keenly appreciative of the game. After a while, we seemed to go every weekend to East Croydon. I did not really mind, but I missed the variety of exploring places and going long walks. In the end that choice of recreation was to make a big difference to our lives.
Both Archie and Patrick Spencea€“a friend of ours who also worked at Goldsteina€?sa€“were getting rather pessimistic about their jobs: the prospects as promised or hinted at did not seem to materialise. They were given certain directorships, but the directorships were always of hazardous companiesa€“sometimes on the brink of bankruptcy. Spence once said, a€?I think these people are a lot of ruddy crooks. All quite legal, you know. Still, I dona€?t like it, do you?a€?
Archie said that he thought that some of it was not very reputable. a€?I rather wish,a€he said thoughtfully, a€?I could make a change.a€He liked City life and had an aptitude for it, but as time went on he was less and less keen on his employers.
And then something completely unforeseen came up.
Archie had a friend who had been a master at Cliftona€“a Major Belcher. Major Belcher was a character. He was a man with terrific powers of bluff. He had, according to his own story, bluffed himself into the position of Controller of Potatoes during the war. How much of Belchera€?s stories was invented and how much true, we never knew, but anyway he made a good story of this one. He had been a man of forty or fifty odd when the war broke out, and though he was offered a stay-at-home job in the War Office he did not care for it much. Anyway, when dining with a V.I.P. one night, the conversation fell on potatoes, which were really a great problem in the 1914a€“18 war. As far as I can remember, they vanished quite soon. At the hospital, I know, we never had them. Whether the shortage was entirely due to Belchera€?s control of them I dona€?t know, but I should not be surprised to hear it.
a€?This pompous old fool who was talking to me,a€said Belcher, a€?said the potato position was going to be serious, very serious indeed. I told him that something had to be done about ita€“too many people messing about. Somebody had got to take the whole thing overa€“one man to take control. Well, he agreed with me. a€?But mind you,a€I said, a€?hea€?d have to be paid pretty highly. No good giving a mingy salary to a man and expecting to get one whoa€?s any gooda€“youa€?ve got to have someone whoa€?s the tops. You ought to give him at leasta€“a€?a€a€?and here he mentioned a sum of several thousands of pounds. a€?Thata€?s very high,a€said the V.I.P. a€?Youa€?ve got to get a good man,a€said Belcher. a€?Mind you, if you offered it to me, I wouldna€?t take it on myself, at that price.a€?
That was the operative sentence. A few days later Belcher was begged, on his own valuation, to accept such a sum, and control potatoes. a€?What did you know about potatoes?a€I asked him.
a€?I didna€?t know a thing,a€said Belcher. a€?But I wasna€?t going to let on. I mean, you can do anythinga€“youa€?ve only got to get a man as second-in-command who knows a bit about it, and read it up a bit, and there you are!a€He was a man with a wonderful capacity for impressing people. He had a great belief in his own powers of organisationa€“and it was sometimes a long time before anyone found out the havoc he was causing. The truth is that there never was a man less able to organise. His idea, like that of many politicians, was first to disrupt the entire industry, or whatever it might be, and having thrown it into chaos, to reassemble it, as Omar Khayyam might have said, a€?nearer to the hearta€?s desirea€?. The trouble was that, when it came to reorganising, Belcher was no good. But people seldom discovered that until too late.
At some period of his career he went to New Zealand, where he so impressed the governors of a school with his plans for reorganisation that they rushed to engage him as headmaster. About a year later he was offered an enormous sum of money to give up the joba€“not because of any disgraceful conduct, but solely because of the muddle he had introduced, the hatred which he aroused in others, and his own pleasure in what he called a€?a forward-looking, up-to-date, progressive administrationa€?. As I say, he was a character. Sometimes you hated him, sometimes you were quite fond of him.
Belcher came to dinner with us one night, being out of the potato job, and explained what he was about to do next. a€?You know this Empire Exhibition wea€?re having in eighteen monthsa€timeWell, the thing has got to be properly organised. The Dominions have got to be alerted, to stand on their toes and to co-operate in the whole thing. Ia€?m going on a missiona€“the British Empire Missiona€“going round the world, starting in January.a€He went on to detail his schemes. a€?What I want,a€he said, a€?is someone to come with me as financial adviser. What about you, ArchieYoua€?ve always had a good head on your shoulders. You were Head of the School at Clifton, youa€?ve had all this experience in the City. Youa€?re just the man I want.a€?
a€?I couldna€?t leave my job,a€said Archie.
a€?Why notPut it to your boss properlya€“point out it will widen your experience and all that. Hea€?ll keep the job open for you, I expect.a€?
Archie said he doubted if Mr Goldstein would do anything of the kind.
a€?Well, think it over, my boy. Ia€?d like to have you. Agatha could come too, of course. She likes travelling, doesna€?t she?a€?
a€?Yes,a€I saida€“a monosyllable of understatement.
a€?Ia€?ll tell you what the itinerary is. We go first to South Africa. You and me, and a secretary, of course. With us would be going the Hyams. I dona€?t know if you know Hyama€“hea€?s a potato king from East Anglia. A very sound fellow. Hea€?s a great friend of mine. Hea€?d bring his wife and daughter. Theya€?d only go as far as South Africa. Hyam cana€?t afford to come further because he has got too many business deals on here. After that we push on to Australia; and after Australia New Zealand. Ia€?m going to take a bit of time off in New Zealanda€“Ia€?ve got a lot of friends out there; I like the country. Wea€?d have, perhaps, a montha€?s holiday. You could go on to Hawaii, if you liked, Honolulu.a€?
a€?Honolulu,a€I breathed. It sounded like the kind of phantasy you had in dreams.
a€?Then on to Canada, and so home. It would take about nine to ten months. What about it?a€?
We realised at last that he really meant it. We went into the thing fairly carefully. Archiea€?s expenses would, of course, all be paid, and outside that he would be offered a fee of ?￡1000. If I accompanied the party practically all my travelling costs would be paid, since I would accompany Archie as his wife, and free transport was being given on ships and on the national railways of the various countries.
We worked furiously over finances. It seemed, on the whole, that it could be done. Archiea€?s ?￡1000 ought to cover my expenses in hotels, and a montha€?s holiday for both of us in Honolulu. It would be a near thing, but we thought it was just possible.
Archie and I had twice gone abroad for a short holiday: once to the south of France, to the Pyrenees, and once to Switzerland. We both loved travellinga€“I had certainly been given a taste for it by that early experience when I was seven years old. Anyway, I longed to see the world, and it seemed to me highly probable that I never should. We were now committed to the business life, and a business man, as far as I could see, never got more than a fortnighta€?s holiday a year. A fortnight would not take you far. I longed to see China and Japan and India and Hawaii, and a great many other places, but my dream remained, and probably always would remain, wishful thinking.
a€?The question is,a€said Archie, a€?whether old Yellowface will look kindly on the scheme.a€?
I said hopefully that Archie must be very valuable to him. Archie thought he could probably be replaced with somebody just as gooda€“heaps of people were milling about wanting jobs still. Anyway, a€?old Yellowfacea€did not play. He said that he might re-employ Archie on his returna€“it would dependa€“but he certainly could not guarantee to keep the job open. That would be too much for Archie to ask. He would have to take the risk of finding his place filled. So we debated it.
a€?Ita€?s a risk,a€I said. a€?A terrible risk.a€?
a€?Yes, ita€?s a risk. I realise we shall probably land up back in England without a penny, with a little over a hundred a year between us, and nothing else; that jobs will be hard to geta€“probably even harder than now. On the other hand, wella€“if you dona€?t take a risk you never get anywhere, do you?a€?
a€?Ita€?s rather up to you,a€Archie said. a€?What shall we do about Teddy?a€Teddy was our name for Rosalind at that timea€“I think because we had once called her in fun The Tadpole.
a€?Punkiea€?a€“the name we all used for Madge nowa€“would take Teddy. Or mothera€“they would be delighted. And shea€?s got Nurse. Yesa€“yesa€“that part of it is all right. Ita€?s the only chance we shall ever have, I said wistfully.
We thought about it, and thought about it.
a€?Of course -you could go,a€I said, bracing myself to be unselfish, a€?and I stay behind.a€?
I looked at him. He looked at me.
a€?Ia€?m not going to leave you behind,a€he said. a€?I wouldna€?t enjoy it if I did that. No, either you risk it and come too, or nota€“but ita€?s up to you, because you risk more than I do, really.a€?
So again we sat and thought, and I adopted Archiea€?s point of view.
a€?I think youa€?re right,a€I said. a€?Ita€?s our chance. If we dona€?t do it we shall always be mad with ourselves. No, as you say, if you cana€?t take the risk of doing something you want, when the chance comes, life isna€?t worth living.a€?
We had never been people who played safe. We had persisted in marrying against all opposition, and now we were determined to see the world and risk what would happen on our return.
Our home arrangements were not difficult. The Addison Mansions flat could be let advantageously, and that would pay Jessiea€?s wages. My mother and my sister were delighted to have Rosalind and Nurse. The only opposition of any kind came at the last moment, when we learnt that my brother Monty was coming home on leave from Africa, My sister was outraged that I was not going to stay in England for his visit.
a€?Your only brother, coming back after being wounded in the war, and having been away for years, and you choose to go off round the world at that moment. I think ita€?s disgraceful. You ought to put your brother first.a€?
a€?Well, I dona€?t think so,a€I said. a€?I ought to put my husband first. He is going on this trip and Ia€?m going with him. Wives should go with their husbands.a€?
a€?Montya€?s your only brother, and ita€?s your only chance of seeing him, perhaps for years more.a€?
She quite upset me in the end; but my mother was strongly on my side. a€?A wifea€?s duty is to go with her husband,a€she said. a€?A husband must come first, even before your childrena€“and a brother is further away still. Remember, if youa€?re not with your husband, if you leave him too much, youa€?ll lose him. Thata€?s specially true of a man like Archie.a€?
a€?Ia€?m sure thata€?s not so,a€I said indignantly. a€?Archie is the most faithful person in the world.a€?
a€?You never know with any man,a€said my mother, speaking in a true Victorian spirit. a€?A wife ought to be with her husbanda€“and if she isna€?t, then he feels he has a right to forget her.a€?