If you missed it: The Hound of Death: The Supernatural Stories of Agatha Christie
A. Conan Doyle wrote during the hey-dey of the Spiritualist craze. G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown exists in a Pre-World War I milieu still enchanted by mediums and psychics. Agatha Christie, who emulated Doyle and Chesterton, wrote when men like Harry Houdini spent their time exposing frauds in a search for the genuine article. Consequentially Christie’s use of the macabre was characteristic of the times. Her later novels (1940 on) contain almost no supernatural elements. Agatha Christie saw the spiritualist era to its close, then went on to write her more famous works.
The ghostly in Agatha’s work is almost always proven false, in the tradition of “the false monster” in works like The Hound of the Baskervilles. Invariably, about half way through a story, the witchy trappings fall off revealing a murder plot or a killer. Only in the ten true ghost stories that Christie wrote (contained largely in one book The Hound of Death) does this not happen, and these tales are often mysteries still, only with supernatural explanations.
The supernatural themes that Christie uses are typical of Spiritualist beliefs: reincarnation, premonitions, seances and spiritualists (both real and fraudulent), gypsies, witchcraft, ghosts and spirits. Occasionally these ghostly appearances were flavored with the sinister Orient. Her earliest collections Poirot Investigates (1924), The Tuesday Club Murders (1932) and The Hound of Death (1933) show she had exposure to spiritualism and its practitioners. Her experiences in Asia and her marriage to Max Mallowan would contribute to Agatha maturation and her leaving the supernatural theme behind her. It would be only rarely that the ghostly would appear in her work after 1939.
CURSES
Christie utilized curses and forecasts of doom in many of her early stories. Christie’s first collection of stories, Poirot Investigates (1924), hold several examples. It opens with “The Adventure of the Western Star”, the tale of two diamonds, “The Star of the East” and “The Western Star”. Of the former we learn from an article:
… Amongst other famous stones may be included the Star of the East, a diamond in the possession of the Yardly family. An ancestor of the present Lord Yardly brought it back with him from China, and a romantic story is said to attach to it. According to this, the stone was once the right eye of a temple god. Another diamond, exactly similar in form and size, formed the left eye, and the story goes that this jewel, too, would in course of time be stolen. ‘One eye shall go West, the other East, till they shall meet once more. Then, in triumph shall they return to the god.’
When movie actress Miss Mary Marvell and Lady Yardly plan to bring the two gems together a series of letters warn the American film star in Wilkie Collins’ fashion: “The great diamond which is the left eye of the god must return whence it came.” The letters do not frightened Miss Marvell so much as that: “… they were left by hand — by a Chinaman …” Poirot is hired to protect the gems from any Chinese cultists, but the answer proves to be less romantic. Gregory B. Rolf, Marvel’s beau, has been blackmailing Lady Yardly for their earlier indiscretions, and has given the Star of the East to Marvell. Now that his infidelity will be revealed, Rolf cooks up the Chinaman and the plot to cover his tracks. The two stones were, in fact, the same one.
Agatha’s characters mirror the bigotry of their time. Christie also used evil Chinese cultists (the “Yellow Peril” philosophy was kept alive in England through the works of Sax Rohmer who encapsulated Western feelings in the character of Dr. Fu Manchu) in her early novel The Big Four (1927). The similarities of “The Adventure of the Western Star” to Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1870) and Doyle’s own homage The Sign of Four (1888) are obvious. Both writers formed a part of Agatha’s early reading. The stereotypical foreigner would become less prominent as Christie matured with travel.
“The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb” is another tale of a criminal hiding behind the arcane. Four men die mysteriously after opening the tomb of Pharaoh Men-her-Ra. Mrs. Williard explains:
“… Three deaths, Monsieur Poirot — each one explicable taken by itself, but taken together surely an almost unbelievable coincidence, and all within a month of the opening of the tomb! It may be mere superstition, it may be some potent curse from the past that operates in ways undreamed of by modern science. The fact remains — three deaths! And I am afraid, Monsieur Poirot, horribly afraid. It may not yet be the end.”
Mrs. Willard expects to be chastised for her outburst, but Poirot shocks both his hostess and Hastings by saying: “I, too, believe in the force of superstition, one of the greatest forces the world has ever known.”
Poirot and Hastings travel to Egypt, first by sea which frays even Poirot’s immaculate appearance, only to arrive in a land of flies, heat and sand. The Belgian detective is as displeased with the Land of the Nile as Hastings is captured by its romance. It is here that the duo meets the remainder of the expedition: Dr. Tosswill, Mr. Schneider, Dr. Ames, Harper, the secretary, Hassan, a local servant and the young Sir Guy Williard, each one potential victims of the Pharaoh’s wrath. Hassan says: “… There is evil in the air around us.” Poirot agrees.
Poirot is studying the suspects, when something strange happens: the shadow of Anubis, the Hyena-headed god of the Egyptian underworld is seen among the tents. Hastings and the others pursue the elusive shade. Upon returning they find :
… Poirot taking energetic measures, in his own way, to ensure his personal safety. He was busily surrounding our tent with various diagrams and inscriptions which he was drawing in the sand. I recognized the five-pointed star or Pentagon many times repeated. As was his wont, Poirot was at the same time delivering an impromptu lecture on witchcraft and magic in general, White Magic as opposed to Black, with various references to the Ka and the Book of the Dead thrown in.”
It is with the solution that Poirot explains to Hastings exactly what his belief in the supernatural is (and perhaps what Christie’s was as well):
… “But I thought you believed in some occult influence?”
“You misunderstand me, Hastings. What I meant was that I believe in the terrific force of superstition. Once get it firmly established that a series of deaths are supernatural, and you might almost stab a man in broad daylight, and it would still be put down to the curse, so strongly is the instinct of the supernatural implanted in the human race. I suspected from the first that a man was taking advantage of that instinct …”
Poirot had tried to exploit it as well, with his mock incantations, but the killer is not frightened into revealing himself. Poirot must resort to a dangerous trick, knowing that he is likely to be the next victim of the Pharaoh’s curse. The Belgian detective fakes the symptom of being poisoned, which brings Dr. Ames and closes the net.
As can be expected the solution is not what it seems. The killer, Dr. Ames, commits suicide when confronted. The nephew of Mr. Bleibner, Rupert, “in a fit of drunken merriment, had made a jocular will”, leaving everything to Robert Ames. The physician then killed Bleibner before he could exclude his nephew from inheriting because of his low-life antics. Rupert commits suicide because Ames has convinced him he is a leper (his suicide notes says as much but everyone thinks Rupert is being figurative instead of literal). The doctor will inherit the Bleibner fortune now that the two men are dead. Of the killing of Sir John Willard, Poirot surmises: “… a further death motiveless and purposeless would strengthen the coils of superstition. Furthermore, I will tell you an interesting fact … A murderer has always a strong desire to repeat his crime, the performance of it grows upon him …”
In “Dead Man’s Mirror”(1937), one’s Fate is seen as a curse, one that no man can forestall.
“… But there is no such thing as Death really, you know, only Change … As a matter of fact, Gervase is standing just behind your left shoulder now. I can see him distinctly … You don’t believe, of course! So few people will. To me, the spirit world is quite as real as this one. But please ask me anything you like and don’t worry about distressing me. I’m not in the least distressed. Everything, you see, is Fate. One cannot escape one’s Karma. It all fits in — the mirror – everything … Yes, it’s splintered you see. A symbol! You know Tennyson’s poem? I used to read it as a girl — though, of course, I didn’t realize then the esoteric side of it. ‘The mirror cracked from side to side; “The curse is come upon me! cried the Lady of Shalott.’ That’s what happened to Gervase. The Curse came upon him suddenly. I think, you know, most very old families have a curse …. The mirror cracked. He knew he was doomed! The Curse had come!”… “It was Fate … Gervase was strong but his Fate was stronger.”
Gervase’s Fate is based in a belief in reincarnation, a staple of Spiritualism. Mystics like Edgar Cayce purport to reveal who we have been throughout the Ages. Lady Chevenix-Gore, a follower of Spiritualism, tells Poirot about her past: “… I am the reincarnation of Hatshepsut, you know … Before that … I was a Priestess in Atlantis.”
Her murdered husband is no exception:
… Gervase, of course, was a very strange man. He was quite unlike anyone else. He was one of the Great Ones born again. I’ve known that for some time. I think he knew it himself. He found it very hard to conform to the silly little standards of the everyday world … He’s smiling now. He’s thinking how foolish we all are. So we are really. Just like children. Pretending that life is real and that it matters …. Life is only one of the Great Illusions.”
In “The Case of the Caretaker” from The Mousetrap and Other Stories (1950), we see the curse used for more devious purposes, murder. Young Harry and Louise Laxton have returned to Harry’s home town to renovate his old family estate. The old woman who has been removed from the property haunts Louise’s every minute:
“It seemed to Louise that her new home was tainted and poisoned by the malevolent figure of one crazy old woman. When she went out in the car, when she rode, when she walked out with the dogs, there was always the same figure waiting. Crouched down on herself, a battered hat over wisps of iron-grey hair, and the slow muttering of imprecations.”
Louise, who is finding country life more difficult than her spouse, worries when the old woman curses them from afar: “‘… And as for you and him, I’m telling you there will be no happiness for you in your fine new house. It’s the black sorrow will be upon you! Sorrow and death and my curse. May your fair face rot.”
Louise becomes a virtual prisoner, finding solace only in riding, but even this is denied her: “… Yet even Prince Hal, most sensitive of chestnut steeds, was wont to shy and snort as he carried his mistress past that huddled figure of a malevolent old woman.” Finally the old witch appears one last time, spooking the horse and killing the rich young bride. The old witch proves the hireling of the inheritance-seeking husband. The plot of “The Case of the Caretaker” would be recycled in the novel Endless Night (1967).
PREMONITIONS
Premonitions of death are one of Christie’s favorite ploys, since they are really just death threats from a higher place (or are they? as the story often reveals.) In “The Blue Geranium”, from Tuesday Club Murders, Miss Marple is asked if she would like to hear Arthur Bantry’s ghost story, to which she replies: “‘Oh, do!’ said Jane. ‘I love ghost stories.'”. Everyone is quite practical about not believing in ghosts, but the alternatives have Arthur nervous:
“… But I don’t think we have any really exciting criminals in our midst. I think we must try her with Arthur’s ghost story after dinner. I’d be thankful if she’d find a solution to that.”
“I didn’t know that Arthur believed in ghosts?”
“Oh, he doesn’t. That’s what worries him so …”
Arthur tells of a Mr. Pritchard whose ailing wife torments him from her sick bed. A succession of nurses come and go, but the sick woman holds on, finding enjoyment in very little: “… I gather Mrs. Pritchard had always had a weakness for fortunetellers, palmists, clairvoyants — anything of that sort. George didn’t mind. If she found amusement in it, well and good …”
Then Zarida, Psychic Reader of the Future comes into the Pritchards’ lives foretelling of doom: “I have seen the Future. Be warned before it is too late. Beware the full moon. The Blue Primrose means Warning; the Blue Hollyhock means Danger; the Blue Geranium means Death ….” The prophecy creates obvious anxiety: “‘… I told her that I thought the woman perfectly capable of dying of fright — she was really abnormally superstitious.'”
But it proves that the death is not in the blue flowers which do appear on the woman’s bedroom walls, but in her smelling salts which she uses when excited. The poison not only kills her but changes the litmus paper flowers from a light pink to bright blue. The culprit is the nurse, and not Mr. Pritchard, putting Arthur’s mind at rest.
In “Dead Man’s Mirror”, Hercule Poirot baits the psychic Lady Chevenix-Gore about her supposed gift of second sight, by asking her why she did not foresee her husband’s death. Agatha’s own voice may be heard in that question. “One can’t always foresee the future.” she replies rather vaguely before going on to other subjects.
“The Dream” also uses prophecy to set up murder. This time it is the wealthy pie manufacturer Farley who is having dreams of his eminent death:
“It’s the same dream — night after night. And I’m afraid, I tell you — I’m afraid …. It’s always the same. I’m sitting in my room next door to this. Sitting at my desk, writing. There’s a clock there and I glance at it and see the time — exactly twenty-eight minutes past three. Always the same time, you understand.
“And when I see the time, M. Poirot, I know I’ve got to do it. I don’t want to do it — I loathe doing it — but I’ve got to … At twenty-eight minutes past three … I open the second drawer down on the right of my desk, take out the revolver that I keep there, load it and walk to the window. And then — and then — … I shoot myself …
Poirot, who interviews Farley, discovers that the man he has visited is not the businessman at all but Hugo Cornworth, disguised and in darkness, who along with Mrs, Farley has used the ruse of prophecy to disguise her husband’s murder.
Sleeping Murder (1976) is Miss Marple final appearance. The novel begins with Gwenda and Giles Reed buying a house. “Immediately Gwenda felt a throb of appreciation — almost of recognition. This was her house! Already she was sure of it. She could picture the garden, the long windows — she was sure that the house was just what she wanted.”
Gwenda continues to have memories or visions about the house, such as the wall-paper in certain rooms. She asks:
“The house isn’t — haunted, is it? … You’ve never felt or seen anything yourself? Nobody’s died here? … Perhaps I am a bit psychic,” thought Gwenda uneasily. “Or is it something to do with the house?”
Why had she asked Mrs. Hengrave that day if the house was haunted?
One night the couple goes to the theater to see The Duchess of Malfi. When the actor delivers the line: “…Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.”:
Gwenda screamed.
She sprang from her seat, pushed blindly past the others out into the aisle, through the exit and up the stairs and so to the street. She did not stop, even then, but half walked, half ran, in a blind panic up the Haymarket.
The final answer comes as a relief and a burden to Gwenda. She had lived in the house when she was a young child and at the age of three she had witness a murder. It is up to Miss Marple to solve the old crime.
SEANCES
Murder at Hazelmoor (1931) opens with a group of residents meeting at the large Sittaford house, which has been rented out to a Mrs. Willett and her adult daughter, Violet. The party is looking for a bit of fun and tries using a Ouiji board at the suggestion of Ronnie Garfield. Another of the revelers, Mr. Rycroft, is a member of the Psychical Research Society.
The second chapter provides a good example of “table turning”:
… A small round table with a polished top was brought from an adjoining room. It was set in front of the fire and everyone took his place round it with the light switched off … There were the usual laughs, whispers, stereotyped remarks … At last, after some time, the murmur of talk died away.
A silence … A tremor ran through the polished surface. The table began to rock.
“Ask it questions …”
“Oh! Hullo — is a spirit present?”
A sharp rock.
“That means yes …”
“Ask it to spell its name.”
“How can it?”
“We count the number of rocks.”
The table started rocking violently.
“A B C D E F G H I — I say, was that I or J?”
Once the message from the other side is deciphered it spells T-R-E-V (for Trevelyn, the man who rented Sittaford house to Mrs. Willet) and M-U-R-D-E-R. When Major Burnaby walks the six miles in the snow to tell the police, the spirits prove correct. Captain Trevelyn has been bludgeoned with a sand-bag. Emily Trefusis and Inspector Narracott must bring the mystery to a satisfactory conclusion, even interrupting a second seance to do so. The killer proves to be the one who rigged the seance as a excuse to leave and kill Trevelyn. The prediction is true, only it hasn’t happened yet! The killer rushes on skies to kill the man before the message can be delivered.
Agatha wrote part of Murder at Hazelmoor on holiday in Dartmoor (Autobiography Vol. 1, Pg. 544). The atmosphere of the evil moorland is used effectively by the author to heighten the effect as well as provide the necessary isolation which is key to so many Christie plots. Dartmoor is, of course, the setting of Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.
In “Motive v. Opportunity”, from Tuesday Club Murders, we get to see the false psychic praying upon the weak. Simon Clode, who mourns for a lost granddaughter, falls prey to:
“… an American medium, a Mrs. Eurydice Spragg. This woman, whom George did not hesitate to characterize as an out and out swindler, had gained an immense ascendancy over Simon Clode. She was practically always in the house and many seances were held in which the spirit of Christobel manifested itself to the doting grandfather… I found Mrs. Spragg installed as an honoured and friendly guest. As soon as I saw her my worst apprehensions were fulfilled. She was a stout woman of middle age, dressed in a flamboyant style. Very full of cant phrases about ‘our dear ones who have passed over’, and other things of the kind.
Simon’s son-in-law, Phillip Garrod tries to prove Mrs. Spragg a fake:
… He came down the following week, bringing with him as a guest no other than the famous Professor Longman. Longman was a scientist of the first order, a man whose association with spiritualism compelled the latter to be treated with respect. Not only a brilliant scientist, he was a man of utmost uprightness and probity … Two seances were held … Longman was noncommittal all the time he was in the house, but after his departure he wrote a letter to Philip Garrod. In it he admitted that he had not been able to detect Mrs. Spragg in fraud; nevertheless, his private opinion was that the phenomena were not genuine … and he suggested that he himself should put Mr. Clode in touch with a medium of perfect integrity.
The bone of contention is Simon Clode’s new will which “in gratitude and admiration” leaves all of his estate to Mrs. Spragg except for a small pittance to the relatives. When the will is opened it is found to be a blank sheet. The Spraggs had the opportunity but not the motive to exchange the papers after the writing of the will. Who in their right mind would steal a will giving them so much? The answer, as Miss Marple points, out, is that the servants gave Simon Clode a pen with disappearing ink, and the will simply vanished.
“S. O. S.”, in The Hound of Death (1933), creates a sense of the unearthly but ultimately can be explained either psychologically or naturally. Christie plays up the weird angle more than in some stories, making it a good choice for a supernatural omnibus. The hero of the tale is Christie’s best try at a psychic detective, a scientist named Mortimer Cleveland. Like most characters of the ghost-breaker variety he has special qualifications:
Cleveland was in his own way something of a celebrity though doubtless the majority of folks would have displayed complete ignorance of his name and achievements. He was an authority on mental science and had written two excellent text books on the subconscious. He was also a member of the Psychical Research Society and a student of the occult in so far as it affected his own conclusions and line of research.
He was by nature peculiarly susceptible to atmosphere, and by deliberate training he had increased his own natural gift …
The plot of “S. O. S.” involves a family that has moved far into the country, to a remote house that is reported to be haunted. “‘Yes, a man murdered his wife in it, oh, some years ago now …'” The scientist, in true pulp-fashion, has had a break-down in his car, stranding him in the house with Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmead, their two daughters, Charlotte and Magdalen, and the younger brother, Johnny.
Cleveland receives a mysterious S.O.S. written in the dust on a table, and knows something is wrong. The detective flirts with the idea that a spirit has written the message, but later asks Charlotte if she did. Cleveland suggests that the atmosphere of the house may have effected her subconscious, then “‘I must not be carried away by the psychic explanation…'”
The writer proves to be Magdalen who fears for her sister’s life. “‘I am a practical person…not the kind of person who imagines things or fancies them. You, I know, believe in ghosts and spirits. I don’t, and when I tell you that there is something very wrong in that house … I mean that there is something tangibly wrong; it’s not just an echo of the past.'”
Magdalen is right, but the evil event is prevented by Cleveland. The father has been trying to poison his daughter, Charlotte, with rat poison. The “accident” is to be blamed on Johnny who is fond of chemistry and a leaky bag of poison in the pantry. Dinsmead’s daughter has a 60,000 pound inheritance coming to her on her majority. Cleveland figures out the plan when he recalls an article about a family accidentally poisoned in that manner and collects evidence against the father should he try again.
Christie ends the tale with a semi-romantic conversation between the scientist and the adopted sister. The author can’t quite allow the reader to dismiss the supernatural events. Cleveland says, “‘My child … you don’t believe in the past. I do. I believe in the atmosphere of this house. If he [Mr. Dinsmead] had not come to it, perhaps-I say perhaps–your father might not have conceived the plan he did …'”
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) is not a supernatural book but one about archeologists and their in-fighting. It does contain one interesting chapter to this discussion, Chapter 23: “I Go Psychic”. In this short aside, practical, earthy Nurse Leathern indulges in a guilty pleasure, psychic ability:
I’m not superstitious but the idea did pop into my head that perhaps Mrs. Leidner’s spirit was hanging about the room and trying to get in touch with me.
I remember once at the hospital some of us girls got a planchette and really it wrote some very remarkable things.
Perhaps, although I’d never thought of such a thing, I might be mediumistic.
As I say, one gets worked up to imagine all sorts of foolishness sometimes.
I prowled round the room uneasily, touching this and that. But, of course, there wasn’t anything in the room but bare furniture. There was nothing slipped behind drawers or tucked away. I couldn’t hope for anything of that kind.
In the end (it sounds rather batty, but as I say, one gets worked up) I did a rather queer thing.
I went and lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.
I deliberately tried to forget who and what I was. I tried to think myself back to that fatal afternoon. I was Mrs. Leidner lying here resting, peaceful and unsuspicious.
It’s extraordinary how you can work yourself up.
I’m a perfectly normal matter-of-fact individual — not the least little bit spooky, but I tell you that after I’d lain there about five minutes I began to feel spooky.
I didn’t try to resist. I deliberately encouraged the feeling.
I said to myself:
“I’m Mrs. Leidner. I’m Mrs. Leidner. I’m lying here — half asleep. Presently — very soon now — the door’s going to open.
The door is not opened by supernatural means, but Bill Coleman enters. Though the scene does little to further the plot, it does allow the reader to visual Mrs. Leidner’s bedroom at the time of the murder, an important clue to the solution. Though the character of Nurse Leathern is an homage to Mary Roberts Rinehart’s Miss Pinkerton, it is easy to see Christie as the practical nurse and may perhaps be inspired by some youthful experiment of her own.
GHOSTS AND SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
“The Tragedy at Marsden Manor” from Poirot Investigates (1924) shows Poirot using the human imagination to conjure up enough terror to betray murder (a trick that didn’t work in “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb”.) Mrs. Maltrevers has done away with her husband. Poirot’s sets his trap by reinforcing the killer’s belief in the supernatural:
“Madame, you of all people should know that there are no dead!”
“What do you mean?” she faltered, her eyes growing wide.
“Have you never taken part in any spiritualistic seances? You are mediumistic, you know.”
“I have been told so. But you do not believe in Spiritualism, surely?”
“Madame, I have seen some strange things. You know that they say in the village that his house is haunted?”
The weather is horrible. A strange apparition appears but Poirot and Hastings do not see it. The effects are visible on their intended victim:
… I saw Mrs. Maltravers give a terrified start, and my mind flew to the old superstition that a suicide cannot rest. She thought of it too, I am sure, for a minute later, she caught Poirot’s arm with a scream.
“Didn’t you hear that? Those three taps on the window? That’s how he always used to tap when he passed around the house.”
“The ivy.” I cried, “It was the ivy against the pane.”
But a sort of terror was gaining on us all. The parlormaid was obviously unstrung and when the meal was over Mrs. Maltravers besought Poirot not to got at once. She was clearly terrified to be left alone. We sat in the little morning-room. The wind was getting up, and moaning round the house in an eerie fashion. Twice the door of the room unlatched and the door slowly opened, and each time she clung to me with a terrified gasp.”
Seeing the bloody hands of the ghost, Mrs. Maltrevers admits she had shot her husband. The lights come on and the ghost is revealed to be Mr. Everett, an actor.
Also in Tuesday Club Murders (1932) is “The Idol House of Astarte”, a tale which sets a dress party at a strange grove of trees belonging to the goddess, Astarte:
“Astarte, or Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, or whatever you choose to call her. I prefer the Phoenician name of Astarte. There is, I believe, one known Grove of Astarte in this country-in the North on the Wall. I have no evidence, but I like to believe that we have a true and authentic Grove of Astarte here. Here, within this dense circle of trees, sacred rites were performed.”
Dr. Pender, the narrator of the story, gives his impression of the spot where the “Idol House” stands, and then describes a most unusual sight:
“We all trooped off together, somewhat curious as to what Miss Ashley had been up to. Yet I, for one, felt a curious reluctance to enter that dark foreboding belt of trees. Something stronger than myself seemed to be holding me back and urging me not to enter. I felt more definitely convinced than ever of the essential evilness of the spot. I think that some of the others experienced the same sensations that I did, though they would have been loath to admit it. The trees were so closely planted that the moonlight could not penetrate. There were a dozen soft sounds all round us, whisperings and sighings. The feeling was eerie in the extreme, and by common consent we all kept close together.
“Suddenly we came out into the open clearing in the middle of the grove and stood rooted to the spot in amazement, for there, on the threshold of the Idol House, stood a shimmering figure wrapped tightly round in diaphanous gauze and with two crescent horns rising from the dark masses of her hair.
The vision isn’t the goddess Astarte but the missing Miss Ashley. Richard Haydon, one of the happy revelers, watches her falls and receives a wound despite the lack of any visible weapon. Everyone assumes a magical instrument, though Miss Marple, one of the attendant listeners, provides the real method. The killer, the man’s brother, Eliot, stabbed Richard with a knife, part of his pirate costume, blocking everyone’s view with his own back while he did it.
In “The Bloodstained Pavement” a town with a legend is the scene of murder. The local tale of a Spanish raid provides the supernatural element:
“… I had the whole history of the shelling — I mean the destroying — of the village, and how the landlord of the Polharwith Arms was the last man to be killed. Run through on his own threshold by a Spanish captain’s sword, and of how his blood spurted out on the pavement and no one could wash out the stain for a hundred years.”
This strange story of ghostly blood has a significance when the narrator, Joyce Lempriere experiences it first hand.
“All the time he was talking to me I went on painting, and suddenly I realized that in the excitement of listening to his story I had painted in something that was not there. On that white square of pavement where the sun fell before the door of the Polharwith Arms, I had painted in blood-stains. It seemed extraordinary that the mind could play such tricks with the hand, but as I looked over towards the inn again I got a second shock. My hand had only painted in what my eyes saw — drops of blood on the white pavement.”
As with all the stories in Tuesday Club Murders, Miss Marple provides the answer. The blood is not a ghostly manifestation but real blood, dripping off a balcony where a slain woman’s body rests.
“Wireless” (also known as “Where There’s a Will”) is the one of four stories in The Hound of Death which can be ultimately solved without any supernatural explanation. In this story an elderly woman, Mrs. Mary Harter, who suffers from health problems, is proscribed from all excitement by her physician, Dr. Meynell. Her greedy nephew, Charles Ridgeway, buys her a radio which his Aunt is reluctance to use. “You may say what you like, Charles, but some people are affected by electricity.”
While the nephew is out, Aunt Mary receives a message from beyond. The radio says: “Mary — can you hear me, Mary? It is Patrick speaking …. I am coming for you soon …” This happens to her on several occasions when Charles is out. The next day the nephew has starling news after finding a picture of Uncle Patrick. With only a little prodding he recounts an amazing thing:
“… I fancied I saw him — the man in the picture, I mean, — looking out of the end window when I was coming up the drive last night. Some effect of the light, I suppose. I wondered who on earth he could be, the face was so — early Victorian, if you know what I mean. And then Elizabeth said there was no one, no visitor or stranger in the house, and later in the evening I happened to drift into the spare room, and there was the picture over the mantelpiece. My man to the life! It is quite easily explained, really, I expect …”
Finally the ghostly voice arranges a time for Patrick and Mary to reunite. “… On Friday, I shall come for you. Friday at half past nine …” The old woman writes a note and gives it to Elizabeth, the maid, to give to her doctor. She also insists that her nephew not be in attendance.
“She was an old lady of courage and determination. She felt that she must go through with her strange experience singlehanded.” She draws up a will, giving a few items to relatives but the bulk, a considerable bulk, to Charles.
The time draws near. Mrs. Harter switches on the radio, but there is only a music program.
… Instead there came a familiar sound, a sound she knew well but which tonight made her feel as though an icy hand were laid on her heart. A fumbling at the door ….It came again. And then a cold blast seemed to sweep through the room. Mrs. Harter had now no doubt what her sensations were. She was afraid …. She was more than afraid — she was terrified …
Her heart gave one terrified leap and stood still. She slipped to the ground in a huddled heap.
After the death of Mrs. Harter, all is revealed. Charles, who is in great debt, has been secretly working towards his aunt’s death. The wireless set has been rigged so that Charles can speak over it in a ghostly voice. But things do not end as the nephew plans. The solicitor, Mr. Hopkinson, reports the will is missing. While impersonating the ghost, Charles recalls a piece of paper slipping from her hands as she died of fright. The new will is now burnt, making the former will-leaving everything to Miriam Harter-legal. Meynell and Mr. Hopkinson suspect the murder is Ridgeway’s doing. “No hope in front of him — only the shadow of the prison wall ….” The final irony is according to Dr. Meynell’s reports the old woman had only two months to live anyway. Ridgeway feels a ghostly presense against him: “He felt that somebody had been playing with him — playing with like a cat with a mouse. Somebody must be laughing …
The ghostly suggestion at the end of “Wireless” makes it appropriate for a horror collection like The Hound of Death, but ultimately no real supernatural event exists. The radio messages are fake, the will is burned by accident, and even Charles’ feelings of supernatural torment can be seen as entirely psychological.
Like “Wireless” “The Mystery of the Blue Jar” is one of three non-supernatural stories in The Hound of Death. A young golf enthusiast, named Jack Hartington, believes he hears a mysterious voice calling for help: “Murder … Help! Murder A pretty young French girl living in a cottage near by confirms that Jack alone can hear the voice that sounds at half past seven every morning.
Hartington enlists the help of Lavington, a mental specialist of the occult detective type, who calls himself a Doctor of the soul. Lavington plays golf with Jack but can not hear the woman’s call either. Lavington feels Jack maybe psychic. He explains possibly why Jack can hear the cries for help and others can’t:
… It is a curious thing that many of the best mediums are made out of confirmed sceptics. It isn’t the people who are interested in occult phenomena who get the manifestations. Some people see and hear things that other people don’t — we don’t know why, and nine times out of ten they don’t want to see or hear them, and are convinced that they are suffering from delusions — just as you were. It’s like electricity. Some substances are good conductors, others are non-conductors, and for a long time we didn’t know why, and had to be content just to accept the fact …”
Lavington investigates the house at which the pretty French woman, Mademoiselle Felise Marchaud, lives with her consumptive father. The house has a reputation for being haunted. Felise Marchaud finds a watercolor sketch that features a woman she has seen in a dream, bearing a beautiful blue jar. Lavington realizes that Jack’s rich Uncle George has purchased the jar when the last residents fled the haunting spirits. He implores Jack to get the jar because it may solve the mystery.
Hartington reluctantly takes the jar, even though his uncle in away on the Continent. The three investigators plan to spend the night with the jar in the haunted cottage in hopes that the woman’s spirit will appear. They turn out the lights and concentrate. Jack quickly passes out.
When Jack wakes he can not figure out what has happened. He wakes not in the cottage but in a copse of trees near the golf course. The man returns to his hotel only to run into Uncle George. He tells him the entire story. George is frantic: “Ming — unique — gem of my collection — worth ten thousand pounds at least … Confound it, sir, what have you done with my BLUE JAR?”
Leaving the hotel, the clerk gives Jack a note from Lavington, which explains everything:
“My Dear Young Friend;
Is the day of the supernatural over? Not quite — especially when tricked out in new scientific language. Kindest regards from Felise, invalid father, and myself. We have twelve hours start, which ought to be ample.
Yours ever,
Ambroise Lavington,
Doctor of the Soul. “
Jack has been taken in by a cunning gang of thieves. The supernatural events, of course, prove false. The age of Spiritualism may be ending, but “new scientific language” and research may be bringing it back in a new guise. The contempt the author seems to feel towards the gullible is evident. The story, while generating more atmosphere than many of Christie’s false ghost like”S. O. S.”, ultimately can be explained through natural means.
Perhaps even more interesting about “The Mystery of the Blue Jar” is Christie’s use of a “psychic doctor” or “Doctor of the soul”, even though he proves a fake. Writers like Algernon Blackwood and William Hope Hodgson had popularize the psychic detective with their characters John Silence and Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. Harry Price was a real psychic investigator who was well known in Spiritualist circles. Christie’s solution to the story suggests she may have found these characters and individuals just a little difficult to take seriously.
WITCHES
Christie wrote two novels using witchcraft. The first, Easy to Kill (1939) makes use of atmosphere to increase the sense of evil of the killer. One of the central buildings to the plot is Ashe Manor, garish home of childish Lord Easterfield. Fitzwilliam recounts his meeting with Bridget Conway, the woman he is to fall in love with:
While he was contemplating the nightmare, the sun went in. He became suddenly conscious of the overlying menace of Ashe Ridge. There was a sudden sharp gust of wind, blowing back the leaves of the trees, and at that moment a girl came round the corner of the castellated mansion. Her black hair was blown up off her head by a sudden gust, and Luke was reminded of a picture he had once seen — Nevinson’s Witch. The long, pale, delicate face, the black hair flying up to the stars. He could see the girl on a broomstick flying up to the moon …
Ashe Ridge is also an evil place: “it knew strange things — witchcraft and cruelty and forgotten blood lusts and evil rites.” The town in which most of the people live is called “Wychwood”. Near by is “Witches Meadow” where “… so, tradition had it, that the witches held revelry on Walpurgis Night and Halloween …”
But Luke Fitzwilliam never for a minute believes the killer to be supernatural, nor does the author. The character of Mr. Ellsworthy is an alleged Satanist “I believe he dabbles in black magic. Not quite Black Masses, but that sort of thing …”, bringing others of his kind from London and afar. Young Fitzwilliam even finds the man with his hands “stained a deep brownish red, the color of dried blood.” Despite this fact Christie only uses this to make him disagreeable and the most likely suspect.
Ellsworthy is quickly dropped for the pot-bellied and childish Lord Easterfield. The harmless appearing nobleman who was once Gordon Rugg, son of a boot maker, horrifies Fitzwilliam when he admits:
“It’s remarkable … The way that a righteous man’s enemies are struck down … Retribution comes swiftly and terribly … Elisha was a great and holy man. No one could be suffered to mock at him and live. I understand that because of my own case … I could hardly believe it at first. But it happened every time! My enemies and detractors were cast down and exterminated.”
Lord Easterfield believes, much as Lady Chevenix-Gore in “Dead Man’s Mirror”, he is involved with supernatural forces that no man can compete against. The truth proves different. The murders have been all part of an elaborate trap, to frame Easterfield for the killings. The murderer is none other than his jilted ex-girlfriend, the elderly appearing Miss Honoria Waynflete. Christie pens a masterful stroke in giving the killer one physical detail which has a supernatural overtone: “Miss Waynflete was smiling. It was not a nice smile. It was sly and not very human. Bridget thought: ‘She’s like a goat. How like a goat she is! A goat’s always been an evil symbol. I see why now …” Such a brilliant allusion and the attack on Bridget by the mad woman are worthy of any Robert Bloch suspense thriller.
The Pale Horse (1961) is perhaps the closest the author came to writing an actual horror novel. Author, Mark Easterbrook, becomes involved with three strange women, Bella, Sybil and Thyrza, who live an old inn called “The Pale Horse”, its sign board showing Death’s white steed. When a priest, Father Gorman, is murdered, Mark Easterbrook ties the death to the inn.
The novel hinges on the old women, so like MacBeth’s witches, who claim to have the power to kill from afar. A seedy de-barred lawyer named Bradley arranges the killings by a clever dodge: the person desiring a death places a large bet that so and so will live. When the victim dies, Bradley collects the debt. The idea is so far-fetched that the police won’t even consider pressing charges. The Moriarty-like puppet-master seems to be a Mr. Venables, a rich invalid with a mysterious past.
Mark, teamed up with Araidne Oliver and a spunky gal named Ginger (so unlike Mark’s fiancee, Rhoda), contrive a plot to catch the killers, by having Easterbrook bet on the girl’s death. As Ginger begins to fade away, the novel takes on a weird pitch of terror found only in Christie’s earliest horror stories. One the best examples of this is the description of the witches death ceremony which Easterbrook witnesses. Not only is it a good creepy bit but once again Christie demonstrates her first hand knowledge of Spiritualists:
… I drew from my pocket a brown suede glove and handed it to her.
She took it and moved over to a metal map with a goose-neck shade. She switched on the lamp and held the glove under its rays which were of a peculiar sickly colour, turning the glove from its rich brown to a characterless grey …
“Most suitable,: she said. “The physical emanations from its wearer are quite strong.”… Bella came out of the shadows. The two women approached me. With her right hand Thyrza took my left. Her left hand took Bella’s right, Bella’s left hand found my right hand. Thyrza’s hand was dry and hard. Bella’s was cold and boneless-it felt like a slug in mine and I shivered in revulsion.
Thyrza must have touched a switch somewhere, for music sounded faintly from the ceiling. I recognized it as Mendelssohn’s funeral march…The music stopped. There was a long wait. There was only the sound of breathing. Bella’s slightly wheezy, Sybil’s deep and regular.
And then, suddenly, Sybil spoke. Not, however, in her own voice. It was a man’s deep voice, as unlike her own mincing accents as could be. It had a guttural foreign accent.
“I am here.,” the voice said.
My hands were released. Bella flitted away into the shadows. Thyrza said, “Good evening. Is that Macandal?”
“I am Macandal.”
Having made contact with the other side, the call for the victim’s death goes out. For this, the witches reveal some oddly scientific equipment:
She went over to what I had taken to be a radio cabinet. It opened up and I saw that it was a large electrical contrivance of some complicated kind.
It moved like a trolley and she wheeled it slowly and carefully to a position near the divan.
She bent over it, adjusted the controls, murmuring to herself.
“Compass, north-north-east…degrees…that’s about right.” She took the glove and adjusted it in a particular position, switching on a small violet light beside it… the big box-like machine had started to emit a low hum, the bulbs in it glowed …… I heard a click, the hum of the machine ceased.
Then Thyrza’s voice rose, clear and composed:
“The old magic and the new. The old knowledge of belief, the new knowledge of science. Together, they will prevail…”
The solution proves less supernatural. At the last minute, Mrs. Oliver recognizes the symptoms of the dying girl. Thallium, better known as rat poison, proves the cause. The killer is not the three demented old ladies but the case’s other witness, a retired druggist named Osborne, who runs the organization, not the crippled Venables.
Halloween Party (1969) seems like a lost opportunity. Christie has all the superstitions of Hallowe’en to play with, dating back to the Celts, but uses very little of the material, keeping her story well-founded in reality. A young girl is horribly murdered when she lets on that she witnessed a murder but never told anyone. The killer drowns the girl in a tub of water used for Bobbing-for-Apples (the one truly ghastly touch Christie does use). Of all the Hallowe’en superstitions, the one Agatha elucidates the most is the belief that girls could see their future husbands in a mirror on Hallowe’en:
“They’re just ordinary looking hand-mirrors,” said the girl called Ann. “Shall we really see our future husbands’ faces in them?”
“Some of you may and some may not,” said Judith Butler.
“Did you ever see your husband’s face when you went to a party — I mean this kind of party?”
“Of course she didn’t,” said Joyce.
“She might have,” said the superior Beatrice. “E. S. P. they call it. Extra sensory perception,” she added in the tone of one pleased with being thoroughly conversant with the terms of the times.
Agatha’s use of Spiritualism has evolved into the more modern ESP by 1969. She gives an account of the game:
“… Sit here and hold this little mirror in your hand, and presently when the lights go out you’ll see him appear. You’ll see him looking over your shoulder. Now hold the mirror steady. *Abracadabra, who shall see? The face of the man who will marry me. Beatrice, Beatrice, you shall find, the face of the man who shall please your mind.”*
A sudden shaft of light shot across the room from a step-ladder, placed behind a screen. It hit the right spot in the room, which was reflected in the mirror grasped in Beatrice’s excited hand.
“Oh!” cried Beatrice. “I’ve seen him! I can see him in my mirror!”
The beam was shut off, the lights came on and a coloured photograph pasted on a card floated down from the ceiling. Beatrice danced about excitedly.
“That was him! That was him! I saw him,” she cried. Oh, he’s got a lovely ginger beard.”
She rushed to Mrs. Oliver, who was the nearest person.
“Do look, do look. Don’t you think he’s rather wonderful? He’s like Eddie Presweight, the pop singer. Don’t you think so?”
Mrs. Oliver did think he looked like one of the faces she daily deplored having to see in her morning paper. The beard, she thought, had been an afterthought of genius.
And with Hallowe’en Party Christie has written her last supernaturally-flavored mystery. The young writer who emulated Doyle and added to the sense of menace with a questionable ghost or an ancient mummy had only a few novels left to write. Despite Christie’s obvious skepticism in “The Adventure of the Blue Jar” and The Pale Horse, perhaps the atmosphere of the 1970’s, a decade largely interested in UFOs, witchcraft and ESP, had given her a last chance to think of the skin-crawling horrors of her youth. As Inspector LeJeune says in The Pale Horse: “…The supernatural seems supernatural. But the science of to-morrow is the supernatural of today. “The Last Seance” was one of Christie’s true horror stories in The Hound of Death, but it might have as easily served as a title to Christie’s horror-mysteries, written through the seven decades she lived through, seeing us from Spiritualism to modern contempt and scientific investigation of ESP.
This article appeared in The Mystery Review. Since this article was written the BBC has produced a 2 part mini-series of The Pale Horse (2020) starring Rufus Sewell as Mark Easterbrook. I enjoyed this show but I can understand why some viewers found the ending confusing. What struck me most about it was: if you made Easterbrook more likeable you would have had a Harlan Coban novel such as The Stranger. Agatha obviously had some influence on Coban, but, hey, who hasn’t she touched?
