Maturski rad iz engleskog jezika

Tema:
The motive of murder in Agatha Christie's books
 Contents:

1. Introduction

2. The life and times of the writer

3. Death on the Nile

4. Ten Little Niggers

5. Dumb Witness

6. Murder on the Orient Express

7. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

8. Conclusion

9. Literature
 1. Introduction

The Golden Age of British detective fiction is generally regarded as roughly the period
between the ends of the two World Wars. This was the era when the country house weekend got
a lot more exciting because of the presence of a murderer, the snow-covered lawn with no
footprints and the confused policeman who must seek for the assistance of a gifted amateur.
Ingenuity reached new heights with the poison-smeared postage stamp and the icicle dagger
which evaporates after use. During these years all of the names we now associate with the classic
detective novels began their writing careers. But none of them were as successful as „The Queen
of Mystery“Agatha Christie.
The works of Christie break through all kinds of obstacles. It doesn't matter whether the
reader is an 87-year-old black man in Russia living in 1955 or a 13-year-old Chinese girl in
America in 2014, the book will be read with the same energy. And then, lust for more will come
out. There are still some who ask why Agatha Christie is the world's best-selling author. The
answer is simple. Because no other murder mystery writer has worked so well, so often, or for so
long. No one ever matched her gift and intelligence or simple, yet very ingenious way of writing.
And no one ever will.
You can read a different Christie novel a month for about seven years. By the time you've
finished them all, you can easily start again, because there's very little chance you'll remember
the ones you've read at the beginning. Or you can watch a different play of hers every month for
two years. There's a very small number of writers, in any gender, who can compete with that.

2. The life and times of the writer

Childhood
Best-selling author Agatha Christie was born Agatha
Mary Clarissa Miller on September 15, 1890, in Torquay,
Devon, in the southwest part of England. She was the third
child of Clara and Frederick Miller. What made her upbringing
unusual, even for its time, was that she was home schooled by
her father. Her mother, who was an excellent storyteller, did not
want her to learn to read until she was eight but Agatha, bored,
taught herself to read by the age of five. At that time, the
family spent some time in France having rented out the family
home of Ashfield to economise, and it was here with her
governess Marie, that Agatha learnt to speak French. When she
was 11, her father, not well since the financial difficulties
started, died after a series of heart attacks. There were more
money worries and talk of selling Ashfield. But Clara and
Agatha somehow managed to survive without selling their
precious home. From the age of 15 Agatha took piano and
singing lessons, but she never had enough courage to become a
professional.

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 By the age of 18 she was amusing herself with writing short stories – some of which
were published in much revised form in the 1930s. Because of Clara’s health, in 1910 they set
off for Cairo and spent three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel. There were evening dresses
and parties and young Agatha showed more interest in these than the local archaeological sites.
The friends and young couples she met in Cairo invited her to house parties back home on her
return. Various marriage proposals followed.

Marriage and family

It was in 1912 that Agatha met Archibald Christie, a qualified aviator who had applied to
join the Royal Flying Corps. According to her autobiography, it was the “excitement of the
stranger” that attracted them both. They married on Christmas Eve 1914 after both had
experienced war – Archie in France and Agatha on the Home Front now working with the
Voluntary Aid Detachment in a Red Cross Hospital in Torquay. Two days after the wedding
Archie returned to France. They met infrequently during the War Years and it wasn’t until
January 1918 when Archie was posted to the War Office in London that Agatha felt her married
life truly began.
“That was the beginning of the whole thing. I suddenly saw my way clear.
And I determined to commit not one murder, but murder on a grand scale.”
Ten Little Niggers, Epilogue
It was during the First World War that Agatha turned to writing detective stories.
Her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles took some time to finish and even longer to find
a publisher. She started writing partly in response to a bet from her sister Madge that she
couldn’t write a good detective story and partly to escape from her work. Her new found
expertise in poisons was also put to good use. The murderer’s use of poison was so well
described that when the book was eventually published Agatha received a review in
the Pharmaceutical Journal. 1919 was a momentous year for Agatha. With the end of the war,
Archie had found a job in the City and they had just enough
money to rent and furnish a flat in London. Later that year,
on the 5th August, Agatha gave birth to their only daughter,
Rosalind. It was also the year that a publisher, John Lane of
The Bodley Head, and the fourth to have received the
manuscript, accepted The Mysterious Affair at Styles for
publication and contracted Agatha to produce five more
books. So where did the inspiration for Hercule Poirot come
from? During the First World War there were Belgian
refugees in most parts of the English countryside, Torquay
being no exception. Although he was not based on any
particular person, Agatha thought that a former great
Belgian policeman would make an excellent detective
for The Mysterious Affair at Styles and so Hercule Poirot
was born. The only mistake Agatha made was Poirot’s
retirement in 1904, therefore making him over 130 years old
in Curtain: Poirot’s last case which was published in 1975.
But then again, there was no way Agatha knew in 1916 that her small made up Belgian would
outlive her.

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 Following the war Agatha continued to write – experimenting with different types of
thriller and murder mystery stories, creating first Tommy and Tuppence and then Miss Marple in
quick succession. In 1922, leaving Rosalind with her mother and sister, she and Archie travelled
across the British Empire. They learned to surf prone in South Africa, then in Waikiki they were
among the first Britons to surf standing up. Having returned from the Grand Tour, the family
were reunited and settled in a house they named Styles, in the suburbs, outside London.

Difficult times
Then came a rough period for Agatha – her mother had died and she was often alone
clearing out the family home in Torquay and struggling to write the next novel. Archie and
Agatha’s relationship, strained by the sadness in her life, broke down when Archie fell in love
with a friend of the family, Nancy Neale. One night
in early December, after a big fight with her
husband, Agatha left Rosalind and the house to the
care of the maids without saying where she was
going. Her car was found abandoned the next
morning several miles away. A nationwide search
ensued. The press and public enjoyed various
speculations as to what might have happened and
why, but no one knew for sure. It eventually
transpired that Agatha had somehow checked into
the Harrogate Hotel under the name of Theresa
Neale. Having been recognised by the hotel staff,
who alerted the police, she did not recognise Archie
when he came to meet her. Suffering from amnesia,
Agatha had no recollection of who she was. An
intensely private person, made even more so by the
press, Agatha never spoke of this time with friends
or family. Agatha and Archie remained apart, and
after finally accepting that her marriage was over,
she divorced him in 1928. Needing an income and
unable to write new material, her brother-in-law Campbell Christie suggested she combine Poirot
short stories composed for The Sketch magazine thus creating The Big Four. After the divorce,
Agatha and Rosalind immediately escaped England to the Canary Islands where Agatha
painfully finished The Mystery of the Blue Train, the book she had struggled with as she
mourned her mother.

Starting again → Sir Max and “Queen of Crime”

Late in 1928 Agatha wrote her first Mary Westmacott novel, Giant’s Bread, which
wasn’t a detective novel but a work of fiction about a composer forced to work for financial
reasons. This book actually represented her life at the time. One of Agatha’s lifelong ambitions
had been to travel on the Orient Express and her first journey took place in the autumn of 1928.
Persuaded by a chance dinner party conversation, Agatha set off for Baghdad and from there
travelled to the archaeological site at Ur where she became friends with the Woolleys who ran
the dig. Invited back the following year she met the twenty-five year old archaeologist-in-

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training Max Mallowan who was to become her second husband. Max proposed on the last
evening of his visit to Agatha's family home of Ashfield. They were married on September 11th
1930 on the Isle of Skye and Agatha only slightly reduced her age in her new passport acquired
for the honeymoon. Max introduced her to wine, which she never enjoyed. She preferred to drink
water in restaurants. She tried unsuccessfully to make herself like cigarettes by smoking one
after lunch and one after dinner every day for six months.
As a rule Agatha wrote two or three
books a year and when with Max, she often
wrote a chapter or two during quiet mornings
and helped out on site in the afternoons. The
atmosphere of the Middle East was not lost on
Agatha, as can be seen in books such as
Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the
Nile, Murder in Mesopotamia, Appointment
with Death and They Came to Baghdad as well
as many short stories written within this period.
In 1938 Agatha fell in love with and bought
Greenway House on the River Dart. It came in
time to replace Ashfield as a summer retreat.
World War II saw Max get a wartime
job in Cairo - using his languages to assist the war effort while Agatha remained in England,
writing and also volunteering at the Dispensary at University College Hospital in
London. Rosalind, having married Hubert Prichard, gave birth to Mathew on 21st September
1943. Agatha was a caring grandmother and often went to help look after the baby. She was
focused and prolific during this period. Missing Max and with external entertainment more
limited in wartime, she wrote and published such classics as And Then There Were None(Ten
Little Niggers), Evil Under the Sun, The Body in the Library, Five Little Pigs and The Moving
Finger. At the end of 1946, Agatha’s cover as Mary Westmacott was blown by an American
reviewer of Absent in the Spring. She was disappointed as she had enjoyed the freedom to write
without the pressure of being Agatha Christie.
She wrote The Mousetrap, a murder mystery play, which opened in the West End of
London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has by far the longest initial
run of any play in history. The play is also known for its twist ending, which the audience are
traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre. When she wrote the play, Christie gave
the rights to her grandson Matthew as a birthday present. Outside of the West End, only one
version of the play can be performed annually and no film adaptation can be produced until the
West End production has been closed for at least six months.

The end
Agatha Christie wrote 19 plays and 91 books in total - 83 as herself (including her
autobiography), 6 as Mary Westmacott and 2 as Christie Mallowan. She was the President of the
Detection Club from 1958 until her death. In the 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, three years after her husband had been
knighted for his archaeological work. They were one of the few married couples where both
partners were honoured in their own right. After a hugely successful career and a very happy life

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Agatha died peacefully on 12th January 1976. She is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's,
Cholsey, near Wallingford.
3. Death on the Nile

Agatha Christie had always loved travelling, so we shouldn’t be surprised with the fact
that many of her plots are set somewhere abroad. In her third book, The Murder on the Links, she
sends Poirot to France. But she doesn’t stop there. Her characters have been all over the world,
even Miss Marple, who in 1964 takes her knitting kit to the Caribbean. We usually link travelling
abroad with holidays and peace and quiet, but that doesn’t count for Hercule Poirot, for his
destiny is written by Agatha Christie. She loves interrupting his summer holiday like in Peril at
End House or Evil under the Sun, or his Christmas in Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, but one of his
most exotic destinations for “vacation” was Egypt and then there was Death on the Nile.
The story begins in England with Linnet Ridgeway, an heiress who seems to be loved by
everyone for her beauty and wealth. When she
boards a cruise along the Nile with her new
husband, their honeymoon turns into a tragedy as
their fellow shipmates seem to all be conspiring
against her. Among the passengers is Jacqueline de
Bellefort, Linnet’s former best friend and her new
husband’s ex-fiancé, who had unintentionally
introduced the couple to each other in hope that
Linnet would give Simon a job. Linnet’s business
manager makes a surprise appearance, claiming not
to have heard of her marriage yet, but is his
presence mere coincidence? A novelist and her
sullen daughter stir up resentments, as does a young
communist who looks at Linnet with distaste. A
doctor, a rich old woman, her nurse and young
cousin, a French maid, a lawyer, a colonel and – of
course – the detective Hercule Poirot complete the
list of passengers. Poirot has come to Egypt for a
well-needed vacation, and intends to have nothing
to do with the various scandals that occur on board.
Some days later, Linnet is found shot through the
head in her cabin and Poirot is under pressure to
find the killer. All fingers point towards Jackie, but
she has the ultimate alibi to offset them all. As
more chaos ensues, complete with confounding
evidence and murder of a maid and a writer, first-
class detective Hercule Poirot is at a dead end to who is the mastermind behind everything.
One of the highlights of Christie’s books is that the reader gets the same information and
evidence as the detective. However, it depends only of his imagination and intelligence whether
he will be able to solve the mystery or not. The last 30 pages are usually the ones where we find
out who the murderer is and how he’s done it. In this book, we have two lovers who plan the
murder of a rich heiress. Firstly, the man has to marry her in order to inherit the money after her
death. Then, there comes the night of the murder. Their alibis have to be very strong, so they

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don’t get caught. Here, it’s like the killer has two personalities or two sides. One is Simon, the
man of action, and the other is Jackie, the cold, original, precise mind behind all the planning.
There, we can see two reasons why the murder was committed. One was greed and lust for
money, and the other was love. Although Simon and Jackie were the first to approach Linnet, it
wasn’t until she tried to steal Simon away, that the couple started planning the murder. So Jackie
must have felt some sort of jealousy and disgust against Linnet, which made her intelligent mind
become so rash and neglectful to a human life. These feelings did not fade away after Linnet’s
death. Even though Simon was the one who pulled the trigger on Linnet, it was Jackie who
committed the other two murders. After finding out that Simon was seen by the maid, she kills
her without blinking an eye. And when Mrs. Otterbourne claims to know the identity of the
killer, she shoots her before even realizing what’s going on. The appearance of corpse after
corpse in the feast of death is entirely logical, and the main alibi, unshakeable except for Poirot,
is of the first brilliance. The writer presents each sorrow, joy, and hidden motive of the
characters in a way so that you'll get upset at them, pity them, love them, and understand why
they did what they did. This can take you in the wrong direction, for defending a killer isn’t a
rational thing at all. You need to have Poirot’s words above every page you read.
“We are all human beings. That is what you have not remembered. I am not
concerned with nations. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who
have the right not to have their lives taken from them.”
Poirot to Blunt in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

4. Ten Little Niggers

AKA And Then There Were None

“I adore nursery rhymes, don’t you? Always so tragic and macabre.

That’s why children like them.”
The Mousetrap, I, i
The attraction of children’s literature, either as titles or themes, has often provided crime
writers with inspiration. Dickson Carr’s The Arabian Nights Murder and Queen’s There Was an
Old Woman are drawn from the playroom, while S.S. Van Dine’s The Bishop Murder Case uses
‘Mother Goose’ as a theme. But it was Agatha Christie who made it her own and exploited it
more comprehensively than any other writer. Some of the rhymes inspired her to write some of
her greatest works such as Ten Little Niggers, Five Little Pigs and Three Blind Mice (The
Mousetrap). The most fruitful nursery rhyme was ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’, which provided no
less than three titles: the novel A Pocket Full of Rye, and the short stories ‘Sing a Song of
Sixpence’ and ‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds’. In some cases the rhyme provides no more than a
title like Hickory Dickory Dock and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, while in Five Little Pigs and Ten
Little Niggers the rhyme is convincingly and ingeniously followed. The dramatic impact of an
innocent nursery rhyme transforming into a killer’s calling card is irresistible to an imaginative
crime writer such as Agatha Christie.
Ten Little Niggers is Christie’s most famous novel and her biggest technical achievement.
It is also the world’s best-selling mystery ever, with over 100 million copies sold, which puts it

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at the seventh place of best-selling books of all time. From all of her titles inspired by a rhyme,
this one follows its completely.
Ten little Nigger boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Nigger boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Nigger boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Nigger boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were
six.
Six little Nigger boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Nigger boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Nigger boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were
three.
Three little Nigger boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Nigger boys playing in the sun;
One got all frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Nigger boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

Eight people, all strangers to each other, are invited to Nigger Island, off the English
coast. Vera Claythorne, a former governess, thinks she has been hired as a secretary. Philip
Lombard, an adventurer, and William Blore, an ex-detective, think they have been hired to look
out for trouble over the weekend. Dr. Armstrong thinks he has been hired to look after the wife
of the island’s owner. Emily Brent, General Macarthur, Tony Marston, and Judge Wargrave
think they are going to visit old friends. When they arrive on the island, the guests are greeted by
Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, the butler and housekeeper, who report that the host, someone they call
Mr. Owen, will not arrive until the next day. That evening, as all the guests gather in the drawing
room after an excellent dinner, they hear a recorded voice accusing each of them of a specific
murder committed in the past and never uncovered. Dr Armstrong, when much younger,
operated while drunk, killing a patient during what should have been routine surgery. Marston
killed two children while driving recklessly. Miss Emily Brent sacked her pregnant unmarried
maid who then committed suicide. Soldier-of-fortune Lombard abandoned a number of African
tribesmen whom he had commanded and stole their food, leaving them to die. Blore, an ex-
policeman, who had been using an alias, framed an innocent man, who later died in prison.
General Macarthur sent his wife's lover on a suicide mission. Thomas and Ethel Rogers withheld
medicine from their former elderly employer, induced heart failure, and inherited her money.
Wargrave is accused of being responsible for the execution of a man then widely believed to
have been innocent. Vera Claythorne is accused of killing a child for whom she had been a
governess so that her fiancé could inherit the family estate. Marston and Lombard are the only
guests to openly admit the charges against them, without any signs of remorse. They compare

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notes and realize that none of them, including the servants, know “Mr. Owen,” which suggests
that they were brought here according to someone’s strange plan. Justice Lawrence Wargrave
observes that "U.N. Owen" is a homophone for "unknown".
As they discuss what to do, Marston dies from potassium cyanide poisoning, which was
placed in his drink during the chaotic aftermath of the gramophone recording, thus fulfilling the
first verse — "one choked his little self". That night, Mrs. Rogers dies from an overdose
of chloral hydrate, a sleeping medication — "one overslept himself". The next day, at lunchtime,
General Macarthur is found dead from a blow to the back of his skull, having predicted earlier to
Vera that none of them would leave the island alive — "one said he'd stay there". Armstrong,
Blore, and Lombard search the island and the house but find there is nowhere on the bare rock to
hide. The next morning, Rogers is found dead in the woodshed, struck in the back of the head
with an axe — "one chopped himself in halves". At this point, the guests feel sure the murders
are being carried out according to the dictates of the nursery rhyme. Also, they realize that the
dining-room table initially featured ten china figures, but with each death one of the figures
disappears.
Later that day, Miss Brent is killed in the dining room by an injection potassium
cyanide which leaves a mark on her neck — "A bumblebee stung one". The needle is found
outside the window next to a smashed china figurine. Wargrave initiates an organized search of
everyone’s belongings, and anything that could be used as a weapon is locked away, except
Lombard’s revolver which wasn’t found. The remaining guests sit together, passing time and
casting suspicious looks at each other. Finally, Vera goes to take a bath, but she is startled by a
piece of seaweed hanging from her ceiling and cries out. Blore, Lombard, and Armstrong run to
help her, only to return downstairs to find Wargrave draped in a curtain that resembles courtroom
robes and bearing a red mark on his forehead. Armstrong examines the body and reports that
Wargrave has been shot in the head — "one got into Chancery". Lombard then finds his revolver
has been returned to a drawer in his room.
That night, Blore hears someone sneaking out of the house and catches a glimpse of
someone in the moonlight. Realizing that the only one missing is Armstrong, it is assumed he is
the killer. Blore and Lombard search for Armstrong, but they cannot find him anywhere in the
house or on the island. When they return from searching, they discover another china figure
missing from the table. The next morning, after eating breakfast, the remaining three try to signal
the mainland and decide to remain in the relative safety of the beach, but there are no indications
the signals have been seen. Blore goes to the house for food, and after not returning for a
prolonged time, is found under Vera's bedroom window, his skull crushed by a bear-shaped
clock — "a big bear hugged one". They suspect Armstrong, until his body washes ashore —
"a red herring swallowed one".
Vera and Lombard both now believe each other to be the killer, overlooking in their panic
the fact that neither could have killed Blore. Vera manages to persuade Lombard that they two
should drag Armstrong's body away from the tide line, but this is only a pretext to get hold of his
gun, which she does. When Lombard makes a sudden move towards her, she shoots him through
the heart, matching an early version of the rhyme (Ten Little Injuns) that says "One shot the other
and then there was One." She returns to the house, happily anticipating the soon-to-arrive help
from the mainland. But, arriving at her room, disoriented, she finds a noose and chair waiting for
her, and feeling the presence of Cyril, the boy she allowed to drown, she wraps the noose around
her neck and kicks away the chair — "he went and hanged himself, and then there were none".

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 In the epilogue, Inspector Maine, the detective in charge of the Nigger Island case,
discusses the mystery with his Assistant Commissioner, Sir Thomas Legge, at Scotland Yard.
There are no clues in the seaside town of Sticklehaven. Isaac Morris arranged the island purchase
for "U.N. Owen", sent the invitations, and himself died from a drugs overdose the next day. Fred
Narracott sent a rescue boat after learning of the distress signals, but came in time just to find 10
dead bodies on the island. Diary entries from some of the guests reveal the first six victims and
the order of their deaths. The chair Vera kicked away is found neatly set against the wall,
Lombard's revolver was not found on or near him, but in front of Wargrave’s room, Armstrong's
body was found dragged so the tide couldn’t take it, and it is inconceivable that Blore could or
would have dropped the clock on himself. This means someone was alive after all these deaths.
So who was it? These facts, given the inclement weather combined with the distance from the
mainland, would have prevented anyone else from entering or exiting the island before Fred
Narracott returned, ultimately leave the investigators confounded.
The mystery baffles the police until a manuscript in a bottle is found. The late Judge
Wargrave wrote the manuscript explaining that he planned the murders because he wanted to
punish those whose crimes are not punishable under law. Wargrave frankly admits to his own
lust for blood and pleasure in seeing the guilty punished. Although he was a judge, he thought he
didn’t do enough to punish those who have committed crimes, so when a doctor told Wargrave
he was dying, he decided to die in a blaze, instead of letting his life trickle away. He didn’t want
to die alone, and since the innocent mustn’t suffer, he had to find the guilty. He discusses how he
chose his victims and how he did away with Marston, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, Macarthur, and
Emily Brent. Wargrave then describes how he tricked Dr. Armstrong into helping him fake his
own death, promising to meet the doctor by the cliffs to discuss a plan. When Armstrong arrived,
Wargrave pushed him over the edge into the sea, then returned to the house and pretended to be
dead. His ruse enabled him to dispose of the rest of the guests without drawing their suspicion.
Once Vera hanged herself on a noose that he prepared for her, Wargrave planned to shoot
himself in such a way that his body would fall onto the bed as if it had been laid there. Thus, he
hoped, the police would find ten dead bodies on an empty island. Since he hadn’t considered
himself guilty, there had to be a tenth murder, which didn’t follow the rhyme and it was Morris,
who was a drug dealer who helped him buy the island. It was his own sense of justice which led
him to commit these murders. They were all guilty, therefore, they had to be punished. Since
there wasn’t enough evidence to send them to prison, Wargrave decided to punish them in his
own way. In the end, they got what they deserved, he must have thought, but did the same go for
him?

5. Dumb Witness
AKA Poirot Loses a Client
Some of the strongest titles of Agatha Christie contain murder in the past, where the
detective has to rely on the memories of the ones involved in the investigation, find leads which
cooled off a long time ago and uncover the truth without waking up the killer. Her first novel in
which she experimented with murder in retrospective was Dumb Witness where Poirot
investigates a two-month-old death. Six years later, in one of her biggest novels, Poirot
investigates a 16-year-old case in Five Little Pigs. From six of her last novels, five of them
contain this sort of plot.

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 The novel, Dumb Witness, was based on a short story called ‘The Incident of the Dog’s
Ball’ published in 2009. This short story was lost for many years but was eventually found by the
author's daughter in a crate of her personal effects, in 2004. In this book, four murderers from her
previous novels Death in the Clouds, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd and The Mystery of the Blue Train are revealed. This is also the second to last Poirot
novel which features his best friend and sidekick Captain Arthur Hastings as narrator.
Hercule Poirot receives a letter from Emily Arundell, a wealthy old woman, in which she
says she has been the victim of attempted murder. She had fallen of the stairs, allegedly because
of her dog’s ball, but she suspects someone tried to kill her. What surprises Poirot is that the
letter was sent over two months after it was written. He decides to visit Miss Arundell, and sets
out with Hastings, only to find out that she
(had) died two months before. Her doctor says
that she died of liver problems she had had for
many years. Her companion, Miss Lawson, is
the unexpected beneficiary of a substantial
fortune, according to a very recent change of
will. Under the previous will, Miss Arundell's
nephew, Charles Arundell, and nieces Theresa
Arundell and Bella Tanios, would have
inherited everything. This gives them all
motive for murder, because it is unclear who
knew the will had been changed. While
examining the house, under the pretense of
buying it, Poirot discovers a nail covered with
varnish. The maid tells him about the night of
the fall, and how her mistress had said
something about a dog and a jar right before
her death. Poirot concludes that she was
talking about a jar on which there is a picture
of a dog that was left out all night - meaning
that Bob, the dog, couldn’t have put the ball
on the staircase because he had been out all
night. Poirot concludes that Miss Arundell fell
over a tripwire tied to the nail.
On the day of her death Emily
attended a séance held by Miss Lawson and a
pair of local sisters, the Miss Tripps, both of whom say that when Miss Arundell spoke, a
luminous figure came from her mouth. In the middle of the séance Miss Arundell got ill and she
died on the same night.
Theresa and Charles want to contest the will and offer to pay Poirot, who seemingly
agrees. He asks Bella, who, after talking with her husband, agrees. While at Miss Arundell's
house Poirot talks to the gardener and learns that Charles talked to him about his weed killer
which turns out to be arsenic. The bottle is also nearly empty – something that the gardener finds
surprising. Theresa Arundell is a strong suspect because Miss Lawson can recall seeing someone
through her bedroom mirror at the top of the stairs on the night of Miss Arundell's "accident".
The person was wearing a brooch with the initials, "TA".

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 After implying for a long time that he is bullying her, Bella leaves her husband, Jacob,
accusing him of her aunt's murder and claiming he was trying to have her wrongly committed to
a mental institution to keep her quiet. She goes to stay with Miss Lawson, but Poirot tells her to
go to a certain hotel, and read a letter he had prepared for her. The next day, she is found dead.
She took an overdose of sleeping medication. Poirot learns that Emily Arundell died
of phosphorus poisoning, administered in her liver pills. The reason why the haze appeared from
her mouth which the Tripp sisters described was that her breath was phosphorescent. The nature
of the murder suggests a doctor. Dr Donaldson, Theresa's fiancé, and Jacob Tanios, are both
doctors. At a meeting with the suspects to reveal the murderer, Poirot states that Theresa stole the
arsenic from the gardener. However, she could not bear to take someone else's life, so she threw
the arsenic away.
The real murderer was Bella. She committed the murder for money to educate her
children and escape from her mundane life. She had grown to hate her domineering husband, and
had already attempted to kill him as well. She took her own life to protect her children because
the letter Poirot gave her showed that he knew how and why Bella murdered her aunt. She
destroyed the letter, burning it in the fireplace as Poirot knew she would. The brooch which Miss
Lawson had seen through the
mirror was Bella's with the
initials "AT" for Arabella
Tanios; they appeared as "TA"
as Miss Lawson had been
looking through the mirror,
which shows everything in
reverse.
← This is a picture taken from
Christie’s secret notebooks
where she experimented with
names and symmetrical letters.
On her deathbed, Miss Arundell had asked Miss Lawson for the new will, presumably to
destroy it, but Miss Lawson, thinking the will was only for a few thousand pounds, lied and
claimed the will was at the lawyer's office. Upon discovering that the inheritance was much
greater than she had imagined, she was racked with remorse. Respecting the original will, Miss
Lawson voluntarily shares the estate with her employer's relatives, including Bella's children.
The dog Bob goes to Poirot as a gift, but Hastings takes him instead.
While trying to solve the case, Poirot considers the character of the murderer, as he
explains to Hastings, who is completely baffled as he assists Poirot in looking at the evidence.

‘I can’t consider the character of the murderer if I don’t know who the murderer is!’
‘No, no, you have not paid attention to what I have just said. If you reflect
sufficiently on the character – the necessary character of the murder – then you
will realize who the murderer is!’

It is difficult not to agree with Hastings, for all of the suspects have the same motive for
murder which is money. Everyone in the book is greedy, as all humans are, and they all show it,

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one way or another. While reading the book, you constantly have the feeling that someone’s
lying and that no one should be trusted, which is usually stressed by Poirot himself. However, in
the end, you are surprised by the fact that Bella, the devoted wife and mother, is the one who
committed this cold-hearted crime. Which leads us to believe this horrible assumption – money
does control the world.

6. Murder on the Orient Express

Means of transport have always been an attractive scene for Agatha throughout her
career. Firstly in The Secret Adversary and then in The Man in the Brown Suit she puts her
characters on a ship, then she adds a plane in Death in the Clouds and finally we have a train in
Murder on the Orient Express. The advantages of this sort of setting scenes are obvious –
Scotland Yard and the police are eliminated,
and therefore can’t interfere with the
investigation led by her detectives, it’s easier
to limit the number of suspects and it’s also
the perfect way for Agatha to share her
experience with her readers. In almost every
Christie book you have a closed circle of
suspects – strictly limited number of possible
murderers among which we can choose the
perpetrator. An isolated country house, a
ship, a train, a plane, an island – all of these
scenes chosen by the writer limit the number
of suspects forbidding a stranger to come in.
Christie gives us a number of suspects to help
us solve the case. There can be four of them
like in Cards on the Table or five in Five
Little Pigs or a whole wagon of passengers in
Murder on the Orient Express.

The novel begins with Hercule Poirot

arriving at the Tokatlian Hotel in Istanbul. He
receives a telegram prompting him to cancel
his arrangements and return to London. He
instructs the concierge to book a first-class
compartment on the Orient Express leaving
that night. The train is unusually crowded for
that time of year so Poirot seeks the help of his
friend Monsieur Bouc, a director of
the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place in second class. After boarding, Poirot
is approached by Mr. Ratchett, a malevolent American he initially saw at the Tokatlian. Ratchett
believes his life is being threatened and attempts unsuccessfully to hire Poirot. On the second
night, Poirot gets a compartment to himself in first class, next to Ratchett’s. However, in the
darkness of the night, the Express is forced to stop due to a snowdrift. The next morning,

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Ratchett is found dead, stabbed twelve times all over his body. Strangely, his door was locked
from the inside, with the window open, but no footprints in the snow. With nobody able to leave
the stranded train, the finger of suspicion falls upon all of the passengers, and, apart from the
reader, Hercule Poirot tries to unravel this mystery. Everything gets even more complicated
when Poirot discovers that every passenger has a strong alibi and that some strangers have been
seen on the train, one of them, a woman in a red kimono, was seen by the detective himself.
Later, during a check of the passengers’ luggage, the kimono
is found in Poirot’s cabinet. So where is the murderer
hiding? And who is he?
The book is divided into three parts: The Facts, The
Evidence and Poirot Sits Back and Thinks. The list of
passengers is also given with the carriage layout.
‘Only by interrogating the other passengers could I
hope to see the light, but when I began to question them, the
light, as Macbeth would have said, thickened.’
Indeed, Poirot’s investigation led to some impossible
conclusions. He found some interesting evidence and
revealed a list of facts which only entangled the mystery
more than it already was. He found several clues in the
victim's cabin and on board the train, including a woman's
linen handkerchief embroidered with the initial "H", a pipe
cleaner, a button from a conductor's uniform and a glass
filled with drugs. All of these clues suggest that the
murderer or murderers were somewhat sloppy. However,
each clue seemingly points to different suspects, which
suggests that some of the clues were planted. (Here, Agatha
also plays with names and initials. Although the letter
engraved was “H”, the handkerchief didn’t belong to Mrs.
Hubbard, Miss Hildegarde Schmidt, or to Countess
Andrenyi whose name was changed from Helena to Elena,
but to Princess Natalia Dragomiroff because when written in
Russian the letter “N” is the same as letter “H”)
Poirot also finds a piece of burnt paper which helps him realize that Ratchett was actually
Cassetti, a man who kidnapped and killed a three-year-old Daisy Armstrong, despite collecting
the ransom from the Armstorng family. The shock devastated the family, leading to a number of
deaths and suicides. Cassetti was caught, but he managed to rig the trial.
As Poirot pursues his investigation, he discovers that everyone in the coach had a
connection to the Armstrong family and, therefore, had a motive to kill Ratchett. Poirot proposes
two possible solutions, leaving it to Bouc to decide which solution to put forward to the
authorities.
‘The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in
spite of appearances.’
The first solution is that a stranger boarded the train and murdered Ratchett. The second
solution is that all 12 passengers and the train conductor were complicit in the murder, seeking
the justice that Ratchett had averted in the United States. He concedes Countess Andrenyi did not
take part, so the murderers numbered 12, resembling a self-appointed jury. Mrs. Hubbard,

15
revealed to be Linda Arden, Daisy Armstrong's grandmother, confesses that the second solution
is correct.
Here, we have a similar motive as in Ten Little Niggers. Although Ratchett had already
been dead from the drugs, they all stabbed him with a knife, trying to punish him even more.
This is maybe the only Christie novel where the murderers aren’t punished for their crime and
where the death isn’t shown as murder but as a case of justice served. After finishing this book,
the reader examines himself, his moral and cultural values just to agree with the writer in the end.
7. Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
Since her first book, Christie hasn’t stopped surprising us. The most unexpected
outcomes have appeared in her books such as Endless Night, Crooked House, The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express and Curtain, the last of her books that was
published during her lifetime. She used everything – the murderer was a policeman, a family
relative, the narrator, a child, then all of the characters involved. She even made all of her
characters victims. Yes, she has done it all. So then, why are we surprised with the title, when all
that is left is for the great Belgian detective to finally retire and find peace?
In Curtain, Poirot is already very old. He had
suffered a few heart attacks, and his health was
completely destroyed. In this book, Poirot and Hastings
have come full circle, returning to Styles, the scene of
their first case, in the pursuit of the perfect murderer.
Curtain is in many ways a sad book. Sad
because this is Poirot’s last case and he dies, with X,
the murderer, apparently having got away with his
crimes. Sad, too, because Hastings is in a nostalgic and
morbid frame of mind, mourning the death of his wife
and wishing himself back into happier times. Yet, he is
determined to find X and help Poirot solve, as he
himself said, his last case.
‘This, Hastings, will be my last case. It will
be too, my most interesting case – and my most
interesting criminal.’
Here, Agatha gives us a few murders, with
different motives. Case A – a wife killed her husband
because he was abusing her; Case B – a niece kills her aunt out of mercy; Case C – a husband
kills his wife and lover out of jealousy; Case D – a wife kills her husband out of jealousy and
Case E – a daughter kills her father to protect her sister from his abuse. Poirot tells Hastings that
all of these cases are connected with a person, who actually planned all of these crimes, but
didn’t himself do them. He followed X, as he calls this perfect murderer, to Styles. He also
predicted new deaths, which all finally finish with his.
Although Hastings tries to solve the mystery, it isn’t until the last chapter, in which
Poirot’s last letter is read, that we find out the truth. There were two murderers at Styles. One
was X, a man who could influence people to do the things he wants, such as killing others. He
finds thrill and excitement in it, until it turns into an obsession, a need for killing. But he is very
intelligent and completely innocent in the eyes of law.

16
 However, it isn’t until his beloved friend Hastings becomes the target of X’s influence,
that Poirot decides to put an end to everything. The second murderer was, in fact, our very own
Hercule Poirot. He knew that the only way to stop X was to kill him, but he had prolonged this
moment, for he appreciated human life more than anything. At the end, he tells Hastings that he
could have easily solved this whole case and we get the feeling he’s angry at him for not doing
so.
His last words to his best friend were:
‘Who, then, could have killed X?
Only Hercule Poirot.
Oh, Hastings, Hastings! That should have uncovered you the truth.
But, maybe you have, in the end, anticipated the truth? Maybe, while reading this, you
already know.
But somehow I don’t believe that…
No, you trust people too much…’
He knows Hastings too well, and so does Christie know her audience. She surprised
everyone by turning her detective into a killer. However, after the book was published n 1975,
New York Times ran an obituary on the front page. Hercule Poirot was the first and only
fictional character ever to receive such an honour.

8. Conclusion

Most of the books of the Queen of Crime

contain fierce murders, which she easily turns
into a game of “who’s done it?” where the reader
tries to solve the case before the final solution is
revealed in the last chapters. Sometimes, when
you can’t solve the mystery by yourself, you seek
the help of others, usually family members who
have nothing better to do. But even then, it’s hard
to think of everything that was set somewhere in
Agatha Christie’s brain. It’s interesting how she got
ideas for her books. She would sit in the garden and
wait for her grandson, Matthew, to finish the
treasure hunt she had prepared for him. And then, in
that peace and quiet of her life as a grandmother, a
writer would come out. Suddenly, she takes out her
notebook and starts writing “What if it was a Murder
Hunt instead of a Treasure Hunt?”. She is totally
absorbed, covering the pages with characteristically
large, sprawling handwriting. Ideas would eventually
turn into full sentences, which would then form
chapters of a book. And so, in 1956, the Christie for
Christmas was Dead Man’s Folly.
At the moment of her death, in 1976, Agatha
Christie was the world’s most famous writer. Her books

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have been sold in over 2 billion copies all over the world, translated into over 100 languages and
since 1920 all of them have been bestsellers. We are still waiting for her successor to come, but,
in the meantime, why not enjoy a good Christie book?

Six most important questions →

9. Literature

[1] A. Kristi, Smrt na Nilu, Narodna knjiga – Alfa, Beograd, 2004.

[2] A. Kristi, Deset malih crnaca, Mladinska knjiga, Beograd, 2013.

[3] A. Kristi, Ćutljivi svedok, Narodna knjiga – Alfa, Beograd, 1997.

[4] A. Kristi, Ubistvo u Orijent-ekspresu, Narodna knjiga : Politika, Beograd, 2004.

[5] A. Kristi, Zavesa, Narodna knjiga : Politika, Beograd, 2005.

[6] Dž. Kuran, Tajne beležnice Agate Kristi : pedeset godina stvaranja misterija, Admiral

Books, Beograd, 2011.

[7] Internet

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