Christie Catchup: Lord Edgware Dies

 Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie

 published 1933

 

 

[excerpt from book] ‘She bought a new hat off me yesterday.’

‘A new hat?’

‘Yes. She said she wanted one to shade the left side of her face.’

There I must insert a few words of explanation as I do not know when these words will be  read. I have seen many fashions of hats in my time—the cloche that shaded the face so completely that one gave up in despair the task of recognizing one’s friends. The tilted forward hat, the hat attached airily to the back of the head, the beret, and many other styles. In this particular June the hat of the moment was shaped like an inverted soup plate and was worn attached (as if by suction) over one ear, leaving the other side of the face and hair open to inspection.

‘These hats are usually worn on the right side of the head?’ asked Poirot.

The little modiste nodded.

‘But we keep a few to be worn on the opposite side,’ she explained. ‘Because there are people who much prefer their right profile to the left or who have a habit of parting the hair on one side only. Now, would there be any special reason…?’

 

comments: As I’m doing these catchup posts, there come moments when I am convinced I have featured a book on the blog, and a lot of searching is necessary to convince me I haven’t. This is a case in point – I could happily have told you what I would have illustrated (Jane Wilkinson talking about mourning clothes, always a favourite trope). But the best I can muster is that there is a mention of it in a list of books with theatrical settings, as it features a cabaret act. (I have mentioned before that it is surprising how few theatrical settings there are in Christie’s books, given her great enthusiasm for, and startling success in, the world of the London stage.) And I’ve decided to major on hats instead. The young expert above has just got ready to go out;

She picked up a small black hat, affixed it to one ear, powdered her nose furiously, and then looked at Poirot.

She also tells us that her friend Carlotta ‘wasn’t the week-ending sort, if that’s what you’re driving at.’ This use of the term weekending  to mean an unmarried couple going away together, also appears in Christie’s N or M? Dress Down Sunday: N or M? by Agatha Christie (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

There’s a lot to like here: Lord Edgware - and it’s hardly a spoiler for me to tell you he’s the victim - is a nasty piece of work, so we don’t have to waste time worrying about him. It is implied that he has some strange sexual tastes – his book collection, for example is a clue: ‘There were the memoirs of Casanova, also a volume on the Comte de Sade, another on mediaeval tortures.’

The artiste Carlotta Adams in the book is based on a real act by one Ruth Draper – Christie, unusually for her, straight out said that the plot had been inspired by seeing Draper on the London stage.

There is an impersonation here, which is simultaneously quite incredibly unlikely, and also very easy to guess - it takes the sleuths forever to catch up, twice. (Christie’s penchant for unconvincing impersonations has featured before on the blog, here and here, and also provided a section for my recent talk at the Agatha Christie Festival).

There is also the question of how many people were swanning around the murder house that night? – I counted five people coming and going, but apparently lucky enough not to bump into each other over the corpse.

 

‘I’ll find a rag to put on and be there in a moment.’

Jane Wilkinson’s idea of a rag was a gossamer negligee which revealed more than it hid.

If ever there was a candidate for some light censorship, I would say this book was it. There are casual anti-Semitic remarks which are unsettling and unnecessary, and could easily be removed, and use of the n-word. They are put into the mouths of characters, and although it is wholly convincing that those people would have talked like that, it sets your teeth on edge.

And it is a shame to have such an enjoyable novel spoiled in that way. The character of Jane is excellent, and there are many minor characters who jump off the page, such as the hat seller Jenny. However, it must be said that there is a young man who is drunk, borrows money, doesn’t pay his debts and makes most of the remarks I would like censored: Hastings says ‘There was something strangely likeable about the young man’ but this reader certainly didn’t agree, he left me very straightfaced indeed.

My copy has the Tom Adams illustration which I have always found unusually off-putting: his covers generally feature a number of different allusive items (often with very minor connections to the plot) arranged in strange & sinister groups. This is just a horrible picture of a murder – and incorrect (in two different ways) in showing the knife in the wound. But then the cover of the Kindle version is worse if anything, in being unconnected and relevant to nothing.

The dead man’s heir is referred to as Lord Edgware (ie the new Lord Edgware) from the moment the victim dies – I am of the opinion that correct etiquette is that he is not referred to as his new title until after the funeral.

During the course of the book, Poirot takes off to solve the problem of ambassadors boots, which elsewhere, in Partners in Crime, is a Tommy & Tuppence case. The T&T short story came a lot earlier.

Collection of coats and hats from the NYPL collection Belted and buttoned coats with fur trim - NYPL Digital Collections

Cover of 1930s playgoers magazine from a collection at LOC Follow the Parade | Library of Congress (loc.gov)