Whatever her favourites, there seems little doubt about her least favourite title. Not only was The Mystery of the Blue Train difficult to compose but in An Autobiography she writes ‘Each time I read it again, I think it commonplace, full of clichés, with an uninteresting plot.’ In the Japanese fan letter she calls it ‘conventionally written … [it] does not seem to me to be a very original plot.’ She is even more disparaging in the Wyndham interview when she says, ‘Easily the worst book I ever wrote was The Mystery of the Blue Train. I hate it.’
In view of the inclusion of ‘The Red Signal’ on the 1974 list above, it is appropriate to include ‘The Man Who Knew’, a very short short story – less than 2,000 words – from the Christie Archive, and to compare and contrast it with its later incarnation, ‘The Red Signal’.
The typescript is undated, the only guide a reference in the first paragraph to No Man’s Land, suggesting that the First World War is over. In all probability, its composition pre-dates the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles; and this makes its very existence surprising. Very few short story manuscripts or typescripts, even from later in Christie’s career, have survived, so one from the very start of her writing life is remarkable.
The only handwritten amendments are insignificant ones (‘minute service flat’ is changed to ‘little service flat’), but some minor errors of spelling and punctuation have here been corrected.
THE MAN WHO KNEW
Something was wrong …
Derek Lawson, halting on the threshold of his flat, peering into the darkness, knew it instinctively. In France, amongst the perils of No Man’s Land, he had learned to trust this strange sense that warned him of danger. There was danger now – close to him …
Rallying, he told himself the thing was impossible. Withdrawing his latchkey from the door, he switched on the electric light. The hall of the flat, prosaic and commonplace, confronted him. Nothing. What should there be? And still, he knew, insistently and undeniably, that something was wrong …
Methodically and systematically, he searched the flat. It was just possible that some intruder was concealed there. Yet all the time he knew that the matter was graver than a mere attempted burglary. The menace was to him, not to his property. At last he desisted, convinced that he was alone in the flat.
‘Nerves,’ he said aloud. ‘That’s what it is. Nerves!’
By sheer force of will, he strove to drive the obsession of imminent peril from him. And then his eyes fell on the theatre programme that he still held, carelessly clasped in his hand. On the margin of it were three words, scrawled in pencil.
‘Don’t go home.’
For a moment, he was lost in astonishment – as though the writing partook of the supernatural. Then he pulled himself together. His instinct had been right – there was something. Again he searched the little service flat, but this time his eyes, alert and observant, sought carefully some detail, some faint deviation from the normal, which should give him the clue to the affair. And at last he found it. One of the bureau drawers was not shut to, something hanging out prevented it closing, and he remembered, with perfect clearness, closing the drawer himself earlier in the evening. There had been nothing hanging out then.
His lips setting in a determined line, he pulled the drawer open. Underneath the ties and handkerchiefs, he felt the outline of something hard – something that had not been there previously. With amazement on his countenance, he drew out – a revolver!
He examined it attentively, but beyond the fact that it was of somewhat unusual calibre, and that a shot had lately been fired from it, it told him nothing.
He sat down on the bed, the revolver in his hand. Once again he studied the pencilled words on the programme. Who had been at the theatre party? Cyril Dalton, Noel Western and his wife, Agnes Haverfield and young Frensham. Which of them had written that message? Which of them knew – knew what? His speculations were brought up with a jerk. He was as far as ever from understanding the meaning of that revolver in his drawer. Was it, perhaps, some practical joke? But instantly his inner self negatived that, and the conviction that he was in danger, in grave immediate peril, heightened. A voice within him seemed to be crying out, insistently and urgently: ‘Unless you understand, you are lost.’
And then, in the street below, he heard a newsboy calling. Acting on impulse, he slipped the revolver into his pocket, and, banging the door of the flat behind him, hurriedly descended the stairs. Outside the block of buildings, he came face to face with the newsvendor.
‘’Orrible murder of a well known physician. ’Orrible murder of a – paper, sir?’
He shoved a coin into the boy’s hand, and seized the flimsy sheet. In staring headlines he found what he wanted.
HARLEY STREET SPECIALIST MURDERED.
SIR JAMES LAWSON FOUND SHOT THROUGH
THE HEART.
His uncle: Shot!
He read on. The bullet had been fired from a revolver, but the weapon had not been found, thus disposing of the idea of suicide.
The weapon – it was in his pocket now: why he knew this with such certainty, he could not have said. But it was so. He accepted it without doubt, and in a blinding flash the terrible peril of his position became clear to him.
He was his uncle’s heir – he was in grave financial difficulties. And only that morning he had quarrelled with the old man. It had been a loud bitter quarrel, doubtless overheard by the servants. He had said more than he meant, of course – used threats – it would all tell against him! And as a culminating proof of his guilt, they would have found the revolver in his drawer …
Who had placed it there?
It all hung on that. There might still be time. He thought desperately, his brain, keen and quick, selecting and rejecting the various arguments. And at last he saw …
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