“Madness, Hastings, is a terrible thing… I am afraid… I am very much afraid…”
Once again narrated by our old friend, Captain Arthur Hastings (who was absent in the past three Poirot novels), The ABC Murders is another magnificent Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie in which an apparent serial killer is on the loose, sending playful anonymous letters to Poirot, and slowly murdering people via an alphabetical alliterative scheme. In a forward to the book, Arthur Hastings explains that certain chapters will be told in the third person. As the narrator and compiler of these records, he says he can vouch for their veracity but has taken certain poetic license to imagine the characters’ thoughts and feelings. He also apologizes if he has exaggerated some relationships in certain areas, but if Poirot has taught him anything it’s that “romance” can be a by-product of crime. Hastings notes that the whole book has been vetted by Poirot, as well. “As to solving the A.B.C. Mystery, I can only say that in my opinion Poirot showed real genius in the way he tackled a problem entirely unlike any which had previously come his way.”
As the novel begins, it is June 1935 and Hastings has returned “home” to London for six months from his ranch in South America due to the ongoing difficulties caused by the global depression. His wife has stayed behind to care for the ranch. Naturally, in London he quickly pays a visit to his old friend and partner Hercule Poirot. The two banter about past cases (such as those featured in Three Act Tragedy and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) as Hastings admires the geometric symmetry of Poirot’s new flat, a more modern place in comparison his former location on Farraway Street. Amidst all this amusing chatter, there is a somewhat wistful, insecure tone between the two men as they acknowledge their aging: Hastings is losing his hair, Poirot is dying his hair, and even Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard is going grey. They are all very insecure about it.
Poirot jokes about his retirement being a “farewell performance,” like a prima donna “who always makes one appearance.” But Poirot also reminds Hastings that it is an unforgivable error to be “overlooking the obvious” as they muse about crime the way one orders dinner. If it were up to him, Hastings would ‘order’ a big murder of an important person like the prime minister, but Poirot would have a very simple crime, unimpassioned, a murder taking place in quiet domestic life, very “intime.” “If the murder happens in the first chapter, and you have to follow up everybody’s alibi until the last page but one –well, it does get a bit tedious” (15).
At any rate, Poirot pulls out an ominous letter he recently received and shares it with Hastings. The anonymous letter challenges him to solve a mystery, telling him to “look out for Andover on the 21st of the month.” It is simply signed A.B.C. and postmarked WC1. Poirot has shown the letter to Inspector Japp but London’s finest seem to think it is merely a hoax. However, Poirot nevertheless fears that a murder will occur on Friday the 21st in Andover. And sure enough, it does. An old woman named Alice Ascher who runs a tobacco and newspaper shop is found dead in her shop, her head bashed in from behind. The murder took place sometime around 6:00pm (note that both of her first and last names start with the letter “A” as does the name of the town). The only thing found at the scene of the crime is an “ABC” railway guide. Who could have killed her? The investigation leads to several wonderfully portrayed local townsfolk scenes, none of whom seem to know anything, as well as a drunkard ex-husband and the niece of a lady whom Alice used to work for in the service.
The suspects:
- Franz Ascher – Alice Ascher’s German ex-husband. He is an abusive drunkard who once worked as a waiter, but ever since becoming an alcoholic, he has been sponging off his ex-wife, threatening her, and causing mayhem.
- Mary Drower – she has been living in Overton and working as a parlormaid before abruptly leaving for London shortly after Alice Ascher’s murder. She is the niece of Miss Rose, the lady whom Alice Ascher once worked for in the service before Miss Rose passed away with no children.
- James Partridge – the last person to have seen Alice alive. He made a purchase from her at 5:30. He is a small man and an orderly bank clerk, wearing pince-nez glasses.
- Mr. Albert “Bert” Riddell – a working-class platelayer who entered the shop a minute or two after six, but after finding it empty, he left.
Franz Ascher is naturally the lead suspect, though Poirot is skeptical. But before too much headway can be made on the murder, the following month, Poirot receives another anonymous note from “ABC” warning of another murder in Bexhill-on-Sea on the 25th. And sure enough, the body of a young girl named Elizabeth “Betty” Barnard is found on the beach beside another ABC railway guide. She was a 23-years-old a waitress working in a local café called the Ginger Cat and living with her parents in a recently built bungalow. She was killed between 11:30pm and 1:00am, strangled with her own belt.
The suspects:
- Megan Barnard – Betty’s sister, a typist from London, who secretly harbors a negative perspective on her sister. She says Betty liked to go out with rich men despite being engaged to Donald Fraser.
- Donald Fraser – Betty’s “friend” and fiancé who clerks at the estate agents station Court & Brunskill. He is an intense man who was sometimes known to be violent and frightening.
- Miss Merion – the manageress of Ginger Cat Café where Betty worked.
- Miss Higley – the other regular working girl at Ginger Cat Café aside from Betty.
“The sanity of a city full of men against the insanity of one man? I fear, Hastings –I very much fear. Remember the long-continued successes of Jack the Ripper…” (55).
After getting nowhere with these suspects, Poirot and Hastings are once again at a loss. Then a third anonymous letter is sent to Poirot (though it is initially lost in the mail after being mistakenly addressed to Whitehorse instead of Whitehaven). The letter suggests that another crime will take place on the 30th, this time in Churston (a very small town in Devon) and by the time the letter arrives, the murder has already taken place. The victim? Sir Carmichael Clarke, a well-known throat specialist and collector of Chinese pottery and porcelain. He is married with no children (his wife is dying of cancer). Sir Carmichael was murdered on his nightly walk by blunt force trauma to the back of the head with an open ABC railway guide left nearby.
- Franklin Clarke – the younger brother of Sir Carmichael who has conducted work for him gathering pieces for his brother’s collection. produces a letter
- Miss Thora Grey – a young Scandinavian woman who worked as Sir Carmichael’s secretary. She was apparently having an affair with Sir Carmichael and Lady Clarke dislikes her (Thora Grey leaves shortly after Sir Carmichael’s death).
- Lady Clarke – Sir Carmichael’s dying wife (she is cared for by Nurse Capstick). Lady Clarke recalls that she spotted a shabby man on her doorstep even though she said no stranger came to the door on the day.
The press is alerted and all of England seems fascinated by this mystifying string of “ABC” murders as well as Poirot’s series of taunting letters. Then, another letter arrives for Poirot warning of another murder on September 11th in Doncaster (the same date of the heavily populated St Leger horse race). However, the murder actually takes place at a Regal Cinema (where the film “Not A Sparrow” is playing) and a man named Mr. Leadbetter stumbles upon a dead body that was stabbed with an ABC railway splayed out on the floor. His name is George Earlsfield, a barber. Why doesn’t his name have a “D” in it? Well, apparently another man, Roger Emmanuel Downes (a nervous man who works as master at Highfield School for Boys) was also in the theater and sitting in that same seat before moving inside the theater. The murderer apparently intended to kill Downes, not Earlsfield.
Now, throughout the novel, we are treated to brief chapters that are told from the perspective of a man named Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust, a headache-prone epileptic and veteran who suffered war trauma who just so happens to be in Andover, Bexhill-on-Sea, Churston, and even the movie theater in Doncaster around the time of the murder. He is spotted with blood on his hands by the Marbury family, whose matriarch is Cust’s landlady. He is then caught with a bloody knife in his coat pocket, but he cannot seem to remember anything (partly thanks to a head wound he sustained in the war). He also has a large supply of stockings, which matches with Lady Clarke’s story about a strange stocking salesman coming to the door (along with other stocking connections to the other murders). Cust does have an alibi, however, that he was playing dominoes during the Bexhill murder, but he is still clearly the prime suspect. Could Alexander Bonaparte Cust be the ABC murderer? Why kill these four people? And why send the maniacal letters to Poirot?
“A murderer is always a gambler.”
A Jack the Ripper-esque murder mystery, The ABC Murders is another triumph for Agatha Christie. It is filled with plenty of charming humor, vividly imagined characters, and befuddling clues, plus it’s always a joy to see Poirot and Hastings working hand-in-hand again, though I will admit a serial killer mystery is a real departure for our heroes who are really more accustomed to cozy British country house murders. I will admit it’s strange seeing our heroes wandering aimlessly, achieving very little for much of the book. But I should note there are many memorable police officer characters who pop up in this book hailing from across England, particularly Inspector Crome, and even Japp makes a minor appearance at the outset. The ABC Murders is perhaps slightly less cozy than others in the series, but it is highly regarded by fans for good reason.
Solution (Spoilers Ahead)
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In a trademark summation gathering, Poirot explains his thought process before arriving at the identity of the murderer. Spoiler alert: after speaking with Cust (who confesses to the murders), Poirot does not believe Cust is guilty. In this case, it was actually Hastings who accidentally helped Poirot solve the mystery by offhandedly suggesting that perhaps the Chuston letter from “ABC” (which had gotten lost in the mail) was deliberately lost in the mail. This leads Poirot to reframe the whole case around the idea that perhaps something is deeply important about the Chuston murder.
Then it hits him. The real killer is someone nobody suspects: none other than Sir Carmichael Clarke’s brother, Franklin Clarke. With his brother’s wife dying of cancer, Franklin Clarke was set to inherit all his brother’s wealth, but in order to do so he needed to prevent Sir Carmichael from remarrying his mistress and secretary, Thora Grey. He needed a way to murder his brother without drawing too much attention to this one isolated murder. He needed it to look like part of a broader serial killer scheme. Thus, he buried the murder of his brother inside an elaborate string of alphabetical murders, each of which was disconnected, save for the “ABC” alliteration. He found the lonely, ailing Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust who was struggling with his memory, prone to headaches, epilepsy and so on. He was the perfect man to frame as a murderer. Franklin framed him as a stocking salesman and even typed up all the threatening letters sent to Poirot on the typewriter he then had delivered to Cust’s flat. And as Poirot spells out this vast conspiracy, he says a Franklin Clarke fingerprint was found on the typewriter, and this shocks Clarke’ into finally admitting it:
“Rouge, impair manque! –you win, M. Poirot! But it was worth trying!” He whips out a small automatic gun and puts it to his head, but Poirot is still one step ahead. He has already hired a new pickpocket manservant to remove the bullets in Clarke’s gun without him knowing. Franklin Clarke is then led away by the authorities.
In the end, a newspaper offers Cust a hundred pounds for his story, but Poirot says Cust should remain firm and demand at least five hundred pounds. He also suggests Cust should visit an oculist since his headaches are very likely caused by his glasses.
Christie, Agatha. The ABC Murders. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2011 (originally published in 1936). Dedicated to James Watts, “one of my most sympathetic readers.”