Agatha Christie: They Came to Baghdad

 Summary:

An energetic young woman, Victoria Jones, who is a failed shorthand dictation typist, is fired from her job, but meets a charming young man, Edward, just before he embarks on a trip to Baghdad.  Lacking any ties to London, she vows to follow after him and eventually makes the journey as a companion to Mrs Clipp, a wealthy American.

Once in Iraq, she makes an effort to find her young man, Edward, but instead gets entangled with a British intelligence officer, Mr. Dakin, who explains about powerful international forces at work to prevent a lasting peace in this post-WWII world.  Dakin tells her of two great men who have uncovered evidence of these evil forces.  Each are bringing some evidence of their activities to a peace conference in Baghdad.

That night, one of these great men, Carmichael appears at Victoria's hotel door, asking for a place to hide.  She bundles him under the blankets while the police search the room, but when she returns to him, he is already dead from a stab wound to the heart.  The other great man is Sir Rupert, a traveler of the Middle East and throughout the former British empire.  He is staying at the same hotel as Victoria.

While Victoria and Edward go sightseeing in the ancient city of Babylon, Edward urges Victoria to make friends with his former girlfriend, Catherine. Catherine takes Victoria to have her hair washed, but while at the salon, Victoria is attacked with chloroform and kidnapped.  She awakens to find herself a prisoner in a desolate Iraqi village in the middle of the desert.  She escapes her unsophisticated captors and instead finds refuge in a nearby archaeological dig run by two Englishmen.  Victoria stays with them while she recovers from her ordeal, and becomes special friends with Richard, the younger of the two academics.

There are  three fundamental issues with this story as Agatha tells it, and then a few ongoing problems.

The first is the sheer impossibility and absurdity of  the plot.  The forced coincidences and improbably outcomes that could only be attributed to the hand of the author.

Second, the espionage side of the story seems inadequately told.  For example, we spend great amounts of time and paragraphs describing how amazing are the three great men that wend their way toward this auspicious meeting in Baghdad.  Each is described as a powerful force of nature. Carmichael is the  Arab among Arabs, a man who can go anywhere, do anything, all unseen and fit into the local culture seamlessly.  He is compared to Lawrence of Arabia.   Sir Rupert strides the globe; no country, no continent barred to him.  He is at home among the heights of the Himalayas or among the farthest reaches of the dark continent. Doctor Livingstone pales in comparison. And finally, Mr Dakin is the most consummate British spymaster that he makes George Smiley a mere amateur. He operates the British intelligence service in the shadows behind the mask of a shabby civil servant.

Both of the first two men are dead within hours of our meeting them.  And master spy Dakin is powerless to prevent either of their demises.  Looked at objectively, Dakin is an utter failure.  We spend so much time building them up, but have nothing for them to do once they arrive.

In fact, most of the book sees very little action.  Nothing of any consequence to the plot actually takes place for pages and pages.  And when something does happen, such as when Victoria finds a thrilling escape from her captors in the remote desert village, walks all night and seeks shelter on the lee side of a Tell, she immediately tumbles into the refuge of the archaeologists and carries on as if nothing had happened after only escaping a few miles away.  The entire kidnapping and imprisonment plot seemed nothing more than a deus ex machina to get Victoria to meet Richard.

Further, the entire action of the plot focuses on the great men bringing proof of the evil organization to the conference and so to expose them to the world.  Victoria and Richard are successful in uncovering what that proof is, in the form of a knotted scarf and a leaf of notepaper.  But when the moment comes to unravel these two clues and obtain the proof, all that happens off-stage while Victoria is asleep.  She wakes up to find that quite a lot has happened in her absence for which she simply wasn't needed.  In fact, if she had been alert at the initial meeting, she could have handed the scarf over to Dakin on the night of Carmichael's murder and the entire second half of the book would have been unnecessary.

A mere aside, here, is that Agatha Christie occasionally wanders off into banal descriptions of the countryside, giving extended narratives of Baghdad street life, or shopping at the market, or wandering the copper bazaar.  She takes us on trips to the ancient ruins of Babylon, or a lushly planted grove of trees, or of her awkward attempt to walk around the edges of a river bay, but she makes very little effort to integrate them into the story she is telling.  The copper market has no bearing on the story at all;  nothing of interest happens there.  We can tell that these passages are the result of Christie having actually visited those places on her various travels in the Middle East, but that is not enough to merit their inclusion in her adventure novel.

Finally, Victoria herself comes across as actually a very unlikable character. 

By her own admission, she is a very poor employee, who is very bad at shorthand dictation, can't type and is an even worse speller.  What's more, she wastes time, disrupts the office with her stories and makes fun of the boss and the boss's wife behind his back.  Frankly, her firing from her job is well deserved and she admits as much.  

However when she returns to her employment agency, in order to cover up her failure she outright suggests that her boss sexually harassed her at the office.  Not only is this a complete lie, but she has savagely ruined his reputation at the employment agency, all for her spur of the moment joke to save face.  It was here that the reader began to get the impression that Victoria could be a rather nasty piece of work.

Next, she finds a elder lady traveling exactly where she wants to go, and so she lies outrageously to get an undeserved position.  Further, she hasn't been in her company for 10 minutes before she's complaining about how much of a chatterbox Mrs Clipp is and how unpleasant it is to be around her.

After having met the young man in the park on her lunch break for all of 10 minutes, she then proceeds to chase halfway round the world after him.  Then, on the strength of a 10-minute conversation in the park, she turns up in Baghdad to find that Edward has no real interest in her, and in fact already has a girlfriend, Catherine.

She immediately demands that he drop Catherine and take up with her, for no particular reason other than that she is a good English girl, and Catherine is from Iran.  Her jealous impulses are strong and immediate.  Then she demands that Edward find her a job.  Next she conspires to cheat the owner of her hotel out of paying for her meals and lodging.  In the end, she actually dodges out on the bill, which we never see her pay, and in fact later borrows money from the same hotelier with brazen impunity, completely willing to trade her time so that the hotel manager will buy her drinks.  At this point she is beginning to appear like a dance hall hostess.

 

British TV: Two models

 Enduring British Television seems to revolve around two main formulae:

First.  The principal character is an unusual hero, intellectually brilliant, physically outstanding, often with even more unusual characteristics.  They could even be supernatural in some way.   As an accompanying trait, however, they are often perceived as callous, unthinking or uncaring.  Their towering intellect makes them appear to dismiss those around them, trampling on their feelings, and appearing to discard them when they outlive their usefulness.  Sometimes verbally disparaging those of lesser acumen. 

Often their schemes seem so far fetched and unlikely to those around them that they are viewed as eccentric, but this is because they don't feel the need to fully explain what their plans are.

It is this tension between their hyper competence and their social struggles that endears them to the audience.  However, these traits often cause them to lead solitary lives, accompanied by a single companion who has grown to truly understand and tolerate the struggles of their genius.

Classic examples are Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, the Doctor (Who), James Herriot, Ford Prefect (hitchhiker's guide), Father Brown, Death in Paradise, Hercule Poirot, Peter Wimsey

 

Second.  Any zany absurdist comedy.  

Are You Being Served?, The Young Ones, Monty Python, Couplings,

Agatha Christie: Mrs. McGinty's Dead

 Poirot is drawn to a case of the murder of a poor housekeeper who was apparently murdered by her lodger, and the young man was subsequently sentenced to death for it.  However, even at the 11th hour, Poirot begins to investigate.

 Summary

Mrs. McGinty is a cleaning woman, what Christie calls a "charwoman" where she cleans wealthy people's houses.  She was fond of looking at the photos in the Sunday Comet newspaper and one week read a story commenting on two local women who ran into problems 30 years previously and had to leave the area because of the scandal.  

Mrs. McGinty recognized one of the photos from one of her houses and began talking about it when she was doing her regular rounds.  One of the people who overheard her was going to be implicated in the scandal if it was all brought up again, and so murdered Mrs. McGinty to keep her from talking. 

There were two photos in the paper.   

Lily Gamboll, as a young girl of 10, desperately poor and abandoned in a London slum, was given to be cared for by her aunt.  In a fit of rage she hit her elderly relative in the head with an butcher knife, and she eventually died.  The girl was sent to a reformatory boarding school.Eventually, Poirot decides that Lily is not involved in the present case.

Eva Kane was involved in a murder scandal.  As a 19 year old, she falls in love with a married man, Alfred Craig.  Somehow, Craig's current wife is murdered, Craig is convicted of it and Eva fled to Australia, pregnant with her first child.  There is a strong suspicion that Eva herself was involved in the poisoning, and that she had a narrow escape from the gallows. She changes her name to Eva Hope, delivers her baby, a son, and names him Evelyn Hope after herself.  The story is a little vague, at this point, but it is suggested that the young Eva cannot take care of her new son and gives it up for adoption at some point.

Later, this same son migrates back to England and takes to the stage as an actor and playwright.  During this era, he finds a wealthy woman, Laura Upward, to be his patron on the stage.  As he draws closer to her, he changes his name to match hers, Robin Upward, and adopts the role of her son.  The Upwards come to live in Bellhinney, and Robin has a successful career with his theater company.  The relationship is progressing and Robin is in line to be the sole heir in Mrs Upward's will

It is at this point that Mrs McGinty sees the photo in the paper of Eva Kane and recognizes it as one she came across while cleaning houses.  She buys ink and paper and talks about writing to the newspaper about having more information.  At this Robin Upward cannot risk that Laura Upward will find out about his scandalous past, and his mother who was suspected of being a murderess, because she is likely to terminate the relationship.  No more sponsoring of plays, and no more inheritance.  And so he kills Mrs McGinty. 

Poirot breezes into town to investigate and stirs up the local upper crust.  Each of them has minor secrets from their past but Poirot focuses on McGinty, and at a party of the Crust, he produces the two photos from the newspaper.  Mrs Upward says she recognizes one of them, and Poirot urges her to tell him all that she knows, because she will now be in danger.  She remains silent to Poirot.

However, Robin Upward (nee Evelyn Hope) is aware that she has learned something and fears the termination of their relationship.  While Ariadne Oliver waits outside in the car, Robin kills Laura Upward and then drives away to establish his alibi.  At the intermission of the play, he  pretends to make a solitious phone call to his "mother" but really calls three of the women from the village asking, as Laura, if they would come over for coffee.  Mrs Summerhays responds, and actually shows up at Laura's house but cannot get an answer to her knock, so she goes away again.  While on the premises, however, she gets a glimpse of the retreating figure of a young woman.

At this stage, Poirot is back at his lodgings, now accompanied by Robin Upward, and comes across the original of the mysterious photo in the newspaper.  Because it is found in a drawer that he had previously searched, he knew it must have been recently planted there, and the only possible source was Robin.  Therefore, he knew that Robin must be the murderer, and once confronted, Robin confesses.

As James Bentley is released from jail, and from his execution sentence, Poirot is waiting outside with his companion, Maude Williams.  He confronts her with the theory that Maude was the woman seen running away from the Upwards house on the night of the murder.  She admits that it was, and confesses that she is the child of the woman that Eva Kane poisoned and whose father was hanged for it.  She suspected that Laura Upward was actually Eva Kane, returned to the village, and she intended to kill her in revenge.  However, when she arrived at the house, Laura had already been murdered and so she went away.

 

 

1.  The Doctor.  Dr. Rendell, who employs both a housekeeper and Mrs McGinty "for scrubbing floors."  His wife, Shelagh, is presented as being of the right age to be the child of Eva Kane.

2.  The Energetic Young Woman.  Maude Williams is the friend of the accused young man, James Bentley.  She works in a real estate office in a neighboring town.

3.  The Batty Eccentric.  Maureen Summerhays "It's the ministry of Agriculture form about the bloody pig."  She is a poor cook, terribly disorganized, and generally not a very perceptive person.  Geese fly in and out of her kitchen.  She is also presented as drinking too much

3.5 The Cloud-headed Girl.  

4.  The Temptrix.   Eve Carpenter used to be an exotic dancer at the Cactus Club in Soho while she was married to a common laborer in impoverished circumstance.  But now is married to an aspiring politician.   "And did you go to Mrs Upward?  Eve:  "Why in the hell should I? Damn dreary old woman"

5.  The Young Specialist.  

6.  The Housekeeper.  

6.5.   The Maid.  Mrs. McGinty herself.  She was a "charwoman" and filled the same role, going in and out of many houses, all secrets reveal to her.  No one questions her presence.  And everyone reports that she was a hard worker.

7.   The Industrialist.  

8.  The Legal Mind.  

9.  The Efficient Professional.  

10.  The Rake.  

11. The Rival.  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

12.  The Daughter. In this story, the daughter is a son.  "Robin is as good as a daughter to me," said Mrs Upward.  The daughter in hiding is Evelyn Hope.

13.  The Vicar.  

14.  The Politician.  Guy Carpenter, running for  Parliament. Looks down on all servants.  "Who has a great sense of his own importance."

15.  The Overseas Connection.   Maureen and John Somerhays have been away for many years in India. Miss Sweetiman grew up "abroad, never you mind where."  Mrs. Upward fled to Australia and then has returned more recently.

21. The Mirror  Poirot points out that there are three women who are the right age to be the daughter Evelyn Crane.  In the end, Evelyn turns out to be a man.

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife. 

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  Mrs Upward

19.  The Social Outcast. 

20. The Shopkeeper:   Miss Sweetiman runs the local general store and post office.

21. The Mirror:  Christie draws two overt parallels of her own accord.  She contrasts the accused murderer, James Bentley with Robin Upward, both "tied to their mother's apron strings" and unable to cope on their own.   The mother insulates them from real life.

Second, she says, through Poirot, that there are three women in the village of the right age to be Eva's daughter.  

22.  The Policeman.   Poirot is called in by a Chief Superintendent Spence, a friend of his who is having second thoughts about the outcome of the case.

Tropes

A.  The Ominous Event.  

B. The Time Gap.  Mrs McGinty read a newspaper article that showed photographs of women from the past who somehow met tragic ends.  Because of someone or something that she saw in the photographs of that article, McGinty was murdered.  Poirot has to track down the stories of each of these women and find how they relate to the current members of the village.  So Poirot has to investigate now, a murder that took place a year ago, that referenced photographs from 20 (30?) years prior.

 C. The Obscure Relationship. It appears that everyone in this story was given up for adoption.  Everyone has obscure parentage  that no one is really clear on and everyone is trying to hide.

D. The Convoluted Will.   Christie makes a nod toward some kind of inheritance, but dismisses it as completely above board.  Bessie Burch inherited the house from her aunt, Mrs. McGinty, when she was murdered. 

Questions:

Near the beginning, Poirot says that the only person who could be Eva Kane is Mrs Upward, which would make Robin Upward the obvious suspect to save his mother's reputation.  Poirot dismisses Robin Upward, saying that he would simply only use the publicity for one of his plays.  And yet, it really was Robin Upward who was the murderer, and instead of welcoming the publicity, avoiding scandal was offered as the reason he wanted to keep things secret.  The reason this is not fair is that we have come to rely on Poirot's judgement when it comes to human nature.  Here, he was just completely wrong, with no explanation offered.

The timeline doesn't quite work out.  Eva Kane was pregnant with the child when she fled to Australia.  Therefore Poirot tells us, that child must be 30 years old now.  Since Eva was 19 when she fled, she must now only be in her 50s, not an elderly lady who is wracked with arthritis, confined to a wheelchair, as was presented in the story.  Poirot states that Eva Kane would be over 60, a simple error in the facts.

Similarly, Maude Williams is the child of the woman that Eva Kane was supposed to have poisoned in order to marry Arthur Craig.  Since she was older than an infant at the time, she was probably 5 or 6.  That puts her nearly in her 40s. At that time, her mother was murdered, her father was executed She now has a crush on the accused James Bentley, who is compared in age to Robin, and so about 30.  Therefore we have a relatively young man who is being paired up with a woman 10 years older than he is, probably past the age for starting a family, and this is presented as a perfect romantic couple, a match made in heaven.

 Poirot says that Shelagh Rendell, the doctor's wife, is afraid of something, but he cannot discover what.  In fact, we go the entire show without discovering what it is.   Similarly, Poirot is convinced that there are skeletons in Eve Carpenter's closet, but we never find out what they are, beyond the fact that she used to be a dancer at a Soho night club. 

At the halfway point, we see Poirot almost pushed onto the tracks at the train station.  He is pleased that someone tried to murder him, because it means that he is getting close to something.  However, whatever the motive, it had nothing to do with the murder, and instead was done by Mrs Rendell.   Poirot's elation that he was getting close is actually another error in judgement.