In this final post on Agatha Christie's short fiction, we'll go through those stories that do not feature any of her usual detectives. First we have volume no. 6 which contains those criminous stories that Christie wrote without any of her "usual" problem solvers. All except one were written during Christie's most prolific period between 1923 and 1930. The only exception is "Three Blind Mice" which was written as late as 1948.
It starts off with five short stories that can be categorised as pure fair play mysteries. First is "The Witness for the Prosecution", one of Christie's most famous tales, which was filmed with Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich in the main roles (and more recently was made into a TV special). A clever tale about a defense lawyer who believes his client to be innocent but cannot find a way to prove it.
When reading "S.O.S.", you almost feel as if you're reading a John Dickson Carr story. Emotions swell high and the atmosphere gets more and more pressing before we reach the exciting dénouement. A story that deserves more recognition.
"Sing a Song of Sixpence" is a cute little mystery where Sir Edward Palliser gets to act as the detective - somewhat reluctantly. He turns out to be as good at it as his more well-known colleagues.
Next is "Manx Gold", an unusual tale found fairly recently by Tony Medawar who wrote a preface and a postscript to the story explaining the circumstances surrounding its origin. Taken simply as a mystery story, it's not a complete success because it's more or less impossible to follow our young protagonists Juan and Fenella on their treasure hunt.
The last of the pure mystery stories is "Three Blind Mice", possibly most known as the story that the play "The Mousetrap" is based on. It is a novella and quite a meaty one at that. The misdirection hangs on one single thing, though, and any reader who sees through it will have no trouble in finding the villain of the piece. Still an enjoyable piece thanks to its lovely winter atmosphere.
The remaining seven tales of this collection are more reminiscent of the type that mystery critic Julian Symons called "crime novels" - though these are obviously short stories... Accordingly, they are criminous stories where the intention isn't necessarily for the reader to match his wits with the detective (and the author), they are rather simply stories about crime.
The first of these is "The Actress". This is a story about blackmailers and how to get rid of them. A fairly breezy story compared with some of the following ones.
"The Red Signal" gets deep into psychology and mental illness. A young man has fallen in love with a young lady, but it's hinted that she is mentally ill. But is everything really as it seems?
"Philomel Cottage" is another one of Christie's most anthologised stories. Here we have the young wife Alix who suddenly starts suspecting that she's married a man who might have more to hide than expected...
Next is "Wireless" where Christie's weakness for the supernatural (see the next volume of this series) comes to the fore. An elderly lady seems to be contacted by her late husband through the new radio she's had installed.
In "Swan Song" an opera singer gets the opportunity to sing the demanding lead part in Tosca. In this opera the leading role dies - and the parallels to the opera start to pile up...
"The Edge" concerns a young lady who despises the woman her previous beau has married. And when she finds out something sordid about this woman's past she needs to decide how to proceed with this knowledge.
Volume 6 ends with "Accident", where a retired policeman finds it hard to let go when he imagines himself to be face to face with a criminal from the past. The question Christie seems to ask is whether it's always the right thing to try to intercede in such cases.
The seventh and final collection of Agatha Christie short stories gives us those tales that cannot be classified as criminous. The first six stories are purely romances. They were written in the middle of the 1920s, and if Christie had by then already started using her pseudonym Mary Westmacott these short stories would probably have been published under that name.
The first of these is "While the Light Lasts", a dramatic story which is set in the Sahara desert and deals with the eternal triangle.
Next is "Within a Wall", about an artist and his attempts to break out of the rigid patterns his craft has got stuck in. Interestingly a minor character from the Miss Marple canon appears here.
"Magnolia Blossom" concerns yet another triangle relationship where a married woman is torn between her sense of duty and her heart.
"The Lonely God" is a small museum piece who sees to visitors - one woman and one man, of course. The statue becomes a catalyst to the events of the tale.
At a first glance, "A Fruitful Sunday" seems more similar to what you might expect from Christie, but in the end romance wins out.
The last of the pure romances is "Next to a Dog", which sympathetically describes the opportunities a young woman without means or skills had (or rather didn't have) in the 20s.
The following eight stories are romantic adventures. The adventure genre was something Christie liked to return to. Her versions of exciting thrillers are not very similar to what we're accustomed to in the book stores nowadays. They are breezy adventures with suspect women, tough villians and mysterious employers.
The first story of these is "The Girl in the Train", wherein a young man bumps into a young lady during a train journey. From there they get into a number of entanglements before everything turns out all right in the end.
Then we come to "The Mystery of the Blue Jar" where the young man - it's often nice young men... - hears a mysterious scream while he is playing golf. The surprising dénouement raises this tale above the average.
Next we get to follow "Mr. Eastwood’s Adventure". Mr. Eastwood is a struggling author who suddenly receives a mysterious message over the phone. Christie toys with the reader's expectations.
In "Jane in Search of a Job" we meet another young lady without means or skills. However, Jane is a bit more enterprising than Joyce, who we met in "Next to a Dog", and responds to an ad where she is offered a job as a double for a foreign princess. An enjoyable kidnap adventure follows.
"The Manhood of Edward Robinson" gives us another young man whose won some money through a newspaper competition. Now he has to decide whether to follow his fiancée's reasonable advice or spend it all on a swanky car. The car it is and during his first trip our hero falls into an exciting adventure with jewels and beautiful young ladies.
The title of "The Listerdale Mystery" might hint that we'll get something we generally expect from Christie, but the mystery in question is not criminous (and not particularly hard to solve either). A family gets to rent a house for a suspiciously low sum of money. A butler who is too good to be true is included in this bargain. Cozy but never particularly serious.
"The Rajah's Emerald" is stolen at a seaside resort, and our young hero comes under suspicion because someone under mysterious circumstances put the jewel in his pocket. The best thing about this story is the young man's name.
In the last of these romantic adventures, "The Golden Ball", the young couple are suddenly imprisoned in a house after a car trip, and the young man has to show his chops when they are trying to escape.
The final collection ends with ten stories where Christie dabbles in the supernatural and horror. As so many other mystery writers, she had a great interest in unexplained events, and in these final tales she lets her imagination run wild. In contrast to the other stories of this collection, which were all written in the mid or late 20s, these stories span from that time period all the way to the mid 30s. The last of these stories was actually written as late as 1958.
The first of these supernatural tales is "The Fourth Man". Four men are sitting in a train compartment, and one of them tells a story about his childhood when he knew two young girls, one beautiful and spoiled, another ugly and stupid. As the story goes on the audience (as well as the reader) realises that something is not quite right.
Then we come to "The House of Dreams" which deals with a young man who suddenly begins dreaming about a house. In his dreams he gets closer and closer to the house, but he always wakes up before he can open the door...
"The Last Séance" is even closer to the horror genre. A medium is about to perform one final séance before giving it all up to marry her young man. She has certain misgivings before the séance, but he convinces her to go through with it.
In Cornwall, there are rumours about a dog, "The Hound of Death", who roams around at night. Our young protagonist is visiting his sister and starts to investigate why a Belgian refugee, a young nun, has delusions.
In "The Lamp", a family of father, daughter and her son move into a new house, but before long they start hearing things in the house, and the grandson begins speaking about a playmate none of the adults can see...
"The Gypsy" appears in a young man's dreams, warning him about different types of events. When the young man dies from a surgery he was warned from, his friend decides to investigate things more closely.
Next is "The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael", where a doctor starts to investigate why a young man appears to be insane lately. Since the story is narrated in the first person, it has a more personal touch compared with many of the other stories here, which is to its advantage.
An elderly, well-to-do man who is content with his life suddenly begins hearing something he calls "The Call of Wings", which makes him more and more nervous. As time passes, he tries to get rid of his oppressive wealth to ease his burden, but nothing seems to help...
In the story "In a Glass Darkly", a young man sees a murder scene in a mirror he should not have been able to see. He uses it to warn the female murder victim, and soon a love affair grows between them. A clever twist towards the end makes this tale one of the best here.
Finally, there's "The Dressmaker’s Doll" which can also be called a horror story. An old, worn doll turns up in a dressmaker's shop, and soon the doll's aura and appearance has resulted in it taking over an entire room for itself.
Conclusion
The first five mysteries of collection six are all very good, with the exception of "Manx Gold" which doesn't really work as a story (though that is fully understandable since it was never written to be that).
As for the more noirish tales towards the end of the same volume, some of them are quite effective. I'm not particularly fond of that type of story, but Christie does quite well with this genre. I have to admit that I still don't fully understand what happens towards the end of "Philomel Cottage"...
As for the romances that constitute the beginning of volume 7, they are definitely not my cup of tea. I prefer the later romantic adventures, because at least there's some action (and some surprises) there.
The horror and supernatural stories towards the end of this final collection are also quite effective. The surprises are few, but Christie has a deft hand for setting moods. It's not really the kind of stuff I generally read, but I've seen much worse stuff in this genre.
There are no impossible mysteries here, so nothing new to add to my project.
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