Does that mean, Anubis, that Agatha Christie started out with one villain in mind and then changed her mind? I read that a member of royalty - or the nobility, at any rate - suggested the change to the eventual murderer and she, flattered, complied. I think the marriage SPOILER to Ursula Bourne could have been her main unexpected twist, well, when she first conceived the plot, but by the time of the final draft, the phone call is the main conundrum on which the perplexing solution hinges. Certainly, having Ralph out of the way for almost the entire story makes one think that he was going to be playing a more prominent role, and then AC changed the plot, and had to remove traces of him from the story. It would be easier to take him out of the action completely than to write in new interactions with other characters. It is odd that he is absent from much of the play. I remember a forum member complained that a weakness of 'Halloween' is that two of the main characters, in that case the murderers, had not had much interaction during the story. However AC wrote it, TMORA is a flawless masterpiece, I wouLd say.
Griselda — no it's not like that. Bayard suggests that it is possible to conclude from the evidence presented that someone else is guilty of the crime. If you can get a copy of the book, you'll see what I mean. But be warned, it is a dense exercise in logic, only half of which I understood, if that. For instance, one segment reads, "It would not be wrong, then, to say that this book is dedicated to the experimental construction of a delusional reading built on the same principles as Poirot's, mirroring and attempting to mimic his thought processes. Such a reading is not intrinsically mad, but is certainly shot through at moments, like all great systematic delusions, with an invisible streak of lunacy. ... Are we so certain that the dame aux camelias died a natural death? Is it unthinkable that Madame Bovary might have been murdered?" To which I say, "Huh?"
(P.S. I heard a slightly different version of the anecdote you mention, which is that the royal personage suggested the idea to AC before she began to write the story. But who knows? Your explanation is just as reasonable, if not more so.)
I don't think I am going to be able to get my head around this book. It is possible that someone else could have committed the crime - but they didn't - SPOILER - Dr Sheppard's tells us they didn't and that he did. Anyway Agatha Christie told us Sheppard's did it, and she isn't one for playing with reality, creating Einstein-like dimensions of time and reality. Could you just explain it to me simply, please, what this guy is saying, if you don't mind taking the time and trouble?
Okaaay, but big big SPOILER. The first clue is that the mongoose has two famous characteristics. One is that it can "go and find out". The other, not mentioned in MORA, but known to most people, is that it is very good at killing things without harm to itself. The second clue, if we can call it that, is that Dr Sheppard's sister seems to know everything about everyone in the village, but we are asked to believe that she has no idea about what her brother is doing. Is this reasonable? For instance, he accounts for his influx of money with a fib that Caroline would find out about in two seconds. (E.g., "James, Mrs Gannett says you have inherited a legacy. What is that about?") Bayard has a great many other comments about MORA, which lead to the conclusion that Caroline was the murderer and that it was she who wrote the last half of the memoirs, and setting things up so she would get away with it and James would take the fall. Is that the conclusion AC had in mind? No, I'm sure not. Bayard is simply having a bit of fun.
It is true about the legacy, Caroline would know it wasn't true. But, as always with AC, I'm tempted to conclude that it could have happened as AC wrote it - especially given the era and the characters.SPOILER Perhaps when Sheppard tells Poirot about the legacy, he is confident that the background affairs of each person associated geographically with the crime will not be delved into. Perhaps he thinks his carefully planted clues will so obviously point to Ralph, that the police will not consider another suspect. He probably thinks that he is 'the doctor', the one who is there as a professional, and will be seen as such, and not one of the suspects. Perhaps at that point he under rates the comical retired policeman who is only involved because he happens to live in the village. Sheppard is a friend of Ackroyd, of course and therefore a possible suspect, but he probably has experience of being treated as a fellow professional by the police, and as soon as he puts on his 'doctor's hat' he will be seen in that professional role. In those days, I think men did have conversations with one another which were considered man talk. Money, investments, other worldly things. They still a decade after Edwardian times, talked over port together after dinner while the females went to the drawing room. That convention would, perhaps, establish a protocol that a man would not refer in casual conversation with a female to a conversation he had had with her brother. That said, because he is clever, Poirot would, if necessary, have tried to - without her realising it - get info from her if it wasn't straightforward enough to consult the newspapers for a list of recent wills.
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