The way to hell is paved with good intentions... or is it?

taliavishay-arbel

I've been reading "The Watersplash" by Patricia Wentworth, and realized it has a unique twist for a detective story - someone starts with a fairly minor misdemeanor, concealing a will which will only hold up matters as the beneficiary is considered dead, gets messed up when the beneficiary comes back, but eventually backpedals and gets out of the mess without further wrongdoing. In AC's books there is at least one case with the opposite outcome - a relatively minor "crime" eventually tangles the wrongdoer and leads him to multiple murder (hint: it's a Miss Marple book). But are there any cases in AC's books where someone embarks on a life of less-than-integrity, and then steps back before it is too late? The only example I can think of is Pilar in "Hercule Poirot's Christmas", and there she doesn't really get messed up - she just has a change of heart. Any other cases? It seems very difficult to make such a story believable, but I think it would make satisfying reading.

GKCfan

***SPOILERS***

The short story "Wasp's Nest," and one character in Curtain, both feature people plotting murder but are stopped by Poirot.  Also, a character in Sad Cypress seriously considers murder, but stops short of actually doing anything lethal.  Miss Marple stops someone from committing a crime in "The Affair of the Bungalow."

Griselda

There are examples of people thinking about doing a murder, and then backing out. Isn't it the brother of Theresa in Dumb Witness? Did the SPOILER ALERT accountant in Death on the Nile back out, or did he just miss with the rock.? That's a case of a misdemeanor forced by financial pressure leading on to something. Was he going to confess and talk his client round, at one point - that's why he followed her to Egypt - or was he just going to get her to sign some documents over to him? There is the young aristocrat in The Mystery of the Blue Train, SPOILER ALERT, having a change of heart about keeping a mistress - seeing through her, and the shallowness of his own life.

taliavishay-arbel

Right - I didn't think of these. In dumb witness he thinks of doing a murder - but he doesn't actually do anything. in Death on the Nile, he certainly tries to get her to sign documents he shouldn't, and he has already embezzled her money - but he doesn't backpedal - on the contrary, it's not clear whether the rock is his work or not. But I meant someone who actually does something wrong, and then instead of covering it up by another crime, decides to stop and face the music - not because someone else stops him (e.g. Miss Marple or Poirot). 

Anubis

Well, that wouldn't be very dramatic, would it? I think in real life most people do step back, and do the right thing. But in fiction, I think the idea is for the reader to identify with the character, and then think, "I could be in this situation. Yikes." I can't think of any in AC's work.

Griselda

Wasn't the SPOILER real life daughter of the man hanged for murdering his wife in Mrs McGinty's Dead thinking of committing a crime of revenge, but couldn't bring herself to do it? I feel that I am not on top of what I actually do believe about Christie's view of good and evil. The Rowley character in Taken at the Flood SPOILER accidentally kills someone, but Christie clearly likes him. She has said that people who murder are evil Poirot feels sorry for Jacqueline de Belvoir in Death on the Nile, although she is an out and out, unforced SPOILER, killer. I'm reminded that there is a range in style and quality to the AC novels. DeathOTNile is very complex and written with feeling and nuance, whereas The Sittaford Mystery, is, if anything underwritten - albeit the sophistication of the  humour suppplies a compensatory level of detail

Griselda

In Death on the Nile, we are given, probably, our deepest insight into what are Agatha Christie's beliefs on the human capacity for good and evil. Clearly, she believes that there is a choice whether or not to let evil into the heart, but she, or at any rate Poirot, is prepared to mitigate a sense of wrongdoing if loss or suffering have been considerable. I think Poirot's heart is probably different to AC's. She is probably by disposition, more like the judge in And Then There Were none, although, one of her other characters, Leonard, the vicar, in Murder at the Vicarage says he hopes he will be shown mercy and not only justice on his judgement day, so he is compassionate like Poirot. If Miss Marple thinks she really is like Nemesis, then she is avenging and ruthless. She definitely didn't make exceptions for the daughter with the loveless upbringing in the novel At Bertram's Hotel. I am having to accept that AC portrayed different attitudes towards wrongdoing depending on who is her star.

taliavishay-arbel

That is really interesting, Griselda - that Miss Marple is more ruthless than Poirot. (MM herself actually wonders whether she is ruthless in Nemesis). Though Poirot does not let the killer in DOTN escape alive, SPOILER he does give them a chance of suicide, which is a kind of escape. (This also happens in other books. e.g. Appointment with death). And in at least one famous book, he lets the killers off scot-free... As for where AC stands - could it be true that she was also ambivalent, and therefore portrayed different attitudes in the different books? I'm thinking of Murder in Mesopotamia, which ends with the storyteller (who is reminiscent of AC, though not a portrait) feeling sorry for the murderer and bemoaning her own lack of moral decisiveness. Perhaps that was the true presentation of AC's attitude.

Griselda

I think that you are right. I think that I  havedetected, also, that she changes her views, and wavers in her beliefs. Do you think ATTWN is her most ruthless story?

taliavishay-arbel

Probably, yes. But I don't think it represents her own moral beliefs, even at the time. She wrote that she set out to create that kind of situation, I think partly as a mental exercise.