The Secret Of Chimneys
A review of The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie – 250410
Agatha Christie wrote five books featuring Superintendent Battle, the first of which, The Secret of Chimneys, was originally published in 1925, and the last, Towards Zero, appearing nineteen years later. This is much more of a thriller than a murder mystery and has a Campionesque ouch about it with a somewhat ludicrous plot involving political intrigue in the fictitious Balkan country of Herzoslovakia. It is a country where the assassination of monarchs and presidents has been turned into a fine art and one blessed or cursed with natural resources which the major powers, Britain and the United States in competition with each other, are keen to get their hands.
Slightly disconcertingly the novel begins in Africa where we meet our main protagonist, Anthony Cade, somewhat at a loose end passing the time as a tour guide. Cade bumps into an old accomplice, James McGrath, who offers him a share of £1,000, easy money requiring him only to deliver the manuscript of the memoirs of a Herzoslovakian politician, Count Stylptitch, to a London publisher and a packet of letters to Virginia Revel, who spent time as the wife of a British diplomat in Herzoslovakia and is the subject of a blackmail plot.
Easy money is never that easy to come by and when he gets back to Blighty Cade discovers he has accepted something of a poisoned chalice, having to dispose of a dead body when he visits Revel to return the letters and enduring attempts to wrest control of the manuscript. Having travelled back as McGrath Cade gets invited to a house party at Chimneys, the ancestral home of Lord Caterham.
For years Chimneys has been the venue for gatherings of diplomats and politicians, but the present owner is less keen than his predecessors in continuing the tradition. Bowing to pressure from George Lomax, who also is keen to get his hands on the manuscript, he hosts an event at which there are a motley collection of guests, including a representative of a British oil syndicate, an American collector of first editions, and a Herzoslovakian delegation headed by Prince Michael, the would-be next monarch and key to British interests.
Just to add spice to the story, the notorious French jewel thief, King Victor, has recently been released from prison. His claim to fame is having stolen the Koh-i-Noor diamond and substituting it with a paste copy, one of the hiding places of the original is, inevitably, Chimneys. The French police in the form of the shady Monsieur Lemoine are keen to get their hands on the thief.
All roads in the plot lead to Chimneys and a fateful weekend and there are no end of suspects, the plot further complicated because very few of the characters, Cade included, are who they claim to be. There is much for the stalwart Battle to get his teeth into but most of the leg work seems to be done by Cade. One of the letters contains a clue to the whereabouts of the diamond, the murderer of Prince Nicholas is revealed – I did not see that one coming – and in a surprising twist at the end British interests in Herzoslovakia are preserved, the Balkan state gets its monarch, Cade his girl and McGrath his £1,000.
It is a light, fun read, a story where disbelief has to be suspended for the duration and where coincidences abound. For modern sensibilities there is a little too much racist and xenophobic language and even by Christie’s standards the dialogue is both wooden and a tad Wodehousian. From reading it it is hard to imagine that Christie would become the world’s best-selling author.
