Dumb Witness
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| Dumb Witness | |
 Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition |
|
| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Not known |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
| Publication date | July 5 1937 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Murder in the Mews |
| Followed by | Death on the Nile |
Dumb Witness is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on July 5 1937[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of Poirot Loses a Client[2][3] . The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6)[4] and the US edition at $2.00[3].
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and is the last Poirot novel (other than Curtain: Poirot's Last Case) (1975) to be published that features Hastings as narrator.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
The story is set in Berkshire and centers on Emily Arundell, a woman of a considerable fortune who is surrounded by grasping young relatives. She is injured by falling down a staircase, and everyone believes that she tripped over a ball left by her pet fox terrier, Bob. Emily later dies of natural causes (or so it is believed), and her estate is unexpectedly left to her companion, Miss Lawson. A letter written before her death to Hercule Poirot is too late to save her life, but it puts Poirot on the trail of a murderer.
[edit] Plot summary
Emily Arundell writes to Hercule Poirot because she believes she has been the victim of attempted murder. However, unfortunately this letter is delayed and when Poirot receives it, she has been dead for some time. Her doctor, who has lost his sense of smell, says that she died of liver problems she had had for many years.
Emily's companion Miss Lawson is the unexpected beneficiary of a substantial fortune, according to a very recent change of will. Under the previous will, Emily's nephew Charles Arundell and nieces Theresa Arundell and Bella Tanios would have inherited. This gives them all motive for murder, because it is unclear who knew of the changed will.
While examining the house, under a pretence of buying it, Poirot discovers a nail covered with varnish and a small string tied to it. Before her death Miss Arundell had said something about Bob...dog...picture...ajar. Poirot concludes that this means a jar on which there is a picture of a dog who was left out all night meaning that Bob could not have put the ball on the staircase he had been out all night. Poirot concludes Miss Arundell had fallen over the tripwire.
On the day of her death Emily had been at a seance held by both Miss Tripps. Both Miss Tripps, two sisters who believe in seances, say that when Emily spoke a luminous figure came from her mouth. Miss Lawson who was also at the seance says that a luminous haze appeared.
Theresa and Charles want to have the will contested and even offer to pay Poirot for it. Poirot seemingly agrees. He asks Bella who after talking with her husband agrees. While at Emily's house Poirot talks to the gardener and finds out that Charles talked to him about his weed killer which turns out to be arsenic. The bottle is also nearly empty something that the gardener finds surprising.
Theresa Arundel is a strong suspect because Miss Lawson can recall seeing someone through her bedroom mirror at the top of the stairs on the night of Emily's accident. The person was wearing a brooch with the initials, "TA".
Bella leaves her husband while saying he was trying to poison her and goes to stay with Miss Lawson but Poirot tells her to go to a certain hotel. The next day she is found dead a bottle of sleeping pills she had bought on the day Emily had been tripped up is in her hand. The murderer has struck again.
Poirot discovers that Emily Arundell died of phosphorus poisoning. The reason why haze appeared from her mouth was that her breath was phosphorescent, which had been administered in her liver pills. The reason her doctor did not know was because he could not smell the odor. The nature of the murder suggests a doctor. Dr. Donaldson, Theresa's fiancé, has a good motive for the crime, as does Bella Tanios's husband, also a doctor.
At a meeting with all the suspects Poirot reveals that Theresa took the arsenic. Yet she could not bear to take someone else's life so she threw the arsenic away. The real murderer was Bella she did the murder for money to educate her children. Secretly she had begun to hate her husband and was planning to kill him as well. She killed herself because she knew that Poirot had begun to suspect her. Had it been Theresa's brooch it would have said "AT" not "TA". Bella had been wearing her own as her full name was Arabella Tanios her initials backwards would be "TA". On her deathbed Emily had asked Miss Lawson for the new will, possibly to destroy it, but Miss Lawson thinking the will was only for a few thousand pounds said that her lawyer had it.
Respecting the original will, Miss Lawson voluntarily shares the estate with Emily's other relations, including Bella's children. The dog Bob becomes Hastings' new pet.
[edit] Characters in "Dumb Witness"
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Theresa Arundell, the victim's niece
- Dr. Rex Donaldson, Theresa's fiancé
- Charles Arundell, the victim's nephew
- Bella Tanios, the victim's niece
- Dr. Jacob Tanios, Bella's husband
- Wilhelmina Lawson, the victim's companion and heiress
- Captain Hastings, Poirot's slightly slow-witted foil.
- The Sisters Tripp, two rather daft amateur spiritualists whose enthusiasm far outweighs their skill.
[edit] Literary significance and reception
John Davy Hayward in the Times Literary Supplement of July 10, 1937, whilst still approving of Christie's output, commented on some length at a what he felt was a central weakness of this book: "Who, in their senses, one feels, would use hammer and nails and varnish in the middle of the night within a few feet of an open door! – a door, moreover, that was deliberately left open at night for observation! And, incidentally, do ladies wear large broaches on their dressing gowns?" The review ended by saying that, "These are small but tantalizing points which it would not be worth raising in the work of a less distinguished writer than Mrs. Christie; but they are worth recording, if only as a measure of curiosity and interest with which one approaches her problems and attempts to anticipate their solution".[5]
In The New York Times Book Review for September 26, 1937, Kay Irvin said "Agatha Christie can be depended upon to tell a good tale. Even when she is not doing her most brilliant work she holds her reader's attention, leads them on from clue to clue, and from error to error, until they come up with a smash against surprise in the end. She is not doing her most brilliant work in Poirot Loses A Client, but she has produced a much-better-than-average thriller nevertheless, and her plot has novelty, as it has sound mechanism, intriguing character types, and ingenuity.[6].
In The Observer's issue of July 18, 1937, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers) said, "usually after reading a Poirot story the reviewer begins to scheme for space in which to deal with it adequately; but Dumb Witness, the least of all the Poirot books, does not have this effect on me, though my sincere admiration for Agatha Christie is almost notorious. Apart from a certain baldness of plot and crudeness of characterisation on which this author seemed to have outgrown years ago, and apart from the fact that her quite pleasing dog has no testimony to give either way concerning the real as opposed to the attempted murder, her latest book betrays two main defects. In the first place, on receiving a delayed letter from a dead old lady Poirot blindly follows a little grey hunch. In the second place, it is all very well for Hastings not to see the significance of the brooch in the mirror, but for Poirot to miss it for so long is almost an affront to the would-be worshipper. Still, better a bad Christie than a good average."[7]
The Scotsman of July 5, 1937 started off by saying, "In Agatha Christie's novel there is a minor question of construction which might be raised." The reviewer then went on to outline the set-up of the plot up to the point where Poirot receives Emily Arundell's letter and then said, "Why should the story not have begun at this point? M. Poirot reconstructs it from here and the reader would probably have got more enjoyment out of it if he had not had a hint of the position already. But the detection is good, and the reader has no ground for complaint, for the real clue is dangled before his eyes several times, and because it seems a normal feature of another phenomenon than poisoning that he tends to ignore it. For this Agatha Christie deserves full marks.[8]
E.R. Punshon of The Guardian began his review column of July 13, 1937 by an overview comparison of the books in question that week (in addition to Dumb Witness, I'll be Judge, I'll be Jury by Milward Kennedy, Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes, Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham and Careless Corpse by C. Daly King) when he said, "Only Mrs. Christie keeps closer to the old tradition, and this time she adds much doggy lore and a terrier so fascinating that even Poirot himself is nearly driven from the centre of the stage." In the review proper, he went on to say that the dedication of the novel to Peter was, "a fact that in this dog-worshipping country is enough of itself to ensure success." He observed that Poirot, "shows all of his usual acumen; Captain Hastings – happily once more at Poirot's side – more than all his usual stupidity, and there is nothing left for the critic but to offer his usual tribute of praise to another of Mrs. Christie's successes. She does indeed this sort of thing so superlatively well that one is ungratefully tempted to wish she would do something just a little well different, even if less well."[9]
In the Daily Mirror of July 8, 1937, Mary Dell said, "Once I had started reading, I did not have to rely on Bob or his cleverness to keep me interested. This is Agatha Christie at her best." She concluded, "Here's a book that will keep all thriller fans happy from page one to page three hundred and something."[10]
Robert Barnard: "Not quite vintage for the period: none of the relations of the dead woman is particularly interesting, and the major clue is very obvious. The doggy stuff is rather embarrassing, though done with affection and knowledge. At the end the dog is given to Hastings – or possibly vice versa."[11]
[edit] References to other works
In chapter 18 of the novel, Poirot gives a list of murderers from previous cases of his, more precisely The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Death in the Clouds (1935), The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) and The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920).
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
An adaptation of the novel appeared in 1996 as part of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet at Poirot. The film was set in England's Lake District and makes some changes to the original story. The cast includes:
- Hugh Fraser as Hastings
- Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp
- Pauline Moran as Miss Felicity Lemon
- Ann Morrish as Emily Arundel
- Patrick Ryecart as Charles Arundel
- Kate Buffery as Theresa Arundel
- Paul Herzberg as Jacob Tanios
- Julia St. John as Bella Tanios
- Norma West as Wilhelmina Lawson
- Jonathan Newth as Dr. Greinger
[edit] Publication history
- 1937, Collins Crime Club (London), July 5, 1937, Hardcover, 320 pp
- 1938, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1937, Hardcover, 302 pp
- 1945, Avon Books, Paperback, 260 pp (Avon number 70)
- 1949, Pan Books, Paperback, 250 pp (Pan number 82)
- 1958, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 255 pp
- 1965, Dell Books, Paperback, 252 pp
- 1969, Pan Books, Paperback, 218 pp
- 1973, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 454 pp
- 1975, Fontana Books, Paperback, 255 pp
- 2007, Poirot Facsimile Edition (Facsimile of 1937 UK First Edition), HarperCollins, January 3, 2007, Hardback, ISBN 0-00-723446-5
The book was first serialised in the US in The Saturday Evening Post in seven instalments from November 7 (Volume 209, Number 19) to December 19, 1936 (Volume 209, Number 25) under the title Poirot Loses a Client with illustrations by Henry Raleigh.
In the UK, the novel was serialised as an abridged version in the weekly Women's Pictorial magazine in seven instalments from February 20 (Volume 33, Number 841) to April 3, 1937 (Volume 33, Number 847) under the title Mystery of Littlegreen House. There were no chapter divisions and all of the instalments carried illustrations by "Raleigh"[12].
[edit] References
- ^ The Observer July 4, 1937 (Page 6)
- ^ John Cooper and B.A. Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide: Second Edition (Pages 82 and 86) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ^ a b American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ^ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement July 10, 1937 (Page 511)
- ^ The New York Times Book Review September 26, 1937 (Page 26)
- ^ The Observer July 18, 1937 (Page 8)
- ^ The Scotsman July 5, 1937 (Page 15)
- ^ The Guardian July 13, 1937 (Page 7)
- ^ Daily Mirror July 8, 1937 (Page 24)
- ^ Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie - Revised edition (Page 192). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0006374743
- ^ Holdings at the British Library (Newspapers - Colindale). Shelfmark: NPL LON TB12.
[edit] External links
- Dumb Witness at the official Agatha Christie website
- Dumb Witness (1996) at the Internet Movie Database
