From the Vault: "The Clocks"

Our visit to the Classic Mysteries vault this week has yielded another Agatha Christie book - one of her last to feature Hercule Poirot as the detective. I've never really thought that The Clocks, published in 1963, was one of Christie's best. But it does have a lot of good points. So here's the review I wrote for The Clocks when I gave it an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. I hope you'll take it as a reminder that even our favorite authors will, from time to time, make a misstep - and that Agatha Christie's "missteps" can still be very much worth reading:

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The person who called the typists’ agency had been very specific: she wanted a particular typist to come to her home to take dictation. But when the typist walked into that house, she nearly tripped over the dead body of an unknown man. And the owner of the house, a blind woman, insisted that she had never called the agency to request a typist. A fantastic situation – made more so by the presence, in the murder room, of half a dozen clocks, only two of which were set to the correct time. As far as the police – and most of the people involved – were concerned, the case was fantastic and bizarre. Only one person argued that the crime would turn out to have a very simple explanation. And that one person was Hercule Poirot. It happens in The Clocks, by Agatha Christie.

The Clocks” is a fairly late entry in the Hercule Poirot saga, dating from 1963. It has one of the most intriguing setups of any Agatha Christie mystery – but unfortunately, the payoff is something of a letdown. I’ll get to that in a minute.

First, though, let me go over the setup. A young woman named Sheila Webb is a typist at the Cavendish Secretarial and Typewriting bureau. Remember, this was long before the personal computer began pushing the typewriter into oblivion; a great many people – particularly authors – found themselves in regular need of someone to type their handwritten notes or dictation. At any rate, Sheila is sent on an assignment: a woman has called the agency asking for Sheila to report to a house to take a typing assignment. She reports to the house where, she has been told, the door will be unlocked, and walks into the room on the right side of the hall to wait.

The first thing she notices is all the clocks in the room. While two of them appear to have the correct time, four other clocks are set to 4:13. As she inspects further, walking around the end of the sofa, she discovers the body of a dead man on the floor.

It quickly develops that the woman who owns the house, a Miss Pebmarsh, who is blind, never called to request a typist. She has no idea of the dead man’s identity – which has been carefully concealed, all possible identifying information having been removed from the body. And she has no idea where all those clocks set to 4:13 might have come from.

And so the police find themselves investigating a murder in truly bizarre circumstances, with clues that appear to point nowhere. What was the significance of the clocks? Why was Sheila Webb requested – and who made the request? Who is the dead man? Why was he murdered?

Nothing but questions. And, eventually, the problem is presented to Hercule Poirot by his friend Colin Lamb, a young man who becomes involved in the story and befriends Sheila Webb. And it is Poirot who insists that – because it looks so complicated – the solution must, of necessity, be simple.

It is an interesting paradox. Unfortunately, when the reader does eventually learn what happened – and why – the solution, at least to my mind, is pretty unsatisfactory.

First of all, Poirot takes very little part in the book – he is not present for most of the action, restricting himself to a sort of consulting detective’s role. He does not interact with the suspects as usual, asking questions – instead, he is handed notes on the case and makes his deductions and accusations based on those notes, along with some other information (and coincidences) that are not revealed to the reader until too late in the book.

There is also another thread to the story – a spy story, for Colin Lamb works for the secret service – and it seems to be more or less added on to the main mystery. There is little connecting the two stories, and – again – I find it rather unsatisfactory.

On the other hand, some of Christie’s writing is really first-rate here, and there are passages which are quite funny. And Hercule Poirot offers some very pointed commentary about a number of prominent mystery authors – all partially disguised behind false names, but quite recognizable. The bottom line, really, is that The Clocks is quite entertaining – but, ultimately, there are many Christie books which are more enjoyable, more original, and better and more coherently plotted. This is not the book to begin a friendship with Agatha Christie, but for those willing to make allowances for the sake of that friendship, it’s still very much worth reading.

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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

Next: Hopjoy Was Here, by Colin Watson.

Comments

[Colin McGuigan]

This book disappointed me, Les. It has a great setup and there is promise there as well as a handful of interesting sequences. However, the way it goes in the end is not satisfying, and that espionage aspect just doesn't work, which is so often the case with Christie when she tried to add in spy story trappings. It simply wasn't an area she ever nailed and it almost always comes across as unconvincing.

[Les Blatt]

I agree, Colin. The problem, I think, is that Christie really was trying to merge two dissimilar stories. I don't think she succeeded very well.