Don't You Know That You're Toxic? | Agatha & Poison

This is an actual photo of Agatha in her WWI nurse outfit from the Agatha Christie Archive! We found it in this really interesting article from The Telegraph about how WWI influenced Agatha and her writing. Give it a read!

It's no secret (certainly not from those of you who've read a few books) that poison is one of Agatha's favorite weapons. She gets pretty creative with it at times, sometimes it's a mysterious tribal potion on the tip of a tiny tiny dart, sometimes it's mixed in with some coffee, and sometimes it's dissolved in a nice champagne cocktail #SparklingCyanide. As a part of our month with the #MaidensofMurder, we wanted to do a post looking into Agatha's interest and expertise in poisons as a murder weapon #ladieschoice #accordingtomostfictionaldetectives

The article we referenced in the photo caption notes that Agatha's work as a WWI nurse was pretty grim stuff, despite her own "stiff upper lip" attitude anytime she writes about it. She experienced quite a bit of grisly wounds and surgeries as she was caring for the soldiers who came through her hospital. As the article points out, despite this firsthand experience, she seems to prefer writing about the "clean method of poisoning." In fact, Agatha's first murder was a poisoning, in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. She got the idea to write a detective story while she was working in the dispensary at her town's wartime hospital. In her own words:

"It was while I was working in the dispensary that I first conceived the idea of writing a detective story. The idea had remained in my mind since [my sister] Madge's earlier challenge--and my present work seemed to offer a favourable opportunity...I began considering what kind of  detective story I could write. Since I was surrounded by poisons, perhaps it was natural that death by poisoning should be the method I selected."

She goes on to explain how terrifying working in the dispensary was at first, and how cautious and nervous she and her fellow amateurs were, but also points out what she learned during that time:

"After working in a hospital with several doctors one realizes how medicine, like everything else in this world, is very much a matter of fashion: that, and the personal idiosyncrasy of every medical practitioner."

This understanding of the idiosyncrasies of medicine and the physicians who prescribe it inspired some of Agatha's craftiest murderers. We certainly know one creepy doctor gave her some material, which she also describes in the autobiography:

"One day, seeking perhaps to impress me, he took from his pocket a dark-coloured lump and showed it to me, saying, "Know what this is?" "No," I said. "It's curare," he said. "Know about curare?" 

I said I had read about it. 

"Interesting stuff," he said, "very interesting. Taken by the mouth it does you no harm at all. Enter the bloodstream, it paralyzes and kills you. It's what they use for arrow poison. Do you know why I carry it in my pocket?"

"No," I said, "I haven't the slightest idea." It seemed to me an extremely foolish thing to do, but I didn't add that.

"Well you know," he said thoughtfully, "it makes me feel powerful." [#terrifiedeyesemoji]

She goes on to talk about how she had often wondered about him after she finished working with him, saying "He struck me, in spite of his cherubic appearance, as possibly rather a dangerous man [#noshit]. His memory remained with me so long that it was still there waiting when I first conceived the idea of my book The Pale Horse--and that must have been, I suppose, nearly fifty years later."

Here's hoping that guy never murdered anybody. But thanks to him, and to Agatha's wartime pharmacy experience, her imagination created a lot of our favorite mysteries, including Sparkling Cyanide, this month's #MaidensofMurder read! Our month of maidening continues next week with a post about the short story that led to Sparkling Cyanide, leading up to our review of the book itself!

- A. & E.