1931: The Sittaford Mystery / The Murder at Hazelmoor

Publisher: William Collins & Sons, 1931 (UK);   Dodd, Mead & Co, 1931 (US)

Series: None

Category: Novel

Cross refs: Poirot Investigates; Partners in Crime

Published as The Sittaford Mystery in the UK, and Murder at Hazelmoor in the US (one of the first of Christie’s novels to be given a different title for the US market), this book features another of Christie’s strong, resourceful female characters: Emily Trefusis. As Christie observes in the book, ‘Emily Trefusis was really a very accomplished young woman’. Trefusis emerges as the central sleuth of the piece, seeking to clear the name of her fiancé, Jim, who has been accused of the murder of his uncle, Captain Trevelyan. In her sleuthing, Trefusis has the incredible power of manipulating everyone to her will, just by use of the simple phrase: ‘It’s so wonderful to have someone you can really rely on.’

Falling over himself to help her is the young journalist Charles Enderby, eager with his ‘round boyish face’. And while she proposes ‘a kind of partnership’, what she actually wants is:

to engage Mr Enderby as a kind of private sleuth of her own. To go where she told him, to ask the questions she wanted asked, and in general to be a kind of bond slave. But she was aware of the necessity of couching these proposals in terms at once flattering and agreeable. The whole point was that she was to be the boss, but the matter needed managing tactfully.

Enderby is not the only character to fall prey to Emily Trafusis’s charms; even the astute, sharp-tongued Miss Percehouse is not immune.

Brilliant female protagonist aside, The Sittaford Mystery has been remarked upon largely for its nods to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. We have previously discussed Christie’s fondness for Conan Doyle (fig. 1) and the parallels drawn between the two writers (see, for example, Poirot Investigates and Partners in Crime). Suffice it to say that in this instance both books are set in the remote wilds of an atmospheric Devon – Sittaford on the edge of Dartmoor, with Sittaford House itself ‘perched right on the shoulder of the moor under the shadow of Sittaford Beacon’, while Baskerville Hall is located in a depression in the moor, surrounded by withered trees.

Both books also feature an escaped convict from Dartmoor Prison (Princetown; fig. 2). Originally built in the nineteenth century to contain French and American prisoners of war, and later used for Conscientious Objectors during the First World War, Dartmoor became a prison for British inmates in the 1920s.[1] In its remote location and with its reputation for housing serious offenders, as well as falling victim to a series of infamous escape attempts, the prison captured the literary imagination. Situated within Dartmoor’s wild landscape, it offered an evocative backdrop, with the notion of a prisoner on the loose and the subsequent manhunt providing a particularly powerful sense of foreboding:

Emily gave a faint shiver. The idea of the desperate hunted man impressed her powerfully. Mr Rycroft was watching her and gave a little nod … ‘It’s curious how one’s instincts rebel at the thought of a man being hunted down, and yet, these men at Princetown are all dangerous and violent criminals, the kind of men whom probably you and I would do our utmost to put there in the first place.’

Both books also have seemingly supernatural elements that are later explained – the séance of The Sittaford Mystery and the glowing, ghostly hound of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Here Conan Doyle’s name is actually cited by Christie; remarking on the séance Enderby observes:

I’m thinking of writing that up for the paper. Get opinions from Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a few actresses and people about it.

Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851–1940; fig. 3), the other figure name checked here, was a friend of Conan Doyle’s. He was a physicist specialising in electromagnetic radiation and a pioneer of spiritualism. In fact, it was his work into electromagnetic radiation that led Lodge to believe in an ‘ether’ in which the spirit world existed. Lodge was a member of The Ghost Club – a paranormal research organisation, founded in 1862 – and was, in the early twentieth century, president of the Society for Psychical Research. His publications on the subject of spiritualism included Survival of Man (1909), which expressed his belief in a life after death, as demonstrated by mediumship, and Raymond or Life and Death (1916), documenting the séances he attended during which he believed that his son Raymond had communicated with him.

Although séances and supernatural phenomena feature in a number of Christie’s stories, she was, herself, largely sceptical about life beyond the grave. For a period before her first marriage, Christie recounted a relationship with a man named Wilfred. During their time together, Wilfred ‘became interested in spiritualism, therefore I became interested in spiritualism’. Later, however, Wilfred ‘began to produce books that he was eager for me to read and pronounce on’. Despite her best attempts, Christie found the books:

tedious; not only tedious, I thought they were completely false; worse still, I thought a great many of them were nonsense! I also got rather tired of Wilfred’s descriptions of the mediums he knew. There were two girls in Portsmouth, and the things those girls saw you wouldn’t believe. They could hardly ever go into a house without gasping, stretching, clutching their hearts and being upset because there was a terrible spirit standing behind one of the company.[2]

Needless to say, the relationship did not last. Thus, while Christie employed her knowledge and understanding of spiritualism to add ‘colour and atmosphere’ to her books, she didn’t believe in it herself, and largely debunked the mysticism in her stories in favour of a rational explanation.[3]  

[1] ‘History of Dartmoor Prison’, Dartmoor Prison Museum, n.d., https://www.dartmoor-prison.co.uk/history_of_dartmoor_prison.php [accessed 17 August 2026].

[2] Christie 2011, p. 203.

[3] ‘Agatha Christie’s Witches’, The Home of Agatha Christie, 3 October 2019, https://www.agathachristie.com/en/news/2019/agatha-christies-witches [accessed 17 August 2026].