1923: The Murder on the Links

Publisher: The Bodley Head, 1923 (UK); Dodd, Mead & Co., 1923 (US)

Series: Hercule Poirot

Category: Novel

Cross refs: The Mysterious Affair at Styles; Poirot Investigates (the ‘Yardley diamond’ case)

Warning, spoilers!

I believe that a well-known anecdote exists to the effect that a young writer, determined to make the commencement of his story forcible and original enough to catch and rivet the attention of the most blasé of editors, penned the following sentence:

‘“Hell!” said the duchess.’

Strangely enough, this tale of mine opens in much the same fashion. Only the lady who gave utterance to the exclamation was not a duchess!

Thus begins The Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie’s third novel, the second in her Hercule Poirot series.

Such an opening might be considered worthy of pause; the curious reader may be interested to hear that the apocryphal story of the aspiring author, as recounted by Hastings, was in common parlance in the 1920s when Christie was writing this novel. The phrase, ‘“Hell!” said the duchess’, was used, both as a literary device and as a playful form of exclamation, as seen in a number of contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, as well as short stories, with its origins, as far as can be found, in a story by the Canadian writer Noel Robinson published in The Vancouver World in 1915:

It is a thousand pities that more writers, great as well as small, do not follow the wise advice to ‘cut the cackle and come to the “osses”.’ … the young writer who … upon being informed by the editor of the magazine that it was an excellent story but very slow in opening and could not be accepted unless the opening paragraph was more dramatic, sent it back with the opening sentence reading ‘“Oh, hell!’ said the duchess, who, up till this time, had taken no part in the conversation.’[1]

The ‘duchess’ (or, rather, ‘demi’) in Christie’s tale, immediately intrigues and captivates Hastings, with her ‘pretty, impudent face, surmounted by a rakish little red hat’. The opening chapter consolidates our idea of Hastings as both traditional – ‘I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a Billingsgate fish-woman blush!’ – and a romantic. It is perhaps a surprise to hear that, at this time, Christie was planning on writing Hastings out of the series:

I provided a love affair for Hastings. If I had to have a love interest in the book, I thought I might as well marry off Hastings … I might be stuck with Poirot, but no need to be stuck with Hastings too.[2]

Yet here we get to see more of his character, and his role as a (slightly hapless) narrator allows us to be both ‘on the spot’ and in the dark. 

‘I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a Billingsgate fish-woman blush!’

The opening scene takes place aboard the Calais Express, colloquially known as ‘The Blue Train’, a diversion that I will leave for a future chapter. Suffice it to say that this novel is set in France and the ease and fluidity with which the characters cross the Channel is perhaps indicative of Christie’s own experiences of travelling between England and the Continent. Christie’s time in France, her experience of French culture and attitudes, and her closeness to her childhood French companion also find expression in this story. Note, for instance, the observations that ‘old Françoise has the common idea as regards the English – that they are mad, and liable to do the most unaccountable things at any moment!’ – a stance that no doubt Christie had encountered. Christie herself cited the influence of French journalist and writer Gaston Leroux (1868–1927) and his novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1907) on this book, echoing Leroux’s rather ‘high-flown, fanciful type of writing’.[3]

The Murder on the Links returns to the theme of the feme fatale, the story being inspired by a cause célèbre in France. As Christie explained in her autobiography:

It was some tale of masked men who had broken into a house, killed the owner, tied up and gagged the wife … the wife’s story was disproved, and there was a suggestion that it was the wife who had killed her husband, and that she had never been tied up at all, or only by an accomplice. It struck me as a good plot on which to weave my own story, starting with the wife’s life after she has been acquitted of the murder. A mysterious woman would appear somewhere, having been the heroine of a murder case years ago.[4] 

Though Christie doesn’t identify the protagonist of this real-life case, it has since been suggested that it was the story of Marguerite Steinheil (1869–1954), a prominent figure in Parisian society and mistress of several influential men, including the French president Félix Faure (1841–1899), that inspired The Murder on the Links.[5] Perhaps Christie was (consciously or unconsciously) making this link herself in naming Madame Daubreuil’s home the Villa Marguerite.

‘It struck me as a good plot on which to weave my own story, starting with the wife’s life after she has been acquitted of the murder.’

For curious minds, an abridged version of the story of Marguerite Steinheil reads as follows. Having been married young to an artist with seemingly good prospects but an apparent lack of charm, Steinheil was no stranger to extra-marital affairs. In February 1908, she met the widower and wealthy landowner Maurice Borderel and soon became his lover. In May that year, Steinheil’s husband and stepmother were both found strangled in their Parisian home. Steinheil herself was discovered, bound and gagged but otherwise unharmed. She claimed that a gang had been responsible for the murders, but the police smelled a rat. Though they suspected Steinheil of having some hand in the crime, there was no evidence to confirm their suspicions.

Steinheil went on to attempt to frame first her manservant, Rémy Couillard, and later, once that accusation had been disproved, the son of her old housekeeper, Alexandre Wolff.[6] She was arrested in November 1908 and taken to Saint-Lazare Prison. The crime and ensuing court case created a sensation in the press. One paper wrote:

The way in which witnesses in the Steinheil case have been allowed to gossip for the benefit of the Press would be impossible on this side of the Channel. In Paris it is accepted as a matter of course and the case becomes more melodramatic every day. The newspapers vie with each other in discovering new clues and starting sensational theories …[7]

Though suspicion remained on Steinheil, and her narrative was described by the judge as a ‘tissue of lies’, a lack of evidence led to her acquittal on 14 November 1909 (fig. 1).[8] Some newspapers speculated that it was her embroilment with high-profile figures and her possession of ‘state secrets’ that tied the hands of the judiciary. Indeed, in letters written to Steinheil by her former lover, Faure, it appears that he had ‘made a sort of confidante of Mme Steinheil and that in his letters to her he was indiscreet enough to discuss politics rather freely.’[9] After her acquittal, Steinheil went on to live in London, not unlike ‘the heroine of a murder case years ago’ to which Christie refers. 

Cause célèbre aside, The Murder on the Links contains a number of features that were to become Christie tropes – the watch with the broken face, a red herring erroneously placing the time of the crime; a recurrence of the theme of disguises; the relevance of a previous case and the desire of a murderer to repeat their crime. Here, Christie also spelled out Poirot’s approach by contrast to that of the ‘human foxhound’, Inspector Giraud.[10] While Giraud obsesses over physical clues, ‘cigarettes and match ends’, Poirot’s approach is based around the psychological. For this, he doesn’t need to be on his knees in the grave of the victim; as he observes: ‘The true work, it is done from within. The little grey cells – remember always the little grey cells, mon ami!’

‘The little grey cells – remember always the little grey cells, mon ami!’

We also see Christie’s sense of humour, perhaps most apparent in the vision of Giraud disguised as a bush:

My attention was distracted by an unusual appearance a little further down the hedge. There appeared to be a brown bush there, which seemed odd, to say the least of it, so early in the summer. I stepped along to investigate, but, at my advance, the brown bush withdrew itself precipitately, and faced me with a finger to its lips. It was Giraud.  

The Bodley Head were pleased with the final book, though Christie did come into conflict with them over the image on the jacket, which she regarded not only as being in ‘ugly colours’ and ‘badly drawn’, but also:

… represented, as far as I could make out, a man in pyjamas on a golf-links, dying of an epileptic fit. Since the man who had been murdered had … been stabbed with a dagger, I objected. A book jacket may have nothing to do with the plot, but if it does it must at least not represent a false plot.[11]

Still, the book published in March 1923 in the US and in May of the same year in the UK and, just a year later, John Lane accepted Christie’s fourth book, Poirot Investigates.

[1] Pascal Tréguer, ‘‘“Hell!” said the Duchess’: Meanings and Origin’, Word Histories, 14 November 2020, https://wordhistories.net/2020/11/14/hell-said-duchess/ [accessed 5 March 2025].

[2] Christie 2011, p. 282.

[3] Christie 2011, p. 282.

[4] Christie 2011, p. 281.

[5] See for example Anne Powers, True Crime Parallels to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie (Jefferson, NC, 2020).

[6] ‘Murder and Melodrama’, Evening Star, Issue 13158, 14 January 1909, p. 8, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19090114.2.84 [accessed 5 March 2025].

[7] ‘Murder and Melodrama’, 1909, p. 8.

[8] John Mackie, ‘This Week in History: 1909 The Red Widow is acquitted of murder in Paris’, Vancouver Sun, 17 November 2017, https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/this-week-in-history-1909-the-red-widow-is-acquitted-of-murder-in-paris [accessed 5 March 2025].

[9] ‘Murder and Melodrama’, 1909, p. 8.

[10] Christie 2011, p. 281.

[11] Christie 2011, p. 282.