The Clocks is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 November 1963 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. It features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-)

Maurice Richardson of The Observer (10 November 1963) concluded, "Not as zestful as usual. Plenty of ingenuity about the timing, though."

Robert Barnard: "Lively, well-narrated, highly unlikely late specimen – you have to accept two spies and three murderers living in one small-town crescent. The business of the clocks, fantastic and intriguing in itself, fizzles out miserably at the end. Contains (chapter 14) Poirot's considered reflections on other fictional detectives, and the various styles and national schools of crime writing."

References to other works

  • In Chapter 14, Poirot refers again to one of his favourite cases, the one related in The Nemean Lion, the first story of The Labours of Hercules.
  • In Chapter 24 mention is made of Poirot's role in "the Girl Guide murder case". This had been retold in Dead Man's Folly.

Adaptations

An adaptation for the ITV television series Agatha Christie's Poirot, with David Suchet as Poirot, was produced for the show's twelfth series, aired in the UK in 2011. Guest stars include Tom Burke as Lieutenant Colin Race, Jaime Winstone as Sheila Webb, Lesley Sharp as Miss Martindale, and Anna Massey as Miss Pebmarsh. This was Massey's last performance before her death, and the ITV broadcast of the episode is dedicated to her memory. Charles Palmer (who also directed Hallowe'en Party for the series) directs this instalment, with the screenplay being written by Stewart Harcourt (who also wrote the screenplay for Murder on the Orient Express). The adaptation was filmed on location in Dover, Dover Castle and St Margaret's Bay, and in Islington, London.

For the television adaptation, the setting was shifted from the Cold War era of the 1960s to the 1930s (keeping it in line with ITV's other adaptation of Poirot's cases set around the same decade), with a further change in location from Crowdean, Sussex, to Dover, Kent. Whilst the novel's main plot is retained, a number of significant changes were made by the adaptation, including a modification of the novel's sub-plot due to the change in setting:

  • The characters of Mr and Mrs McNaughton, and Geraldine Brown are omitted from the adaptation. Three other characters were replaced with new ones: Constable Jenkins replaces Sergeant Cray as Hardcastle's assistant in the police investigations; Vice Admiral Hamling replaces Colonel Beck as Colin's superior; Christopher Mabbutt and his daughters, May and Jenny, replace the Ramsays at No. 62 Wilbraham Crescent, and are involved in the story's sub-plot
  • Some of the characters retained in the adaptation received some changes to them: Miss Pebmarsh is a mother, who lost two sons in the First World War, and has no relations to Sheila; Sheila has no family and thus she spent her youth in a home; Colin works as an intelligence officer for MI6 and not for Special Branch, while his surname is changed to Race, now making him a relation (specifically the son) of Colonel Race; Brent's first name is changed from Edna to Nora, while her murder happens close to the Cavendish Bureau rather than in Wilbraham Crescent; James and Edith Waterhouse become Matthew and Rachel Waterhouse, and are now Jews who fled from Germany to avoid persecution by the Nazis.
  • Unlike the novel, Poirot is more involved in the case right from the beginning, when Colin seeks him out for help. He is thus present for the interviews with all the suspects and witnesses of the case, as well as examining Wilbraham Crescent, and both the Cavendish Bureau and its surroundings.
  • The time of "4:13" is given more significance in that it hints to a hotel room that Sheila regularly visits under the cover of a work appointment, in order to conduct a secret love affair with a new role for the character of the boring professor – Professor Purdy. Miss Martindale knows of the affair and secretly despises it, and so uses this knowledge to help her to incriminate Sheila for the initial murder.
  • Some clues and events were changed by the adaptation: the laundry van clue is now provided by Mrs Hemmings; Mr Bland does not go abroad to dispose of evidence; Sheila does not dispose of the Rosemary clock but rather holds on to it, as the clock came from a mother that she never knew; the murder weapon is planted on Sheila at the inquest, by Mrs Bland; Merlina's murder occurs in Dover, not London, and her body is found by Hardcastle and Jenkins, shortly after losing her when they tail her.
  • Due to the change in setting, the novel's sub-plot had to be considerably modified to reflect this; while Miss Pebmarsh's involvement and the note clue are the only parts that were still retained, much of the rest was changed to have a connection to espionage prior to World War II:
  • Miss Pebmarsh is part of a small outfit seeking to weaken Britain in the event that it goes to war with Germany. Her motive for her actions is to prevent further loss of young life from warfare, after she lost her sons in the First World War. Unlike the novel, her scheme is uncovered prior to Poirot's denouement of the murders.
  • Annabel Larkin, Fiona Hanbury, and Christopher Mabbutt are new characters created for the modified sub-plot. While both Annabel and Mabbutt are co-conspirators in Pebmarsh's scheme – Annabel helps to smuggle out documents from Dover Castle where she works, so that Pebmarsh can make copies for Mabbut to take over to German agents during his regular trips to France – Fiona is the first individual to uncover the scheme after discovering Annabel's involvement in it. Both Annabel and Fiona are killed in a freak accident, caused inadvertently by a confrontation between the two women – Annabel learns she is found out and tries to prevent Fiona exposing her. Both women are run over by a car while struggling on the road at night.
  • In the adaptation, the note clue that Colin uses was created by Fiona which he took from her body at the local morgue, while his investigations do not take him out of the country unlike in the novel.
  • The sub-plot intertwines with the main plot in two places:- Colin's reasons for helping Sheila are fueled by a deep regret for failing to assist Fiona when she discovered Annabel's involvement in the smuggling, and thus not being there when she was killed; the investigation into the initial murder causes an argument to happen between Mabbutt and Pebmarsh that is misheard by Mrs Hemmings, but which Poirot realises was in regards to the documents they had copied that they needed to get past the police before they were discovered.
  • Miss Pebmarsh does not resist arrest, unlike in the novel where she does upon being found out.
  • The Waterhouses, who are now involved in the sub-plot, are wrongly accused by Colin of being involved in Pebmarsh's scheme. His mistake comes from the fact they were found to be German due to small mistakes in their English
  • Some of the elements of Poirot's denouement of the case, are changed by the adaptation:
  • It occurs at the Cavendish Bureau and not at his hotel. The Blands, Miss Martindale, and Sheila are also present to hear it, unlike in the novel when it is just Hardcastle and Colin.
  • Mrs Bland confesses to her involvement in the crime during the denouement, rather than after being brought in for questioning by the police.
  • The Gregson story that is used as the basis for the crime is a published one in the adaptation, which Poirot remembers as having been full of clocks, misidentification and misdirection, with an innocent party framed and pushed to act irrationally so the police will become more suspicious.
  • Merlina and Mrs Bland are now known to each other; it is revealed that both worked together in the theatre.
  • Whilst the murdered man is known as Quentin Duguesclin by the end of the novel, he is never named by anyone in the adaptation. Instead, Poirot simply reveals in his denouement that he is either the relative or friend of the first Mrs Bland. The knowledge of this is emphasised as being important to Poirot through a comment he makes to Hardcastle during their investigations – "I do not think it is important who he is, but who he is."

Publication history

  • 1963, Collins Crime Club (London), 7 November 1963, Hardcover, 256 pp
  • 1964, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 276 pp
  • 1965, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 246 pp
  • 1966, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 221 pp
  • 1969, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 417 pp

The novel was first serialised in the UK weekly magazine Woman's Own in six abridged instalments from 9 November – 14 December 1963 with illustrations by Herb Tauss. It was advertised as being serialised prior to the publication of the book; however this had already appeared on 7 November. In the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the January 1964 (Volume 156, Number 1) issue of Cosmopolitan with illustrations by Al Parker.

References

  • The Clocks at the official Agatha Christie website
  • The Clocks at new official Agatha Christie website