The Secret of Sittaford
The Secret of Sittaford is the eleventh detective novel by Agatha Christie . The novel was first published in 1931 in the USA by Dodd, Mead and Company under the title The Murder at Hazelmoor and on September 7 of the same year in the UK in the Collins Crime Club under the original title of Agatha Christie The Sittaford Mystery . It is the first Christie novel to be given a different title for the US market. The German first edition was published in 1933 by Goldmann Verlag, Leipzig, in the translation by Otto Albrecht van Bebber, which is still used today.
action
introduction
The show takes place in a Devon village on the outskirts of Dartmoor . Mrs. Willet, who rented the country house Sittaford House in winter from owner Captain Trevelyan, invites a party to Sittaford House on a stormy winter day . Most of the guests are residents of the surrounding country houses. The young Ronnie Garfield, Major Burnaby, a friend of the captain, the aging criminologist Rycroft and the mysterious Mr. Duke arrive, and the hostess's daughter also takes part in the round. When asked how to talk, someone suggests moving the table . But at the séance intended for entertainment , the death of Captain Trevelyan is announced. Major Burnaby is suspicious and sets out in the drifting snow to visit the captain, who has stayed in the neighboring village for the winter. Since there is no telephone in the old house and cars cannot drive because of the drifting snow, this is the only way to get in touch.
Murder and first suspicion
On his arrival, however, Major Burnaby finds the captain dead, as predicted. It turns out that the dead man was beaten to death with a sandbag. For now, everything points to a robbery and murder. However, when the investigating inspector Narracott from Exeter learns that the deceased's inheriting nephew was there on the day in question, he is arrested. However, his fiancée Emily Trefusis then travels to Sittaford, where she and the journalist Charles Enderby investigate to prove her fiancé's innocence.
Investigations
The deceased's strange preferences are particularly revealing in their investigations: he often took part in competitions in various newspapers and sent in the solution several times by giving the addresses of his acquaintances. The captain was also a staunch misogynist. However, this did not prevent him from bequeathing a substantial sum to his sister.
In the course of the investigation, Enderby and Trefusis are able to unearth many previously hidden things. Numerous people appear who all have something to hide and have a motive. An escaped prisoner from the notorious Dartmoor Prison nearby also makes an appearance. Enderby soon finds out that the brother of the arrested man is not in Australia, as suspected, but in England and occasionally visits his lover, Mrs. Willet's daughter.
Emily Trefusis discovers a pair of old ski boots inside the fireplace in Trevelyan's house that lead her to the killer: It's Major Burnaby. He speculated on stocks and desperately needs money. Knowing of Trevelyan's current high profit at a newspaper publisher, the murder victim used the name and address of his friend Burnaby to send it in, he murders his friend. Finally, he accepts the prize money, which is made out in his name, from Enderby, a journalist for the newspaper. The murder plan was drawn up at short notice due to the circumstances and will only be committed after the séance that Burnaby manipulated. Burnaby obtains an alibi by skiing to the scene of the crime unnoticed in the driving snow, thus gaining time and later approaching the scene on foot as if he had covered the whole way on foot in the driving snow. At a second séance in Sittaford House there is the grand finale, in which Inspector Narracott and Emily expose the perpetrator.
people
There are so many people that only the most important are mentioned here:
Investigators
- Emily Trefusis, young lady from London, amateur detective and fiancée of the suspect
- Charles Enderby, journalist from London and friend of Emily, amateur detective
- Inspector Narracott, Exeter criminal investigator
The suspects
- Mrs. Willett, tenant of Sittaford House and Violet, their daughter
- Captain Joseph A. Trevelyan, owner of Sittaford House and murder victim
- Major John Edward Burnaby, his best friend and neighbor to the Willetts
- James Pearson, his nephew in London and on remand as a suspect
- Brian Pearson, his nephew in Australia
- Sylvia Dering, his niece
- Martin Dering, her husband
- Jennifer Gardner, his sister in Exeter
- Robert Gardner, her invalid husband
- Mr. Rycroft, criminologist and neighbor of the Willetts
- Miss Caroline Percehouse, elderly maid, and her nephew Ronald Garfield, neighbors of the Willetts
- Captain Wyatt, retired colonial officer, and his Indian servant Abdul, neighbors of the Willetts
- Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, neighbors of the Willetts
- Mr. Duke, neighbor of the Willetts
- "Buccaneer" Freddy, escaped inmate from Dartmoor prison
background
Rycroft, a criminologist attending the séance, is a member of the Society for Psychical Research . The author herself rarely uses parapsychological events in her crime thrillers, as these are mostly focused on spectacular clarification. However, parapsychological moments like the seance in find Sittaford House in other novels from her again - such as in Evil Under the Sun . There a young girl performs a kind of voodoo ritual that is supposed to lead to the death of a person. The volume of stories The Strange Mister Quin also has traits that point into the esoteric , especially the mysterious figure of Quin himself. In her novels, as in the Sittaford case, Christie never leaves any doubt that although she is fascinated by such phenomena, in the end it is always the very real manipulative will of a person behind it. An example of this is the story The Temple of Astarte from the episode novel The Tuesday Night Club , in which the cult of the goddess Astarte plays a role.
The novel is Christie's only one that is laid out in the style of a classic English gothic novel . These include the ingredients séance, scary weather, escaped convict and the eerie atmosphere of Dartmoor. Christie pays homage to his fellow crime thriller Arthur Conan Doyle and his novel The Dog of Baskerville, which is set in a similar setting in Devon, and mentions him in a few places in the book.
References to other works by the author
Snow and drifting snow and the complete relocation of the plot to winter is rather untypical for Agatha Christie's novels. Another famous example is Die Mausefalle , which is also located in winter. Here too, blowing snow and the perpetrator's relationship to his skis play a central role.
In the person of Captain Wyatt, Christie draws the ironically indulgent portrait of an old-school British colonial officer who dreams of his Indian adventures in England. Such retired officers occasionally appear in their books, for example in the Caribbean affair .
dedication
Agatha Christie, who dedicated most of her books to a person to whom she was particularly close at the time the manuscript was written, is no exception: she dedicated The Secret of Sittaford to her second husband, Max Mallowan . She wrote the novel during the time of their engagement. She later dedicated him to Murder on the Orient Express and her last novel Age Doesn't Protect Against Acumen .
Adaptations
There are no film adaptations of the book itself. One episode of the latest British Miss Marple television series bears the original title of the novel, The Sittaford Mystery , but has only loosely related to the novel. However, the names of the main characters and the séance were adopted.
Important publications in English and German
- 1931 Dodd Mead and Company (New York)
- 1931 Collins Crime Club (London)
- 1933 German-language first edition by Goldmann-Verlag Leipzig in the translation by Otto van Bebber
Audio books
- 2008 The Secret of Sittaford (6 CDs). Only unabridged reading. Speaker: Hans Eckardt. Director: Heidemarie Eckardt. Assistance: Veronika Schmidt. Translated from the English by Otto Albrecht van Bebber. Publishing house and studio for audio book productions in Marburg
Web links
- The Sittaford Mystery on the official Agatha Christie website
- The Sittaford Mystery (2006) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ John Cooper and BA Pyke: Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition, Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8 , pp. 82 and 86.
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ^ The Observer , September 6, 1931, p. 6.
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ Audiobook (complete) in the catalog of the German National Library