But Where Did She Get Those Wonderful Titles? Quiz

Answer: Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar'

A character in the novel does take the pseudonym 'Enoch Arden' from the Tennyson poem (which provides significant clues as to why the murder was committed), but the title nonetheless is from 'Julius Caesar'. Attempting to persuade his co-conspirators to take advantage of the heat of battle, Brutus exclaims that,
'There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.'

The title is extraordinarily apt: unlike Brutus and Cassius, an unscrupulous murderer takes full advantage of the Blitz in London, turning the events to his benefit.

Answer: A poem by James Elroy Flecker

In this Tommy and Tuppence story, a sixty year-old murder is brought to light. Sections quoted in Christie's flyleaf from Flecker's 'The Gates of Damascus' run:

'Four great gates has the city of Damascus...
Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear...
Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard
That silence where the birds are dead, yet something pipeth like a bird?'

Born in 1884, Flecker lived a brief twenty-eight years. Deeply depressed by the war brewing in Europe, he declared that 'The poet's business is not to save the soul of man, but to make it worth saving.'

Answer: The Book of Revelation (The Revelation to John)

'Mrs Dane Calthrop's voice, deep and sonorous, spoke behind me: "Revelation, Chapter Six, Verse Eight. And I looked and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him..."' The pale horse, of course, is pestilence; the murders in the book are committed with thallium salts, a particularly vicious poison which mimics the symptoms of several diseases of which the victims are supposed to have died before the pattern is perceived.

The symptoms vary and cause of death is attributed to such diverse diseases as pneumonia, paratyphoid, gastroenteritis, alcoholic neuritis, epilepsy and polio - until Inspector Lejeune discovers that in every case the victim's hair fell out.

Answer: 'The Lady of Shalott' - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dolly Bantry mentions to Miss Marple that in the moments before Heather Badcock was murdered, Marina Gregg had 'a kind of frozen look'. She goes on to mention Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott, in particular one verse:

'Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.'

Lancelot participated anonymously in a tournament wearing the scarf of the Lady of Shalott, whose brother, lately made a knight, was indisposed. Lancelot defeated his own brother, Sir Hector, but sustained a nasty head injury and had to be nursed back to health by the lady, who by now had fallen for him. When she realised the knight would not remain in Shalott on her account, the lady fell into deep despair. Some months later, when winter arrived, she climbed into a boat, cut it loose and allowed herself to be carried downstream to Camelot. On the journey she froze to death, and her body was found by Arthur and Sir Lionel. She had left a note explaining the circumstances of her death, which moved all at Camelot, and Arthur provided a funeral with full honours for her.

Answer: Hickory Dickory Dock

In 'Five Little Pigs', the five characters who feature as suspects fit the rhyme very effectively. The cover blurb from the HarperCollins edition reads: 'Beautiful Caroline Crale was convicted of poisoning her husband, yet there were five other suspects: Philip Blake (the stockbroker) who went to market; Meredith Blake (the amateur herbalist) who stayed at home; Elsa Gree (the three-time divorcee) who had roast beef; Cecilia Williams (the devoted governess) who had none; and Angela Warren (the disfigured sister) who cried "wee wee wee" all the way home.
It is sixteen years later, but Hercule Poirot just can't get that nursery rhyme out of his head...'

'And Then There Were None', which began life as 'Ten Little Niggers' and became 'Ten Little Indians' before finally being published under the more acceptable title, is the story of ten murderers lured to an island where they meet the justice they richly deserved, but which the law could never impose. Each of the murders corresponds, rather fancifully, with a stanza of the children's nursery rhyme.

In 'One, Two, Buckle My Shoe', Poirot's dentist is found murdered - shot. The clue of a woman's shoe with a silver buckle sets the great detective on the right path toward 'five, six, pick up sticks; seven, eight, lay them straight.'

'Hickory Dickory Dock' tells the story of theft and murder in a students' hostel, a mystery which has the inhabitants terrified and which it falls to Poirot (once again) to unravel. The rhyme which gives the novel its title goes thus:
Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse came down;
Hickory dickory dock',
and has nothing whatever to do with the story.

Answer: Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

'The Duchess of Malfi' drives (and, if you've read Webster's play, gives away most of the plot of) 'Sleeping Murder' - another spine-tingling thriller not to be read alone late at night. But it is from 'Macbeth' that 'By the Pricking of My Thumbs', also a tale of decades-old murder, takes its title. Sensing the approach of Macbeth in Act IV, the Second Witch comments, 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.' In the novel, Tuppence meets the elderly Mrs Lancaster in an old-age home. Seeing Tuppence glance toward the fireplace, the old woman asks her, 'was it your poor child?' The intrepid (and inaptly named) Prudence Beresford scents a mystery and will not be drawn from the chase until it is over.

Christie, it seems, favours the portentous Mrs Lancaster - 'By the Pricking of My Thumbs' is neither her first nor her only appearance in the canon. Only in this novel is she named, but she asks the same question of characters in both 'The Pale Horse' and 'Sleeping Murder', the last Miss Marple mystery. A queer and unsettling recurrence if, like me, you are unnerved by the second-last Tommy and Tuppence book.

Answer: Evil Under the Sun

'Ordeal by Innocence', although not a direct quotation, refers to the Book of Job. The author of Ecclesiastes seems rather fond of reminding readers that evil lurks everywhere 'under the sun': Eccl. 4:1, 'So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun'; Eccl. 5:13, 'There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt'; Eccl. 6:1, 'There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men'; Eccl. 9:3, 'This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead'; Eccl. 10:3, 'There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler' and so on.

The irrepressible Hercule Poirot, always expecting the worst, reminds the timid Mrs Redfern that in spite of the tranquil and beautiful setting of The Jolly Roger, 'everywhere there is evil under the sun.' (A marvellous, comic and highly recommended film version of this book stars Maggie Smith, Peter Ustinov, James Mason and Diana Rigg.)

Answer: Auguries of Innocence

The novel is 'Endless Night', and the reference goes thus:
'Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.'
Ellie Rogers, a girl who should have been born to Sweet Delight, meets her doom at Gipsy's Acre.

'Absent in the Spring' is not a mystery, but one of Christie's Mary Westmacott novels. The title comes from Shakespeare's Sonnet 98, 'From you I have been absent in the spring'.

Answer: Edward FitzGerald's 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'

'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam of Naishapur' you will find under the name of FitzGerald in many anthologies, although he merely translated it. Omar Khayyan was a Persian poet who wrote poetry in quatrain stanza-form. Stanza 71 reads:

'The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.'

A reader might well be forgiven for assuming this title is derived from the 'Writing on the Wall' story from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, Chapter 5. Both it and the Persian poem deal with the concept of indelible and irreversible fate; in the Biblical tale, Belshazzar (son of Nebuchadnezzar) sees a hand appear and write a prophecy on the wall during a feast. When none of his soothsayers or priests can interpret it, his wife suggests that Daniel be sent for. He explains that the writing laments Belshazzar's failure to humble himself before God, threatening death and disaster. Although the king praises Daniel and showers him with honour, he dies that very night.

Answer: False

The title, although somewhat lachrymose, in fact comes from one of the Bard's comedies! In 'Twelfth Night, or, What You Will', it is the wont of Duke Orsino to revel in his misery by having his servants sing sad songs to him. In Act IV, scene ii Feste, the Clown, sings him a dirge about a man who dies pining for the love of a belle dame sans merci:
'Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O! prepare it.
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.

'Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
A thousand thousand sighs to save
Lay me, O! where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there.'

Christie's motive for selecting this title is unclear. It may be that she wished to align Elinor Carlisle with Viola, women who (perhaps) would go to great lengths to divert the attention of the men they loved from a woman who didn't return the favour. Perhaps a connection to Aunt Laura, who took a great secret to her grave, should be inferred.