The ABC Murders

In Christie’s time, class distinctions were key to structuring English society, so they are an important theme in almost all of her fiction. Hastings is of noble background—he served as an officer during World War I—and his own background informs his view of the case and his presence in England. The global economic crash has forced a return to England, so he is present to record the case. He initially considers Alice Ascher’s death “sordid and uninteresting” partly because of her occupation as a shopkeeper (16). It is only the connection to the anonymous letters that makes her death significant. Poirot even digs at Hastings by remarking that “your wits are not so sharp as those of a mere servant girl” when Mary Drower notes the next avenue of investigation before he does (129).

The class diversity of the remaining victims is mentioned at length by multiple characters. Betty Barnard’s family is middle class; Mary Drower reinforces this when she indicates that the Barnards have no need of her as a servant so she will not be staying with them in London. Hastings is particularly dismayed by the murder of Sir Carmichael Clarke as the death of a wealthy and socially prominent person will create even more pressure for Poirot to solve the case. The Clarke case brings class issues into sharp relief: Lady Clarke dislikes Thora Grey because of her possible interest in marrying either Clarke brother. This would represent the entry of a working professional into the upper classes.

Class explains Franklin’s choice of victims as well as his modus operandi. He selects Alice Ascher and Betty Barnard knowing they will be easy targets. Betty, in particular, can be swayed by his charm and his disposable income. Moreover, as a younger brother, his claim on the family estate can be supplanted by his older brother’s heirs; the rigidity of inheritance law thwarts his ambitions. Franklin wishes to maintain and even improve his own social standing. Cust strikes Franklin as a suitable red herring because he is lower middle class and dealing with the economic instability of the Great Depression, so he will take the fake employment Franklin offers. Thus, all the psychological speculation about mental health and sanity proves yet another distraction, in some respects: Franklin’s motives are practical, no matter how gruesome and disturbing his actions are.

Poirot’s own class position is more ambiguous partly because he is not English. He lives in comfort, and other works featuring him indicate that he regularly travels and employs a secretary. But he is not given automatic deference by Crome or anyone else because he remains an outsider. His own sharp awareness of class systems is essential to his detective work: he knows the victims do not readily resemble one another, and he critiques Franklin indirectly by speaking out against thee aristocratic pastime of fox hunting. Poirot’s final critique of Franklins is that his crime was not “sporting” —he violated all social codes with his commitment to cruelty (263). Poirot seems particularly satisfied with the resolution of the narrative’s personal dramas: Megan Barnard, the savvy young professional, finds her equal match socially in Donald Fraser, while the ambitious Thora Grey is thwarted in her hopes of upward mobility. Poirot solves the case in a way that leaves England’s class structure largely intact.

The ABC Murders has the classic structure of a detective novel: the private detective pitted against and unknown adversary. The ABC letters taunt Poirot to prove his reputation for genius, and to match that of the English killer: “let us see, Mr. Clever Poirot just how clever you can be” (6). Hastings immediately declares the letter must be those of a “madman” (6), as he sees murder as inherently outside the bounds of sanity.

Poirot, for his part, insists throughout that every motive is knowable, and that this case is no different. He insists to Hastings that his fears are unfounded, and that the motive “should be easier to discover because it is mad.” He says, “A crime committed by someone shrewd and sane would be far more complicated” (107). Dr. Thompson, the police department’s psychiatrist, agrees with Poirot that motives are nearly always discernible but his psychological analysis of the killer, particularly his sense that Poirot was selected for his mythological name, proves to be slightly off the mark (221). Poirot was selected because he had a private residence so a misaddressed envelope could go astray and assure that Carmichael Clarke’s death could not be prevented.

“Madness” is a recurring fear for the secondary characters as well. Cust, for his part, seems to fear for his own sanity the further along the plot goes. He listens to a young man speculate that war service has irrevocably damaged people and admits to his own veteran status. Cust’s epilepsy and his blackouts leave him with a vulnerability that Franklin can exploit, leading even Cust himself to equate his medical condition with monstrosity. Donald Fraser, for his part, fears that his dreams of strangling Megan on the beach indicate his own mental health is in danger. Poirot, to an extent, resolves matters for both men. He frees Cust and assures Donald that his dream, which represents his guilt for loving Megan so soon after Betty’s death, will resolve if he accepts his feelings.

Poirot returns to this theme once more near the novel’s end. Poirot declares that his original impression of the letter writer’s mental state was inaccurate, exclaiming, “what was wrong with them was the fact that they were written by a sane man!” (250). Franklin used the letters to conceal his self-interested motive: acquiring his brother’s fortune—and exploited Cust’s doubts about his innocence to ensure another suspect could be blamed instead. In the end, Poirot is correct that motive was key, but Franklin’s motive is mercenary and personal, not random, unpredictable, or outside rationality.

From the first, Poirot must consider the anonymous letters as a deliberate choice, but other events remind him that crime solving is unpredictable. The tension between deliberation, fate, and chance animates much of the narrative. When Poirot notices that the third letter about the Churston crime was lost in the mail because it was misaddressed, he exclaims, “[D]oes even chance aid this madman?” (102). Crome, for his part, suggests that the author misaddressed the letter by mistaking Poirot’s address for the name of a popular whisky label. At the time, both of them dismiss Hasting’s idea that the mistake was strategic.

After this crime, Poirot insists that resolving the matter may well depend on “luck turning against” the killer (126). On the other hand, aspects of the crime point to deliberation: Betty Barnard must have known her killer, and Carmichael Clarke was killed during a daily walk (135). Hastings reflects that the Doncaster investigation depends on the “chance” of recognizing the killer in the crowd at the horse race (175).

Poirot, like Hastings, returns to this theme at length at the Doncaster stage of the investigation. He insists, doggedly, that at a gambling table it is inevitable that the “red succeeds the black” and that all murderers are a “supreme kind of gambler” who refuse to recognize the role of chance in their success (176). Poirot even spins a roulette wheel as Hastings sets out for the race course. The race itself, while not significant to the plot, is also an even that cannot entirely be predicted. Most significant is that Franklin Clarke is the lone character who objects to Poirot’s assertions about murder as a risky enterprise that killers cannot always win. Poirot has given no hint of whether he suspects Franklin, but this exchange allows Christie to hint at his complicity when the reader looks back.

Chance encounters further structure the relationship between Franklin Clarke and Alexander Bonaparte Cust. Cust’s mother loads him with grandiose names to assert her belief he is “master of his fate,” but life shows him that this is not the case (236). Cust and Franklin Clarke met randomly in a hotel and played dominoes together, and Clark offered to read Cust’s palm. Franklin predicts fame and notoriety, but also a “violent death […] almost looks as though you might die upon the scaffold” (240). This encounter haunts the imprisoned Cust, convincing him of his guilt. Meeting Cust and learning of his unique name and initials animates Franklin’s scheme, pointing him to a way he can murder his brother without being readily suspected. Cust, Poirot asserts, is not a “thorough gambler” but a cautious man (251), and it is this discrepancy that leads him to Franklin as the real killer.

This, combined with Hastings’s point that the error in the Churston postmark was intentional points to the solution—only the success of one murder could not be left to chance. Franklin, one could argue, made another unsuccessful gamble when he chose Poirot to write to; a less successful detective might have fallen for the scheme. In the end Christie herself relies on the detective novel as the ultimate predictable structure. By the rules of the genre, the criminal rarely succeeds.