The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

three little Indians… ugh!).
    But these were strange times, indeed. That a play should be mounted in Blitz-torn London would have been unthinkable, just two years ago. At first there had been a ban on entertainment; soon, for purposes of morale, the ban was lifted. Younger actors could even seek dispensation from military service, providing they were not out of work for more than two weeks at a time. Few took advantage of this, however—such stars as Lawrence Olivier and Ralph Richardson had answered the call, and set a fine example.
    Only at the height of the bombings did the theaters close, and the cinemas never did. And by the end of last year, twenty-four West End theaters were again flourishing. True, the fare tended to be light—revues, revivals, and comedies like the American imports The Man Who Came to Dinner and Arsenic and Old Lace , and Noel Coward’s wonderful Blithe Spirit .
    She hoped a murder thriller—one with darkly comic overtones—could find audiences willing to suspend their disbelief in these dark times.
    And the moment did seem right for Agatha to get back in the theatrical swing. She adored the theater—going to it, and writing for it; she treasured the respect the playwright was given, and loved being around the larger-than-life characters who flocked to the bright lights of the West End.
    Theater was a bug she had caught back in the early twenties, when her sister Madge’s play, The Claimant , was produced in London, and Agatha had attended rehearsals with Madge, thoroughly enjoying this glimpse at the theatrical life. As her work at the hospital allowed, Agatha had attended rehearsals of this new play—she would not admit it to a living soul, but hearing her words spoken aloud, seeing her story brought to life, thrilled her in a way that quite outdistanced the printed page.
    And she much preferred adapting her own work to the stage, rather than leaving it to someone else. The compromises that had been required to bring The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to the stage (as Alibi in 1928) troubled her even now—namely, the spinster village gossip who had been youthened into a love interest… for the elderly Poirot, no less!
    And yet, for one who had loved attending plays since childhood—to this day she would seek out the scores of musicals she’d seen, to play the tunes on the piano—seeing her “baby” on the boards, even in bastardized form, had been thrilling. The next time, she had written the play herself, so when, about a year ago, Reginald Simpson—who had produced Alibi —inquired into theatrical rights to her nursery-rhyme novel, Agatha had straightened her spine and said, “If anyone is to dramatize it, I’ll have a shot at it first.”
    The play had turned out remarkably well, particularly considering the difficulties of the original ending. In the novel, ten people from various walks of life—all guilty of (and unpunished for) a murder—are invited under false pretenses to an island mansion… where one by one, a vengeful murderer among them strikes them down.
    She had come up with a new ending that she feared was a cheat, but which everyone assured her was ingenious; and in rehearsal the finale did seem to play very well indeed.
    Of course, there was another reason Agatha had turned to writing a new play—a frankly monetary one. Because of wartime restrictions on paper, her publisher was printing only a limited number of copies of her new novels, and she was being encouraged to restrict her literary output somewhat, as well.
    This came at a particularly bad moment, because her American royalties were being held up, due to the war, while at the same time, the British government was insisting she pay taxes on those as yet unreceived American funds. Her attorneys were fighting for her—over what seemed clearly, even absurdly a taxation injustice—but at present the threat remained: her income was diminishing while her tax responsibilities soared.
    Jumping back into the