Five Little Pigs
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Hercule Poirot |
| Genre(s) | Crime, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Released | 1942 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Evil Under the Sun |
| Followed by | The Hollow |
Five Little Pigs (published in 1942), also known as Murder in Retrospect, is one of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries. The novel is notable as a rigorous attempt to demonstrate Poirot’s repeatedly stated contention that it is possible to solve a mystery purely by reflecting upon the testimony of the participants, and without access to the scene of the crime.
This was the last novel of an especially prolific phase of Christie's work on Poirot. She published thirteen Poirot novels between 1935 and 1942 out of a total of eighteen novels in that period. By contrast, she published only two Poirot novels in the next eight years, providing evidence of her growing frustration with her most popular character.
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[edit] Plot introduction
Sixteen years after a woman has been convicted of the murder of her husband, her daughter, Carla Lemarchant, approaches Poirot to investigate the case. Poirot embarks optimistically upon an unprecedented challenge, but soon fears that the case may be as cut and dried as it had first appeared.
[edit] Plot summary
Carla is engaged to be married but she is afraid that the fact that her mother killed her father will poison her husband's love for her, as he may fear that she has inherited a husband killing tendency. Moreover, Carla remembers that her mother would never lie to her to hide an unpleasant truth and her mother told her she was innocent. That is enough for Carla but she wants Poirot to prove her mother's innocence to her husband to be.
Carla's father, painter Amyas Crale, was murdered with a poison, coniine, which had been extracted from hemlock by Meredith Blake but subsequently apparently stolen from him by Carla's mother, Caroline Crayle. Caroline confessed to having stolen the poison, claiming that she had intended to use it to commit suicide. This poison ended up, however, in a glass from which Amyas had drunk cold beer, after complaining that 'everything tastes odd today'. Both the glass and the bottle of cold beer had been brought to him by Caroline. Her motive was clear: Amyas’s young model, and latest mistress Elsa Greer, had revealed that he was planning to divorce Caroline and marry her instead. This was a new development; though Amayas had frequently had mistresses and affairs he had never before shown any sign of wanting to leave Caroline.
Poirot labels the five alternative suspects “the five little pigs”: they comprise Elsa (now Lady Dittisham); Meredith; Meredith’s brother, Phillip; Cecilia Williams, the governess; and Angela, Caroline’s younger half-sister. As Poirot learns from speaking to them during the first half of the novel, none of the quintet has an obvious motive, and while their views of the original case differ in some respects there is no immediate reason to suppose that the verdict in the case was wrong.
The differences are subtle. Phillip Blake’s hostility to Caroline is overt enough to draw suspicion. Meredith Blake mistrusts him, and has a very much more sympathetic view of her. Elsa seems emotionally stunted, as though her original passion for Amyas has left her prematurely devoid of emotion, except for hatred for Caroline Crayle. Cecelia, the governess, gives some insight into both Caroline and Angela, but claims to have definite reason for believing Caroline guilty. Finally, Angela believes her sister to be innocent, but a letter that Caroline wrote to her after the murder contains no protestation of innocence, and makes Poirot doubt Caroline's innocence for perhaps the first time.
In the second half of the novel, Poirot considers five accounts of the case that he has asked his little pigs to write for him. These establish the succession of events on the day of the murder, and establish a small number of facts that are important to the solution of the puzzle. In the first place, there is a degree of circumstantial evidence incriminating Angela. Secondly, Cecelia has seen Caroline frantically wiping fingerprints off the bottle of beer as she waited by Amyas’s corpse. Thirdly, there has been a conversation between Caroline and Amyas, apparently about Amyas 'seeing to her packing' for Angela's return to school. Fourthly, Elsa overheard a heated argument between Caroline and Amyas in which he swore that he would divorce her and Caroline said bitterly 'you and your women'.
In the denouement, Poirot reveals the main emotional undercurrents of the story. Philip Blake has loved Caroline but his rejection by her has turned this to hatred. Meredith Blake, wearied by his long affection for Caroline, has formed an attachment to Elsa Greer, that is also unreciprocated. These are mere red herrings, though. Putting together the case that would incriminate Angela (she had the opportunity to steal the poison on the morning of the crime, she had previously put salt in Amyas’s glass as a prank and she was seen fiddling with the bottle of beer before Caroline took it down to him, she was very angry with Amyas), he demonstrates that Caroline herself would have thought that Angela was guilty. Her letter to Angela did not speak of innocence, because Caroline believed that Angela must know for a fact that Caroline was innocent. This explains why, if Caroline was innocent, she made no move to defend herself in court. Morover, Angela was seriously disfigured by a scar on her face, an injury caused by Caroline in a jealous rage many years ago. Caroline had always felt deeply guilty about this and therefore felt that, by taking the blame for what she thought was Angela's crime, she could earn redemption.
Caroline’s actions, however, unwittingly proved her innocence. By wiping the fingerprints off the bottle, she showed that she believed that the poison had been placed in it, rather than in the glass. Moreover, since she had been seen to handle the bottle there was no reason to remove her own fingerprints; she can only have been removing those of a third party.
Angela, however, was not guilty. All the evidence incriminating Angela can be explained by the fact that she had stolen valerian from Meredith’s laboratory that morning in preparation for playing another prank on Amyas. (Because she described the theft of the valerian in the future tense Poirot realised that she had never carried out this trick; Angela had completely forgotten that she had stolen the valerian on the morning of that fateful day).
The true murderer was Elsa. Far from being about to finish with Caroline, Amyas was entirely focused on completing his portrait of Elsa. Because Elsa was young she did not realise she was just another mistress, to be discarded as soon as she was painted. She took the promises 'to leave my wife' seriously. Amyas went along with her false belief, to the short term distress of his wife, so that Elsa wouldn't leave before the painting was finished. Thus the half overheard 'see to her packing' did not refer to Angela's packing (why should Amyas do her packing with a wife and governess to see to such 'woman's work') but to sending Elsa packing. Caroline, reassured that Amyas had no intention of leaving her, was distressed at such cruelty to Elsa. She remonstrated with Amyas on a second occasion. Though Elsa falsely reported the gist of this conversation, she did mention that Caroline had said to Amyas 'you and your women', showing Poirot that in fact Elsa was in the same category as all of Amyas's other, discarded mistresses. After a disillusioned, betrayed Elsa, overheard this conversation, she recalled seeing Caroline help herself to the coniine the day before and, under the pretence of fetching a cardigan, stole some of that poison by drawing it off with a fountain pen filler. She poisoned Amyas in the first, warm beer, and was then pleased to find that Caroline implicated herself still more seriously by bringing him another. (When Caroline brought Amyas a beer and he exclaimed that 'everything tastes odd today' this showed that he had already had a drink before the one Caroline brought him.)
Poirot’s explanation solves the case to the satisfaction of Carla and, most importantly, her fiancé. But, as Elsa forces him to admit, it cannot be proven. Poirot states that though his chances of getting a conviction are slim, he does not intend to simply leave her to her rich, privileged life. Privately, however, she confides the full measure of her defeat. Caroline, having earned redemption, went uncomplainingly to prison, and Elsa has always felt that the husband and wife somehow escaped her. Her life has been empty since.
The last paragraph of the novel underlines this defeat. “The chauffeur held open the door of the car. Lady Dittisham got in and the chauffeur wrapped the fur rug around her knees.”
[edit] Characters in “Five Little Pigs”
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian Detective
- Carla Lemarchant, the daughter of Caroline Crayle
- Sir Montague Depleach, Counsel for the Defence in the original trial
- Quentin Fogg, K.C., Junior for the Prosecution in the original trial
- George Mayhew, son of Caroline’s solicitor in the original trial
- Caleb Jonathan, family solicitor for the Crayles
- Ex-Superintendent Hayle, investigating officer in the original case
[edit] The “Five Little Pigs”
- Phillip Blake, a stockbroker (“went to market”)
- Meredith Blake, a reclusive former amateur herbalist (“stayed at home”)
- Elsa, Lady Dittisham, formerly Greer, a society lady ("had roast beef”)
- Cecilia Williams, the devoted governess ("had none”)
- Angela Warren, an archaeologist (“cried 'wee wee wee' all the way home”)
[edit] Structure and Narrative
Five Little Pigs is unusually repetitive in the sense that the same events are retold from several standpoints. It is possible that the novel’s form was influenced by the model of Robert Browning’s epic poem The Ring and the Book, which similarly presents the testimony of a number of people connected with a murder case, including the lawyers.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
While the novel can be said to draw attention to the inherent repetitiveness of detective fiction in general, where clues are often introduced through inconsistencies in oral evidence, there is very little of this in the final solution to the novel. It is clear, especially in the girlish recollections of the young Angela, that Christie’s main interest is in the characterisation itself. For this reason, Five Little Pigs has qualities over and above the immediate demands of genre fiction and can be considered a part of the movement towards literary fiction in the detective novel.[citation needed]
[edit] Outmoded beliefs about heredity
Carla's stated motive for clearing her mothers name is that she wants herself to be cleared of the possibility of carrying a genetic trait for husband murdering, to reassure her husband to be. The idea that such a highly specific weaknesses such as a 'tendency to murder one's husband' exists and that children of such parents may be more likely to commit such a crime is outmoded. However, this is a recurring theme in Agatha Christie's work, found also in Elephants Can Remember. This is ironic as Agatha Christie's protagonists often point out that anybody can commit murder (whatever the truth of the statement may be, this argument is always used to ensure that nobody can be dropped from the suspect list). Though some of Agatha Christie's characters believe that the children of murderers may themselves have a tendency to murder, the belief appears not to be widespread. The characters are satisfied with a private explanation of the real events, with no need to clear the names of the accused in public.
[edit] Trivia
Like One, Two, Buckle My Shoe before it and Hickory Dickory Dock after it, the novel is named for a nursery rhyme that is used by Poirot to organise his thoughts regarding the investigation.
The painting that is hung upon the wall of Miss Cecilia Williams' room, described as a "blind girl sitting on an orange" is by George Frederic Watts and is called "Hope". In it, a blind girl is featured playing a harp that has only one string left but she doesn't give up playing it.
[edit] Film, TV and theatrical adaptations
In 1960, Christie adapted the book into a play, Go Back For Murder, but edited Poirot out of the story.
David Suchet starred as Poirot in an adaptation of the novel shown during 2003 as part of the series Agatha Christie's Poirot. The only major change in this version was that Phillip Blake's affections were not for Caroline, as in the book, but for Amyas, thus making Phillip Blake gay.
