Agatha Christie – Monday 15 September 1890 – Monday 12 January 1976

Introduction

Have read numerous Agatha Christie mysteries; in fact have probably read more of her mysteries than the works of any other mystery writer. But then again she has written a great number of them. It was due to one of her two main detectives, Hercule Poirot, that I learned a country by the name of Belgium existed. Although I have lived among the Belgians, I never met anyone quite like Hercule; though of course I never became involved in murder mysteries. It was more pleasurable activities (drinking Leffe, eating Callebaut, carrying umbrellas) with the Belgians that I was happy to experience. Agatha’s other main detective is Jane Marple, an Englishwoman. At Bertram’s Hotel (spoiler alert) is a Miss Marple mystery. The little grey cells work well in a little grey lady. On another English note, it was Agatha Christies’ play “The Mousetrap” (spoiler alert), performed at St. Martin’s Theatre that was my initiation to London’s West End theatre district.

Dedication in At Bertram’s Hotel

“FOR HARRY SMITH because I appreciate the scientific ways he reads my books”

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of At Bertram’s Hotel

“In the heart of the West End, there are many quiet pockets, unknown to almost all but taxi drivers who traverse them with expert knowledge, and arrive triumphantly thereby at Park Lane, Berkeley Square, or South Audley Street.

If you turn off on an unpretentious street from the Park, and turn left and right once or twice, you will find yourself in a quiet street with Bertram’s Hotel on the right-hand side. Bertram’s Hotel has been there a long time. During the war, houses were demolished on the right of it, and a little further down on the left of it, but Bertram’s itself remained unscathed. Naturally it could not escape being, as house agents would say, scratched, bruised, and marked, but by the expenditure of only a reasonable amount of money it was restored to its original condition. By 1955 it looked precisely as it had looked in 1939-dignified, unostentatious, and quietly expensive.

Such was Bertram’s, patronized over a long stretch of years by the higher echelons of the clergy, dowager ladies of the aristocracy up from the country, girls on their way home for the holidays from expensive finishing schools. (“So few places where a girl can stay alone in London but of course it is quite all right at Bertram’s. We have stayed there for years.”)

There had, of course been many other hotels on the model of Bertram’s. Some still existed, but nearly all had felt the wind of change. They had had necessarily to modernize themselves, to cater for a different clientele. Bertram’s, too, had had to change, but it had been done so cleverly that it was not at all apparent at the first casual glance.”


Yesterday’s writer – Pearl S. Buck
Tomorrow’s writer - Colette

Source: Christie, Agatha. At Bertram’s Hotel. Pocket Books, December 1967. ISBN 0-671-43379-2. Dedication: page 5, Excerpt: pages 7-8

Images:

Left: Front cover of my personal copy of At Bertram’s Hotel

Center: Agatha Christie from the website en.wikipedia.org