The Secret of Chimneys is a 1925 mystery novel by Agatha Christie.
It's a mix of spy thriller, murder mystery, and comedy. The complicated plot starts with Anthony Cade, a young wandering adventurer who's working as a tour guide in Rhodesia. Anthony's friend Jimmy approaches him with an offer to earn some money. Jimmy has in his possession the memoir of the late prime minister of the fictional Balkan country of Herzoslovakia. Anthony is to deliver the memoir to publishers in London, who will pay £1000 for it. Jimmy also has in his possession some incriminating letters written by a society lady, Mrs. Virginia Revel, widow of the late British ambassador to Herzoslovakia. Anthony is to return the letters to Virginia so that they don't fall into the wrong hands.
Meanwhile, the attention of the British government is focused on Herzoslovakia, because oil has been found there. Herzoslovakia has been a republic since King Nicholas IV and his queen Varaga were murdered seven years before. The Brits, who want that oil, hope to restore the House of Obolovitch and are in negotiations with Prince Michael, heir to the throne. Negotiations are underway at "Chimneys", the country house of Lord Caterham. Those negotiations are derailed by a murder...and there's another murder, and an international jewel thief named King Victor, and a missing diamond, and all sorts of complications.
Followed by a sequel, The Seven Dials Mystery.
Tropes:
- Big Fancy House: Chimneys, the estate home of the Marquesses of Caterham, which has secret passages and a priest's hole.
- Blackmail: A sneaky Italian fellow gets ahold of the incriminating letters and tries to blackmail Virginia. She is bemused, as she never actually wrote the letters and has no idea what the man is talking about.
- Blowing Smoke Rings: As Lemoine the French detective heatedly accuses Anthony of being King Victor the jewel thief, Anthony dismisses the accusation by casually blowing smoke rings. He's at his ease because 1) he knows that Lemoine is actually King Victor, and 2) Anthony has the real Lemoine there, hidden in the wings. Anthony produces him soon after and the jig is up.
- Book Safe: After the hiding place in the Secret Passage turns out to be a blind, Anthony suggests that the instructions in the coded letter might refer to a location in Chimneys' library. It was actually a bluff to try and entrap one of the thieves into revealing themselves by searching that place.
- Brits Love Tea: Exploited by Mr. Fish the American, who avoids an unpleasant confrontation with Anthony by saying "It's about time for your British institution of afternoon tea" and walking away.
- Cannibal Tribe: Anthony claims that he rescued Jimmy when Jimmy was "trussed up" and about to go into a pot prepared by some African cannibals. He may or may not be serious.
- Contrived Coincidence: It's pretty remarkable that of all the people Jimmy McGrath could have asked in Africa to take Count Stylptitch's memoir to London, he manages to ask Anthony, who is eventually revealed to be Prince Nicholas Obolovitch of Herzoslovakia, living under an assumed identity.
- Detective Mole: M. Lemoine of the French police turns out to be King Victor, the international jewel thief, who has kidnapped the real Lemoine and is impersonating him.
- Dirty Commies: The Comrades of the Red Hand, a violent revolutionary group opposing the restoration of the Herzoslovakian monarchy, are either this or Bomb-Throwing Anarchists. One of their members tries to take the manuscript from Cade at gunpoint, but is fought off.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Bill Eversleigh is a sweet, eager-to-please young man who is hopelessly in love with Virginia Revel, and proposes to her at every opportunity. Virginia thinks of him as nothing but a friend, and laughs off his proposals. She marries the dashing Anthony Cade by the end of the book.
- Drives Like Crazy: Bundle Brent drives through the countryside and through a village at death-defying high speeds, honking her horn the whole way, while a terrified Anthony rides as her passenger. At one point she "swept round a corner on two wheels."
- Even Evil Has Standards: It's mentioned that, although King Victor is a notorious jewel thief, he's never been known to use violence, much less murder.
- The Flapper: Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent, a vivacious young woman who likes to wear slinky dresses and drive cars very fast.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Jimmy brings it up, Anthony shows a surprisingly deep knowledge of Herzoslovakia, being familiar with Prime Minister Count Stylptitch as well as knowing the details of the murder of King Nicholas IV and Queen Varaga. He also has a "curious ring" to his voice when discussing it with Jimmy. The ending reveals that Anthony is actually a Herzoslovakian prince.
- Another foreshadowing moment has Boris, Prince Michael's servant who follows him with dog-like devotion, suddenly kneel before Anthony and proclaim his eternal loyalty, apparently for no reason at all. This of course is because Anthony is also a prince.
- This gets quite obvious towards the end when Battle gets a note saying that Anthony "isn't wot he seems". Anthony blows it off by saying "I'm really a king in disguise, you know." He is!
- Funetik Aksent: Agatha Christie seemed to find Americans inherently funny. Besides giving Hiram P. Fish a wacky name, she also represents his dialogue with words like "trooly", "presoomably", and "vurry" (very).
- Girls With Mustaches: Anthony thinks Mademoiselle Brun the governess may be a Femme Fatale agent of some sort, but is startled when he meets her and sees she has graying hair and a wispy mustache. It turns out to be a disguise.
- Greedy Jew: Anthony makes a nasty comment about "Hebraic people," the "yellow-faced financiers" presumably behind the effort to acquire Herzoslovakian oil. Later this anti-Semitic trope is personified by Herman Isaacstein, the unpleasant person in charge of the British group trying to get the oil concession.
- Gun Struggle: How Mademoiselle Brun meets her end, shot with her own gun when Boris grabs her after she's caught ransacking the library looking for the diamond.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: The mysterious person ransacking the library gets away when Bill, who is trying to surprise them, can't suppress a sneeze.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Bill, who has decided that Anthony is really King Victor the jewel thief, is telling everyone that Anthony will never return to Chimneys now that the estate is crawling with cops. He is still insisting, saying "He'll never—", when the butler introduces Anthony at the door.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Anthony does not enjoy his job as a tour guide in Africa for little old ladies, which is why he asks Jimmy for a drink when visiting his room."Make it strong, James," he implored. "I can tell you, I need it."
- King Incognito: Provides numerous examples of this.
- The murder victim, Prince Michael Obolovitch, heir of the Herzoslovakian throne, had previously masqueraded as a less important noble by the name of Count Stanislaus. He had also appeared as Mr Holmes from Balderson and Hodgkins to steal an important manuscript from Anthony Cade.
- One of the murderers is in fact the former Queen of Herzoslovakia, who had faked her death during the revolution, and lived as Miss Brun, governess to Bundle Brent's younger sisters while biding for her time to strike back.
- There's also Prince Nicholas, Michael's missing cousin who is rumoured to have died before the events of the stories. In the book's climax, he reveals that he had spread rumours of his own death in order to relinquish his royal duties so that he could live a normal life as Anthony Cade, adventurer.
- MacGuffin: There are three, actually.
- There's the memoir of former Herzoslovakian prime minister Count Stylptitch. Herzoslovakian monarchists wish to stop its publication because they fear that the Count's book, and the secrets within it, may destabilize European politics and, more specifically, endanger the impending restoration of the House of Obolovitch. It's dry as dust and contains no secrets; the greatest danger it could pose is boredom.
- Then there are the letters written by Virginia Revel, which are highly salacious and prime blackmail material...until it's revealed that Virginia didn't write them, and even if she had, her husband is dead so there's no blackmail threat. The trope is thus averted, until it's again played straight with the reveal that the letters actually contain a coded message.
- Finally there's the Koh-i-noor diamond, one of the largest in the world, supposedly among the British crown jewels. Turns out that the one in the possession of the British government is a fake; Queen Varaga stole the real one back in the day and hid it somewhere on the grounds of Chimneys.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Superintendent Battle appears to be stolid, diligent, and none too bright i.e. the typical British policeman from the detective books (something he himself references). His impassive, wooden expression is not because he's dim, but because he's careful to keep his emotions and thoughts hidden; getting to know him, Anthony Cade recognizes that Battle is much more astute and observant than he lets on.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard has "an extraordinary knack of appearing out of space without the least warning." More than one character is startled by Battle appearing next to them seemingly out of nowhere and asking an inconvenient question.
- Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date: Anthony takes Bundle punting on the lake. Somewhat subverted in that Anthony the Amateur Sleuth actually took Bundle out to pump her for information, being perhaps the only place on the estate where they can be assured nobody else is listening, but there's a lot of flirting and sexual tension as well.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Lady Eileen Brent, oldest daughter of Lord Caterham, the master of Chimneys, is only ever called "Bundle".
- Pinkerton Detective: The real reason why Hiram Fish is at Chimneys. He's a Pinkerton detective tracking King Victor the jewel thief.
- The Place: "Chimneys", one of those country estates of the English nobility. Belonging to the Brent family, Marquesses of Caterham, it has for some time been an unofficial meeting place where the Foreign Office conducts sensitive diplomatic negotiations in secret, much to the irritation of Clement Brent, the current Lord Caterham. The whole second half of the novel takes place there.
- Red Herring: As usual, Christie leads the reader along the garden path a few times.
- Herman Isaacstein is described in rather shady terms, and the gun used to kill Prince Michael is in his suitcase, but it turns out that he's just a ruthless businessman, and the gun was planted.
- Hiram Fish has come from America, ostensibly to deal in rare books with Lord Caterham, but doesn't seem to know much on the subject. The reader might think that he's King Victor, who had also been in America; he's actually a Pinkerton Detective following King Victor.
- Ripped from the Headlines: In the backstory, King Nicholas IV and his scheming social climber wife were assassinated after the Great War. This is stolen from the Real Life murder of King Alexander I of Serbia and his scheming social climber wife in 1903.
- Ruritania: Herzoslovakia, a Slavic country in the Balkans with a messy history of assassinations and instability. The name is a portmanteau of Czechoslovakia and the province of Herzegovina.
- Separated by a Common Language: Mr. Hiram P. Fish the American is more characterized by his Funetik Aksent, but he also says stuff like "I opine" for "I think" and tosses off Americanisms like "I get you." At a dinner scene he is said to be talking "in his own peculiar idiom."
- Sinister Schnoz: Not content to rest with the Greedy Jew stereotype of Herman Isaacstein, the man who is trying to make the deal for Britain to acquire the oil rights, Christie describes "a generous curve to the big nose" on Isaacstein's face. (He's a Red Herring character and not the ultimate villain, but the anti-Semitic tropes are all clearly meant to draw Isaacstein as an unpleasant person.)
- Sizable Semitic Nose: As so often when it comes to anti-Semitism in fiction, this trope goes hand-in-hand with Sinister Schnoz. The narration specifically points out that Mr. Isaacstein, the Greedy Jew attempting to close the deal for the oil rights, has a big nose.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Pretty cynical. The British government is conspiring to topple the republican government of Herzoslovakia and restore the monarchy, so that they (the Brits) can get their greedy hands on that country's oil. No one seems to be very concerned about what the people want. Near the end Anthony, when explaining his King Incognito years as a wandering adventurer, says that in his idealistic youth he rejected aristocracy and monarchy and thought people should just be decent to each other. Experience has taught him, he says, that people simply will not be decent to each other, so he's willing to take up the throne of Herzoslovakia to make his people behave better—in other words, to bring about progress by force.
- Stopped Clock: Prince Michael was killed at 11:45, which the good guys know because his watch was smashed when he fell. Surprisingly, it's not part of a clever scheme to deceive the police; that actually was when he was killed.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: Baron Lolopretjzyl, the Herzoslovakian monarchist who wants to stop Anthony from delivering the memoirs. He has a very Yoda-like habit of inverting his word order when speaking in English."Of many secrets the knowledge he had....Europe into war plunged may be."
- Summation Gathering: In typical Christie fashion, Anthony has all the characters gathered together so he can explain how everything went down. He then has them all follow him to the library, where they all collectively catch Mademoiselle Brun in the act of searching the place for the diamond.
- The Unpronounceable: The hotel clerk simply hands Anthony a note because he doesn't want to try and pronounce "Baron Lolopretjzyl", the Herzoslovakian nobleman who is waiting to call on Anthony. Anthony boggles at all those consonants and decides to call his visitor "Baron Lollipop." (Of course the ending reveals that Anthony can actually pronounce Baron Lollipop's name just fine.)
- Utopia Justifies the Means: A downplayed example. After Anthony Cade reveals himself as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch, he claims he believes in democracy and equality, but also believes that people won't naturally move in that direction, or at least not very quickly. He intends to accomplish this by force.
- Wacky Americans Have Wacky Names: The oddball American who is at Chimneys, supposedly to see Lord Caterham's collection of first editions but who obviously has some sort of ulterior motive, is named "Hiram P. Fish".
- The X of Y: The Secret of Chimneys
