S02E11: The Life and Crimes of P.G. Wodehouse

And his mutual admiration society with Agatha Christie

The room was the typical bedroom of the typical boarding-house, furnished, so far as it was furnished at all, with a severe simplicity. It contained two beds, a pine chest of drawers, a strip of faded carpet, and a wash-hand stand. All these things might have been guessed at from the other side of the closed door. But there was that on the floor which set this room apart from a thousand rooms of the same kind. Flat on his back, one leg twisted oddly under the other, his hands clenched and his teeth gleaming through his grey beard in a horrible grin, Captain John Gunner stared at the ceiling with eyes that saw nothing.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is the opening paragraph of a classic murder mystery written by a Golden Age of Detection author.

Well, it is the opening paragraph of a locked room murder mystery—but the author is P.G. Wodehouse, the undisputed king of comic writing.

Published in Pearson’s Magazine UK, December 1914

Wodehouse writes a mystery

In 1914, long before he became widely read for his sun-lit world of whackadoodle characters with their cockeyed shenanigans, Wodehouse wrote the short story ‘The Education of Detective Oates’ (this opening excerpt is from this.)

The premise: Captain Gunner, a resident of the Excelsior Boarding House, is found dead in a locked room, from a snake-bite. Since there are no free ranging snakes in England, how did this one make it into the room? More importantly, how did it make it out with a locked door, no chimney, and a too-high-up window? Cocky private investigator (in training) Elliot Oakes is sent to look into the matter by his boss, who secretly hopes he will fail and thereby learn a lesson.

A slightly longer version of this story was published in March 1915 in the Cavalier Weekly under the somewhat spoilery title ‘The Harmonica Mystery’ and, in later years, it was republished in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and various anthologies. I read the version titled ‘Death at the Excelsior’ in my copy of the The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries.

Locked room mysteries tend to have fantastic solutions; the kind that quibble with possibility vs. probability and stretch our credulity like maida for a Kerala porotta¹. This one is not so unbelievable but I was disappointed to find that it has none of the delights of a typical Wodehouse story.

No hysterical similies (“He had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life’s gas-pipe with a lighted candle.”) or delightfully transferred epithets (“His eyes widened, and an astonished piece of toast fell from his grasp.”) or quirky characters that bounce off the edges of the page.

In short, this is Wodehouse’s attempt at writing a straightforward murder mystery in keeping with the times. By 1914, saplings of the Golden Age of Detective fiction had already poked their heads through the fertile soil of publishing, and the genre would take over popular fiction for a good thirty years.

While he never wrote another pure-detection story, Wodehouse remained interested in crime and detection all his life. Many of his stories contain petty crimes like burglary and theft, usually of odd items such as a silver cow creamer or the Empress of Blandings, a prize-winning pig), impersonation, and knocking off policemen’s helmets on a dare.

About these mystery stories…

In May 1929, fifteen years after his own attempt at writing a mystery, Wodehouse wrote an essay for The Saturday Evening Post, making fun of the abounding tropes of the genre. Comparing it to the black plague, he wrote, “in much the same way, quietly and, as it were, surreptitiously, the present flood of mystery stories has engulfed the British Isles. Only a short time ago the evil appeared merely sporadic. Now we are up to our necks in the things, and more coming all the time. There seems to be some virus in the human system just now which causes the best writers to turn out thrillers. This would not matter so much, only, unfortunately, it causes the worst of writers to turn them out too.” 🤣

When this hilarious essay was republished in The Strand a month later, it was accompanied by charming illustrations by H.M. Bateman.

Wodehouse calls the field of suspense in a closed circle mystery “limited” because it can’t have been the hero or heroine, it can’t be the delightful comic character, and it certainly can’t be Uncle Joe because…

I agree!

My favourite bit is his categorisation of amateur detectives into three types.

1. The Dry - elderly, wears pince-nez, fussy, old-maidish, apt to cough primly.

   If that’s not a tongue-in-cheek reference to Miss Maud Silver, the nursery governess-turned-private-investigator created by Patricia Wentworth in 1928, then I am a jackrabbit. Even hardcore fans count the number of times Miss Silver coughs in each book—it’s never less than half a dozen.

2. The Dull - unmasks criminals by means of his special knowledge of toxics and things like the shape of the villain’s skull.

   That has to be a reference to the all-knowing expert detective in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes and medico-legal man Dr. Thorndyke. Heck, skull shapes are even a plot point in Agatha Christie’s 1924 novel The Man in the Brown Suit. I must point out, however, that the amateur detective in this book, Anne Beddingfeld, is far from dull and one of my favourite girls in the canon.

3. The Effervescent - has enough money and sees crime as a hobby; friends with the police; annoying breezy and frivolous even by the corpse-side.

   If you thought "Lord Peter Wimsey!” you’d be absolutely right. This description fits Dorothy L. Sayers’s dilettante detective, who made his debut in Whose Body? (1923), to a T (or is it tee?) It could also fit E.C. Bentley’s creation, artist-turned-reporter-turned-amateur-detective Philip Trent, who was deliberately created as a foil to Holmesian investigators in Trent’s Last Case (1913). Apt to be frivolous and make absurd quotations about poets, Trent was nothing like the older, sterner school of detectives, his creator wrote in a biography of this fictional character.

In Cards on the Table (1936), Agatha Christie does echoes Wodehouse’s jocular take on mystery writing in a monologue by her fictional character Ariadne Oliver (also a mystery writer, often thought of as a stand-in for herself). When Superintendent Battle tries to give her pointers about police procedure, Ariadne retorts:

“As a matter of fact, I don't care two pins about accuracy … What really matters is plenty of bodies. If the thing is getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something and then they are killed first—that always goes down well. It comes in all my books, camouflaged different ways, of course. And people like untraceable poisons and idiotic police inspectors and girls tied up in cellars with sewer gas or water pouring in² (such a troublesome way of killing anyone really) and a hero who can dispose of anything from three to seven villains single-handed.”

Agatha and Plum

I was delighted to discover that Agatha and Plum (as Wodehouse was known to friends) were fans of each other’s writing. Although their acquaintance had an iffy start³, they did strike up a friendship and kept in touch through letters until Wodehouse passed away in 1975.

Wodehouse kicked off this mutual admiration society, referencing Agatha in a number of his own works that span his career.

“I mean, imagine how some unfortunate master criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well.” The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“I found her in her snuggery or den, taking it easy with a cup of tea and an Agatha Christie.” Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“It is virtually impossible to write a novel of suspense without getting a certain amount of ink on the beezer. Ask Agatha Christie or anyone.” How Right You Are, Jeeves (1960)

“They’ve inflamed your imagination and you see sinister characters everywhere. I believe Agatha Christie suffers in the same way.” Galahad at Blandings (1965)

“A few necessaries: toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, pyjamas, and a couple of Agatha Christies. I’m off to hospital.” Bachelors Anonymous (1973)

Agatha, in her turn, referenced Wodehouse in her 1936 novel Murder in Mesopotamia when describing a character, and she describes him the way Wodehouse might.

As I stood on the platform hesitating and looking about me I saw a young man coming towards me. He had a round pink face, and really, in all my life, I have never seen anyone who seemed so exactly like a young man out of one of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse’s books.

“Hallo, ’allo, ’allo,” he said. “Are you Nurse Leatheran? Well, I mean you must be—I can see that. Ha ha! My name’s Coleman. Dr. Leidner sent me along. How are you feeling? Beastly journey and all that? Don’t I know these trains! Well, here we are—had any breakfast? This your kit? I say, awfully modest, aren’t you? Mrs. Leidner has four suitcases and a trunk—to say nothing of a hatbox and a patent pillow, and this, that and the other. Am I talking too much? Come along to the old bus.”

As their friendship ripened, she dedicated her 1969 novel Halloween Party to him, writing: “To P.G. Wodehouse - whose books and stories have brightened up my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books.”

To which Plum wrote back to say he was “pleased and proud”. It’s awws all around, basically.

Source: Fans of P.G. Wodehouse Facebook Group

Agatha writes a comic novel

Wodehouse experimented with writing detective stories—but did Agatha ever write a comic novel?

On my birthday in January, I watched The Seven Dials Mystery (2026) on Netflix, the latest adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel. My enjoyment of it was largely thanks to Mia McKenna-Bruce who plays Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent with all the playfulness and spark of the original character without being irritating. But I found myself thinking: where is the humour? Where are the absent-minded Lord Caterham and the frivolous young men that populate this novel?

And it suddenly struck me—Seven Dials is the Agatha Christie novel that comes closest to being Wodehousian.

His stories are filled with bright young things of the 1920s, often from English upper-class homes. Most are rich layabouts, some with niche hobbies (e.g. Gussie Fink-Nottle’s obsession with newts) and others with no money, waiting for a rich uncle to leave them a legacy, getting into scrapes, falling in and out of love, and stumbling into adventures involving impersonations and ridiculous crimes.

Seven Dials shares this world. It is set in a great English house, filled with titled families and seemingly foolish young men who could easily have walked out of a Wodehouse novel. Sample some of the dialogue:

Lady Coote approached him nervously.

“Good morning, MacDonald.”

“Good morning, m’lady.”

He spoke as head gardeners should speak—mournfully, but with dignity—like an emperor at a funeral.

“I was wondering—could we have some of those late grapes for dessert tonight?”

“They’re no fit for picking yet,” said MacDonald.

He spoke kindly but firmly.

“Oh!” said Lady Coote.

She plucked up courage.

“Oh! but I was in the end house yesterday, and I tasted one and they seemed very good.”

MacDonald looked at her, and she blushed. She was made to feel that she had taken an unpardonable liberty. Evidently the late Marchioness of Caterham had never committed such a solecism as to enter one of her own hothouses and help herself to grapes.

And here’s another.

“You’ll never be a bridge player, Maria,” said Sir Oswald.

“No, dear,” said Lady Coote. “I know I shan’t. You’re always telling me so. And I do try so hard.”

“She does,” said Gerald Wade sotto voce. “There’s no subterfuge about it. She’d put her head right down on your shoulder if she couldn’t see into your hand any other way.”

“I know you try,” said Sir Oswald. “It’s just that you haven’t any card sense.”

“I know, dear,” said Lady Coote. “That’s what you’re always telling me. And you owe me another ten shillings, Oswald.”

“Do I?” Sir Oswald looked surprised.

“Yes. Seventeen hundred—eight pounds ten. You’ve only given me eight pounds.”

“Dear me,” said Sir Oswald. “My mistake.”

Lady Coote smiled at him sadly and took up the extra ten shilling note. She was very fond of her husband, but she had no intention of allowing him to cheat her out of ten shillings.

There are even more similarities:

• The young people in Seven Dials have names like Bundle, Socks, and Pongo, which are pure Wodehouse.

• Bundle’s father, Lord Caterham reminds me of Wodehouse’s Lord Emsworth: vague, self-centered, and want nothing more than to be left to their own devices (but are rarely allowed to!)

• The serious, bespectacled secretary Rupert Bateman is a version of Rupert Baxter (“The Efficient Baxter”) from Wodehouse’s Blandings novels. They even share a first name, although Agatha’s Rupert has more of a sense of humour as he takes part in the placement of all the alarm clocks in Gerry Wade’s room.

• The grumpy Scottish gardener MacDonald in Seven Dials terrifies and bullies Lady Coote the same way that the grumpy Scottish gardener McAllister bullies Lord Emsworth in the brilliant short story Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend.

My gripe with the Netflix adaptation is that it skips all this zaniness. Why, oh why! Playing up the Wodehousian bits would have made the show a great deal more entertaining.

Old wine in new bottles

In her six-decade career, Agatha Christie wrote 66 novels and 14 short story collections. If that’s eye-popping, consider the output of Wodehouse—he wrote for seven decades, producing 70 novels and over 200 short stories.

During this time, both unapologetically recycled their old plots over and over. Agatha, with such deftness of plotting and trappings that most readers didn’t notice the repetition of the underlying tricks, and Wodehouse, with such delightful prose that readers were happy to simply bask in the eternal sunshine of his world.

Agatha acknowledges this recycling through Ariadne Oliver’s words in Cards on the Table.

“Women,” said Mrs. Oliver, “are capable of infinite variation. I should never commit the same type of murder twice running.”

“Don’t you ever write the same plot twice running?” asked Battle.

“The Lotus Murder,” murmured Poirot. “The Clue of the Candle Wax.”

Mrs. Oliver turned on him, her eyes beaming appreciation. “That’s clever of you--that’s really very clever of you. Because, of course, those two are exactly the same plot--but nobody else has seen it. One is stolen papers at an informal week-end party of the Cabinet, and the other’s a murder in Borneo in a rubber planter’s bungalow.”

“But the essential point on which the story turns is the same,” said Poirot. “One of your neatest tricks. The rubber planter arranges his own murder - the Cabinet Minister arranges the robbery of his own papers. At the last minute the third person steps in and turns deception into reality.”

And Wodehouse defends himself against this accusation of plot recycling—by sticking his tongue out at the critic who did so. In the introduction to Summer Lightning (1929), he wrote:

"A certain critic - for such men, I regret to say, do exist - made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained all the old Wodehouse characters under different names'. He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy."

🤣

Plum’s crimes in real life

This may come as a surprise to many Wodehouse fans outside of England, but in his 60s, Plum was accused of being, at best, a silly ass and, at worst, a traitor and Nazi sympathiser.

At the start of WWII, Wodehouse, his wife Ethel, and their dog, were living in Le Toquet, France. By May 1940, Germany occupied the area and Wodehouse had to report daily to the authorities. Later, he was imprisoned and moved around various internment camps. A year later, when he turned 60, he was allowed to move to a hotel in Berlin (which he paid for himself).

Shortly after, he made a series of five broadcasts⁴ via German radio, describing life in the German camps in his typical comic style. These were aired in America. His intention, as I understand it, was simply to reassure his readers that he was alive and well, using humour as a shield for vulnerability.

But the effect was disastrous. The broadcasts made the camps seem harmless at a time when Britain was desperately trying to tell the world about the severity of Nazi actions and drum up support from America. The backlash was immense. Wodehouse was accused of disloyalty to his nation and effectively ostracised. Prominent public figures such as A. A. Milne wrote letters to major newspapers criticising his actions; even those who responded in his defense, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, admitted that he had acted stupidly.

In short, Wodehouse had behaved very much like one of the knuckleheaded young men in his stories, and become “one of the six silliest asses in England”.

He moved to America and lived under the shadow of this episode for decades. Only in his nineties did public sentiment soften, and he was knighted shortly before his death.

The irony of it is unmissable. On the page, Wodehouse wrote about harmless crimes, charming fools, and a timeless upper-class idyll that may never have existed. Off the page, he made a foolish decision that cost him dearly. I don’t condone it, yet, I can’t help remaining enamoured by his prose and the wonderland he created⁵.

1. A flaky, fluffy, layered flatbread from Kerala. See recipe.

2. Agatha herself has fun inserting these outlandish methods into her Parker Pyne short stories and the Tommy and Tuppence thrillers!

3. Full story in the excellent Wodehouse blog Plumtopia

4. You can read the full transcripts of the five radio broadcasts here.

5. More wonderful PGW resources for fans: Plumtopia | Fans of PGW Facebook Group