26. Breathe
Some
misguided critic wrote once that Agatha Christie's minor characters
were 'paper thin'. I won't lift the critic from well-deserved obscurity
by giving you his name. But it allows me a way into my subject.
In a few of Agatha Christie's Poirot novels, we meet the Belgian detective's
secretary and assistant, the wonderfully-named Miss Lemon. Miss Lemon
is, of course, a punctilious and capable secretary
whose few words speak volumes on her efficiency and systematic flair.
And as our mental picture of Miss Lemon develops, we learn that she has devised, for Poirot's use, a card-index system. We learn that this hand-written database is so subtle in its cross-references and so intricate in its structure that she can, in an instant, track down the smallest detail of the lives of anyone in whom Poirot has taken an interest.
Christie doesn't make a great deal of Miss Lemon. Except in one novel,
there are no detailed physical descriptions or flashbacks to previous,
formative experiences in the young life of the perfect PA. The character
is given room to grow in the reader's imagination.
Like a flower planted in a crowded border, the author makes sure she has room to breathe.
