Why Didn't They Ask Evans? is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club in September 1934 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1935 under the title of The Boomerang Clue. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The novel is set in Wales and Hampshire. Bobby Jones finds a man dying at his local golf course. A photo he saw in the man's pocket is replaced, as police seek his identity. Bobby and his friend Lady Frances Derwent have adventures as they solve the mystery of the man's last words: "Why didn't they ask Evans?"
The novel was praised at first publication as "a story that tickles and tantalises", and that the reader is sure to like the amateur detectives and forgive the absence of Poirot. It had a lively narrative, full of action, with two amateur detectives who "blend charm and irresponsibility with shrewdness and good luck". Robert Barnard, writing in 1990, called it "Lively" but compared it to Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies and felt that the detectives were too much the amateurs.
Plot summary Bobby Jones is playing golf with Dr Thomas in the Welsh seaside town of Marchbolt. Upon hearing what sounds like a scream, he peers over the edge of the cliff and sees a man lying on the rocks below. Bobby climbs down to the man, then calls up to the doctor to go for help. He stays with the dying man, who briefly regains consciousness and says "Why didn't they ask Evans?,” before he dies.
Bobby finds a photograph of a beautiful woman in the man's coat pocket, but nothing to identify the man himself. Bobby is needed at his father's church to play the organ, so another man, Roger , a stranger who is wearing plus fours, offers to stay with the body.
At the inquest into the death, the man’s sister, Amelia Cayman, identifies him as Alex Pritchard. She is said to be the woman in the photograph (though Bobby wonders how such a beautiful girl could become such a coarse older woman). After the inquest, Mrs. Cayman and her husband ask if Pritchard had any last words. Bobby says no somewhat hesitantly but later, when talking with his friend Lady Frances "Frankie" Derwent, Bobby remembers Pritchard's final words and writes to the Caymans to tell them.
Bobby receives and rejects an unexpected job offer from a firm in Buenos Aires. Soon afterward he nearly dies after drinking from a poisoned bottle of beer. The local police do not investigate this incident, but Frankie thinks someone has tried to murder Bobby.
When Bobby sees the issue of the local paper with the photograph used to find Pritchard's sister, he sees that it is not the one he found in the dead man's pocket. He and Frankie realise that swapped the photographs and that Mrs Cayman is not related to the dead man. Bobby and Frankie trace to Merroway Court in Hampshire, owned by Roger's brother and sister-in-law, Henry and Sylvia. They stage a car accident outside the house with the help of a doctor friend so that Frankie, feigning injury, will be invited to stay to recover. Frankie produces a newspaper cutting about the mysterious dead man; Sylvia remarks that he looks like Alan Carstairs, a traveller and big-game hunter who was a friend of John Savage, a millionaire who killed himself after learning he had terminal cancer.
Frankie meets two neighbours of the – Dr Nicholson, who runs a local sanatorium, and his younger wife, Moira. Investigating in the grounds at night, Bobby encounters a woman who says that she fears for her life; she is the woman whose photograph Bobby found in the dead man's pocket. Several days later, Moira Nicholson turns up at the local inn where Bobby stays in his disguise as Frankie's chauffeur. She says her husband is trying to kill her and says she knew Alan Carstairs before her marriage to the doctor. Moira suggests that Bobby and Frankie ask Roger if he took the photograph from the body of the dead man. Roger admits that he took the photo, recognising Moira and wanting to avoid scandal for her. Frankie leaves after Henry Bassington-ffrench is found dead in his home, an apparent suicide.
Interested in the will of the late John Savage, Frankie consults her family's solicitor in London and learns that Carstairs had consulted him too. Savage was staying with Mr and Mrs Templeton when he became convinced he had cancer, although one specialist told him he was perfectly well. When he died by suicide, he left in his will some donations to charity and seven hundred thousand pounds to Mrs Templeton, who has apparently since left Britain. The will was signed by two witnesses - the cook and the gardener of the Templeton's residence - as well as the lawyer, so there was no doubt about its correctness; Carstairs was on their trail when he was killed. Bobby is kidnapped while checking and lurking at the Grange; Frankie is lured to the same isolated cottage by Roger disguised as Dr. Nicholson, where she is captured and tied up with Bobby in the attic. Bobby and Frankie are rescued by the timely and unexpected arrival of Badger Beadon, and they turn the tables on Roger; they also find a drugged Moira in the house. When the police arrive, Roger has escaped.
Bobby and Frankie trace the Templetons' former cook and gardener, witnesses to John Savage's will. Mr Templeton is also known as Mr Leo Cayman. The cook says that Gladys, the parlourmaid, was not asked to witness the will, made the night before Savage died. Frankie realises that the cook and gardener did not see Mr Savage before the signing, while the parlourmaid did and would have realised that it was Roger in the "deathbed" who wrote the will and not Mr Savage. The parlourmaid is Gladys Evans, hence the reason for Carstairs' question, "Why didn't they ask Evans?"
Tracing the parlourmaid, they discover she is now the married housekeeper at Bobby's home. Carstairs was trying to find her. Returning to Wales, they find Moira, who claims she is being followed by Roger and has come to them for help. Frankie is not deceived by Moira's behaviour and foils her attempt to poison their coffee, realising that Moira was Mrs Templeton and is Roger's co-conspirator. Moira then attempts to shoot Frankie and Bobby in the café, but is overpowered and arrested. Several weeks later, Frankie receives a letter from Roger, posted from South America, in which he confesses to murdering Savage, Carstairs and his brother Henry Bassington-ffrench, and conspiring in all of Moira's past crimes. Bobby and Frankie realise they are in love and become engaged.
Characters
Robert "Bobby" Jones: fourth son of the Vicar of Marchbolt, 28 years old, living at the vicarage Lady Frances "Frankie" Derwent: daughter of the Earl of Marchington Dr Thomas: golfing partner of Bobby The Vicar of Marchbolt: Bobby's father Alex Pritchard: man who died on the cliffs near Marchbolt, revealed to be Alan Carstairs, a friend of John Savage Mr Leo and Mrs Amelia Cayman: supposed brother-in-law and sister of Alex Pritchard; Leo Cayman is Mr Templeton "Badger" Beadon: stammering friend of Bobby and owner of a garage in London. He was at Oxford with Roger George Arbuthnot: doctor and a friend of Frankie Henry : wealthy Englishman who lives in Merroway Court in Hampshire, lately a drug addict, who died at his home Sylvia : American wife of Henry who takes a liking to Frankie Thomas : their young son Roger : Henry's younger brother who takes a fancy to Frankie; he did impersonate John Savage Dr Nicholson: Canadian owner of a sanatorium near Merroway Court Moira Nicholson: his wife; also Mrs Templeton John Savage: millionaire big-game hunter who stayed with the Templetons and died under mysterious circumstances Mr and Mrs Templeton: friends of John Savage at the end of his life; Mr Templeton is Leo Cayman Mrs Rivington: friend of John Savage who knows Sylvia , and brought Mr Carstairs to dinner at her home Gladys Roberts: former parlourmaid to Mr and Mrs Templeton when she was Gladys Evans, now staff with her husband to the Vicar of Marchbolt Rose Pratt: former cook to Mr and Mrs Templeton and witness to the last will of "John Savage" Albert Mere: former gardener to Mr and Mrs Templeton and witness to the last will of "John Savage"
Insight into how the title originated In the introduction of Agatha Christie's book Passenger to Frankfurt (Dodd, Mead hardcover, 1970) she gives examples of how she has come up with ideas for her books. Included is this explanation: "You go to tea with a friend. As you arrive, her brother closes a book he is reading – throws it aside, says: 'Not bad, but why on earth didn't they ask Evans?' So you decide immediately a book of yours shortly to be written will bear the title, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? You don't know yet who Evans is going to be. Never mind. Evans will come in due course – the title is fixed."
Allusions to real people The name of the novel's hero – Bobby Jones – is the same as that of the American golfer who was at the height of his fame at the time of publication. The first chapter introduces "Bobby Jones" playing golf; when his stroke scuds disappointingly along the ground, the narrative explains this Bobby is not the American master.
Reception
The Times Literary Supplement (27 September 1934) concluded favourably, "Mrs Christie describes the risks (Bobby Jones and Frankie Derwent) ran in her lightest and most sympathetic manner, playing with her characters as a kitten will play with a ball of wool, and imposing no greater strain on her readers than the pleasure of reading at a sitting a story that tickles and tantalises but never exhausts their patience or ingenuity".The Times Literary Supplement, 27 September 1934 (p. 657)
Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review (18 September 1935) concluded, "Frankie and Bobby are not nearly so brilliant as amateur detectives usually are in books, but you are sure to like them, and you may even be able to forgive Agatha Christie for leaving out Hercule Poirot just this once".
The Observer (16 September 1934) started off by saying that, "there is an engaging zest about Agatha Christie's latest novel" and concluded that, "the narrative is lively" and "the story is full of action".
Milward Kennedy in his review in The Guardian of 21 September 1934 said after summarising the set-up of the plot that, "Poirot has no part in this book; instead, a young man and a young woman who blend charm and irresponsibility with shrewdness and good luck contrive amusingly and successfully to usurp the functions of the police. The fault which I find is the overimportance of luck. For the villains it was, for example, singular good luck which enabled them to discover and identify an obscure vicar's fourth son asleep on a solitary picnic; it was very bad luck for them that he was able to assimilate a sixteenth times fatal dose of morphia. They were lucky, again, in having always at hand just the properties required to make an extempore murder seem something else; and as for the Bright Young Couple – but these are defects which are little noticeable in the gay stream of Mrs Christie's narrative. Perhaps I should not have noticed them had I not read the book so quickly that, in a secluded village, there was nothing for it next day but to read it again with a sterner eye but no less enjoyment".
Robert Barnard wrote of the book in 1980 that it was "Lively, with occasional glimpses of a Vile Bodies world, though one short on Waugh's anarchic humour and long on snobbery ('Nobody looks at a chauffeur the way they look at a person')." His critique was that the novel was "Weakened by lack of proper detective: the investigating pair are bumbling amateurs, with more than a touch of Tommy and Tuppence".
Publication history 1933, The McCall Company (abridged version as part of Six Redbook Novels), 1933