The Pale Horse is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1961,Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (p. 15) and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.John Cooper and B.A. Pyke. Detective Fiction – the collector's guide: Second Edition (pp. 82, 87) Scholar Press. 1994. The UK edition retailed at fifteen shillings (15/- = 75p) and the US edition at $3.75. The novel features her novelist detective Ariadne Oliver as a minor character, and reflects in tone the supernatural novels of Dennis Wheatley who was then at the height of his popularity. The Pale Horse is mentioned in Revelation 6:8, where it is ridden by Death.
Plot introduction A dying woman, Mrs Davis, gives her last confession to Father Gorman, a Roman Catholic priest, but along with her confession she gives him a list of names and a terrible secret. Before he can take action, however, he is struck dead in the fog. As the police begin to investigate, a young hero begins to piece together evidence that sets him upon a converging path.
Plot summary In the following summary, events are not given in strict narrative order.
Mark Easterbrook, the central character of the book and its principal narrator, sees a fight between two girls in a Chelsea coffee bar, during which one pulls out some of the other's hair at the roots. Soon afterwards, he finds out that one of the girls, Thomasina Tuckerton, has died. At dinner with a friend, a woman named Poppy Stirling mentions something called the Pale Horse that arranges deaths, but is suddenly scared at having mentioned it and will say no more.
When Mark encounters the police surgeon, Corrigan, he learns of the list of surnames found in the shoe of a murdered priest called Father Gorman. The list includes the names Corrigan, Tuckerton and Hesketh-Dubois (the same name as Mark's godmother who has recently died of what appear to be natural causes). He begins to fear that the list contains the names of those who are dead or are shortly to die.
When Mark goes to a village fete, organised by his cousin, at Much Deeping,James Zemboy, The Detective Novels of Agatha Christie: A Reader's Guide, Jefferson (NC): McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008. The fictitious village is described as lying about north of Bournemouth, Hampshire. with the famous mystery writer, Ariadne Oliver, he hears about a house which has been converted from an old inn called the Pale Horse. The house is inhabited by three modern "witches", led by Thyrza Grey. Visiting houses in the area, he meets Mr Venables, a man who uses a wheelchair and has no apparent explanation for his substantial wealth.
Mark also visits the Pale Horse, and Thyrza Grey discusses with him the ability to kill at a distance, which she claims to have developed. In retrospect, it seems to Mark that she has been outlining to him a service that she would be willing to provide. As part of the police investigation, a witness, Zachariah Osborne, describes a man seen following Father Gorman shortly before the murder. Later, Osborne tells the police that he has seen the same man in a wheelchair. Even though he finds out that the man, Venables, is crippled by polio, and is incapable of standing due to the atrophy of his legs, Osborne remains certain of his identification and suggests that Venables could have faked his disability.
Mark's girlfriend, Hermia, does not take his growing fears seriously and he becomes disaffected with her. He does, however, receive support from Ariadne Oliver, and from a vicar's wife, Dane Calthrop, who wants him to stop whatever evil might be taking place. Mark also makes an ally of Katherine "Ginger" Corrigan, a girl whom he has met in the area, and who successfully draws Poppy out about the Pale Horse organisation. Ginger obtains from Poppy an address in Birmingham, where Mark meets Mr Bradley, a disbarred lawyer, who outlines the means by which the Pale Horse functions without breaking the law – that Bradley bets someone will die within a certain period of time and the client bets otherwise. If the person in question does die within that time, the client must pay. (One client who refused fell in front of an oncoming train and was killed).
With the agreement of Inspector Lejeune and the co-operation of Ginger, Mark agrees to solicit the murder of his first wife, who will be played by Ginger. At a ritual of some kind at the Pale Horse, Mark witnesses Thyrza apparently channel a malignant spirit through an electrical apparatus. Shortly afterwards, Ginger falls ill and begins to decline rapidly. In desperation, Mark turns to Poppy again, who mentions that her friend, Eileen Brandon, resigned from a research organisation called CRC (Customers' Reactions Classified) that seems to be connected with the Pale Horse. When Mrs Brandon is interviewed, she reveals that both she and Mrs Davis worked for the organisation, which surveyed targeted people about what foods, cosmetics and proprietary medicines they used.
Ariadne Oliver contacts Mark with a key connection that she has made: another victim of the Pale Horse (Mary Delafontaine) has lost her hair during her illness. The same thing happened to Lady Hesketh-Dubois, and Thomasina's hair was easily pulled out during the fight. Moreover, Ginger has begun to shed her own hair. Mark recognises the symptoms are of thallium poisoning, not some sort of satanic assassination.
It is revealed that Osborne has been the brains behind the Pale Horse organisation, and that the black magic element was a piece of misdirection on his part. The murders were committed by replacing products the victims had named in the CRC survey with poisoned ones. Osborne's clumsy attempt to implicate Venables was a vital mistake. After Osborne's arrest, Mark and Ginger, who is recovering, become engaged.
Characters Mark Easterbrook, a historian researching the Moguls Inspector Lejeune, the investigating officer Ariadne Oliver, the celebrated author (based on Agatha Christie) Jim Corrigan, the police surgeon Ginger Corrigan, a young woman (not related to Jim) Mr Venables, a wealthy man who uses a wheelchair Zachariah Osborne, a pharmacist Mr Bradley, legal representative of The Pale Horse Thyrza Grey, a practitioner of the Dark Arts Sybil Stamfordis, a medium Bella Webb, Thyrza Grey's cook and self-professed witch Thomasina Tuckerton, a wealthy young woman Pamela "Poppy" Stirling, an employee of Flower Studies Ltd. Rev Dane Calthrop, the local vicar Mrs Dane Calthrop, the vicar's wife Rhoda Despard, Mark Easterbrook's cousin Colonel Hugh Despard, Rhoda's husband Mrs Tuckerton, Thomasina's stepmother (and heiress) Mrs Coppins, owner of the boarding house where Mrs Davis dies Eileen Brandon, a former employee of Customers' Reactions Classified Hermia Redcliffe, Mark's pretentious girlfriend David Ardingley, a historian friend of Mark Father Gorman, a Roman Catholic priest
Characters repeated in other Christie works Ariadne Oliver also appears in Parker Pyne Investigates, Cards on the Table, Mrs McGinty's Dead, Dead Man's Folly, Third Girl, Hallowe'en Party, and Elephants Can Remember. Colonel Despard (as Major John Despard) and Rhoda Dawes (maiden name) both also appear in Cards on the Table. Rev and Mrs Dane Calthrop both also appear in The Moving Finger.
Literary significance and reception Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley Cox) praised the novel in the 8 December 1961 issue of The Guardian: "Mrs Agatha Christie is our nearest approach to perpetual motion. And not only does she never stop, but she drops the ball into the cup nearly every time; and if one is sometimes reminded of those automatic machines where one pulls a handle and out pops the finished product, that is a compliment to the automatic machine and not by any means a reflection on Mrs Christie. For the latest tug on the Christie handle produces a product which is not only up to the standard but even above it. The Pale Horse is in fact the best sample from this particular factory for some time, and that is saying plenty. The black magic theme is handled in a masterly and sinister fashion, and to give away what lay behind it would be unforgivable. This is a book which nobody (repeat, nobody) should miss."The Guardian 8 December 1961 (p. 7) Iles further named the novel as his favourite in the paper's Critic's choice for the end of the year, published one week later, writing that "It has not been an outstanding year for crime fiction, but as usual there have been one or two first-class items. The best puzzle has certainly been Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse."The Guardian 15 December 1961 (p. 9)
Robert Barnard: "Goodish late example – loosely plotted, but with intriguing, fantastical central idea. Plot concerns a Murder-Inc.-type organisation, with a strong overlay of black magic. Also makes use of 'The Box,' a piece of pseudo-scientific hocus-pocus fashionable in the West Country in the 'fifties (one of the things which drove Waugh to the verge of lunacy, as narrated in Pinfold)."Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie – Revised edition (pp. 201–02). Fontana Books, 1990.
In the "Binge!" article of Entertainment Weekly Issue #1343-44 (26 December 2014–3 January 2015), the writers picked The Pale Horse as an "EW favorite" on the list of the "Nine Great Christie Novels".
References or allusions
References to other works Several of Christie's earlier characters reappear in this book. In addition to Ariadne Oliver, Major Despard and his wife Rhoda (who met and fell in love in Cards on the Table) also participate in the plot. Mrs Dane Calthrop from The Moving Finger also reappears in approximately the same role as she played in that book: the rational but devoted Christian who wants the evil stopped.
Mrs Oliver is apprehensive of attending a fete, for reasons that will be apparent to readers of her previous appearance in a Christie novel: Dead Man's Folly.
In his conversation with Max Easterbrook, David Ardingley describes meeting a “nice elderly lady” at a psychiatric hospital who asked him “is it your poor child, who’s buried there, behind the fireplace?,” possibly making this an early appearance of Mrs Lancaster from By the Pricking of My Thumbs, which was published in 1968.
References in actual history This novel is notable among Christie's books as it is credited with having saved at least two lives after readers recognised the symptoms of thallium poisoning from its description in the book.
In 1975, Christie received a letter from a woman in Latin America who recognised the symptoms of thallium poisoning, thus saving a woman from slow poisoning by her husband. In 1977, a 19-month-old infant from Qatar was suffering from a mysterious illness. After the baby was flown to London, Marsha Maitland, a nurse who had been reading The Pale Horse, correctly suggested that the baby was suffering from thallium poisoning. In another instance, in 1971, a serial killer, Graham Frederick Young, who had poisoned several people, three fatally, was caught thanks to this book. A doctor conferring with Scotland Yard had read The Pale Horse and realised that the mysterious "Bovingdon bug" (the deaths occurred in a factory in Bovingdon, England) was in fact thallium poisoning.The Agatha Christie Companion, by Dennis Sanders and Len Lovallo (1984), pp. 314–15.
The novel is also cited to have been the "inspiration" of what was dubbed "The Mensa Murder". In 1988, George Trepal, an American Mensa Club member, poisoned his neighbours, Pye and Peggy Carr and their children, with thallium introduced in a Coca-Cola Classic bottles eight-pack. Peggy Carr succumbed while the others survived the attack.
Adaptations TV First ITV adaptation