Agatha Christie up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. However, John Curran's "Agatha Christie: The Secret Notebooks" describes different working methods for every book in Christie's bibliography, contradicting the claim by Aldiss. Christie's mature novels, from 1940 onwards, often have titles drawn from literature. Four are from Shakespeare: Three are from the Bible: Another six are from other works of literature: In such cases, the original context of the title is usually printed as an epigraph. Similarly, the title of Christie's
Agatha Christie character stemmed from real Belgian refugees who were living in Torquay and the Belgian soldiers whom she helped to treat as a volunteer nurse in Torquay during the First World War. She began working on "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" in 1916, writing most of it on Dartmoor. Her original manuscript was rejected by such publishing companies as Hodder and Stoughton and Methuen. After keeping the submission for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Christie change the ending. She did so, and signed a contract which she later felt was exploitative. It