Verdict

by Agatha Christie

Melodrama in two acts: Characters: 6 male, 4 female Interior Set The Hendryks, refugees in England, have lost everything. Professor Karl Hendryk with his talents, charm, and hard work rebuilds their lives. But Anya, his wife, is fatally ill and so her old friend, Lisa, who secretly loves Karl, lives with them and runs the house. The three are very close. Their serenity is shattered when wealthy, brainless but headstrong Helen Rollander bribes her way into taking private lessons from Karl.

Genres: Plays, Agatha Christie, Mystery, Classics, Fiction, Drama, Novella

106 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.

Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paying For What You Want
A review of the Samuel French / Concord Theatricals playscript (January 22, 2014) of the original Samuel French paperback (1958).

The only way you can learn about life is by experience. The Spanish have a proverb*, “‘Take what you want and pay for it,’ says God.” That’s sound, Professor Hendryk, very sound.

Verdict is that rare creature among Agatha Christie playscripts which is not based on an earlier novel or short story. The setup is that a Professor Karl Hendryk is caring for an ailing wife along with the wife's cousin and a scamming and rather treacherous housekeeper. A young student Helen is crushing on the Prof and wants private lessons, which Hendryk refuses. When he eventually relents, Helen murders the wife through an overdose, but the cousin is arrested based on faulty evidence by the housekeeper. The reveals come while everyone awaits the verdict from a subsequent court trial.

I did overall enjoy Verdict although it didn't break into 4 or 5 star territory. There is a seemingly abrupt "happy ending," which comes along so quickly that I suspect it might have been forced on Christie by the theatrical producers who wanted to avoid a downer ending.

This playscript counts against my Agatha Christie binge goal, so I now have 22 novels (if I include the 6 published under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott), 5 short story collections, 13** theatrical plays (+ several harder to find 1-act radio plays) and 1 autobiography left to go.

Footnotes
* I could not find any trace of an original Spanish proverb of this line, assuming it was something like Toma lo que quieras y paga por ello”, dice Dios.. It is possible that Christie invented the phrase as a way to foreshadow that you will end up paying for things that you take... or murder for.

** The number of theatrical plays might need revision as I've discovered there are two different versions of the play adapted from the novel Towards Zero (1944). There is #1 Towards Zero (The Martha's Vineyard or the so-called Outdoor Version) (1945) and #2 Towards Zero: A Stage Play (1956) written in cooperation with Gerald Verner.

Trivia and Link
I have found that the most complete source for the theatrical works is online at Concord Theatricals, although they include several adaptations from the novels which were made posthumously without Agatha Christie's participation. I won't count those as part of the official canon.

[Matthew Hodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm torn as to whether to give this play 3 or 4 stars. 4 because it actually doesn't follow the standard Christie formula. (Since when have you ever seen the murder get committed up front in one of her stories?)

But 3 because I'm really not sure about those last couple of lines of dialogue. (But I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it.)

[Crissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very atmospheric and thought-provoking! Would love to see it live. Intriguing story!

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing ending. Agatha always feels a need to throw some twist at the end and sometimes it works and sometimes it's just aggravating.

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Professor Hendryk's wife is an invalid. Mrs. Hendryk's cousin, Lisa, lives with the family as a companion and nurse for her. When Mrs. Hendryk is found dead, poisoned by an overdose of her heart medicine, Lisa comes under suspicion. Professor Hendryk's own ideals of morality and mercy will get him into trouble, since he refuses to report something he knows about the murder.

I don't think this can really be called a mystery, since the audience knows from the beginning who the murderer is because the murder happens onstage in full view, and then the murderer confesses to another character, so most of the characters also know who the murderer is. The only people who don't know are the police.

This is more of a drama and a weird love story rather than an actual mystery with clues. I suppose that does make more sense on the stage, and maybe doesn't translate as well when you are just reading it.

I think a lot of the dramatic appeal of this play would hinge on the character of Professor Hendryk. The actor playing his part would have to look the part and have the right kind of charisma and a powerful presence. His personality is larger than life, and all the other characters revolve around him.

I certainly found this story interesting and enjoyable to read!

[Anirudh Kukreja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah this was a huge miss. I never knew Agatha Christie wrote drama. There was no mystery, no suspense, not even a proper proper storyline. This was the Agatha Christie equivalent of The Cursed Child.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Agatha Christie’s plays, and after seeing both Witness for the Prosecution and The Mousetrap, I knew I was going to enjoy it. Still, it was even better than I was expecting it to be, and this is probably my favourite of all of her plays so far.

So now I just need to go and see a production of it, but I guess that will have to wait until the world’s a little bit more normal. In the meantime, go read it!

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agatha Christie meets Hollyoaks. Not bad at all!

The character of Dr. Stoner played the same role as Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet: the one who, despite his flaws, is the sobering and more mature voice for the characters. :)

[Diana Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a typical murder mystery as there is no mystery to the murder but a twist in the plot. It would have been grand indeed to see the reaction of the audience to this play.

[Gail Sacharski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play by Agatha Christie is one she considered her best and, after reading in Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days about the motivation for many of her writings, I can understand why. Many of her plots were based on her relationships in her two marriages. In this play, a well-loved & popular professor has an invalid wife with a progressive disease. She is cared for by her first cousin who is a degreed physicist herself, but has chosen to follow this couple into exile from their home country to nurse her cousin & manage the household. A beautiful young student of the professor's who has been spoiled by her rich father to get everything she wants has decided she wants the professor to give her private tutoring. When he refuses her in favor of two poorer but more dedicated students, she has her wealthy father argue & bribe the professor with inclusion into an experimental medical program for a cure for his wife's illness. The wife has become an unhappy & complaining patient over the years, missing her home & her friends, bored with the inactivity & uninspiring days of her painful & hopeless life so the attractive student, who gets her way, feels the professor must be an unhappy husband & will be more than happy to fall in love with her as she has fallen in love with him. She is not prepared to take no for an answer when he insists he loves his wife & doesn't consider her a burden & wants nothing to do with the student. Used to getting what she wants & upset when he persists in his refusal of her affections, she decides to free him of his burdensome wife. This action then results in a twisted repercussion of blame in the wrong place via the nosy housekeeper & the arrest of the wife's cousin for murder. I think it was a very good play & can understand why Agatha felt it was one of her best. It wasn't popular when it was produced for the stage partly due to the title. The audience was expecting a taut courtroom drama with a big reveal of the true murderer. Instead, the murder is committed in sight of the audience on stage so there is no question of the guilty party & the only surprise was the arrest of the wrong person & the reasons for that. I enjoyed it.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think this is my favorite work of christie's i've experienced so far??? i saw it performed and was totally blown away - and part of that definitely has to be credited to the actors. this play was different from what i was expecting from christie, mainly because it is not a murder mystery - you actually see the murder happen. the people in the audience with me were very excited to find out when we would see the titular verdict, and loved the "christie twist," haha. if christie were still alive today, i'd say she should consider writing more outside her usual genre and more like this (could you call it drama? romantic suspense?)! the characters here are so compelling, and there is lots of interesting food for thought about what makes life worth living, prioritizing values over people or vice versa, what draws people together, what people will do to get what they want, etc. i don't want to psychoanalyze christie but there is also something going on with gender and relationship dynamics here. it reminded me somewhat of her short play rats in The Rule of Three which also involves (the possibility of) cheating. i wish i had a physical copy, because there were a lot of quotes that stood out to me and had the audience hmm-ing in agreement or going "oooooh."

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've finished most of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories, and I was like...well why not just finish up the plays as well? I'm mostly targeting the ones that aren't adapted from/into another of Agatha Christie's works. This is such a one, although it is incredibly familiar, I feel like I've seen it before somewhere! But of course, my memory being what it is, I can't remember where - some anthology I suppose. Anyway, this is more a drama than a mystery, but there is a crime, it held my interest, although I felt some of it was a bit unrealistic.

Sidenote - Agatha Christie really seems to have a thing about women with an unhealthy interest in sickness and misery, the character appears again and again in her works and also in here. They also tend to be lower-class. This is the first place where I've really noted this pattern aloud to myself.

[Patricia Fischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love all things Agatha Christie, but this isn’t one of my favorites. Although there is a murder, this isn’t a mystery because we know who committed it. The plot involves someone else being arrested and tried for the crime. What will be the verdict?

[Uri Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't as exciting as the other Christie plays I've been reading, possibly because it doesn't leave you in suspense as to whodunit. The audience watches the murder take place on stage, and then the question is whether the murderer will get away with it. Still, it's pretty good!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely one of the weaker plays, it must be said

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have very few books by Agatha Christie to read. I've been trying to get this for some time. It was certain worth the effort!.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good play - a few interesting twists.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very different from most Christie mysteries. Much more psychological. It left you guessing but not from any clues. Ends on a quick upbeat.

[Jessie Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Christie read of 2025. Quite fascinating.

[Taylor's♡Shelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good example of a text that I really liked but completely understand why someone wouldn't care for it at all. Unlike most of her plays, Verdict can't exactly be called a murder mystery as the murder isn't a mystery. The murder takes place right on center stage, and not as a red herring sort of event. No twists. No turns. Clear as day.

Given this creative restraint on Christie, you might figure that the rest of the play would be quite dull. Some may think it was. But I think this story was less about murder and more about motive, and whether that motive is acted upon depending on the individual.
 
I'm not sure how I feel about the very very end (like the last five lines). I don't understand Christie's need to make all of her plays end happily. Did theatres at the time just not host plays that had anything but a happy ending? Not only that, but I feel like it took away from the emotional through-line of the play, about love not being about ardent desire or an incarnation of passionate eroticism. It's like the play was made for some sort of deep reflection, and then in the last 30 seconds it decides that said reflection isn't that instrumental anyway.

Nearly a perfect play for me, sans the Hollywood ending. 

Reread 2021: Friendly reminder to look both ways before crossing the street.

Reread 2021 (2): I'd like to think that it wasn't Mrs. Roper stealing all the tea but in fact Lester, who was reselling it to fund more dates for himself.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really much of a mystery. More of a domestic story.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels but it was still good.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing story and not an adaptation of a book! I liked it, great lines at the end!!

[Aleena Fernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this play I am a bit confused on where the mystery is. Yes, there is a suspense that is maintained throughout, I was forced to make random guess on suspects. This play has a very different storyline from the rest of Agatha Christie novels and plays, this is definitely not written in a way you would expect a suspense story to be.