Welcome to Part Nine of Agatha Christie's third very popular contribution to Tales for Our Time. Last night's episode included this passage, which befuddled Sue Sims, a First Month Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club:
I admit defeat on 'Got the M.P. in tow, I suppose, doing the gay boy on the beach.' Can anyone explain?
Well, Captain Hastings is gainfully employed as secretary to an MP - Member of Parliament. Any sentence in which an MP does the gay boy on the beach irresistibly reminds me of the penchant of Tory members of the Nineties for admitting to having "experimented with homosexuality in my youth". Michael Portillo revealed to Michael Gove (now the Spectator editor) that he had "had homosexual experiences in my youth". To which I responded in the Telegraph: "But the youth kept complaining, and eventually resigned." Don't suppose they'd run that joke today.
But that's not what's going on here. Mrs Christie is using "gay" in its pre-homosexual sense of blithe or carefree - such as a chap besporting himself on the sands. So Captain Hastings' music-hall-acrobat cutie is suggesting that his MP, liberated from the burthens of Westminster, is gambolling and frolicking sur la plage at Merlinville doing a gay-boy-on-the-beach routine.
On the other hand, it might just be the Fire Island of northern France.
In tonight's episode of The Murder on the Links, Hastings finds his interrogation of the gnarled old gardener somewhat heavy going:
Thus encouraged, I turned to Auguste.
"Where do you keep your boots?"
"Sac à papier!" growled the old man. "On my feet. Where else?"
"But when you go to bed at night?"
"Under my bed."
"But who cleans them?"
"Nobody. Why should they be cleaned? Is it that I promenade myself on the front like a young man?
So no gay-boy-on-the-beach frolics for Auguste. Members of The Mark Steyn Club can listen to Part Nine of our adventure simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
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