Mr Eastwood's Adventure

Mr Eastwood needs a story, something better than his current title "The Mystery of the Second Cucumber", when all at once he's asked to save a woman's life.

Unlike many authors, Agatha Christie didn't often write about writers. Other than the recurring detective novelist Ariadne Oliver, they rarely feature as main characters, perhaps because the writer's block Mr Eastwood is suffering from was never prevalent in Agatha Christie's own prolific career.

But as Mr Eastwood struggles with his novel's title, so did Agatha Christie with this particular story. It was published under several names, the original being The Mystery of the Second Cucumber when it was published in a magazine. Its first appearance in a book collection was in The Listerdale Mystery in 1934, titled Mr Eastwood's Adventure, but this title would also be revised in the US collection The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (1948), where it was published as The Mystery of the Spanish Shawl. Both the latter names are still in use in different collections around the world.

It has never been adapted.