Cust’s typewriter

Cust’s typewriter is the machine Franklin Clarke arranged to place in Alexander Bonaparte Cust’s possession after using it to prepare the letters that made Cust appear to be the author of the alphabetical murder campaign. The object’s importance turns on that transfer: presented as part of Clarke’s elaborate frame-up, the typewriter also preserved the fingerprint that helped expose him. What was meant to make Cust look guilty ultimately connected Clarke to the scheme.

Manufacture of the Frame-Up

Clarke’s plan depended on making the correspondence point to Cust. He first arranged for a large consignment of hosiery to be sent in Cust’s name and sent parcels of A B C railway guides that looked like similar commercial packages. He then typed a letter, supposedly from the same firm, offering Cust a salary and commission. The typewriter was central to the deception: Clarke typed the letters sent afterward on the machine, then gave the machine to Cust, making Cust’s possession of it appear to support the false story.

The machine therefore served two purposes in the plan. Its presence with Cust helped make the letters seem to belong to him, while Clarke’s prior use of it tied the supposedly incriminating documents to the person who had manufactured the evidence. The gift was not an incidental detail but one part of an arrangement laid in advance to direct suspicion away from Clarke.

The Fingerprint and the Investigation

The typewriter’s role reversed when Hercule Poirot set out the evidence against Clarke. Poirot explained that Clarke had left a fingerprint on the machine—the very typewriter that Clarke could not have handled if he were innocent. In the same account, Poirot described other corroborating evidence: a weighted walking stick found at Combeside, identifications placing Clarke in relevant locations, and witnesses who had seen him leaving the cinema when he was supposed to be at the Doncaster racecourse.

The fingerprint was especially damaging because it joined the object to Clarke’s physical handling and contradicted the innocent explanation Clarke would need. Although the machine had been put in Cust’s hands to strengthen a false accusation, its trace preserved a link to its actual user. Once Clarke was suspected, Poirot said, proof was readily obtained; the typewriter’s overlooked mark helped turn suspicion into evidence.

Reversal and Significance

The machine embodies the failure of Clarke’s otherwise carefully prepared misdirection. Clarke had anticipated how Cust’s name, initials, medical history, and apparent vulnerability could be made to fit the alphabetical pattern. He typed the letters in advance and supplied Cust with the machine, intending that possession to reinforce the deception. Yet the act of preparing the evidence left behind the clue that undermined it.

Cust’s typewriter thus changes meaning over the course of the investigation: first an instrument of fabrication, then an apparent prop in the case against Cust, and finally an evidentiary link to Clarke. Its significance lies not in any special mechanical property, but in the gap between the story Clarke constructed around it and the trace his own use left behind. The machine meant to make a substitute culprit convincing instead helped identify the person who had arranged the substitution.