Posted by Ed Kiser on May 28, 2014 at 14:56:11 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Beckfoot Layout posted by Mike Dennis on May 28, 2014 at 10:37:50:
The BECKFOOT layout, as I see it...
In PM CH19
The burglary is in progress. Dick has hidden in the Timothy's
hutch and hears the Great Aunt approaching.
---------------------
Suddenly he heard steps crossing the hall... Steps going to
the kitchen... the dining-room... the drawing-room...
they would be coming to the study next.
---------------------
While this does not mean that these rooms are phyically
contiguous, it does make for an odd pattern for the G.A.
to follow.
In PM CH3
"I'd like to ramscramble the one that put it into her head to
come," said Cook. "Where are we going to put her, I'd like to
know. Air the spare-room bed for her! I'll have to put her in
your mother's room."
"Oh, look here, we can't do that. She jolly well shan't sleep
in Mother's bed."
----------------------
This gives evidence of the existance of a bedroom that is where
Mrs. Blackett would normally sleep. The location of this room
is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps the mother's bedroom is in
the front corner over Captain Flint's study, with the guest room
where the G.A. is in between the Mother's bedroom and the girls'.
If the house is rather narrow, having these three in a row all on
one side might fit that pattern, but then, there is Captain Flint's
bedroom where Dick spent that first night as that is across the
hall, or at least across the "landing" from the guest room. So
the house has to be wide enough to hold that room as well.
As for the downstairs, I see the drawing room under the girls'
bedroom and under the guest bedroom, with two windows in the
drawing room. It has a grand piano in it, which does take up
considerable room.
Captain Flint's study is next to the drawing room at the front
of the house.
Across the hall from the drawing room is the dining room with room
for a large table in it. The rest of that side of the house is
the stairwell at the front of the house.
If there is a bathroom downstairs, it could be between the stairwell
and the dining room.
I do not see any entrance on that side of the house other than the
"back door" opening into the kitchen and passageway.
**************************************
In PM CH 1
Nancy is busy painting skull and crossbones decorations in the
guest room, when Peggy comes in...
-------------------
Peggy came across the landing with paper for more skulls and
crossbones.
"Here you are," she said. "Come and look at Dick's room.
-------------------
That Peggy came across the landing, and not down the hall, seems
to imply that the guest bedroom and Captain Flint's bedroom (where
Dick will be sleeping) are across from each other, and, by calling
that connection between those two rooms a "landing", implies
that this connection is at the top of the stairs. One goes upstairs
and come onto the second floor at the landing.
The single upstairs window we see at the front end of the house
in the drawing of Joly's men gathering for the hunt for the GA is
there lighting this landing at the head of the stairs.
Perhaps this is the stairwell. One comes in the front door that
is at the end of the house. To the left is the stairs, to the right
is Captain Flint's Study. There is no evidence as to how those
stairs are configured, but my imagination has there to the left of
the front door a few steps, then a turn right to go up along that
wall to an intermediate landing, then turn right 180 and go up the
remaining half of the steps, coming out on the second floor at the
landing which is right at the window over the front door. The
second floor area over the lower half of the stairs could have an
extension of the bedroom (Captain Flint's bedroom) like a long closet.
A railing along the side of the upstairs hall by the upper half of
the stairs provides safety. The halfway landing is under Captain
Flint's bedroom.
That upstairs hallway starts at the window in the front of the house.
As one gets to the top of the stairs, one is at that window. Turn
left at the landing to go down the hall, or go straight across the
hall to Mother's bedroom at the front corner of the house upstairs.
Once beyond the railing by the stairwell, on the left is Captain
Flint's bedroom. Across the hall from that on the right is the guest
bedroom. Further on down on the hall on the right is the girls'
bedroom. Across from their bedroom are the bath and box rooms.
At the end of that hall is the door to the upstairs of the kitchen
area, opening to a narrow hallway, with another door across the way
opening into Cook's private quarters. There is a window to the
right providing light to that passage way upstairs which is actually
the landing at the top of the stairs. Down the stairs to the left
to an intermediate landing, then 180 to the right to the rest of the
stairs to the downstairs. Under that landing in the
passageway is a swinging door to the dining room on the first floor
across the downstairs hall from the drawing room. The kitchen is
open to the passageway area. The outside door by the dining room
swinging door is the Back Door opening to the garage and pigeon loft.
The kitchen also is open to the Garden door on the opposite side of
the house from the back door. This Garden door is under the upstairs
landing at the top of those stairs. While the G.A. was missing, Cook
sat in her kitchen by the door (not sure if that is the Back door or
the Garden door) waiting for someone to arrive with news. I believe
that kitchen is open to both of these doors. That middle landing
of these back stairs, which is over the back door, provides additional
storage space accessed from the kitchen, and may be the place called
the larder.
I imagine these rear stairs to be rather narrow, unlike the more
generous width of the main stairs at the front of the house.
**************************************
PM CH5
Dorothea came back with the roses and met Nancy staggering
across the hall with a bundle of brown netting.
"Hammocks!" said Nancy, and dumped them on the floor.
----------------------
Dorothea was working with the flowers in the guest room.
Nancy comes "across the hall" with the hammocks. This
suggests that they had been stored on the opposite side
of the house, in some sort of "box room" where suitcases
and camping supplies get stored. Nancy/Peggy's bedroom is on
the same side of the hall as the guest room, with the
conjecture that this storage room is next to the bathroom
across the hall from the girls' room.
This suggests that upstairs, on one side (next to the
boathouse) at the rear is Nancy's and Peggy's bedroom,
and next to that is the guest bedroom, and at the front
of the house on the same side is the Mother's bedroom.
**************************************
In PM CH19
The night of the burglary, after the G.A. locked Dick in the
study, she went back upstairs.
--------------------
The light was gone. The door was shut. A key
turned in the lock. The steps went off across the hall and up the
creaking stairs.
--------------------
This seems to me to indicate that the stairs were on the side of
hall away from CF's study.
**************************************
As for the concept of "the front of the house" -
in PPCH33:
-------
Dick ran out of the back door, across the yard and up the
steps to the pigeon-loft.
-------
I picture this "back door" as coming out of the passageway,
going towards the stable or garage, with the pigeon-loft
in its upper area. The side of the house that faces this
outbuilding therefore must not be the FRONT of the house.
One does not have a BACK door coming out on the FRONT of the house.
It is my concept that the FRONT is really the END of the
house, where the STUDY is, where there is only one upstairs
window over the landing. This front door opens to a hallway
that runs the length of the house. At the opposite end is the
passageway, with two exits: one towards the outbuilding (the
back door) and the other side, called the garden door, facing
somewhat towards the boathouse, overlooking the garden area.
This passageway I see as being the location of the rear stairs
that Cook uses to get from her upstairs living quarters over
the kitchen and down to the kitchen itself.
When Nancy climbed the trellis, and came bounding down the
stairs and out the garden door, I feel that this is the stairs
she used.
*************************
PMCH25
Cook's sitting in the kitchen with the door open.
----------
I believe that this is either the BACK door or the GARDEN door,
both of which are possibly at either end of the passageway. But
for Cook to be IN THE KITCHEN, it sounds like the kitchen is
directly open to that door, so that seems to suggest that
at least that part of the passageway has no wall separating it
from the kitchen itself.
The concept of "the passageway" seems to take on several diverging
configurations in my mind. Perhaps the concept of a "passageway"
reall means a way to get from the kitchen to the dining room.
Try to consider that passageway as not being like a Hall at all,
but the path one takes to get from kitchen to the main part of the
house. Downstairs, the main hall has a door that opens directly
into the kitchen. Along that kitchen wall that is against the
main house, consider the stairs there providing access to the
Cook's quarters upstairs. The back door opens to the passageway
which is at one end of the kitchen. The garden door opens
at the opposite end, under the high part of the stairs, under
the landing. The "passageway" is that part of the path from the
back door to the bottom of the stairs. It is called the "passageway"
because there is a swinging door at the foot of the stairs opening
to the dining room, thus allowing Cook to walk from kitchen, thru
the "passageway" there at the bottom of the stairs, then thru the
swinging door to enter to dining room to serve and to remove
the dishes after the meal. These stairs start up from the door
to the downstairs hall, up to an intermediate landing over the
back door, then turn 180 to get to the top landing by the door to
Cook's private quarters to the left, and to the hall opening to
the main upstairs hallway to the right.
It is this intermediate landing of these stairs that is just over
the back door that is supported by a beam to which Dick hangs
his Pigeon Bell alarm tin tray.
The upstairs part of these stairs have a partition
separating it from Cooks's living quarters. Othes can use these
stairs without invading Cook's privacy. If Cook turns right at the
top of the stairs, she enters the end of the upstairs hall and sees
Nancy and Peggy's room at the first door on the left as she goes
up that hall. If she turns left, she enters her private quarters.
***************************
One of the problems I have with this house plan puzzle is that in
the drawings, the house seems so narrow. The Front door is shown
at the end of the downstairs hall way, and right above it is a
window lighting the landing of the main stairs. Captain Flint's
study is the first door on the right at the front corner, but
there is no window there at all. To the left of that front door,
as one comes in, I think is where the front stairs are. The
narrowness of this area do not allow much for having two rooms,
one on each side of the that hallway. Maybe room for just those
stairs on one side and the study on the other.
The drawing of the front of the house, showing just the door
downstairs, and a window upstairs seems to make this very narrow.
For the rooms that I visualized, there would seem to be a window
at the front for Captain Flint's study downstairs, and for the
Mother's bedroom upstairs, but there are no such windows shown.
************************
Beckfoot does have a separate addition to the main house to
contain the kitchen, and upstairs, Cook's private quarters.
I say "separate" in that the dimenions of that kitchen portion
is not as wide as that of the main house, yet is not AWAY from
the main house, but attached to it.
************************
I have made no attempt here to locate the fireplaces. With such
contratictory evidence in the various drawings showing the location
of the several chimneys to be in different places, it seemed to
be pointless to persure such conjecture. The drawing room did
have a fireplace, as that is where Peggy got the bellows.
I'm sure there is plenty of room for variations to what I see in
my mind's eye as I read these stories. Hopefully I have been able
to paint a word picture of the layout as I see it.
A lot of what "I see" is really my own conjecture, based on only
the skimpiest of word evidence, or perhaps just based on my own
imagination.
There is plenty of room for other people's imagination to fill in
the gaps in quite different ways.
Edwin M. Kiser, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]