All rights reserved. Others suggested the incident was a publicity stunt, while, more chillingly, some clues seemed to point in the direction of murder at the hands of her unfaithful husband, Archie Christie, a former First World War fighter pilot. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, the youngest of Clara and Frederick Millers three children. It was a public image she carefully crafted to conceal her real self. The parking brake was not secure on her car and it would have plunged into the water if a thick hedge had not stopped it. Her abandoned Morris Cowley was later found down a slope at Newlands Corner near Guildford. What she wanted most of all was to escape from the unbearable life of Mrs Christie. She had then boarded a train to Harrogate. Rather than confront the guest or gather information, they conducted a dining room stakeout. I had now become in my mind Mrs Teresa Neele of South Africa, she says. They tipped off her husband, Colonel Christie, who came to collect Agatha immediately. The more extreme notably the feature film Agatha, made in 1979 present her as the would-be murderer of Nancy Neele. She gave her name as Mrs Teresa Neele, signing the register in her usual handwriting. On a cold December night in 1926, Agatha Christie went out in her beloved Morris Cowley roadster and didnt return home for 11 days. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, on the other hand, took one of Christies gloves to a psychic in hopes of finding a thread to follow. And then, in the railway carriage, theres the watchful presence of Christie herself, unnoticed. In a dramatic unmasking which would have been at home in the pages of any Christie novel, Archie travelled with the police to Yorkshire and took a seat in the corner of the hotels dining room from where he watched his estranged wife walk in, take her place at another table and begin reading a newspaper which heralded her own disappearance as front page news. All that night I drove aimlessly about In my mind there was the vague idea of ending everything. The only lead came around ten days later. She changed her name, went to Kings Cross and bought a ticket to the spa resort of Harrogate.. The police were now set in their opinion that Christie had committed suicide. So she created a new character for herself, a character as which she could do what she wanted. Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter (@nytimesbooks), sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. She began to equip herself with a new wardrobe. Suggestions ranged from a nervous breakdown brought on by the death of her mother and embarrassment of her husbands affair, to a cynical publicity stunt to promote the successful but still little known author. Agatha Christie was the master of mystery: Books like "Murder on the Orient Express" and "Death on the Nile" made her the world's best-selling author (two billion copies sold) and have . In 1912, 22-year-old Agatha attended a local dance where she met and fell in love with Archibald Archie Christie, a qualified aviator who had been posted to Exeter. No one knew or saw Agatha during these days. While the possibility of suicide was still there, many detectives believed that Christie was alive and not far from where her car was found. Mr W Taylor, the hotels manager, stated later that his guest took a good room on the first floor, fitted with hot and cold water. He was known to have a mistress. Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of the most famous English poets of all time, with a career spanning 62 years, The most famous of all English playwrights was born in 1564 and died on St Georges Day, in 1616. The continued disappearance of Agatha prompted people to spin more tantalizing and impossible stories. I was flung against the steering wheel and my head hit something.. Yes, she was easy to overlook, as is the case with nearly any woman past middle age. A local lake known as the Silent Pool was also dredged in case life had imitated art and Agatha had met the same fate of one of her unfortunate characters. It may have been accidental, and deeply unpleasant, but it would also become a central plank of her massive success. At the encouragement of her older sister, Margaret herself a writer who was often published in Vanity Fair Agatha wrote the first of her many detective novels, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Here, historian Giles Milton explores the author's 11 missing days, and the unprecedented manhunt sparked in the wake of her disappearance At shortly after 9.30pm on Friday 3 December 1926, Agatha Christie got up from her armchair and climbed the stairs of her Berkshire home. Agatha Christie did nothing to arouse suspicions as she joined in with the balls, dances and Palm Court entertainment. There were photos of her in the Daily Mail, a new publishing contract with William Collins and a 500 advance for serial rights to The Man in the Brown Suit that paid for a Morris Cowley car. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, on the other hand, took one of Christies gloves to a psychic in hopes of finding a thread to follow. The lights were on and all of Christies belongings were still inside. The following day the Westminster Gazette reported that no fewer than 300 police officers and special constables had taken part in a search in Surrey. People noticed that she usually had a book in her hand. For 11 days the country buzzed with conjecture about the disappearance. All the elements of a classic Christie story were there. A number of theories have been advanced to explain this episode. Recent biographies, like one by Laura Thompson, shed little light on the episode. there came into my mind the thought of driving into it. But readers could be forgiven for thinking the author was somehow cashing in on her new notoriety. She wrote her first book in 1916; it was called The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Ten days later, the head waiter at the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, (now known as the Old Swan Hotel) contacted police with the startling news that a lively and outgoing South African guest by the name of Theresa Neale may actually be the missing writer in disguise. When approached by her husband, witnesses noted a general air of puzzlement and little recognition for the man to whom she had been married for nearly 12 years. When an official form required her to put down what she did, the woman who is estimated to have sold 2bn copies always wrote housewife. All these theories show us that people wanted to twist Agathas strange disappearance to resemble the plot of a mystery story, eminently suitable for a mystery author. Unbeknown to the police and public who were looking for her in Surrey, matters in Yorkshire were moving swiftly towards a denouement. All rights reserved. I was flung against the steering wheel, and my head hit something. Accept Read More. Central Press/Getty Images The disappearance of Agatha Christie made headlines after the novelist mysteriously vanished for 11 days in 1926. Agatha seldom spoke about what happened in December 1926. This proved no less futile. They both had her paperbacks. She wanted to drive off to somewhere unknown. After Agatha was found on December, 1926, she was taken home by Col. Christie. (It was the unspoken subject. She had her only child in 1919. On Monday morning, Asher noticed Christie had the London newspaper taken up with breakfast in bed. With injuries from the impact to her head and chest, she walked through the wintry countryside in a dreamlike state. While Christies husband denied that he knew who this Tressa was, the woman he wished to marry was named Nancy Neele. The solution to the darkest of all Agatha Christie mysteries may be at hand. However, all these efforts were futile. They were pretty certain they were hunting for a corpse. Until now the two most popular theories offered for these strange events have been that either Christie was suffering from memory loss after a car crash, or that she had planned the whole thing to thwart her husband's plans to spend a weekend with his mistress at a house close to where she abandoned her car. Delivery charges may apply. In effect, the writer was in a kind of trance for several days, he claims. When I reached a point on the road which I thought was near the quarry, I turned the car off the road down the hill toward it. She wasn't alone in becoming an author-as-celebrity. From there I went to Newlands Corner.. Was it revenge, depression or amnesia? Searchers try to find clues to Christie's disappearance. The author herself had had enough of reading the papers. One is that, in the days after the crash, she was experiencing the specific condition of dissociative fugue a state brought on by trauma and stress, in which you literally forget who you are. By the second week of the search, the news had spread around the world. Her husband said that shed suffered a total memory loss as a result of the car crash. Feared dead, she was eventually discovered alive, supposedly suffering from amnesia. Benedict has written compelling biographical fiction about other famous women to great effect. It makes most other literary biographies seem unnecessarily padded. One is that the disappearance was Agatha's bid to regain Archie's affections. She took a taxi to a hotel, apparently picked at random, called the Hydropathic. Its an empowering and wonderful tribute to the woman who has sold more than 2 billion books and whose stars, including Poirot and Miss Marple, are still and may always be at the forefront of the mystery genre. But Christie was oblivious. Save 70% on the shop price when you subscribe today - Get 13 issues for just $49.99 + FREE access to HistoryExtra.com, The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie, Enjoying HistoryExtra.com? Her secretary dismissed the claim that Agatha had committed suicide since her letter contained instructions and scheduling details for the future. The winter light must have faded by the time her train arrived. All of the theories in this case fall under one of two headings either Christie disappeared due in some part to her husband, or that she disappeared for an unrelated reason. When she had been here about four days, recalled the hotels manager, my wife said to me: I believe that lady is Mrs Christie! Mr Taylor thought his wife was being absurd, but she wasnt the only one to have worked it out. They had no idea of the identity of their fellow passenger, and proceeded to discuss the most famous author in the world. The police threw a huge amount of resources into the search for Agatha Christie, using 1,000 policemen, hounds, and even airplanes for aerial searches. The next theory is that Christie purposefully staged her disappearance to ruin her husbands life. A theory floated by the police indicated that Mrs. Christie might have been in London the entire time. But she was desperate for her life to unfold in an orderly fashion. When the fight was over, Christie went upstairs, kissed her seven-year-old daughter goodnight, and left the house in her Morris Cowley. What do you all think? to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. It even made the front page of the New York Times. It was the perfect tabloid story, with all the elements of one of Christie's own 'whodunnit' mysteries. According to another scenario, her flight was a . She had been presented with the idea of divorce by her husband, who had been carrying on an affair. Miss Corbett, the hotels entertainment hostess, spotted that Mrs Neele still had the price 75 shillings pinned to her new shawl. There were rumours that shed been murdered by her husband, Archie Christie, a former First World War pilot and serial philanderer. Several plausible theories have competed for favour over the years, but biographer Andrew Norman believes he is the first to find one that satisfies every element of the case. Its possible that Christie went out that night to blow off steam and something else occurred to trigger a fugue state but, again, we dont have anything to point to that. As Mrs Neele, she said later, I was very happy and contented.. Despite her gigantic success, she retained her perspective as an outsider and onlooker. However, on the rare occasion that she did speak, she recalled that she was under severe nervous strain due to marital discord during those days. UPDATE: In honor of Agatha Christie's 125 birthday, we're revisiting what is perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding this remarkable woman the unsolved one. However, despite the number of mysteries Christie penned, one she lived through has lived on as the most confounding and complex enigmas in the literary world. If the women on the train had asked her profession, shed have said she had none. (The dog just whined pitifully.). She did not need a publicity stunt to get her name out there or boost sales. It was the last great mystery that Agatha Christie left unsolved - claiming amnesia after she disappeared for 11 days in 1926. In the aftermath of Agathas disappearance both Archie Christie and his mistress Nancy Neale were under suspicion and a huge manhunt was undertaken by thousands of policemen and eager volunteers. New theory suggests the crime writer was investigating a real-life murder in 92-year-old mystery that could have leapt from the pages of one of her novels. Agatha regained her memory, which is why it could not have been complete amnesia. The car was found near a chalk quarry the next morning. Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley is published by Hodder & Stoughton. Around 9.45pm, without warning, she drove away from the house, having first gone upstairs to kiss her sleeping daughter, Rosalind. This was no doubt as a result of the Miller familys own decent into poverty after Agathas father, an affluent American businessman, was stricken by a number of heart attacks leading to his death in November 1901 when Agatha was only 11 years old. Top Image: Where did the famous detective novelist go? A key part of the book is uncovering the truth, as far as it can be ascertained, around Agatha's disappearance in December 1926, but it is not simply a book about those eleven days. But her writings about her life have had this novelising tendency all along. Tressa Neele. When asked, Col. Christie insisted he had no idea what the meaning of that particular name was nor, he added, did his wife. Crowds at King's Cross station hope to catch a glimpse of Christie. Hulton Archive/Getty Images. You cant write your fate, Christie would say, years later, but you can do what you like with the characters you create. It didnt take long for the police to locate her car. She was tired; she was in deep distress. But according to biographer Andrew Norman, the novelist may well have been in whats known as a fugue state or, more technically, a psychogenic trance. I hear, said one of the ladies, she drinks like a fish.. And more recently, a British made-for-TV film, Agatha and the Truth of Murder, offered a new theory: Christie disappeared in order to take part in a homicide investigation. Although Christie was only missing 11 days (she was discovered at a Yorkshire spa), and nearly 100 years have passed without a credible explanation, a cottage industry of conjecture continues to grow. First is that some people believed that Agatha Christie had vanished because she was off investigating a homicide somewhere. The price of seven guineas a week caused her no hesitation: She seemed to have as much money as she wanted., Christies room was serviced by a young chambermaid named Rosie Asher, who seems to have kept a particularly close eye on her. If life sometimes imitates art, one great example is the mysterious disappearance of famous crime novelist Agatha Christie. When I told people I was writing about Christie, their first questions were often about the 11 dramatic days in 1926 when she disappeared at the height of her writing career, causing a nationwide hunt for her corpse. Benedict tells Christies story through parallel constructs. Additionally, its been said that Christie signed into the hotel under Neale, which was the surname of her husbands mistress. To anyone. Her marriage to the charming Archie craters after a few years as he begins to show his true self: narcissistic, cruel, misogynistic and emotionally abusive. Fairfax Media In my novel, we find Christie at a low . Their specialist knowledge, it was hoped, would help find the missing writer. . Had the author run away from her heartbreak, unsure of where she was going or what to do? This seems to be one denouement that the great detective writer will never reveal to her readership. Agatha Christie was already a famous writer and more than one thousand policemen were assigned to the case, along with hundreds of civilians. That is too intentional to ignore. In 1977 Kathleen Tynan wrote a novel, Agatha, about the episode; it was turned into a film starring Vanessa Redgrave. For the purposes of this blog, we will cover five of the larger theories, though there are dozens of others. ), Christie herself discussed the incident publicly only once, in a 1928 interview she gave to The Daily Mail. Christies car was found lodged in a hedge, its front wheels over the edge of the chalk pit. Its possible that the idea of divorce triggered this in her, but the fact that she tucked her daughter into bed before leaving does not point to this. On Friday 3 December 1926, the English crime novelist Agatha Christie vanished from her home in Berkshire. I left home that night in a state of high nervous strain with the intention of doing something desperate. Certainly her apparent failure to recognise him would seem to endorse this theory. According to The New York Times, Agatha refused to talk about it, ever, for the rest of her life. The mystery of Christie's 11-day disappearance in 1926 is . She would press her hand to her forehead and say: It is my head. Until the closing chapters, Benedict forces us to ask who is more credible: Agatha or Archie? Agatha Christies own words deepen mystery of the Queen of Crime. On the morning of Saturday 11 December, the Telegraph carried a big advert for a forthcoming serialisation of The Murder on the Links. The death of her beloved mother, and Archies unsympathetic response (he didnt even go to the funeral), had strained their relationship almost to breaking point when Archie confessed that he was in love with someone else a young woman called Nancy Neele and wanted a divorce. In his study of the writer's life published this autumn, Norman uses medical case studies to show that Christie was in the grip of a rare but increasingly acknowledged mental condition known as a 'fugue state', or a period of out-of-body amnesia induced by stress. Perhaps hoping to divert attention away from Nancy Neele, he introduced the idea that maybe his wife had deliberately disappeared. It did not. It was trumpeted as the work of Agatha Christie the Missing Novelist. Detectives appealed for help from motorists and amateur sleuths: Without telling why, the police still believe she is somewhere on the downs not far from the spot where her missing automobile was found.. | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | DMCA Notice, This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Christie had left three letters behind: one to her secretary, another to her brother-in-law and a third to her husband, who refused to divulge what she had written. If Christie were alive, its writer argued, she must be ready to inflict intense anxiety on her relatives and heavy expenditure on the public in a heartless practical joke. All rights reserved. It is said that the discovery of this affair and Archies request for a divorce was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back, especially since it followed the death of Agathas beloved mother Clara from bronchitis. What happened in those 11 days of disappearance remains a mystery worthy enough to be the plot of one of Christies novels. It is possible that she felt this constituted enough of a disruption of her life that she saw no other way to cope. Why not try 6 issues of BBC History Magazine or BBC History Revealed for 9.99 delivered straight to your door, Arsenic: a brief history of Agatha Christies favourite murder weapon. It was a real no-go, one of Christies friends told Thompson. He was also unsuccessful. It is possible, and even a reasonable assumption that Agatha had not lost her memory but was depressed and resentful towards her husband for his affair with Miss Neele. When the fight was over, Christie went upstairs, kissed her seven-year-old daughter goodnight, and left the house in her Morris Cowley. He told Agatha he wanted a divorce and, to add insult to injury, that he would be spending the weekend with friends a group which included Neale. From there, the idea has spread into films and novels. an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking The disappearance of Christie made headlines on December 6th, and suddenly the world was cast into grave worry over the fate of their favorite mystery writer. (modern), gatha Christie was sitting quietly on a train when she overheard a stranger saying her name. Source: Peter / CC BY 2.0. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, While Mrs. Christie seemed completely fine, initially, it was reported that she suffered from a complete loss of memory. Agatha Christie never discussed the circumstance and happenings of her disappearance in detail, and the event remains mysterious to this day. 'I believe she was suicidal,' said Norman. It was a Morris Cowley, not a Morris Crowley. She remembered nothing. Of course, none of us knew what was going on in her head, so it is impossible to say. 'Her state of mind was very low and she writes about it later through the character of Celia in her autobiographical novel, Unfinished Portrait.'. So, what are the facts in this case? 5621230. At last, she put into action a vague plan that had occupied her thoughts for the previous 24 hours. Only one thing can be said for certain: on Saturday 4 December 1926, and for some days thereafter, Christie experienced a distressing episode of mental illness, brought on by the trauma of the death of her mother and the breakdown of her marriage. Whatever the motivation, sales of her books jumped; fifteen months later, she divorced Colonel Archie; two years after the divorce, she remarried, as did Archie to, yes, Nancy Neale. It is possible that she disappeared with the intention of ruining her husbands weekend getaway with his mistress. Such was the speculation that the home secretary of the day, William Joynson-Hicks, put pressure on the police to make faster progress. Christies husband, Colonel Christie, had asked for a divorce four months earlier, as he had fallen in love with another woman. The relatively unknown writer suddenly became front page news and a handsome reward was offered for any new evidence or sightings. It was not until Agatha moved to Collins publishing house in 1926 for an impressive advance of two hundred pounds that she began to see the fruits of her labour and the couple and their young daughter Rosalind moved to a new home in Berkshire named Styles after Agathas first novel. The lights were on and all of Christie's belongings were still inside. When Col. Christie showed up in Harrogate to collect his wife, he was welcomed by her with a stony stare. Later, hundreds of people showed up at a London train station as the couple made their way home, hoping to catch a glimpse. Her state of mind was very low and she writes about it later through the character of Celia in her autobiographical novel Unfinished Portrait.. The Mysterious Case of Tichborne and His Stolen Identity, https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/books/author-reconstructs-agatha-christie-s-famous-15856699, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/books/agatha-christie-vanished-11-days-1926.html, https://allthatsinteresting.com/agatha-christie-disappearance, Fulcanelli: The Mysterious French Alchemist. The author's books have sold more than two billion copies and her stage play . I left the wheel and let the car run. That night I felt terribly miserable. The couple had moved to a grand 12-bedroom house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they named Styles, but Archie was often absent and Agatha was increasingly unhappy there. At Harrogate, she said, I read every day about Mrs Christies disappearance I regarded her as having acted stupidly. A fellow guest remembered her saying that Mrs Christie is a very elusive person. Along with this first theory, the second theory is that Christie disappeared while in a dissociative fugue. The car was found near a chalk quarry the next morning. Her disappearance would spark one of the largest manhunts ever mounted. In 1926, the Englishwoman disappeared for 11 days, spurring a nationwide search. In Benedicts imagination, Agatha wonders, What had I done wrong this time? whenever the manipulative Archie says something like, Do you think I like being here with you? I felt that I could go on no longer. Indeed Agatha makes no mention of it in her autobiography which was published posthumously in November 1977. Read More. [ In Agatha Christies books, she captures something elemental about mysteries: that motive and opportunity may suffice for a crime, but the satisfying part is the detectives revelation of whodunit, how and why. ], The police, apparently unconvinced by the letter, expanded their search, even bringing one of Christies pets to the scene to see if he could track his owners scent. Newspaper headlines covering the . It seems that Christie shocked herself into realising that whatever happened, life was worth living. The public got involved as well, mounting their own searches and muddying the waters. Some said the incident was nothing more than a publicity stunt, a clever ruse to promote her new book. Conan Doyle, who was interested in the occult, took a discarded glove of Christie's to a medium, while Sayers visited the scene of the disappearance, later using it in the novel Unnatural Death. What lay behind her extraordinary 11-day disappearance in 1926? Its possible that the idea of divorce triggered this in her, but the fact that she tucked her daughter into bed before leaving does not point to this. Her chambermaid noted that on Sunday, while police were searching the Surrey Downs for her, or her body, she slept until 10am, had breakfast in bed and then went out. Four days later, they had turned up nothing from their search of the area. Photo: Poster of a missing person from 9 December 1926. Rewards were offered; Archie was at first suspected of foul play. While Christie explained the disappearance and her loss of memory were the result of a nervous breakdown, the press and later generations of fans have come up with other, more sinister theories . Agatha Christie left a mystery that even Hercule Poirot would have been unable to solve. He had been having an affair with a woman named Nancy Neale (sometimes spelled Neele). The alternative position is that she was faking it, even trying to frame Archie for killing her. Now writer Andrew Wilson has unveiled a new theory as to why she . She lost her way of life and her sense of self. Read an excerpt from Marie Benedict's novel The Mystery of Mrs. Christie. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, her ingenious masterpiece, had just been published and her literary agent was pushing for a follow-up. Fifteen months after Agatha was found and returned home, she sued her husband for divorce, and Col. Christie married Nancy Neele a week after it was granted. Theories are in no short supply when it comes to the real answers behind her disappearance, but nothing can be known for certain. It is possible that she felt this constituted enough of a disruption of her life that she saw no other way to cope. She sidestepped a world that tried to define her. By December 1926, police and detectives concluded that Agatha Christie had left her home for good. Christie arrived with no suitcase, but explained she had recently come from South Africa and had left her luggage with friends. In the novels second and more intriguing thread, Benedict, in cinematic fashion, takes us inside one of the biggest hunts for a missing person in British history. And so, dazed, distressed, but alive, she got out of her car. However, Agatha appeared extremely cold towards her husband, which indicates underlying tension between the two. She did not need a publicity stunt to get her name out there or boost sales. After three days of searching for the novelist, the police called it off. Up to this moment I was Mrs Christie, she explains.
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