1976: Queen of crime dies with mystery unsolved
The ‘Queen of crime fiction’ breathed her last at the age of 85, carrying her most enigmatic mystery to the grave unsolved. Dame Agatha Christie’s books have been translated into every major language since the first one appeared in 1920. She was the creator of the Belgian dandy martinet Hercule Poirot and the parochial English Miss Jane Marple. Of nearly 100 novels, many were made into films, while the stage play ‘The Mousetrap’ ran for 24 years in London’s West End.
In August 1926, Archie Christie asked Agatha for a divorce after falling in love with another woman. On December 3, 1926, the pair quarrelled after he announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Later that evening Christie disappeared from her home. Her car, a Morris Cowley, was found at Newlands Corner perched above a chalk quarry with an expired driving licence and clothes.
The disappearance caused a public outcry. Home secretary William Joynson-Hicks pressured police and a newspaper offered a £100 reward. Over a thousand police officers, 15 000 volunteers and several aeroplanes scoured the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie’s gloves to find her. Christie’s disappearance was featured on the front page of The New York Times. Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for 10 days. On December 14, 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Tressa Neele (the surname of her husband’s lover) from ‘Capetown S.A.’ (ie Cape Town, South Africa). The next day, Christie left for her sister’s residence, Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered ‘in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off and callers turned away.’
Christie’s autobiography makes no reference to the disappearance. Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from ‘an unquestionable genuine loss of memory’, yet opinion remains divided over the reason for her disappearance. Some, including authorised biographer Janet Morgan, believe that she disappeared during a fugue state. In contrast, Jared Cade’s research led him to conclude that Christie deliberately planned the event to embarrass her husband, but did not anticipate the public melodrama that resulted. Laura Thompson provides the alternative view that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder. Agatha Christie never revealed the truth of her missing weekend.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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