In 1926, Agatha Christie famously disappeared for 11 days and was widely believed dead. When she reappeared in public, she claimed to have had an episode of amnesia, which absolutely no one ever believed. One hundred years later, the truth of the matter has finally been revealed.
When the Queen of Crime’s car was discovered abandoned at a beauty spot, it sparked an 11-day police hunt, while amateur sleuths speculated that she had been killed by her adulterous husband… In fact, about 12 hours after her car was first spotted, abandoned in Surrey, Mrs Christie checked in to the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate. Taking a room on the first floor for five guineas a week (about £300 today), she brought with her only a small dressing case, probably purchased along with a change of clothes in London earlier that day.
She signed herself in not as Mrs Christie but as Mrs Teresa Neele – using the surname of her husband’s lover – and claimed to be visiting from South Africa. Few of the 18 guests at the Hydro guessed that Britain’s most wanted woman was in their midst. She went shopping in the town, purchasing a few dresses, and when the weather was wet, she joined in musical afternoons, playing the piano and singing in a ‘very high soprano voice, very nicely,’ according to one guest.
On other days she played billiards (though not well, the hotel manager later told the Daily Mail). In the evening, she enjoyed dancing at the nearby Prospect hotel. One family, the Findlays, teased her that she looked ‘very much like the missing lady’. She replied, ‘Mrs Christie seems to me rather an elusive woman. I really don’t know where she is or whether she is alive.’
But the staff had their suspicions from the first. Chambermaid Rosie Asher claimed to have recognised her quite soon, and reported her concerns to the manager, Mrs Taylor – who later told the Mail, ‘I took on a certain responsibility in not informing the police […] although some of the servants here had said that there seemed to be a great resemblance between the woman and the pictures. I told them to say nothing.’
The dance band members were not so discreet. On the day that 400 cars converged on Newlands Corner as the public joined a mass search for a body, two musicians named Bob Tappin and Harry Leeming visited Harrogate police station. Officers took their tip-off seriously enough to send plain clothes detectives to the Hydro. Convinced they had found the ‘elusive woman’, they contacted Supt Kenward – yet he still refused to believe Agatha was alive, despite the growing rumours. ‘The newspapers are suggesting that Mrs Christie is alive,’ he told the Mail. ‘If this is so, why has she not written to her bankers, her agents, or her solicitors, or to any of her relatives – without divulging her address? […] She has not written any such letter for a reason which is obvious – that she is dead.’
But he relented long enough to ask the novelist’s secretary, Charlotte Fisher, to visit Harrogate and take a look at this ‘Mrs Neele’. Miss Fisher immediately told Colonel Christie, who announced he would make the trip himself. When he arrived at the Hydro, Mrs Christie stared at him, turned to a fellow guest and said, ‘Oh, fancy, my brother has come.’ Then she retreated to her room.
Archie issued a statement: ‘The lady is my wife; there is no question about her identity. She is suffering from complete loss of memory and identity. She does not know who she is. She does not even know me, and she does not know and cannot tell me why she is here. ‘I am hoping to take her to London tomorrow to see doctors and specialists, and hope that after rest and quiet she will be thoroughly restored. Great credit is to the police of the country for untiring efforts in the matter.’
By the time they left Harrogate, the world’s press had converged on the town’s railway station. As the Christies walked hand in hand along the platform, Agatha was overheard to say, ‘What is all this for?’ Her husband replied, ‘It is all right. You have just lost your memory.’ They changed trains at Leeds, where according to the Daily News, a man, ‘raised his hat and attempted to enter into conversation with the novelist. She walked on as though no-one had spoken to her. Colonel Christie, still carrying the baggage, rushed forward and pulled the man away.
‘There was a heated altercation for a moment, and the man remarked to the Colonel, “Surely I am entitled to have from Mrs Christie an explanation of her conduct, where something like £1,000 of public money has been spent in searching for her.” Colonel Christie flushed and replied: “You will get nothing; I have said all I am going to say.”‘
For the rest of his life, Archie held that line. He would not discuss the matter further. The couple separated four months later and were divorced within two years.
I always assumed it was something connected to their subsequent divorce, but it’s nice to finally have the facts come out. Imagine how many other fairy tales we’ve been told in the intervening century…