Agatha Christie

by Laura Thompson

  Mrs de Silva had given an interview about her. ‘Mrs Christie is one of the sweetest women who ever lived.’ Oh good Lord. On and on it went, full of detail about the past year: her grief about Clara, her worries about work, her poor health, her day with Mrs de Silva in London, her holiday with Archie in France. ‘They have always been a most devoted couple and both idolise their little daughter.’

  The maid was coming into the room. She bundled up the paper and turned to her with a smile. Going out soon, she said. The maid had noticed the picture of Rosalind that she kept on her dressing-table, across which she had written ‘Teddy’, which her daughter had liked to be called.

  Downstairs she saw her face on the cover of the Daily Express. It was one of those pictures with Rosalind that had been taken by the Sketch. She nodded to the woman at Reception and went out into the Harrogate streets. Today she would buy some more clothes (thank heavens for Grannie’s advice about money!). And tonight she would hear from Archie. Campbell would read her letter, telephone Styles, and everything would be all right.

  She returned to the Hydro with a beautiful new evening shawl that she planned to wear at dinner. She felt happy, excited. She read all afternoon, another mystery called The Phantom Train, but found it hard to concentrate. She looked out of her window as the light fell. At any moment a car might come along. Or perhaps a taxi, if he had taken the train. A long drive, after all.

  When she came down the stairs the telephone was ringing at Reception and Mrs Taylor was looking at her as she answered it. News, she felt, surely news. She lingered until Mrs Taylor put the receiver down.

  Good evening, Mrs Neele, she said, what a lovely shawl.

  She went in to dinner with The Phantom Train.

  That night in the Winter Garden Ballroom she did The Times crossword and calmly read the column about herself in the middle of the paper. They had dragged Albury Mill Pond, she read. She had been sighted at Milford station, a few miles south of Godalming. ‘On inquiry at Colonel Christie’s residence at Sunningdale yesterday morning it was stated that so far no news had been received as to the where abouts of the missing woman.’

  So she would not see Archie tonight after all. Whatever had happened to Campbell’s letter, it was not what she had planned.

  She smiled at Mrs Robson and sipped her coffee. Mrs Robson came over to her table. Your price tag is still on, Mrs Neele. Is that all you are worth? I hope not, she said, I hope that is not all. They talked some more. When Mrs Robson asked about her husband she changed the subject, rather cleverly, she thought.

  Wednesday, the eighth, and the mystery was solved, as she read what had happened to Campbell’s letter. Oh, oh, for heaven’s sake, she said to herself, drinking her tea in bed and grappling with the Daily Mail. Campbell had received her letter on Saturday afternoon, she read. How could that be? He must have gone into Woolwich at the weekend rather than waiting until Monday. So that was not what she had planned, for a start.

  More to the point he had entirely ignored what she had wanted him to do, which was to contact Archie immediately. Why had he not done that? Did he not care that Archie was leaving her? Did he think it had nothing to do with him? Perhaps she should have written the letter differently. She had thought it well done.

  He had thrown the letter away. In it Mrs Christie is said to have dealt with her health and to have stated that she was going to a Yorkshire spa to stay with friends and to recuperate.’ Well, not quite. These newspapers, they could not be trusted, and they proclaimed their knowledge with such authority! For example, she had not made arrangements for the Forum Club to post her letter to Campbell when she stayed there on 1 December. What nonsense. She posted it on 4 December and she had meant what she said in it. Why did nobody believe her? Why did nobody, that is to say Archie, come and find her?

  Her head began to open and shut in the old way. That maid would be in soon.

  A lady never shows her feelings in public, however much she may give way in private.

  She disappeared to the bathroom. She thought and thought and thought. She came to no conclusions.

  When she returned to her room the tray had been taken and the bed made. She dressed in a warm new twinset and went down to the lounge. She picked up The Times and looked at it with a casual air. ‘It was learned late last night that a brother of Colonel Christie living in London had received a letter written by the missing woman since her disappearance, and that in it she stated that she was in ill-health and was going to a Yorkshire spa.’

  A man walked into the lounge and bowed at her. She recognised him as having sung with Miss Corbett the other night. A foreign gentleman, with courtly manners and a pleasant tenor voice. She lowered her head to the page.

  ‘The Surrey police, however, have communicated with certain centres in Yorkshire, and as a result are satisfied, it is understood, that Mrs Christie is not in that county.’

  She rose and went out into the Harrogate streets. Hat down, collar up. She walked for hours. So she was not here, Mrs Christie was not here. Here instead was a ghost who walked through the Valley Gardens, looking up to the stone buildings that rose behind the trees. She liked the hills, they reminded her of Torquay. So the ghost had memories. She remembered how flat Sunningdale had been. How deathly.

  She walked and walked. She was a ghost but she felt quite happy, walking through the gardens, feeling strong again in her body. How silly it would have been to kill the body of a strong, still-young woman, striding beneath the trees and feeling the air on her cheeks.

  She thought of Peer Gynt. ‘Where am I with God’s mark upon my brow?’ But she thought about it as at a distance, not really minding where or who she was.

  She went into the Royal Baths and saw that people did see her as a ghost. The eyes of the women at the desk alarmed her. That was silly too, though, so she smiled and said she would like a Turkish bath. She was here for her health, after all. To make things better.

  At dinner she would wear her beautiful shawl again and afterwards she would not sit with the newspaper crossword. She did not want to read the newspapers any more today. She would chat and have a nice time. She might sing to Miss Corbett’s accompaniment, as she had seen the male guest do; she loved to sing and had not done so for a long time. Why, she might even dance. She and Archie had enjoyed dancing together. How tiresome of him not to have understood what she was saying to him, through the letter to Campbell. He could have been with her now. Everything could have been different.

  Instead she accepted the invitation of the man who had sung the other night, and stood up to dance the waltz with him. When he asked her about South Africa she deflected the conversation. Gentlemen, her grandmother had always told her, much prefer to talk about themselves. Mr Pettelson, as he introduced himself, was a refugee from the Russian Revolution. He was in Harrogate for his health, too, and enjoying it very much. Particularly the band at nights. Yes, he loved to sing. He had wanted to sing opera. Is that so, Mrs Neele? Well, perhaps we shall make a little music together!

  Thursday, the ninth, breakfast in bed again and she knew now to turn to page nine of the Daily Mail, although not of course when Rosie the chambermaid was in the room. A nice, pretty, friendly girl. She had asked her name when she came in with the tray.

  A rather strange photograph of herself- a ‘composite’, as they called it – that had been put together with the help of Carlo. Poor Carlo. What a time she must be having. She had never liked Archie and there the two of them were, thrown together by circumstance. Archie, said the report, was ‘harassed and bewildered’ and had asked for a police presence at Styles.

  Her mother-in-law had been talking all about how depressed she had been of late. She had told the story of how Peter had been hit by a car and she had refused to believe he was alive. Well, that was true. Peg obviously believed her to be dead. Or perhaps she was just being dramatic and hysterical, which was nothing new.

  She saw Rosie look at her a little strangely when she came back for the tray. />
  She smiled at her and told her that today she would take the waters. She ought to do it, oughtn’t she? Rosie told her that she thought that healthy water tasted horrible, like rotten eggs though she shouldn’t say so! But she knew some of her guests swore by it. It would perk Mrs Neele up, she was sure. She was looking a lot better already, though, said Rosie. She’d looked a little bit tired at first.

  Yes, she agreed, she had been very tired when she arrived.

  As she walked down Swan Road and around Promenade Crescent, she wondered if people were looking at her through their windows. Those deep, formal, respectable windows.

  They might well have been looking. She had, after all, asserted herself with this story. She was chief character again. No longer side-lined, as she had been for too long.

  And plot was a function of character, she knew that now beyond dispute. The first thing she would do that day was place an advertisement with The Times newspaper in the post office at Harrogate. She had mentioned to Miss Corbett, with whom she had chatted the night before, that she was going to do this, because she was a little concerned that some of her relations did not know where she was. What a good idea, said Miss Corbett, who reminded her of a smart young nursery governess.

  She marked out the words: ‘Friends and relatives of Teresa Neele, late of South Africa, please communicate. Write Box R 702, The Times, EC4’. She paid fifteen shillings.

  The story had not gone the way she expected, but she was trying to regain control of it.

  At dinner that night she wore a new dress and read a new book, Ways and Means. Afterwards she dodged Mr Pettelson and took coffee with the Findlays: Mr, Mrs and Miss. Mrs Findlay, who had a side-long look that she did not altogether care for, waved a copy of the Express at her and asked what she thought of this Mrs Christie story? Did she think she was dead? Did she think, as Mrs Findlay suspected, that she had been murdered by her husband? Just the sort of thing that Mrs Christie herself might have written! Was that not droll? Mr Findlay laughed, so evidently he thought it was. Then he said: You look very much like the missing lady, Mrs Neele.

  Do I?

  Mrs Christie seems to me rather an elusive woman, she said. I really don’t know where she is or whether she is alive. She poured more coffee.

  Friday the tenth, and in the Daily Mail a statement from Archie. He knew that she was alive. He knew, and she knew it.

  ‘It is quite true,’ he said, ‘that my wife had discussed the possibility of disappearing at will. Some time ago she told her sister, “I could disappear if I wished and set about it carefully.”’

  Had she said that? Had she, really? But what had that to do with what was happening now. She had not meant to disappear. This was all meant to be over by now. It had all gone beyond the place where it was meant to have stopped.

  ‘I do not believe this is a case of suicide. She never threatened suicide, but if she did contemplate that, I am sure her mind would turn to poison.’

  No, that was not true. She knew about poison, that was not the same thing.

  ‘If she wanted to get poison, I am sure she could have done so. She was very clever at getting anything she wanted.’

  Rosie the maid had come into the room. She did not smile at her. For the moment she could not do so. Yes, take the tray, she said.

  ‘Curiously enough, Peter, our little dog, which I took over there this afternoon, made straight down the hill from the place where the car was found. He did that of his own accord and then stopped.’

  Oh Peter, her friend.

  ‘It is absolutely untrue to suggest that there was anything in the nature of a row or tiff between my wife and myself on Friday morning.’ So the servants had been talking. Well, that is what servants do. Perhaps Archie did not know that?

  ‘I strongly deprecate introducing any tittle-tattle into this matter. That will not help me find my wife which is what I want to do. My wife has never made the slightest objection to any of my friends, all of whom she knew.’

  Which was not true either.

  She read that ‘500 Police’ were searching for her. She had told them where she was, where she had gone, and none of them believed her. It was all so silly. Perhaps, as sideways-looking Mrs Findlay had said last night, they really did believe that Archie had murdered her. It was all mad.

  On the back of the newspaper were the usual pictures. Today it was of Archie leaving the house in his Delage, Rosalind and Carlo with him, Peter in the back. Also one of this fool policeman Kenward, looking for her on the downs.

  She went out into the streets and took a train to Leeds. She was sick of herself, today. She did not return until evening, having shopped all day and eaten an indifferent Welsh rarebit. It was very nice to be back in Harrogate. No doubt about it, she did feel safe here. Have you had an enjoyable day out, Mrs Neele? She smiled and went up to her room, not a thought in her head to speak of.

  Saturday the eleventh, a week of it all now. Oh, she sounded quite peculiar in the Daily Mail, thanks not least to her mother-in-law, telling the world about her behaviour when she had visited with Rosalind for tea. ‘She seemed very cheerful’; ‘But a few minutes later she became very depressed’; ‘I am certain that her brain refused to function when she sat down to complete her novel’; ‘Before she went she repeatedly muttered, “These rotten plots! Oh! these rotten plots.”’

  Had she really done that? No, she could not believe she had done anything so ridiculous.

  ‘It has been hinted that Archie and Agatha had a quarrel or tiff on Friday morning. They were a devoted couple.’

  Still protecting him, then.

  ‘I believe she is dead and on the Surrey Downs.’

  Wrong, and wrong again. As usual, Mrs Hemsley.

  One thing, though, for which she was grateful to her mother-inlaw. She remembered how Peg could sometimes be kind, even perceptive. ‘The general public can be quite certain that her disappearance has not been staged by her for any purposes of self-advertisement.’ So that was what people thought, was it? If they only knew. The longing to escape: to be elsewhere, to be not herself. And yet. She had written this leading role. It had not turned out the way she wanted but, somehow, she did not want it to end just yet. She could end it, after all. She could go downstairs and end it now. She did not quite want to do that.

  People were leaving when she went downstairs to go out for the day Mr and Mrs Campbell, Major Brigg and his family. Going home to prepare for Christmas, no doubt. Goodbye, goodbye! Yes, and to you too!

  She edged her way into the lounge and glanced at the cover of the Daily Express. ‘Mrs Christie “Still Alive”,’ it read. She shifted her hand to see The Times. Her advertisement. Yes, it was there, second from top in the Personal columns, Friends and Relatives of

  Mrs Neele, good morning. The voice came from behind her shoulder. Mrs Findlay. She smiled. Good morning, she said. A nice mild day, it looked, didn’t it? And how were her husband and daughter? She had been out all day yesterday but she hoped they would see each other this evening. She was looking forward to Miss Corbett and the band.

  She walked and read and ate lunch and had a massage and dressed herself for the evening. At night, after dinner, she played the piano for Mr Pettelson to sing and then she sang herself, to much polite acclaim. The bandsmen, who had watched her closely, applauded. Miss Corbett declared that she would lose her job!

  Sunday, the twelfth. She felt bored with newspapers. Bored with the whole thing. They were searching for her across those wretched North Downs, police and aeroplanes and dogs and sensation-seekers. She could only think them idiotic for not believing her letter to Campbell, for trying to say that it was a blind, somebody else had posted it, she was dead, Archie had murdered her. It was silly and she was bored with it. A woman like her grandmother, she thought, would have worked out days ago what was really going on.

  She dressed in some of her new clothes and walked the familiar streets. Swan Road, Promenade Crescent, Parliament Street. She went into a church,
St Peter’s, and prayed for her mother. Then she walked across West Park, beneath the beech trees and within the edging of dark grey stone. Those deep, formal, respectable windows.

  She could dream what was behind them into life.

  She began to conjure words, lines, ideas. They rose up out of her, and she played with them as she walked.

  A woman deeply in love, whose fiancé falls hopelessly for a beautiful girl of whom he knows nothing. The woman dreams of killing the girl . . .

  (‘I know the story. She offered Fair Rosamund, did she not, the choice of a dagger or a cup of poison. Rosamund chose the poison . . .

  Elinor said nothing. She was white now.

  Poirot said:

  ‘But perhaps, this time, there was to be no choice . . .’)

  A woman whose fiancé marries a rich woman. He plans to kill his wife for her money before returning, in triumph, to his old love.

  (‘So I had to come into it, too, to look after him . . .’

  She said it simply but in complete good faith. Poirot had no doubt whatever that her motive had been exactly what she said it was. She herself had not coveted Linnet Doyle’s money, but she had loved Simon Doyle, had loved him beyond reason and beyond rectitude and beyond pity.)

  A man with a beautiful young mistress. She begs him to leave his home even though, as he tells her, his wife loves him too.

  (‘I said I understood that, but if she loved him, she’d put his happiness first, and at any rate she wouldn’t want to keep him if he wanted to be free.’

  He said: ‘Life can’t really be solved by admirable maxims out of modern literature. Nature’s red in tooth and claw, remember.’

  I said: ‘Surely we’re all civilised people nowadays?’ and Amyas laughed.

  ‘. . . Don’t you realise, Elsa, that she’s going to suffer – suffer? Do you know what suffering means?’)

  A woman in love with a married man, whose wife has the white-skinned, provocative looks of Nancy Neele. The girl betrays her husband with a lover. The other woman, ‘fresh and pleasant and very English’, learns about the affair. She threatens to expose it. She induces the girl to kill herself.