Agatha Christie's True Crime Inspirations

by Mike Holgate

  The music hall, stage, radio, television, film and recording star also made ten Royal Command performances and was made a Dame of the British Empire shortly before her death. Until the end of her life she remained a fervent fan of Agatha Christie and at her home in Capri, her library contained almost the whole the works of her favourite author. In 1950, a strange twist of fate tragically linked Gracie to a Christie story; while travelling to their island home, Monty Banks suffered a fatal heart attack and died in the arms of his wife travelling across Europe on board the… ‘Orient Express’.

  * * *

  STRANGER THAN FICTION

  * * *

  In 1977, a severely ill nineteen-month-old child was flown on a mercy mission from Qatar to London for life-saving treatment. Her condition baffled doctors at Hammersmith Hospital when she was admitted semi-conscious and unresponsive to speech or commands. The next day at the routine ward rounds, Nurse Maitland, who had been monitoring the patient, put down the book that she was reading and surprised doctors with what proved to be an accurate diagnosis. She had been reading Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse (1961) in which thallium poisoning was described with symptoms that matched the child’s. A laboratory test was arranged and ten times the typical amount of thallium was detected. The likely source was thought to be a domestic poison used to kill household pests which had been ingested by the child over a long period of time at the family home. Although the prognosis once neurological symptoms have set in is usually hopeless, the child responded well to treatment and made a good recovery.

  9

  LORD CARNARVON

  The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb

  It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber. I am for the protection of the deceased.

  Translation of the inscription on the tomb of Tutankhamun

  Long before she met her second husband Max Mallowan, it is evident that Agatha Christie was conversant with the science of archaeology. Her many works on the subject first introduced an archaeologist into her collection of characters in The Man in the Brown Suit (1924). The novel featured Hempsley Cavern, which was based on the author’s knowledge of one of her hometown’s top attractions, Kents Cavern. Her father, Frederick Miller, had been a fellow of the Torquay Natural History Society which financed the excavation of the magnificent show-cave, uncovering outstanding examples of stalagmites, stalactites and evidence of prehistoric animals and human inhabitants. The author quickly followed up the archaeological theme in the collection of short stories Poirot Investigates (1924), drawing on a real-life mystery for ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’, which concerns a strange series of deaths of the people who were involved in the discovery and opening of the tomb of King Men-her-Ra, an event we are told followed hard on the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings by Lord Carnarvon in 1922.

  Agatha Christie had become fascinated by Egypt and its history during a three-month trip when she was accompanied by her mother for her ‘coming out’ season in Cairo. The experience inspired her to write her first novel, entitled Snow upon the Desert. The storyline featured characters based on people she had encountered in Cairo, with the exception of a deaf heroine. Although the work was submitted to several publishers under the pseudonym ‘Monosyllaba’, it was rejected and remained unpublished. When she finally established herself as a successful author, Agatha’s interest in the Land of the Pharaohs was further stimulated by news coverage generated by sensational reports of the ‘Curse of King Tut’.

  During a landmark excavation, the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun was opened by a team led by archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon. Among the treasures unearthed in the sarcophagus was the king’s mummified body lying within a coffin of solid gold. The boy king was wearing a magnificent gold portrait mask, while fabulous jewels and amulets adorned the wrappings of the corpse. However, rumours spread that the tomb was cursed when Lord Carnarvon died a few months later from septicaemia, having nicked a mosquito bite whilst shaving. According to an oversimplified translation by the press, an inscription above the tomb pointedly warned of the fate awaiting the plunderers, ‘Death shall come on swift wings to him that touches the tomb of Pharaoh’.

  When the mummy was later unwrapped, a wound was found on the cheek of the pharaoh in the same position as Carnarvon’s mosquito bite. It was also claimed that at the precise time of Lord Carnarvon’s death, the lights in Cairo blacked out for twenty minutes, while back in England his lordship’s dog, Susie, howled and dropped dead at Highclere Castle. Author of The Hound of the Baskervilles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a fervent believer of spiritualism, believed that the tragic events revolved around ‘elemental’ beings created by the priests of King Tut to guard the tomb. A more practical and scientific solution to the ‘curse’ involved a theory that deadly fungus had either been deliberately placed as a ‘booby trap’, or that spores of ‘mummy- dust’ had produced a harmful bacteria that was released on the unwary interlopers when the tomb was opened some 3,000 years later.

  In all, since the excavation, there have been claims that forty people have been victims of the curse, notably Carnarvon’s half-brother Aubrey Herbert. He died in September 1923 from blood poisoning following a dental operation to remove all his teeth. In 1930, the ‘curse’ hit the headlines again when Lord Westbury committed suicide following the sudden death of his son, Richard, who had been Carter’s assistant in Cairo. Furthermore, a young boy was run over by Lord Westbury’s hearse en route to the cemetery – a fatal accident attributed to the evil power of King Tut. Although Howard Carter’s pet canary was an early casualty of the curse when it was swallowed by a cobra on the day the tomb was opened – an event interpreted as retribution for violation of the tomb, particularly as a cobra was depicted on the brow of the pharaoh from where it would spit fire at the king’s enemies – the archaeologist did not become a victim of the so-called curse and poured scorn on the intense media speculation, saying that ‘all sane people should dismiss such inventions with contempt’. However, the resultant publicity raised the profile of Tutankhamun, who attracted far greater fame in a preserved state of death than he had achieved in his short life, having died of a sudden illness aged about eighteen.

  In Agatha Christie’s spin-off adventure, a similar series of supposedly supernatural deaths occur. Within a month of uncovering the tomb of King Men-her-Ra near Cairo, the head archaeologist and a wealthy supporter die of seemingly natural causes, a third member of the team shoots himself and a museum curator dies from tetanus poisoning. Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are called upon to investigate the strange affair and despite the clues pointing to the existence of an evil curse, the deaths turn out to be the work of a very real, modern-day murderer.

  10

  SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH

  Dead Man’s Folly

  Greenway House, on the Dart, a house that my mother had always said, and I had thought also, was the most perfect of the various properties on the Dart.

  Agatha Christie (An Autobiography, 1977)

  In 1938, Agatha Christie parted with her beloved family home Ashfield and purchased what she had long viewed as her favourite property on the River Dart, Greenway House, a few miles from Torquay near the village of Galmpton. The historic thirty-five-acre estate had once been associated with two of the most famous seafarers of the Elizabethan age, whose lives ended in tragic circumstances: Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh.

  Remembered as ‘the Father of Colonisation’, Elizabethan soldier and explorer Humphrey Gilbert (1539-1583) was born at Greenway Court. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Gilbert had a distinguished military career in the service of Queen Elizabeth before turning his ambitions to exploration. He advocated both the search for a trade route via a north-west passage over America to the Pacific Ocean, and also plans for the colonisation of the New World to alleviate the rising tide of vagrancy and poverty in the mother country. In 1578, Gilbert took part in a joint venture
with his younger half-brother, Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618), plundering Spanish vessels for treasure. Having proved his worth at sea, he immediately received a royal patent to seek ‘remote heathen and barbarous lands’. After various schemes foundered through lack of finance, he finally gained sufficient support to set sail on a doomed quest with a fleet of five ships: the Delight, the Bark Raleigh, the Golden Hind, the Swallow and the Squirrel.

  Leaving from Plymouth early in June 1583, the expedition sighted Newfoundland by the end of July; it had, however, already suffered the loss of the Bark Raleigh, which had turned back through a lack of provisions. Entering the harbour of St John’s, Gilbert claimed all land within a 200 league-radius in the name of the sovereign Queen Elizabeth. He also imposed his authority on the local fishermen by securing promises of fees payable to him in return for leases for the continued use of fishing grounds. In late August, the captain of the Swallow refused to follow Gilbert any further, preferring to return to England, while the three remaining ships set off on a reconnaissance journey southwards along the coast to Sable Island. Within days, the Delight ran aground and sank, taking with her a collection of mineral specimens and newly charted maps of the sea route. Panic swept through the superstitious crews of the two surviving ships, who now feared for their own lives. Their concerns were appeased when a decision was taken to abandon the mission and sail back to England. Gilbert was confident that his relevant success would attract royal patron-age to mount larger expeditions to explore the Americas, little realising that this was to be his final voyage. Having encountered a fierce squall rounding the Azores, his ship the Squirrel was engulfed by the sea and sank beneath mountainous waves. The captain of the Golden Hind reported that Sir Humphrey was last seen on deck calmly reading a book and reassuring his crew as the terrible storm raged: ‘We are as near to heaven by seas as by land’.

  According to legend, when Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced tobacco in England and was demonstrating the art of pipe-smoking to his family at Greenway Court, the sight of burning alarmed a servant, who threw a jug of ale in the startled smoker’s face in a misguided attempt to put out the fire.

  Brilliant courtier, parliamentarian, businessman, soldier, seaman, coloniser, explorer, scientist, philosopher, historian and poet, Walter Raleigh was one of the most celebrated men of the Elizabethan age. Sharing Humphrey Gilbert’s ambitions to set up English colonies in North America, Raleigh won favour with Queen Elizabeth by naming Virginia in honour of the monarch known as the ‘Virgin Queen’. In return, ‘Good Queen Bess’ bestowed a knighthood on Raleigh and enabled him to become one of the richest men in England when she granted him lucrative monopolies in the wine and cloth trade. Administrative posts were obtained in Devon where he was appointed Vice-Admiral, Warden of the Stannaries and also represented the county in the House of Commons. The death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 brought about a dramatic change in Raleigh’s fortunes. His enemies at court spread rumours that he was opposed to the accession of King James. The new monarch immediately ordered his arrest and Raleigh was tried for treason, declared guilty and sentenced to death. On the eve of the execution he was granted a reprieve and committed to the Tower of London. Here, he was allowed special privileges and lived in relative comfort, accompanied by his wife, son and personal servants, but was held for thirteen years. During his captivity, he conducted scientific experiments and undertook a daunting literary work, The History of the World.

  In 1616, he was released and given an opportunity to redeem himself by undertaking an expedition to the Orincho River in Venezuela to search for gold, promising to find evidence of the legendary El Dorado. He was now over sixty and fell ill in Trinidad, which he had claimed for the Crown twenty years earlier. The rest of the party carried on without him, but suffered many losses when they landed on Spanish territory and were apprehended by a patrol. The expedition returned to England in disgrace and on his return to London, the Spanish ambassador demanded that Raleigh should die and King James complied with the request. For the last time he was escorted to the Tower. Brushing aside thoughts of suicide he resolved ‘to die in the light not in the darkness’. On the scaffold, Raleigh’s final impassioned speech lasted for forty-five minutes. The executioner was totally unnerved by the victim’s calm demeanour and required two swings of the axe to sever the head from the body after the prisoner declined the offer of a blindfold and declared, ‘Think you I fear the shadow of the axe, when I fear not the axe itself?’ he enquired. ‘What dost thou fear?’ urged the prisoner, ‘Strike, man, strike!’

  Greenway Court was eventually demolished and replaced by a Georgian mansion that became Agatha Christie’s summer residence from 1938 until her death in 1976. The idyllic location overlooking the River Dart was featured in her books Five Little Pigs (1943), Dead Man’s Folly (1956) and Ordeal by Innocence (1958).

  11

  ROBERT GRAVES

  Towards Zero

  Wars don’t change except in name;

  The next one must go just the same,

  And new foul tricks unguessed before,

  Will win and justify this War.

  Robert Graves (extract from ‘The Next War’, 1918)

  Eminent poet and novelist Robert Graves (1895-1985) was involved in some of the heaviest fighting of the First World War. While serving as a captain in the Welsh Fusiliers, he was twice mentioned in despatches and witnessed appalling atrocities which deeply affected his outlook; this led him to becoming an ardent critic of war, which was reflected in many of his poems. During the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the young officer was so badly wounded in the lung that he was left for dead and survived to read his own obituary in The Times. A year later he was hospitalised with shell shock and while recuperating prepared his collection of war poems, Fusiliers and Fairies (1918).

  Throughout the Second World War, Graves resided with his muse and mistress, Beryl Hodge, in the South Devon village of Galmpton, at Vale House in Greenway Road, alongside the residence of Agatha Christie. These years were clouded by tragedy when Robert Graves suffered the loss of his eldest son, David, who was killed in action during the conflict in Burma. Significantly, at a crucial point of the war in 1944, the author’s best known work, the historical novel I, Claudius for which he received the Hawthornden and James Tait Black Memorial literary prizes in 1934, was used as a plotter’s codebook in an abortive coup against Hitler led by a distant relative of Graves on his German mother’s side, Count Claus Schenk Von Stauffenberg.

  With the Nazis facing certain defeat following the successful D-Day landings in France by the Allies and a disastrous campaign repelled at Stalingrad by the Russians, several senior officers felt they had a moral duty to remove Adolf Hitler as head of the armed forces and install a government that would negotiate an honourable truce before their country was totally destroyed. As portrayed in the 2009 movie starring Tom Cruise, the plot was codenamed Operation Valkyrie. The plan was instigated by highly decorated war hero, Lieutenant Colonel von Stauffenberg, who had recently been appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Reserve Army after losing his left eye, his right hand and two fingers from his left hand whilst serving in North Africa. On 20 July 1944, the Fuhrer arranged a briefing at the Wolf’s Lair headquarters in East Prussia, attended by von Stauffenberg, who before the meeting went to the bathroom and primed a bomb hidden inside a briefcase. Placing the device beneath the conference table, then leaving the room to take a prearranged telephone call moments before the explosion rocked the building; von Stauffenberg raced to a waiting plane and flew to Berlin believing that the assassination attempt had been successful. However, although four men lost their lives in the blast, Hitler survived simply because an officer had innocently moved the briefcase to the other end of the table. Although his trousers were shredded, the Fuhrer suffered only minor injuries and later joked that his buttocks had been bruised ‘as blue as a baboon’s behind’. However, he was not amused in the immediate aftermath and ordered the arrest of those responsible. Retrib
ution was swift and within hours von Stauffenberg and three co-conspirators were captured following a brief shootout and immediately executed by firing squad at the Berlin War Ministry. During the next few weeks, 5,000 suspects were rounded up and 200 put to death. The relatives of all the perpetrators were also arrested and von Stauffenberg’s wife, Nina, was sent to a concentration camp. When still photographs of the executions of the conspirators were taken for the delectation of the Fuhrer, one witness recalled: ‘Hitler put on his spectacles, eagerly grabbed up the macabre images and gazed at them for an eternity, with a look of ghoulish delight’.

  When the Second World War broke out, Agatha volunteered for work in the dispensary at Torbay Hospital. Her husband Max Mallowan joined the Home Guard at Brixham before he was appointed to the Air Ministry in London, where the couple moved. They allowed Greenway to house evacuees until the property was requisitioned by the US Navy whose officers were preparing for the D-Day invasion of 1944. This was the year that Agatha’s mystery novel Towards Zero, featuring Superintendent Battle, was published and dedicated to her ‘friend’ Robert Graves: ‘Since you are kind enough to say you like my stories’. However, it later emerged that Graves’s praise had been disingenuous – his true feelings about her work were revealed to be that ‘her English was schoolgirlish, her situations for the most part artificial, and her detail faulty’.

  12

  MADGE WATTS