by Jared Cade
She felt they should keep their marriage going for another year to see how it went, but her husband would agree only to a three-month trial reconciliation. The one person who showed insight into Agatha’s problem was her secretary Charlotte, who told her: ‘He won’t stay.’ Rosalind, with the uncompromising candour of the young, was outspoken to her mother on the matter: ‘I know Daddy likes me, and would like to be with me. It’s you he doesn’t seem to like.’
Agatha resorted to desperate measures and in October arranged a month-long trip for her and Archie to Guéthary, a tiny bathing village at the foot of the French Pyrenees between Biarritz and the Spanish border. Archie reluctantly agreed to go. The Pyrenees held memories of Agatha’s happy childhood and her parents’ perfect marriage, but a less-than-idyllic trip to the same region with Archie the previous year ought to have warned her that it was impossible to turn back the clock.
Away from Styles Agatha found it easy to imagine that their relationship was improving. But the couple were unable to establish the easy camaraderie of the early days of their marriage. They acted as though they were polite strangers, and, after all the recent strains, such an atmosphere seemed almost a relief. In fact, it was the lull before the storm that would destroy their lives for ever.
Chapter Six
Desperate Measures
Agatha had known the real test of her reconciliation with Archie would begin on their return to Styles in November 1926, but his absences immediately told their own story. Agatha found his sullen silences hard to bear, and ugly confrontations ensued.
Her torment was made worse by Archie’s refusal either to commit himself to the marriage or totally break away from it. Agatha insisted that she would not give in to a divorce if Archie asked for one again, because she was convinced that their daughter would be stigmatized for the rest of her life. The fact that Agatha would physically throw objects at Archie during their fights only made matters worse.
There were pressures, too, from outside the marital battleground. Her publisher Sir Godfrey Collins was delighted with the public’s reception of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and was anxious to know when he could expect delivery of her latest Hercule Poirot book. The popularity of Agatha’s Belgian detective was attested to by the requests of the Liverpool Weekly Post and Reynolds’s Illustrated News to serialize stories with the character. Although Agatha was persevering with The Mystery of the Blue Train, she clearly was not going to finish it in time for publication in early 1927. Owing to her productive short-story output, Sir Godfrey and her literary agent Edmund Cork exerted pressure on her to agree to release a series of Hercule Poirot tales under the title The Big Four.
These stories had already appeared as an on-going serial in The Sketch from January to March 1924 under the title The Man Who Was Number Four. Agatha was reluctant to fall in with their wishes, because she recognized only too well that the collection would fall well short of her readers’ expectations. The stories read like a parody of an Edgar Wallace thriller and, until Agatha produced The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, she was undecided as to whether she was a writer of thrillers or detective stories.
In her autobiography Agatha gives the impression that the twelve stories which make up The Big Four were put together during 1927 with the help of her brother-in-law Campbell Christie in order to give the appearance of a full-length book, since she claims the breakdown of her marriage had not left her well enough to attempt such a task by herself. The Big Four was in fact in production by Collins before her disappearance, and the alterations she alone instigated at this time amounted to no more than minor editing.
Furthermore, Agatha tells her readers that the reason why she was desperate to write following her marital breakdown was because ‘I had no money now coming in from anywhere.’ But nothing could be further from the truth. Clarissa’s will, in which she had left everything to Agatha, including Ashfield, had been probated on 29 June 1926, and after the deduction of death duties Agatha was the recipient of the handsome sum of £13,527 16s. 8d. It was enough money for Agatha and Rosalind to live on for several years, and Agatha’s reason for claiming to be very poor at that time in her memoirs was to create the impression of a woman hounded into a mental breakdown during 1926. He pre-disappearance decision to release The Big Four early the following year arose from her desire to get her one-book-a-year routine back on track.
Despite her new financial security Agatha was under considerable mental strain in the weeks before she went missing. At any rate she was well enough on 12 November to write to His Honour Judge Bodkin – otherwise known as Matthias McDonnell Bodkin, author of Paul Beck, the ‘rule of thumb’ detective – thanking him for his letter and agreeing there were few very good detective stories in print. She also asked if he was the author of the Paul Beck stories in which she had taken ‘great pleasure many years ago’.
Agatha kept up appearances as best she could with friends she had made in Sunningdale. She looked forward to Christmas, when she could get Archie away from Sunningdale by taking him and Rosalind up to Abney Hall for the traditional festivities with Nan and the rest of the family. Agatha also planned to take Archie abroad to Portugal in the New Year with some friends from Sunningdale, the da Silvas, in the feverish hope that by removing him to a different environment he would forget Nancy.
Meanwhile Agatha looked around for a suitable flat or house to lease in London in order to be closer to her husband’s place of work. She was determined to sell Styles, or at least rent it out, indefinitely if necessary, and she was aware that her daughter would have to change schools. But these were small sacrifices to ensure that she kept Rosalind’s father.
Conscious of her approaching middle age Agatha felt unable to compete for her husband’s attentions, and she duly vented the intense jealousy she felt towards her younger rival by writing ‘The Edge’. This short story not only affirms Agatha’s belief in the sanctity of marriage but sheds light on the one circumstance under which she might have forgiven Nancy for taking Archie from her.
The raw emotion that imbues ‘The Edge’ sharply contrasts with the usual mystery element to be found in Agatha’s fiction and makes it one of her most compelling short stories. Interestingly, Agatha cast Nancy in the role of ‘the wife’, while she cast herself as Clare, ‘the other woman’ who has always loved her rival’s husband but who has not stood in the way of their happiness. The turning point in the story comes when Clare stops off at a distant hotel for refreshments, after taking her dog to the vet following an accident in which he has been knocked over by a car. Clare’s casual glance at the names in the hotel register leads to the discovery that her married rival has been having an affair. This discovery, after years of suffering and self-denial, unleashes Clare’s jealousy and leads to a bitter confrontation on the Downs during which she threatens to expose the wife’s adultery. The pressure Clare applies to the wife is too great, and, rather than face exposure, the wife jumps from the ridge to her death. The story ends with Clare being driven mad from the unforeseen consequences of her blackmail.
While the death of the Nancy Neele character was merely a gratifying literary whim on Agatha’s part, Clare’s resulting madness was in many respects symbolic of her creator’s despair over her real-life marital problems. Agatha had never been an unfaithful wife to Archie; this would have been the one circumstance under which she might have been able to forgive Nancy for stealing her husband.
The story was finished shortly before Agatha became the most talked-about woman in the country. In those final days Agatha’s obstinacy, the stubbornness that was also her greatest strength, drew her near to the edge of despair. What she found especially hard to bear was that eleven years of marriage could have turned so swiftly on Archie’s part to an ill-concealed dislike of her. Agatha felt worn down by the need to keep up appearances, as much for the servants’ sake as to minimize Rosalind’s anxiety. Her secretary Charlotte proved invaluable, taking over the running of the household at this time.
Judi
th recalls that her mother, Nan, was very anxious about Agatha; the visits Nan made to Styles helped to alleviate the strain between the Christies. One day, shortly before the disappearance, ten-year-old Judith and Rosalind, aged seven, were playing in a bedroom when they climbed on to the top shelf of a wardrobe and closed the door. Their mothers heard a loud crash and hurried upstairs. The wardrobe had toppled over, trapping the two girls inside. Nan and Agatha were relieved that their daughters were not hurt; in fact, Judith and Rosalind roared with laughter at their adventure.
Agatha slept badly and ate little in the fortnight before she disappeared. It seemed to her that if Archie could betray her then nothing, not even God, could be trusted. God ceased to exist for her: her overriding thought was that Archie had betrayed her following her mother’s death. She cast herself as the innocent victim and had no comprehension of how she had contributed to the breakdown of their relationship. There were endless rows, because he was still undecided as to whether or not to leave her for good. Agatha, failing to realize this, lost her temper completely and flung a teapot at him. It was the worst thing she could have done. It was Nan’s opinion that if Agatha had not thrown the teapot she might have kept Archie.
Agatha withdrew into herself, enveloped in bitterness and misery. Her one solace at this time was her canine companion Peter who gave her unconditional and unquestioning love. Husband and wife went through the motions of leading normal lives, but the atmosphere in the house grew increasingly acrimonious until Agatha’s nerves were near breaking point.
On the morning of her disappearance the couple had their worst row ever. Charlotte, aware of the discord between husband and wife, had left early on a day trip to London, reassured by the sight of Agatha romping happily with Rosalind. During the row Archie made it clear that he had no intention of accompanying Agatha to Beverley in Yorkshire for the weekend, as she hoped he would. He then told her he could not stand the charade of their attempted reconciliation any longer.
Deeply shaken, she accused him of seeing Nancy behind her back. He admitted that he had made plans to spend the weekend with his mistress and that he had decided, once and for all, to marry her. Their argument ended with Archie storming off to work.
Agatha was extremely upset and, later that morning, she left Styles in her Morris Cowley without telling any of the servants where she was going. Although she was still feeling despondent after she returned to Styles for lunch, she drove via Newlands Corner with Rosalind and Peter to Archie’s mother’s house in Dorking for afternoon tea
While she waited for her mother-in-law’s kettle to boil, Agatha sang songs and joked with her daughter. The subject of Nancy Neele was not raised in the little girl’s presence, and Agatha told Peg she was going to Beverley for the weekend. Peg was aware that Clarissa’s death eight months earlier had come as a great blow to Agatha, and when she commented on how well her daughter-in-law seemed Agatha agreed that she was feeling much better. A few minutes later Agatha appeared to become very depressed. Peg noticed she was not wearing her wedding ring, only her engagement ring. When Peg commented on this, Agatha sat perfectly still for some minutes gazing into space, then, issuing a hysterical laugh, she turned away and patted Rosalind’s head. It was dusk by the time Agatha, Rosalind and Peter left at around five o’clock and began the hour-long drive via Newlands Corner back to Styles.
Agatha dined alone after Rosalind was put to bed and waited and waited for her husband’s return. Part of her was desperate for him to redeem himself; another part of her knew he wouldn’t.
When Archie failed to come home on the evening of Friday 3 December 1926 there was no doubt in Agatha’s mind – or the minds of the servants – that he had left for good.
Unable to bear the strain of her situation any longer she got into her car at 9.45 that night, dressed in a warm knitted outfit, fur coat, a velour hat and low-heeled shoes with buckles. She knew by then that her marriage was irretrievably over and that nothing could bring her husband back. As Agatha drove away from Styles her plan was to spite Archie for his infidelity. Tragically, she was unaware that she was setting in motion the most widely publicized missing person’s inquiry of the day. The consequences that rippled out from her actions that night would be far more devastating than any she had ever conceived in her fiction and would reverberate throughout the rest of her life.
Part Two
Suspicion, Speculation and Uncertainty
Chapter Seven
Dredging the Silent Pool
What no one could have predicted on the night of Agatha’s disappearance from her home in Berkshire were the unprecedented steps the authorities would take to find her and the way the press would blow the incident up into a front-page sensation.
Agatha’s absence was first noticed on the morning of Saturday 4 December 1926 through the discovery of her abandoned Morris Cowley near Newlands Corner, a local beauty spot much frequented by motorists and tourists five miles from Guildford in the neighbouring county of Surrey. The car was three hundred yards below the plateau of Newlands Corner at the edge of a chalk pit by Water Lane, a rutted, twisting dirt track leading to the village of Albury in the gently sloping valley below. The situation was like a scene from one of Agatha’s detective novels, and what was to follow in the next week and a half was more bizarre than anything she ever penned.
The headlights of the abandoned four-seater were first seen piercing the winter darkness around seven o’clock by a Chilworth cattleman, Harry Green, but as he was on his way to work he did nothing at the time. Almost an hour elapsed before Jack Best, a gypsy boy on his way to work for a shooting party, passed the spot and took a closer look. The person who actually brought the matter to the attention of the authorities, shortly after eight o’clock, was Frederick Dore, a car tester based at Thames Ditton, who subsequently recalled: ‘When I found the car the brakes were off, and it was in neutral gear. The running board and the under part of the carriage were resting on the bush. From its position it appeared to me that the car must have been given a push at the top of the hill and sent down deliberately. The lights were off and I found that the battery had run right down. The lamps had evidently been left on until the current became exhausted. If anyone had accidentally run off the road the car would have pulled up earlier. There was no sign that the brakes had been applied. I looked for skid marks on the soft ground but could find none.’
A gypsy girl told Dore she had heard a car about midnight coming along the track on top of the downs leading from Guildford. While there was no way of knowing whether the two incidents were connected the unusual discovery prompted Dore to take immediate action. ‘I went to Mr Alfred Luland, who looks after the refreshment kiosk on the other side of the road, and asked him to take charge of the car, while I informed the policeman at Merrow.’ Dore telephoned the police from Newlands Corner Hotel, some five hundred yards away on the Clandon Road.
The first intimation Archie had of Agatha’s disappearance was when her secretary Charlotte rang the home of his hosts, Sam and Madge James, at Hurtmore Cottage near Godalming, to tell him that a policeman had turned up at Styles that morning to announce that Mrs Christie appeared to be missing. Archie was none too pleased at having his weekend with Nancy interrupted. He had no sooner terminated the telephone call and announced he had to leave because his mother had been taken ill than a police officer set the tongues of the Jameses’ servants wagging by turning up on the doorstep.
Archie was escorted back to Styles. He insisted that he was unable to shed any light on Agatha’s whereabouts, saying he had last seen her on the Friday morning before departing for work. He gave every indication of being completely baffled, but after surreptitiously reading the letter that Agatha had left for him on the hall table the previous night he burned it without telling the police of its existence or contents. He adjured Charlotte, who knew of the letter, to silence by telling her it had been written before Agatha had changed her plans to go to Beverley for the weekend.
News of t
he discovery of the abandoned car was relayed to the Surrey County Police Headquarters in Woodbridge Road in Guildford, but it was not until 11 a.m. that the matter came to the attention of Deputy Chief Constable Kenward. The fifty-year-old recipient of the King’s Police Medal had been involved two years earlier in the investigations which had led to the trial and conviction of the Frenchman Jean Vacquier in what was known as the Byfleet murder. The press had been riveted by the story, tailing the police twenty-four hours a day, often interviewing important witnesses before the police arrived. Deputy Chief Constable Kenward was not to know that the press would be even more enthralled by this new story.
He took a grim view of the affair from the very first: ‘The car was found in such a position as to indicate that some unusual proceeding had taken place, the car being found half-way down a grassy slope well off the main road with its bonnet buried in some bushes, as if it had got out of control. In the car was found a fur coat, a dressing case containing various articles of ladies’ wearing apparel and a driving licence indicating that the owner was Mrs Agatha Christie of Sunningdale, Berkshire.’
Several questions needed urgent answers. How, why and when had Agatha’s car been abandoned? And why had her handbag, distinguished by its fashionable zip, been removed?
Another intriguing factor was the weather. The temperature at six o’clock had been 41 degrees Fahrenheit, a quarter of the sky had been covered in cloud and there had been a westerly breeze. By midnight the temperature had fallen to 36 degrees, the sky had completely cleared of cloud cover and the breeze had swung round to the north-east. So why had Agatha’s heavy fur coat been abandoned on the back seat?
Deputy Chief Constable Kenward’s bewilderment was shared by his officers, including Tom Roberts, a 21-year-old probationary constable, who described the mysterious affair at Newlands Corner as ‘the most sensational event that occurred whilst I was at Headquarters… The bushes were crushed from the impact of the car, but they had prevented it from falling into the chalk pit.’