“Charlotte, might I have a word?” he asks.
Her forehead creases with worry as she says, “Of course, sir.” She directs her sister to take Rosalind upstairs to the nursery and then turns her attention to him. “What can I help you with?”
“Let’s talk in the study,” he says and leads her down the hallway.
They are silent as they walk. Only after they enter the study and he closes the door behind them does he speak. “I understand that you told the police about the letter Mrs. Christie left for me.”
Her face is ashen, and the stoic Charlotte appears as though she might burst into tears. “I’m sorry, sir. I know you didn’t want me to inform them, but they quizzed me on it particularly. And it’s illegal to lie to the police.”
“I understand, Charlotte. I don’t want you to think that I’m angry with you. The only reason I’m raising this with you is that I’m curious about their questions.”
“I didn’t tell them anything, sir. Only that you’d been left a letter as well.”
“I know, but what did they ask you about it?”
She takes a deep breath and says, “Detective Chief Constable Kenward asked repeatedly whether I knew what was written in your letter. Superintendent Goddard kept fairly quiet.”
“Did Kenward venture any guesses as to what might be in the letter?”
“No, sir.”
“Did he ask you to venture any guesses?”
Her ashen face turns crimson, telegraphing the answer to his question. “Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I said that, if I had to guess—and I didn’t like to do so—that I thought your letter was likely to be similar to my own. My letter focused on the weekend’s change of plans—she’d asked me to cancel the Yorkshire reservations and said she’d contact me when she’d decided where she was staying instead—and I supposed yours was the same.”
Perfect, Archie thinks. This will aid in his reconstruction of the letter Agatha left him. Although, he reconsiders, he’d told the police that the letter had nothing to do with her disappearance, so Charlotte’s statements might not be entirely helpful.
“Did he ask you about how things stood between me and Mrs. Christie?” Since learning that Charlotte had divulged the existence of his letter to the police, despite his request to the contrary, he’s supposed she might have shared even more with the police. This query is the real purpose of bringing Charlotte into his study.
Her crimson cheeks turn ever redder, and he fears that she’ll be scared into silence. He needs to know what she’s told Kenward and Goddard to prepare for the questions they’re sure to ask him next about Nancy. He walks toward her, placing what he hopes is a comforting hand upon her shoulder. When she flinches, he realizes that his actions have the opposite effect than he intended.
“I sh-shouldn’t like to say, sir.”
“Please. Don’t worry about sparing my feelings.”
When she inhales deeply before she speaks, her breath is shaky. “I told them that I’d become aware of a great divide between you and Mrs. Christie, one that had driven you from Styles most nights since the fall. I also told them that you’d had your worst row ever on the morning of the day she disappeared. But when I called from London that evening—she’d given me leave to keep my planned day trip to London—she sounded perfectly fine and even encouraged me to stay and enjoy the city for the evening.”
“Anything more?” He wills his voice to remain calm. He needs to know what she knows—and what she’s revealed.
She hesitates for an eternal beat and then answers his question. “Only that I suspected that something—or someone—had come between you.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Manuscript
August 5, 1926
Ashfield, Torquay, England
The seven candles glowed brightly. They illuminated the otherwise dark dining room, turning Rosalind’s birthday cake from a traditional white vanilla dessert to an orange-red confection. Madge, Archie, and I gathered in a semicircle around our small charge in a false attempt at birthday cheer. I only prayed that Rosalind didn’t notice the wetness of my cheeks and the redness of my eyes.
Archie had planned on leaving for London—and for Nancy—as soon as he’d dropped his devastating news upon me. Precision bombing, they called this sort of accurate target attack during the Great War, and it felt no less explosive now. I’d begged him to at least stay for the day, his daughter’s birthday no less, and he’d begrudgingly agreed. While Nancy’s pull on him seemed urgent, one that trumped even the gentle tug Rosalind had on her father, I was heartened to learn that propriety and duty still maintained a limited hold upon him.
“Happy birthday, dear Rosalind,” we sang in unison. Madge’s hand clutched mine tightly as my voice wobbled and threatened to crack. I hadn’t yet told her what Archie had revealed in the privacy of the library, but she sensed something had gone horribly awry.
“Blow out the candles, dear one!” Madge called to Rosalind in a merry voice. I appreciated her efforts to lift the black mood that had settled upon our desultory group and to make this a celebratory occasion.
I couldn’t bear to look at Archie directly. How could he want to leave me? I knew that relations between us hadn’t been idyllic for some time, but how could he want to break up our family and our home? After all, we’d only just gotten settled into our lives at Styles, created a rhythm as it were, and we had chosen Sunningdale for him. For his happiness.
Rosalind smiled at her aunt Punkie, as she liked to call her, and blew with all her might. One by one, the candles’ flames flickered, then disappeared.
“What did you wish for?” Madge teased.
“You know I can’t tell you, Auntie Punkie,” Rosalind answered with a big grin. She and Madge shared an easy banter and lighthearted taunting that I could never achieve with my otherwise somber daughter. Thinking on our connection—or lack thereof—I blamed Archie, with his insistence that I always keep him first in my mind. That admonition had made me cautious in my treatment of my daughter for years. At what cost?
“Just tell us the subject of your wishes. You don’t have to divulge the details,” Madge said with a conspiratorial wink.
“All right,” Rosalind agreed, and the smile abandoned her face when she continued. “All my seven wishes are about Mama and Papa.”
“That is very kind of you to share your wishes with your parents, Rosalind,” Madge said with a little squeeze of Rosalind’s hand.
A sudden panic overtook me. My daughter’s words yielded quite a different reaction in me than in Madge. Had Rosalind overheard the awful conversation between Archie and me in the library? Was that why all her wishes were for Archie and me instead of, say, a pie-in-the-sky hope for a pony? I didn’t think I could stand it if she had. Sobs threatened to overwhelm me, and I left the dining room for the kitchen. Moments before a cry escaped, I managed to call back, “Just fetching your gifts, darling.”
The clip of Madge’s heels echoed behind me as she followed me into the kitchen where she found me leaning against the rough plaster wall, trying to calm my breath. “What is going on, Agatha?”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” I didn’t think I could keep up the facade for the duration of Rosalind’s birthday if I told Madge the truth. A look of pity would certainly well up in her eyes, and I simply couldn’t tolerate it without breaking.
“Don’t nothing me, Agatha. You are obviously upset about something, and Archie is acting very queer too, as if he’s ill or something. And there was all that cloak and dagger in the library.”
I couldn’t say the words aloud. Sending the terrible words Archie had spoken to me back into the world might turn them into reality. If I could keep them secret, maybe they would disappear.
“Agatha.” Madge took hold of my shoulders and stared me in the eyes. “Did you hear
me? What on earth is going on here?”
“You won’t need to stay with Rosalind at Ashfield,” I said. This was all I could manage and as close to the truth as I dared go.
“What are you talking about? Why are you talking in riddles?” My usually composed sister’s nerves were starting to frazzle. “What the hell happened in that library? I’ll be forced to go ask Archie if you don’t tell me yourself.”
No, not that, I thought. I couldn’t bear Madge hearing about my rejection from its source, and anyway, perhaps there was a chance he’d change his mind. The more frequently he spoke aloud the terrible words he’d said to me in the library, the more wedded to them he was likely to become.
Left without options, I vocalized the unthinkable. “Archie wants to leave me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Day Eight after the Disappearance
Saturday, December 11, 1926
Styles, Sunningdale, England
Archie fumbles through the dresser and wardrobe in the master bedroom. Socks spill out from open drawers, and boxes lie upturned on the floor. He’s already made hay of the upstairs; he supposes he’ll have to reassemble it all before he turns his attention back downstairs, where he’s already searched once. He can allow no one to see what he’s doing.
Where are the papers? He believed that he’d destroyed each letter and each memento from Nancy. In fact, it was his practice to do so as soon as a missive was received and read. But now, he is not sure that he did indeed destroy the items. And much depends on the lack of evidence of his affair. He knows that Nancy’s notes, brimming with affection and plans, would give Kenward the motive he seeks.
Archie scrambles to return undergarments to the dresser, clothing to the wardrobe, and shoeboxes to their stack in the closet. Seconds after he’s finished, he hears Charlotte calling his name. What can she want now?
Not bothering to feign a smile, he walks to the top of the staircase. He looks down the steps to see her panicked face staring up at him.
“Yes, Charlotte?” he asks.
“Apologies, sir. I never expected you’d be upstairs or I’d have walked up to fetch you rather than yelling out.”
“Not to worry. What do you need?”
“It’s the phone, sir. You have a call.”
“Ah. Thank you,” he says, walking downstairs and striding toward the tiny table where the phone rests. Perhaps it is his secretary from Austral or even his boss, Clive, he thinks, welcoming the distraction. But then he recalls that it is Saturday, and dread takes hold instead. Who on earth would be calling? In the first days of Agatha’s disappearance, he received a flood of calls, but as the days progressed and he made known his desire for quiet, the calls nearly ceased, aside from his mother, of course, and Agatha’s family members.
“Hello?”
“Archie, it’s Madge.” His sister-in-law’s authoritative voice rings out on the line, and he flinches. He’s always shied away from the self-confident, affluent woman, always felt the gaze of her judgment upon him. Not successful enough, not wealthy enough, not high enough social standing—he could almost hear Madge’s thoughts aloud when he was in her presence. Agatha had maintained that he was imagining this unfavorable assessment, but Archie knew better. He knows Madge’s type all too well.
“Hello, Madge,” he says, his tone guarded.
“I’m calling for an update. We had agreed that you’d call me twice a day, every day, with news, but I haven’t heard from you since yesterday morning,” she barks at him.
“I didn’t call you because there was no news.”
“Our agreement was for two phone calls a day regardless.”
Anger threatens to take hold of him. Why does she think he needs to answer to her? But he knows the rage will not serve him well, so he simply apologizes.
Madge turns to the real reason for her call. “I’m thinking I’ll drive down to Surrey today so I can assist in the search tomorrow. I understand it will be a massive undertaking, and I’d like to be there to represent Agatha’s family.”
“I don’t think that’s wise, Madge. As soon as the press learns who you are—which they undoubtedly would from any number of townsfolk—you’d be under siege from reporters. Especially because they’re hyping it as the Great Sunday Hunt and they expect thousands of volunteers.”
“Thousands are good. I can hide in plain sight among thousands,” she says, although her confidence has waned.
“The locals will identify you, and you will be swarmed by reporters. I don’t think you’d relish being the focus of a Daily Mail article,” he says. His assertion is true, but it isn’t the real reason for Archie’s resistance. He could not stand to have the overbearing Madge underfoot at Styles, and he’d do anything to deter her.
The line grows quiet as she considers his warning. “At least let me take Rosalind for a while. She must be beside herself with worry, and she shouldn’t be exposed to this circus. I could drive down and fetch her. I’ll bring her back to stay at Abney Hall until we locate Agatha.”
Archie knows there’s a strong bond between his daughter and Madge, and in his mind, that relationship is Madge’s one redeeming quality. But he doesn’t think he could bear having Madge at Styles even for an hour, even assuming that what Agatha told him was true—that she hadn’t told Madge about their marital troubles. Anyway, what would he do with Charlotte and her sister Mary in Rosalind’s absence? Without his daughter to focus upon, the Fisher sisters would be mooning about Styles, unnerving him with their presence and their fussing. No, Rosalind would stay at her own home.
“I don’t think that’s for the best, Madge. She really doesn’t understand what’s happening. She thinks Agatha is away on a writing trip and that the police are overreacting because they’re horribly mistaken about her whereabouts,” he says.
Madge is uncharacteristically quiet, and he can hear her inhale one of her constant cigarettes. “Let me talk to her. I’ll judge for myself.”
“Madge, there is no need. She is my daughter, and I know what’s best for her.”
“Oh really?” She laughs, a caustic, horrible chortle that sends shivers up his spine. “Just like you knew what was best for my sister? When you had an affair and broke her heart?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Manuscript
August 7, 1926, and October 14, 1926
Surrey, England, and Guéthary, France
A curious calm settled upon me when Rosalind and I returned to Styles. To be sure, during the days at Ashfield after Archie departed for London, I surrendered to my devastation. Madge sat by my childhood bed, holding my hand and letting me sob, when she wasn’t tending to Rosalind. As I lay in that bed, more bereft than I’d thought possible, I replayed the few times I’d seen Nancy and Archie together over the past two years since we’d moved to Sunningdale, hunting for any sign of their tryst and wallowing in my husband’s betrayal. But once I decided to leave Ashfield and take the train to Styles—a place I could no longer think of as home but only as a way station—I squared my shoulders and determined that I would do whatever necessary to rebuild my family.
As the train chugged past the bucolic, sunlit countryside, which seemed to mock me with its verdancy and hopefulness, I realized that Archie wasn’t the man I’d believed him to be. I’d conjured up that man. On some level, I’d always known he didn’t fully embody the characteristics of his fictional character in The Man in the Brown Suit—Harry Rayburn—but was he entirely different from the brave, moral man I’d created in my mind and on the page? No matter, I told myself. Archie is my husband, and I will accept him in his truest self, even if that is not what I’d hoped. Anyway, it was likely my fault that he’d become fascinated with Nancy. Hadn’t Mummy always warned me never to leave my husband alone for too long? And hadn’t I emotionally and physically abandoned him this summer in my grief? Even when he was in Spain, he knew my h
eart and mind weren’t with him but lost to my sorrow over Mummy.
With this mindset, I left Rosalind with Charlotte, who’d just returned to Styles on the heels of her father’s recovery, and I hopped in my Morris Cowley. Archie would be finishing his workday at Austral Limited, and I would meet him as he exited. I would whisk him off to a lavish dinner and beg him to return to his family.
Archie had agreed to my entreaties. But his agreement came with great reluctance and an abundance of conditions. Over my tears and several shared drinks at an out-of-the-way London pub—Archie didn’t want anyone from his office to see our emotional exchange—he consented to a three-month trial reconciliation as well as a holiday away for just us two. I thought the Pyrenees might prove the perfect setting for a reunion.
The snow-capped backdrop of the Pyrenees village of Guéthary was even more breathtaking by moonlight than by day. I’d considered planning our trip for Cauterets, another village at the foot of the Pyrenees that I’d visited with my parents as a child. Over the years, my memories of that trip—our hikes along paths lined with pine trees and vivid sprigs of wildflowers and the sound of my parents’ laughter echoing through the forest as they strolled hand in hand—had not faded. But I had worried that no matter how successful my trip with Archie could be, it would never compare to that perfect summer. Now, given how Archie was behaving, I was pleased that I hadn’t spoiled my vision of Cauterets and had chosen Guéthary instead.
To get a better view through the window, I stood on my tippy-toes by our hotel bed, which we’d slept in but hadn’t shared, to see the small mountain village in the Pyrenees, famous for its spas, now illuminated by hundreds of flickering candlelights. I opened my mouth to call out to Archie so he could see this spectacular view, then I thought the better of it. He’d grown silent over dinner in the lodge, and even a second bottle of cabernet and the warmth of the fire hadn’t loosened his tongue.
What had I done wrong this time?
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie Page 18