The Puzzling Disappearance of Agatha Christie

**"The Puzzling Disappearance of Agatha Christie"** is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on June 25, 2021. It was the second episode of the eighth season of *BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime*, and the one hundredth and twelvelth episode overall. You can find it here.

## Description

What really happened to England’s famed author when she went missing?

## Background

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890 in Devon, England. The youngest daughter of upper middle-class Frederick and Clara Miller. Christie was homeschooled in a somewhat unusual fashion. Clara reportedly didn't want her daughter to learn how to read until she turned eight. By the age of five, feeling under-stimulated, Agatha taught herself to read, beginning a lifelong obsession with books.

In 1912, Agatha met a dashing young aviator named Archibald "Archie" Christie. The outbreak of World War One, which both pitched in for, kept the budding lovers apart for years. Despite warnings from her mother that Archie seemed to be a cat who would never be faithful, on Christmas Eve, 1914, Agatha married Archie while he was on leave. In 1919, Agatha gave birth to her only child, a daughter, Rosalind. Agatha had written short stories throughout her teens, but when her older sister bet her she couldn't write a good mystery, she penned her debut novel: *The Mysterious Affair at Styles*. After several major rejections, publisher John Lane not only bought the book, but also contracted Agatha to write five more books. This proved to be a brilliant decision. As Styles introduced the world to one of literature's most popular characters, the eccentric detective Hercule Poirot, who would feature in over two dozen novels and even more short stories.

Agatha proved to be a prolific writer and her rise to stardom was meteoric. Unfortunately, within only a few years of achieving widespread fame, she suffered a period of great emotional hardship. Her mother, with whom she'd been extremely close, passed away in 1926. Her grief brought on a massive case of writer's block, and she was unable to finish the book she was working on, The Mystery of the Blue Train. Making matters worse was the fact that Archie, just as Agatha's mom had predicted, had begun an affair with a woman 10 years her junior, Nancy Neele.

On December 3rd, 1926 at around 9:00 PM, Agatha put five-year-old Rosalind to bed and kissed her good night. The 36-year-old author grabbed an attache case, left her house wordlessly, and drove off into the night. The next morning, Agatha's car was discovered hanging precariously over the edge of a chalk quarry. It appeared the car had been run off the road, careening towards a cliff, and stopping just before the edge. Inside was the attache case, a fur coat, and her driver's license. The driver was nowhere to be found.

In short order, the author's disappearance became headline news around the globe. The famed mystery writer had herself become the central character, in a real life thriller. Three days later. however, the search for the acclaimed novelist was suddenly called off after Christie's brother-in-law reported receiving a letter from her the day after her disappearance, saying she was going to a spa in Yorkshire "for rest and treatment." The police, however, suspected the letter was fake and reopened the case almost immediately.

A week after Agatha's disappearance, police were flummoxed, despite hundreds of reported sightings of the famous author all across the UK, no tips led anywhere. Authorities began resorting to increasingly desperate strategies. They brought one of Agatha's dogs to the scene of the abandoned car in the hopes it could track her scent. Instead the dog "whined pitifully."

At one point, for unclear reasons, police speculated Agatha was possibly in London "disguised and probably in male attire." Detectives scoured her manuscripts for clues she may have left behind, and even brought in a group of mediums and spiritualists to hold a seance at the scene of her disappearance. Unsurprisingly, none of these efforts went anywhere.

It's reported that between 10,000 and 20,000 people helped search for the author, with over 1000 police constables involved. It's even thought this may have been the first time airplanes were deployed in the search of a missing person. On December 11th, The New York times reported that there had finally been a substantial break in the case. Before she left, Christie had apparently left three letters behind. One was the already mentioned letter to her brother-in-law, the second was to her private secretary which only contained details about her schedule. The third and most intriguing letter was left for her husband. Allegedly, Archie refused to hand the letter over to authorities. And instead, allegedly burned it, maintaining it contained no information about her whereabouts.

On December 15th, Bob Tappin, the banjo player in the resident band at the Swan Hydro hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, reportedly thought something looked a bit familiar about the woman dancing the Charleston as he played, "Yes, We Have No Bananas."

It turns out Bob Tappin was correct. The woman dancing in front of him in Yorkshire was indeed the real Agatha Christie. It had been 12 days since Agatha Christie was last seen, but here she was, getting down to a novelty song on a Wednesday night. Agatha's letter to her brother-in-law was correct, after all. She was spending time at a spa in Yorkshire.

Somehow Agatha had gotten from her car to King's Cross Station where she'd boarded a train to Harrogate. She had virtually no luggage, but was having a pleasant and uneventful stay, joining in on balls and dances and receiving spa treatments. Despite the fact that she was the subject of a nationwide search, no one seemed to bother her. Perhaps because she had checked in under an assumed name, Mrs. Teresa Neele.

After Tappin notified police of the lauded author's whereabouts, Archie traveled to the hotel to pick up his wife. Reportedly, Agatha greeted her husband with a "stony stare," apparently at a total loss for who the man was. Archie told reporters, "she does not know who she is. She has suffered from the most complete loss of memory."

When asked by reporters, pointedly and explicitly, why his wife chose the name Neele, Archie deflected, saying she had no idea who she was and pointed to the fact that Agatha had apparently placed ads in the newspaper under that name in the hopes a relative would come forward and help her learn about herself. After the incident, Agatha and Archie lived apart. With the author taking up residence with her daughter in a London flat, as she underwent a course of psychiatric treatment. According to Agatha, this therapy gradually restored her memory.

In 1928, she and Archie officially divorced. Finally free from her stressful relationship, Agatha was able to complete *The Mystery of the Blue Train*. That year, she also fulfilled a lifelong dream to travel on the Orient Express, which would eventually inspire one of her most famous novels, *Murder on the Orient Express*.

In 1930, Agatha married archeologist Max Mallowin. During her second, happier marriage, Agatha continued to write prolifically, sometimes completing two or three books a year. She did however, avoid writing about at least a couple subjects. In her autobiography, Agatha wrote neither about her disappearance nor the dissolution of her first marriage, saying only "there is no need to dwell on it."

## Theories

* **The whole ordeal was a publicity stunt.** This was one of the earliest theories when first Agatha went missing. Her novel, *The Murder of Roger Ackroyd*, had been released earlier that year. And the theory goes that Agatha knew that if she went missing, her enormous popularity would mean she'd be headline news, thus driving sales.
	+ One big hole in this theory is the fact that the book had already been incredibly popular without the need for a stunt. When asked if she could fake her own death, Agatha's secretary replied, "it is ridiculous. Mrs. Christie is quite too much a lady for that."
* **Agatha intentionally set the whole disappearance up to cast a public spotlight on, and thus humiliate, her husband for his adulterous ways.** The weekend of her disappearance, Agatha had known that Archie was planning to stay over at his paramour Nancy Neele's place, which perhaps not coincidentally, was a mere six miles away from where Agatha's car was found. Needless to say, Archie's romantic weekend was torn to shreds due to his wife's disappearance.
	+ Biographer Jared Cade has posited that Agatha not only planned her disappearance, but also had help doing so from her sister-in-law and childhood friend, Nan Watts. Cade suggests that after abandoning her car, Agatha took a local train to London where she stayed with Nan that night Nan then would have given her money for her stay in Harrogate. Cade came to this conclusion after persuading Nan's daughter Barbara to go through family papers. However, the disappearance does seem to be a very elaborate and public way to handle a cheating spouse, especially for a person as private as Agatha.
* **The final theory is the one put forth by Agatha herself, which is that she suffered from memory loss due to her car crash.** In February, 1928, Agatha was interviewed by The Daily Mail about her disappearance, the one and only time she ever spoke about the incident. The author felt it necessary to explain the events to the best of her ability, as she had continued to be torched by the media with speculation that the whole ordeal had been made up.
	+ According to Christie, she had been suffering from insomnia before her disappearance, sleeping on average only two hours a night. Christie was known to suffer from bouts of despondency and depression. And on the day of her disappearance she was even having suicidal thoughts, "I just wanted my life to end. As I passed by Newlands Corner that afternoon, I saw a quarry and there came into my mind a thought of driving into it. However, as my daughter was with me in the car, I dismissed the idea at once." Agatha continued with her recollection of what happened after she left the house that evening, "all that night, I drove aimlessly about, when I reached a point on the road which I thought was near the quarry I had seen in the afternoon, I turned the car off the road, down the hill towards it. I left the wheel and let the car run. The car struck something with a jerk and pulled up suddenly. I was flung against the steering wheel and my head hit something."
	+ Agatha continued, "up to this moment I was Mrs. Christie, after the accident in the car, however, I lost my memory. I remember arriving at a big railway station and asking what it was and being surprised it was Waterloo. It is strange that the railway authorities there did not recall me as I was covered with mud and I had smeared blood on my face from a cut on my head."
	+ "I then remember arriving at the hotel in Harrogate. I was still muddy and showing signs of my accident when I arrived there. I had now become in my mind Mrs. Tessa Neele of South Africa." During the interview, Agatha expressed a near nostalgia for her lost time, "as Mrs. Neele, I was very happy and contented. I had become, as it were, a new woman and all the worries and anxieties of Mrs. Christie had left me. When I was brought back to my life as Mrs. Christie again, many of my worries and anxieties returned. And although I am not quite well and cheerful and have lost my morbid tendencies completely, I have not quite that utter happiness of Mrs. Neele."
	+ Critics of Agatha's account wonder how she could have seen newspapers plastered with her own face throughout her stay and remain oblivious. The author addressed this during the interview, "I read every day about Mrs. Christie's disappearance and came to the conclusion that she was dead. I regarded her as having acted stupidly. I was greatly struck by my resemblance to her and pointed it out to other people in the hotel. It never occurred to me I might be her as I was quite satisfied in my mind as to who I was."
	+ Agatha further detailed how, by spending time with doctors and relatives, she was able to gradually remember who she was. After the interview, it appears few were convinced she was telling the truth. The Irish Times went so far as to call her version, "as complete a work of fiction as anything she had written."
	+ One inconsistency critics continued to point to was that Agatha's story didn't add up. Literally, the money didn't add up. Many were suspicious about how Agatha, as Mrs. Neele, could have afforded the hotel stay, including the spa services, new clothes, and indulgent drinks and meals. In the interview, however, Agatha noted she'd originally left the house with £60. Today, £60 would be the equivalent of about £3,800.