The thrilling mystery of Agatha Christie’s disappearance in 1926 when she went missing for 11 days

Her car Morris Cowley, with headlights on, was finally found abandoned on a steep slope at Newlands Corner near Guildford by the Surrey Police.

She was not inside the car but she left her suitcase and coat in the backseat which perplexed everyone involved in the search.

Close to the site was a natural spring ‘The Silent Pool’ where two children reportedly died by drowning, so they thought that she committed suicide by drowning herself.

But were they right?

This event of Agatha Christie's disappearance was turning into a thriller mystery as if nature had copied one of the mysteries written by Agatha herself.

The Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie has put her readers in mystery through her detective novels several times.

Read More : Complete list of Agatha Christie's Books in order

But in the year 1926, Agatha Christie made the entire world scratch their head when she suddenly disappeared without leaving any clue behind.

How did Agatha Christie disappear?

Agatha Christie rose from her armchair sometime around 9.30 pm and went upstairs.

This day was 3rd December 1926.

The reason to go upstairs was to kiss her daughter Rosalind who was fast asleep.

She kissed her, maybe it was a goodbye kiss and she came downstairs leaving her daughter to the maid.

Agatha Christie then started her car, Morris Cowley, to be precise, and drove off leaving behind 11 days full of questions, anxiety, perplexity, and search.

Agatha Christie was 36 years old when she disappeared.

What happened when Agatha Christie disappeared?

Thanks to the press, the news ‘Agatha Christie goes missing’ spread like wildfire as she was already a famous author by then.

When an event becomes a burning affair, it makes several people get into rapid action particularly the bureaucrats.

Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks put severe pressure on the police to find the missing writer.

More than a thousand policemen and several thousand civilian volunteers were involved in the search for finding evidence of Agatha Christie’s disappearance.

A newspaper even declared a 100-pound reward for anyone who could find her.

For the first time, airplanes were brought into the search operation.

Airplanes for finding a person? That too in 1926?

You can imagine how big this affair was.

Two famous mystery writers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (who created Sherlock Holmes) and Dorothy L. Sayers were also roped in for the search.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even made a futile effort of giving one of Agatha Christie’s gloves to a supernatural medium to gain any knowledge of the current whereabouts of Christie.

After the police found her abandoned car with no leads to follow, the search continued further for 10 more days with no result.

Meanwhile, the press kept weaving several stories.

Soon the news of Agatha Christie's disappearance mystery crossed borders.

It was also featured on the front page of the Newyork times.

Where did Agatha Christie disappear to?

On 14th December 1926, a local banjo player Bob Tappin from the Old Swan Hotel (then Swan Hydropathic hotel) in Harrogate Yorkshire contacted the Police.

He told that a woman who has checked into the hotel as Mrs. Tressa Neele from Capetown, South Africa resembles exactly the missing writer.

The police with Agatha Christie’s husband Archibald Christie rushed to the hotel.

Archibald Christie was in the hotel’s dining room when he saw his wife walk in.

She sat quietly at a table and started reading the newspaper, which had news of her own disappearance. She didn’t look shocked or surprised at seeing the news.

When Agatha Christie’s husband approached her, she didn’t even recognize him.

Yes, she didn’t recognize her husband to whom she was married for the last 12 years.

What happened to Agatha Christie when she disappeared?

Agatha Christie went missing for 11 days, of which she never spoke of.

When Christie was asked about those 11 days, she remembered nothing.

Read More : Glorifying the ABC Murders: One of Agatha Christie’s best books

Maybe this is the reason why she didn’t mention anything about her disappearance in her biography.

As per the article from historyextra.com, the police formulated a theory that Agatha Christie traveled to London in her car.

When she met with an accident, she abandoned her car and took a train to Harrogate, Yorkshire.

She then checked into the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in the name of Theresa Neele.

Coincidentally, Neele was the surname of the 25-year-old mistress her husband was having an affair with at that time.

Why did Agatha Christie disappear?

The disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926 opened a can of Agatha Christie’s disappearance theories, especially during those 11 days from 3rd Dec 1926 - 14th Dec 1926.

Many suspected her disappearance to be a carefully orchestrated publicity stunt to further enhance her popularity.

Some thought it to be a revenge act against her husband Archie Christie as he was having an affair with his 25-year-old mistress - Nancy Neele.

Chapter 41 of Marie Benedict’s book - ‘The mystery of Mrs. Christie’ depicts the events that preceded a little before when she disappeared for 11 days.

People also took it the other way around when they suspected her husband and Nancy Neele of foul play.

All circumstances hinted towards Archibald Christie murdering Agatha Christie so that he could finally be together with his mistress.

Another opinion was that Christie couldn’t bear the loss of her mother coupled with her husband’s extramarital affair which led to her running away in a state of a nervous breakdown.

Statement by Archibald Christie

Archibald Christie stated that his wife suffered from a possible memory loss as a result of the concussion caused by the car accident.

This was the reason he felt why she couldn’t recognize him in the dining room of the Hotel in Harrogate.

Two doctors also supported this statement made by Mr. Christie.

Later Agatha Christie and her husband went separate ways. She later married Sir Max Mallowan but never gave up on her surname.

Possible conclusion by the biographer Andrew Norman

Norman concluded that her travel in a state of confusion and assumption of a new identity, especially the surname of her husband’s mistress, led to Christie’s suffering from disassociative fugue.

The major characteristic of dissociative fugue is reversible amnesia which is why after a few days, Christie picked up the pen again.

Usually, the fugue state is preceded by a series of traumatic episodes and in Christie’s case, first was her mother’s loss followed by the knowledge of her husband’s extramarital affair.

Christie’s biographer Janet Morgan also had the same belief behind Christie’s disappearance in 1926.

Shocking revelation by the daughter of Nan Watts

The daughter of Nan Watts, who was Christie’s closest friend, revealed in an interview in 2000 that she had known the truth of Agatha Christie's disappearance all this time.

Nan Watts hid Christie on the night of 3rd Dec 1926 in her home in Chelsea.

The next day with help from Nan Watts, Christie boarded the train to Harrogate, Yorkshire.

Nan Watts’ daughter claimed that Christie disappeared as she wanted to take revenge against her husband.

Her claim corroborated the age-old revenge theory but it is still unproven.

Courtesy - https://www.all-about-agatha-christie.com/agatha.html

What novel did Agatha Christie write after her disappearance?

The traumatic experiences might have destroyed Agatha Christie the woman but they couldn’t destroy the mystery writer inside her.

Christie began writing ‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’ at the time of her disappearance which she then continued later because after separation from her husband she needed funds.

Christie has mentioned in her biography how much she struggled in coming up with the story of this Hercule Poirot novel and has stated that she always hated it.

Books on Agatha Christie’s disappearance

If you are interested in reading more about the disappearance event of the Queen of Crime then famous authors and biographers such as Jared Cade, Janet Morgan, and Laura Thompson have provided their logic, theories, and imagination in books such as -

• Agatha Christie and the Eleven missing days (1998) by Jared Cade.
• Agatha Christie - A mysterious life by Laura Thompson
• Agatha Christie - a biography (1984) by Janet Morgan
• The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict (2020)
• The Christie Affair by Nina De Gramont (2022)

And the mystery continues…

Only a Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes could tell us what happened exactly during those 11 days of the puzzling disappearance of Agatha Christie.

But unfortunately, they are fictional.

This leads me to believe that there is only one person who could tell us the truth, Christie herself, which she never shared with the world.

Since she is no more hence the mystery remains unsolved.

But, I would love to know your opinion of what could be the possible reason behind her disappearance?

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