My Favourite Writer (Agatha Christie)

Disappearance[edit]

In late 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele, who had been a friend of Major Belcher, director of the British Empire Mission, on the promotional tour a few years earlier. On 3 December 1926, the Christies quarrelled, and Archie left their house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening, around 9:45 pm, Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her car, a Morris Cowley, was later found at Newlands Corner, perched above a chalk quarry, with an expired driving licence and clothes.^[19]
Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public. Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks pressured police, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward. Over a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes scoured the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find the missing woman. Dorothy L. Sayers visited the house in Surrey, later using the scenario in her book Unnatural Death.^[20]
Christie's disappearance was featured on the front page of The New York Times. Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for 10 days.^{[20][21][22][23]} On 14 December 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel^[a]) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele (the surname of her husband's lover) from Cape Town.
Christie's autobiography makes no reference to her disappearance.^[12][20] Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from amnesia (see Fugue state), yet opinion remains divided as to why she disappeared. She was known to be in a depressed state from literary overwork, her mother's death earlier that year, and her husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or attempt to frame her husband for murder.^[24][b]
The 1979 Michael Apted film Agatha features a disclaimer in the opening credits stating that what follows is an imaginary solution to an authentic mystery. The film starred Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton as Agatha and Archie, and depicts Christie planning suicide in such a way as to frame her husband's mistress for her "murder". An American reporter, played by Dustin Hoffman, follows her closely and stops the plan. The film outraged Christie's heirs who fought two unsuccessful lawsuits in the United States to try to prevent it from being distributed.^{[citation needed]}
Author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for his sympathetic biography Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, revised 2011.^[25] He provided substantial evidence to suggest that she planned the event to embarrass her husband, never anticipating the resulting escalated melodrama.^[26]
The Christies divorced in 1928, and Archie married Nancy Neele. Agatha retained custody of daughter Rosalind and the Christie name for her writing. During their marriage, she published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.^{[citation needed]}