Interesting facts: Agatha Christie. The Theresa Neele Mystery.

December is coming and we thought: Why not tell you a story that happened to the world renowned crime fiction writer one December evening?  Here it is:

On the evening of the third of December in 1926 Agatha Christie left her house in Berkshire. Her car was later found abandoned but there was no sign of the famous novelist. Her disappearance was shrouded in mystery and for 11 days the whole nation was gripped by the question: ‘What has happened to Agatha Christie?’ 

Agatha Christie in 1926

The police as well as volunteers had been searching high and low until a banjo player with the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate recognized Agatha Christie among the hotel guests and alerted the police. It came out that all this time Agatha Christie had been staying in the hotel under the assumed name of Theresa Neele.

Till the end of her life Agatha Christie didn’t say a word about her flight from home on December evening leaving her biographers to wonder what had prompted her to get away and register in the hotel as Mrs.Theresa Neele.

There are at least two explanations of what really happened:

1. Agatha Christie’s husband, Archibald Christie, had been having a love affair with Nancy Neele and asked for a divorce. The novelist wanted to fake her own death in an attempt to frame her husband and cast a shadow on his happiness.

 Archibald Christie

2. The disappearance was caused by amnesia, which was brought about by the death of Agatha’s mother and the looming break-up of her marriage.

Which explanation seems more plausible to you?

By the way, Miss Marple made her first appearance in the story ‘The Tuesday Night Club’ in 1926 soon after Agatha Christie was restored to her family.'

...and Agatha Christie found new happiness when in 1930 she married Max Mallowan, a prominent English archaeologist.

 Max and Agatha

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