She wanted to drive off to somewhere unknown. Even the celebrated crime writers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and Dorothy L Sayers, author of the Lord Peter Wimsey series, were drawn into the puzzle. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie reads like a modern domestic thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Its also a nod to classic whodunits that channels Christies talent for writing unsolvable mysteries packed with puzzles, red herrings and, most especially, unreliable narrators. It has often been claimed that Christie went into hiding in order to frame her husband for her murder. With this new information in hand, Archie and investigators travelled to Yorkshire, where the Hydropathic Hotel was located. It was the last great mystery that Agatha Christie left unsolved - claiming amnesia after she disappeared for 11 days in 1926. Some said the incident was nothing more than a publicity stunt, a clever ruse to promote her new book. The search seemed to center on a pond called the Silent Pool, which, according to local legend, was bottomless. And this probably explains why the incident caught the imagination of so many at the time. The public got involved as well, mounting their own searches and muddying the waters. But by December 1926, her marriage to Archie Christie was in trouble. A number of theories have been advanced to explain this episode. Christie was eventually discovered safe, but in circumstances that raised more questions than they answered. The police, scrambling for clues, turned to Christies manuscripts, examining what they thought was her work in progress, The Blue Train., Between 10,000 and 15,000 people took part in the search for Mrs. Christie, aided by six trained bloodhounds, a crate load of Airedale terriers, many retrievers and Alsatian police dogs, and even the services of common mongrels.. The famous 11-day disappearance of writer Agatha Christie in the 1920s has long bamboozled biographers, but the mystery may now finally be solved. When the war ended the couple moved to London for Archie to take up a post at the Air Ministry. Agatha Christies life rivaled the immortal mysteries she created. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, her ingenious masterpiece, had just been published and her literary agent was pushing for a follow-up. But there was one important development. While Christies husband denied that he knew who this Tressa was, the woman he wished to marry was named Nancy Neele. That's rightthe Queen of Mystery literally disappeared at one time, turning her life into a mystery straight out of her novels and creating theories about what happened that persist today, almost a century later. To this day, historians are not sure what happened with Agatha during those 11 days of disappearance. However, her car hit something and stopped with a jerk that made her head bang against something. Mrs. Christie is quite too much a lady for that. The secretary also handed over the note Christie had left for her, saying it contained only scheduling details. Agatha Christie's eleven-day disappearance mystery solved, claims Teresa Neele went to Kings Cross and bought a ticket for the spa resort of Harrogate. She did not need a publicity stunt to get her name out there or boost sales. When the World's Most Famous Mystery Writer Vanished They tipped off her husband, Colonel Christie, who came to collect Agatha immediately. The Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate was a swanky spa that boasted Turkish Baths. In 1930, Agatha also remarried. Mrs. Christie was therefore a well-known figure when she disappeared, and the mystery gripped the literary world and the public with intrigue. First is that some people believed that Agatha Christie had vanished because she was off investigating a homicide somewhere. She would not be seen again for 11 days. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. It is possible that she felt this constituted enough of a disruption of her life that she saw no other way to cope. Civilians also joined the elaborate manhunt for Mrs. Christie, only have the search end suddenly eleven days later with Agatha showing up at a hotel and spa in Harrogate, a town in northern England. She had been presented with the idea of divorce by her husband, who had been carrying on an affair. By this stage, Christie was already a celebrity. No one knew or saw Agatha during these days. And she wasnt just a novelist, either: she remains historys most performed female playwright. Searching for a body in the poolwas considered hopeless and the police feared it would never be recovered. Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of the most famous English poets of all time, with a career spanning 62 years, The most famous of all English playwrights was born in 1564 and died on St Georges Day, in 1616. I thought about jumping in, but realised that I could swim too well to drown then back to London again, and then on to Sunningdale. The novelist was found at a Yorkshire spa, nine days after she disappeared. So, did she truly lose her memory? In the aftermath of Agathas disappearance both Archie Christie and his mistress Nancy Neale were under suspicion and a huge manhunt was undertaken by thousands of policemen and eager volunteers. Until now the two most popular theories offered for these strange events have been that either Christie was suffering from memory loss after a car crash, or that she had planned the whole thing to thwart her husband's plans to spend a weekend with his mistress at a house close to where she abandoned her car. . Readers must have thought he protested far too much. Christie herself was unable to provide any clues to what had happened. And so the most intriguing of all of Christies mysteries remains unsolved! It was the perfect tabloid story, with all the elements of one of Christie's own 'whodunnit' mysteries. Christies disappearance had the impact it did because of the 1920s context that saw a new kind of media celebrity being created. 'Her state of mind was very low and she writes about it later through the character of Celia in her autobiographical novel, Unfinished Portrait.'. What lay behind her extraordinary 11-day disappearance in 1926? And then, in the railway carriage, theres the watchful presence of Christie herself, unnoticed. Norman says that her adoption of a new personality, Theresa Neele, and her failure to recognize herself in newspaper photographs were signs that she had fallen into psychogenic amnesia. In this last letter it can be assumed that Christie explained her actions, at least in part. I love this story because it sums up so much about Agatha Christies life. Agatha Christie Disappearance - Gone Girl - Refinery29 Her disappearance would spark one of the largest manhunts ever mounted. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. Why no one could have spotted her was blamed on a possible male disguise she might have been wearing, a conceit that could have come straight from one of her books. Only that way could she survive. His gaslighting of Agatha, as well as her mothers constant reminders that Agatha should make him the center of her universe, turns her into a simpering, pathetic woman. If Christie were alive, its writer argued, she must be ready to inflict intense anxiety on her relatives and heavy expenditure on the public in a heartless practical joke. She had been presented with the idea of divorce by her husband, who had been carrying on an affair.