The Disappearance of Agatha Christie

In August 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, who had been a friend of Major Belcher. On 3 December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening, Christie disappeared from her home. Her car, a Morris Cowley, was found at Newlands Corner, perched above a chalk quarry, with an expired driving licence and clothes.

The disappearance caused a public outcry. The 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 gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her. Crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers visited the "scene of the disappearance", and used the scenario in her book Unnatural Death.

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. On 14 December 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Tressa Neele (the surname of her husband's lover) from "Capetown S.A." (i.e. Cape Town, South Africa). The next day, Christie left for her sister's residence, Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away."

Christie's autobiography makes no reference to the disappearance. Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from "an unquestionable genuine loss of memory", yet opinion remains divided over the reason for her disappearance. Some, including authorised biographer Janet Morgan, believe that she disappeared during a fugue state. In contrast, Jared Cade's research led him to conclude that Christie deliberately planned the event to embarrass her husband, but did not anticipate the public melodrama that resulted. Laura Thompson provides the alternative view that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder.

Fictional accounts of what really happened has been made a number of times.

The disappearance of Agatha Christie in fiction

 * An episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who is centred around the event.
 * Author Andrew Wilson wrote a suspense novel featuring a fictional Agatha Christie. The story takes place during the ten days in December.
 * The film Agatha and the Truth of Murder is a fictional account of what happened during the ten days.
 * The Mysterious Case of Agatha Christie is an episode of the television series Urban Myths. The episode gives a, rather humorous, version of what happened to Agatha.