by Jared Cade
Meanwhile the Chief Constable of the Surrey Constabulary, Captain Sant, had issued orders that none of his subordinates were to grant interviews to journalists on the subject of the expense of the search around Newlands Corner and why the Surrey police had persisted in combing the downs after the Berkshire Constabulary had decided that Agatha was, in all probability, still alive. The reporters, who called repeatedly at Woodbridge Road Headquarters in Guildford and at Deputy Chief Constable Kenward’s home in the police station grounds, found he had become as elusive as the woman for whom he had searched in vain.
Superintendent Goddard and Inspector Butler of the Berkshire Constabulary remained highly sceptical, after liaising with the West Riding police, of the claims that Agatha was suffering from amnesia. Superintendent Goddard issued a statement to the press in which he made clear his reasons for believing almost from the beginning that Agatha was alive.
‘Frankly, I had nothing to go on save my own deductions on the facts before me. But I may admit this. I knew that when she left her house it was her intention to drive around for a little while until she had made up her mind what she was going to do. An important factor, to my mind, was the finding of a fur coat in the abandoned car. A woman who was going to commit suicide, I argued, would not get out of a car, take off her coat, and walk a considerable distance away. She would in all probability, having made up her mind, take her life where she sat.
Another factor in my deduction was the manner in which Mrs Christie was dressed. She could have passed the night comfortably driving around in her car wearing a fur coat, and then when she had made up her mind to leave the car have discarded the coat, which was too heavy for walking in. Under the fur coat she wore warm clothing of the sort a woman wears for country walks.
I thought from all these facts that she had walked from her car and had taken a train for some very definite destination. Hence I got busy with posters, circulating them to all police stations. I never believed in the suicide theory. I never believed Mrs Christie had been the victim of foul play. I am delighted she has been found and that the search is at an end. It has been a worrying time for everyone.’
What Superintendent Goddard failed to realize was that Agatha had decided on her course of action before she left home that night. Nevertheless, his remarks, which were uncomfortably perceptive, were widely reported in the Daily Mail, Daily News and The Bulletin and Scots Pictorial.
The letter Agatha had addressed to her secretary, which had been kept by the Berkshire police while she was missing, was returned to Charlotte. The police officer who unwittingly came closest to perceiving the truth was Tom Roberts, the 21-year-old probationary constable. In his 1987 biography, Friends and Villains, Roberts recalled: ‘It seems that Mrs Christie had chosen this site deliberately, as she could leave her car there and then walk to the Guildford–Waterloo main-line station at West Clandon and disappear.’
On Wednesday 15 December the morning newspapers had a field-day reporting the writer’s discovery. Ex-Chief Inspector Walter Dew in the Daily Express bluntly contradicted Archie’s explanation of the affair: ‘It may well be that when Mrs Christie vanished the tremendous publicity given to her case was rather more than she had bargained for. If this was so we can understand a little better why she remained silent for so long.’
Archie had taken a room near Agatha’s and each breakfasted alone in preparation for their public ordeal. His wife welcomed the idea of going to Abney Hall, partly because Styles contained too many distressing memories for her. Archie was extremely agitated by the public furore that had erupted, while Agatha was so bewildered and apprehensive that she displayed an almost unnatural calm. On their arrival at the hotel Madge and Jimmy acted as intermediaries between husband and wife, since Agatha and Archie were no longer talking directly to each other.
A few moments before their departure, male and female decoys were seen to leave the front entrance of the Harrogate Hydro and get into a Laudellette. The press frenziedly flung themselves on to the wrings of the car and photographed the couple they believed to be the departing author and her husband. Agatha and Archie descended the main stairs of the Harrogate Hydro at 9.15 a.m. for what was to become the most publicly scrutinized journey of their lives.
The Daily Mail had stationed a lone photographer by the side entrance of the hotel. As Archie and Agatha made their way along a corridor towards a side door their departure was witnessed by the manageress, Mrs Taylor. The public charade they enacted was therefore for her benefit. When Agatha asked Archie why they were not leaving by the front entrance, he reassured her that she must not be alarmed because she had lost her memory and that everything would be all right. She was wearing a new two-piece pale pink outfit with a double collar, pale pink striped black cloche hat, a row of double-stranded pearls, a coat trimmed with fur around the collar, cuffs and hem, black gloves, champagne-coloured stockings and elegant black shoes. The stylish ensemble hardly reinforced the public’s perceptions of Agatha as someone who had lost her memory and was in a state of mental confusion, but the writer was determined that Archie should know what he was losing in divorcing her for Nancy.
As the novelist stepped outside, the Daily Mail’s photographer captured the only photograph of her leaving the Harrogate Hydro, her inscrutable expression caught in profile. A buttons boy was holding open the door of a waiting taxi cab, and when Agatha heard the click of a camera she darted inside. The Christies and the Wattses were relentlessly pursued to the railway station. Word of their impending departure had leaked out, and there was pandemonium. The railway staff, in an attempt to keep the growing crowd at bay, had placed an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the ticket machine that sold penny tickets for access to the railway platform, but the more enterprising members of the press and public bought tickets to the next station and thus gained access to the platform in a bid to catch a glimpse of the Christies’ departure.
Through a prior arrangement with the railway authorities, the two couples did not enter the station by either of the usual public entrances. Instead they used a goods entrance that led on to the up-line platform from the East Parade side. As the Glasgow–London train steamed into the station they made their way along the platform to a private compartment reserved for ‘Mr Parker’s Party’. Mr Parker was the name of the stationmaster, and the notice gave onlookers to understand that the party would be proceeding to King’s Cross Station in London. The platform was so crowded that many of the journalists had difficulty identifying Agatha, since none had previously seen her in person. In a desperate bid to catch the train, many of the reporters, who had entered by the front entrances, ran across the tracks to the far platform. The Daily Mirror photographer Edward Dean triumphantly boasted that he had spotted her. The two sisters hid inside their compartment, while Archie and Jimmy remained briefly on guard on the platform outside until the train was ready to leave.
Agatha was deeply shocked by the mob of reporters and photographers, and she burst into tears after the train pulled out of Harrogate. But she was to discover there was worse harassment to come when they arrived at Leeds Station. By then she had regained her composure. While they were expected to continue all the way to London, they caught reporters off-guard by changing trains. As Agatha left the London train she had the misfortune to step straight into the path of the waiting Daily Chronicle photographer. The resulting picture, which was undoubtedly the most poignant of all those taken at the time, shows her faltering in her stride, her face a mask of dismay and revulsion at the situation. She is clutching her handbag on the crook of her arm, while in her other arm she is carrying two of the detective novels on loan from the Harrogate library, which would subsequently be posted back.
She did not falter for long. Raising her head and determinedly ignoring bystanders, Agatha walked through the battery of cameras trained on her by the Westminster Gazette, the Daily News, the Daily Mail, the Leeds Mercury and the Daily Sketch. Madge was appalled by the invasion of their privacy by the photographers. H
owever, her cloche hat and large fur collar enabled her to keep her face partly shielded. She carried the by now notorious new attaché case and the shawl that Agatha had acquired in Harrogate. Archie and Jimmy followed with the rest of the writer’s newly acquired luggage. Agatha, desperate to escape the attention of the press, briefly led the way and, in doing so, betrayed her familiarity with the station, because, without instruction, she unhesitatingly turned on to the platform for the Manchester train. Agatha had used the station many times over the years on her visits to Abney Hall, and the press considered her knowledge of her whereabouts inconsistent for someone who was supposed to have no recollection of her past.
By the time her companions had caught up with her it was evident to Agatha that they were not going to be able to shake off the press, and she resigned herself to this fact. When her grim-faced sister chastened her for letting herself become distracted by bystanders, Agatha made a laughing remark and patted her on the shoulder, much to the astonishment of witnesses. Madge and Jimmy were tight-lipped, fearing that Agatha might get carried away, while Archie was appalled at all the attention they were getting.
Agatha’s light-hearted banter to Madge surprised many of the reporters. After his wife and in-laws had ensconced themselves in a private compartment of the Leeds train, Archie, in the few minutes left before the train departed, braved the gauntlet of reporters and photographers, to dispatch a telegram from Leeds Station informing Charlotte of their plans. He had not previously dared to tell the secretary where they were going, in a futile bid to maintain secrecy about their movements.
The Christies and the Wattses were not the only ones whose plans were foiled. The London Evening Standard, who had obtained a series of photographs of Agatha leaving Harrogate, was less lucky than its competitors.
The pictures were driven immediately to Sherbourne, an aerodrome near Harrogate, where a specially chartered plane was waiting to fly the negatives to London in time for the Evening Standard’s 2.30 p.m. edition. But because of the heavy fog the pilot was forced to land the plane less than fifty miles away at Brough Aerodrome and the Evening Standard’s elaborately devised plan had to be aborted.
As soon as the pursuing journalists realized Agatha’s true destination they telephoned their colleagues, who were thus waiting when the train drew into Manchester’s Victoria Station. The Christies and the Wattses now had an even bigger contingent of press on their trail. As they neared the barrier of the platform, a bystander, demanding an explanation for the furore, tried to intercept Agatha, but Archie rushed forward. He blocked the man’s way and insisted that his wife must not be addressed as she was very ill. Ignoring the man, the novelist and her companions hurried on.
The most damaging photographs that were taken of Agatha that day were those printed in the London Evening News and the Daily Mirror. The Evening News picture showed her grinning so broadly that it was apparent to all that she had been laughing. The Daily Mirror photographed her leaving the station in Manchester, smiling broadly, just before she climbed into her sister’s waiting chauffeur-driven Wolseley.
In fact Agatha found the journey a thoroughly humiliating and degrading experience and her one consolation throughout it all was Archie’s intense embarrassment at being pursued by the press – it was the one time in the disintegration of their marriage when his suffering appeared equal to hers.
The journey for Agatha and her companions ended with a ten-mile drive to Abney Hall. A frenzied chase ensued, with reporters and photographers commandeering every available taxi cab.
Meanwhile, in London, the extraordinary publicity given to the disappearance led to unprecedented scenes at King’s Cross Station. A large crowd surged round Platform No. 1 in the hope of glimpsing the arrival of the country’s most talked-about woman on the 1.55 train. Newspaper stands quickly sold out. Police were called in to control the mob, while the press photographers perched on the bridge over the platform and even on top of taxi cabs. Some people had brought along opera glasses. The crowd let out a roar of disappointment when it realized Agatha had not travelled on the train after all and soon dispersed.
In the meantime, having unsuccessfully tried to shake off their pursuers, Agatha’s party finally reached its destination. After the Wolseley swept past the lodge gates at the entrance to the grounds of Abney Hall the gardener swiftly padlocked the gates and put up a sign saying ‘Trespassers Will be Prosecuted.’ With Agatha safely removed from public view her co-conspirators were united in relief, believing the worst to be over. But, as events were to prove, the press were far from daunted.
Chapter Sixteen
Her Heels Dug Up
The reports in the daily papers on Wednesday the 15th should have provided a warning to the inhabitants of Abney Hall of the prolonged press siege they were to endure. During the night many reporters, refusing to admit defeat, slept outside the main entrances to the estate in chartered taxi cabs. The nation was agog to discover the reasons for Agatha’s extraordinary conduct, and the press were determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
After the Christies and the Wattses had retreated behind closed doors the united front they had presented in public almost immediately dissolved into recriminations, and their agitation was not helped by mounting public pressure. Although the ground staff were instructed by Jimmy to keep a sharp eye out for trespassing journalists, Agatha was advised not to leave the house in case she was spotted. She had no desire to do so and retired to her room in an attempt to avoid the inevitable recriminations.
The Daily News sent her a bluntly worded telegram: ‘In view of widespread criticisms of your disappearance strongly urge desirability of authentic explanation from yourself to thousands of the public who joined in costly search and shared anxiety and who cannot understand loss of memory in view of reports of your normal life at Harrogate and assumption of name of real person Neele.’
Anxious to avoid further scandal, Archie telegraphed a response to the newspaper on her behalf: ‘Wife suffering from loss of memory and probably concussion. She has no recollection of events on Friday or Saturday before arrival Harrogate. Has only recollected her true identity today. Remaining quietly under doctor’s orders.’
The suggestion that Agatha had concussion failed to convince the press. Noise is anathema to someone who is concussed, and journalists knew that on the night of her arrival at the hotel in Harrogate she had energetically danced the Charleston to the accompaniment of a five-piece band. Journalists, reluctant to believe Archie’s excuses of amnesia and concussion to explain his wife’s strange behaviour, reported that during her stay she had regularly entertained guests by playing the piano and singing in English, French, German and Italian.
It became apparent that something else had to be done to silence press doubts about the novelist’s mental state. Madge and Jimmy persuaded Agatha to agree to a consultation with the family doctor. Her claim to Henry Wilson on the morning of Thursday the 16th to be unable to remember anything of her past was supported by her sister and brother-in-law, and Archie too played his part, emphasizing how upset his wife had been earlier in the year at her mother’s death. Dr Wilson had signed Clarissa’s death certificate, and what he was told about Agatha’s grief was consistent with what he knew of her close relationship with her mother. The family impressed on him that newspaper reports of the ‘normality’ of her behaviour at the hotel could not be relied on and claimed that staff had told them that at times she had appeared distressed and disoriented.
Agatha was advised to rest by Dr Wilson in order to recover from her stressful ordeal. It was with some trepidation that her three co-conspirators fell in with the doctor’s suggestion of calling in a second expert to confirm his diagnosis of amnesia.
Outside, the press refused to disperse from the main gates. Several ground staff on their way to work were forced to climb over the wall, and the baker was unable to deliver his order. During the night a rumour had gained currency among the press to the effect that Agatha might have
given them the slip and driven off to her brother’s home near Crewe. The story was false; the sole member of Agatha’s family who resided near there at Haslington Hall was Nan’s brother Humphrey. Sidney Campion, the Daily News’s late-night reporter, has since recalled what prompted Archie to yield to journalists’ demand for an interview:
‘I came into the story quite fortuitously. I happened to be one of the late duty men at the Daily News, and I was rushed off to Harrogate because I happened to be a barrister in the making, the editor thinking that Agatha Christie would be amused to have a chap like me on her trail. Had it been Margery Allingham it might have been more appropriate for me to go, because her principal character was Inspector Campion [sic]. I grant that I was in an exciting part of the story. I refer to the chase from Harrogate to Cheadle, Cheshire, where Colonel Christie blatantly demonstrated that the passport to success is the old school tie!’
The journalists’ waiting game outside Abney Hall finally paid off on the morning of Thursday 16 December, because by then Archie had realized they were determined to stay put. ‘We shall stay here till we get news!’ was their taunt, and at last Archie agreed to give an interview to one reporter to pass on to the rest. He scrutinized the fifty or sixty journalists and told John Young of the London Evening News he could have an interview – because the reporter was wearing the Colonel’s old school tie.
Archie spent three-quarters of an hour on the terrace of Abney Hall unsuccessfully trying to convince him that Agatha could not remember the past three years nor recall details of her present life, including the fact she lived in Sunningdale in a house called Styles. John Young was asked to believe that Agatha had no recollection of leaving home or how she got to Harrogate. He was told that Agatha now recognized Archie and her sister but had been unable to remember their daughter when shown a picture of Rosalind. Archie confirmed that Agatha had been examined by a doctor and that a specialist in nervous disorders was coming to see her that afternoon.
