The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

by Marie Benedict

  How dare he refuse me? Who did he think he was to deny me this request? My incredulity and my volume rose alongside my anger. “Can you really believe that I would agree to a divorce in which the reason isn’t explicitly articulated? So everyone would fill in that gap with me as the cause? They’ll think I was an unreasonable wife. Or that I was the unfaithful one! Imagine what Rosalind would think one day.” I straightened my dressing gown and robe, tucked a curl behind my ear, and very slowly and very distinctly said, “I want Nancy Neele named as the reason for our divorce. Or I will not grant you one.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he walked toward me for the first time that morning. “Nancy is the woman I love, and I plan on marrying her. I will not besmirch her name.”

  I laughed, not caring for the first time in months how loud or unladylike my guffaw sounded. Because in that moment, I did not care about his opinion of me. “That’s rich, Archie. You won’t besmirch the reputation of your mistress, but you find it perfectly acceptable to betray your wife and drag her name through the mud?” I stared at him right in the eyes. “No Nancy, no divorce.”

  A menacing expression, familiar from our trip to Guéthary, appeared on his face. He grabbed my shoulders—as if he wanted to shake his sense into me—and as I pulled away, my hand swung across the breakfast table, sending Mummy’s rosebud teapot crashing to the floor and me along with it. When I tried to stand up, he pushed me back down, grinding my leg into a shard of shattered china. The next thing I remembered was the sound of his footsteps storming out of the dining room and out of Styles. I felt the vibration of those footsteps across the floor, followed in quick succession by the rapid clip of Charlotte’s no-nonsense step and Rosalind’s patter.

  Rosalind shrieked at the sight of me on the floor amid the broken china as Charlotte raced to my side. As she kneeled down to help me up, she asked, “Mrs. Christie, are you quite all right?”

  “It’s nothing, Carlo.” I tried to muster up a smile. “Clumsy, that’s all.”

  “You’re not clumsy, Mama,” Rosalind’s high-pitched voice chirped. “You and Papa were having a row. We heard it.”

  “It was nothing to concern yourself with, Rosalind,” I said as I struggled to my feet with Charlotte’s aid. “It’s nothing to do with you. Not to worry.”

  “Oh, I know that, Mama,” she answered, all confidence and assurance. “After all, Papa likes me, but he doesn’t much like you.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Day Ten after the Disappearance

  Monday, December 13, 1926

  Styles, Sunningdale, England

  The newspaper is spread wide on his study desk: Biggest Manhunt in History Yields Nothing. Is Foul Play to Blame in Novelist’s Strange Disappearance? He does not need to read the full article to know who is being suspected of that foul play. There is and has always been only one suspect.

  It doesn’t matter that he’s heard the odd policeman mutter that Agatha went missing on purpose for reasons of her own design. It’s unimportant that the Liverpool Weekly Post’s recent serialization of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has prompted some pundits to speculate whether Agatha staged her own disappearance as a publicity stunt for her latest book. None of this really affects the fact that the public at large—and the detectives in charge—thinks he’s a philanderer who’s killed his wife to be free to marry his lover, particularly with the recent evidence.

  Archie thinks that he has made peace with his fate. But he knows his state of mind makes no difference. The end is at hand, regardless of how he feels about it. A mere glance at the newspaper article and, alongside it on his desk, the sheaf of paper entitled The Manuscript that was recently delivered to Styles reminds him of the inevitability of the outcome.

  There’s only ever been one path through this intricate web. His only recourse has always been to follow the sticky silken thread right to the web’s center, and only then does he stand a chance of being unwound—as if he were Theseus clutching at Ariadne’s red thread through King Minos’s deadly labyrinth. But who knows what really awaits him at the labyrinth’s center? After all, Agatha is no Ariadne, and he is no one’s Theseus.

  Still, in his darker, private moments, he cannot believe the turn his life has taken. His existence used to be normal and ordered, and he is just an ordinary man. How has it come to this? Is he really to blame for it all, as he’s read?

  A loud, determined knock sounds at the study door, not the demure rap of any of the Styles servants. For a fleeting moment, he considers not answering it. The door is bolted tight from the inside, after all. He’s kept it locked since this most recent bout of madness began. With the number of police in and about Styles, the effort at resistance will be futile, he knows, and will only forestall the inescapable. He rubs his wrists as if he can already feel the grip of the steel handcuffs upon them.

  “Colonel Christie,” a deep male voice calls to him. It is unfamiliar, and that surprises him. He’s been expecting Kenward or Goddard to deliver this final blow and to do it with a certain amount of glee and smugness.

  “Open up, Colonel Christie,” the voice booms. “We know you’re inside. Miss Fisher already informed us. And we have a police guard outside the study window, so don’t think of doing a runner.”

  The sound of Charlotte’s voice drifts into his erstwhile fortress. “Sorry, Colonel Christie.” She sounds meek although not terribly apologetic. With each passing day since Agatha’s disappearance, she’s grown more inhospitable to him, and he’s begun to worry that she’s sharing her feelings with Rosalind. Their most recent conversations only cement that suspicion.

  He is frozen. Unable to answer. Unable to move. For all the inevitability of this next step, now that it has arrived, he feels incapable of moving forward to meet it head-on. Still, if he retreats and refuses to play the role penned for him in that damnable letter, then any chance of freedom, any chance of a life with Nancy—however slim—will elude him forever.

  The door shudders with a hammer-like thumping. A voice he knows all too well reverberates through the air. “Colonel Christie, it’s Detective Chief Constable Kenward here, and I’ve got Superintendent Goddard by my side. Open the door of your own free will, or we will break it down.”

  So this is it, he thinks. He is standing at the center of the web, and there is only one direction to go, one laid out for him step-by-step in the parcel he’s received. He walks to the study door and unbolts the lock. Throwing open the creaky door to the crowded hallway that awaits him, he surrenders to them—and to his fate.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The Manuscript

  December 3, 1926

  Styles, Sunningdale, England

  I had eaten many meals alone in my life. Tea as a young child with elderly parents and two older siblings busy with their own lives. Breakfast as a young nurse with an early shift whose husband was away fighting the Great War. Lunch over the desk in my Styles study as I worked away on a detective story on my typewriter. But I had never suffered through a meal as lonely as this one.

  Earlier that day, I’d instructed the cook to make a formal dinner for two and asked the housemaid, Lilly, to set the dining room table accordingly. I hadn’t spoken to Archie since our horrific argument that morning with its terrible exchange of ultimatums, but I still had hope that he’d return home for dinner as we had arranged before our row. Archie was a man of order and routine, and I counted upon that quality for his attendance at dinner. I kept myself busy during the day by planning a perfect evening meal and taking a drive through the countryside, and when Rosalind came home from school, she and I visited Archie’s mother as we had planned. Throughout the visit, I kept turning our fight around and around in my mind and saying silent prayers that Archie would return home come twilight. If he came, perhaps the weekend in Yorkshire could be saved, and when we got back to Styles, I packed my suitcase for the excursion in preparation. Then, after she’d had her
tea, I tucked Rosalind into her bed, ensuring that her favorite blue teddy lay beside her on her pillow, and kissed her good night.

  I had dressed for dinner with care. Selecting a green knitted suit, I’d turned this way and that in the mirror. Did the outfit make me look any slimmer? I wondered. Archie had complained about my weight over the past few years, but once, he’d complimented me while I was wearing this particular ensemble. I hoped he’d find it pleasing, or at least not objectionable.

  I settled into my seat in the dining room. As I waited for Lilly to serve the first dinner course, I kept my eyes averted from the empty chair that faced me. Instead, I studied the room. On the shelves and on the sideboard were silver-framed photographs of me, Archie, and Rosalind, interspersed with images of my family and a lone portrait of Archie; his brother, Campbell; Peg; and their late father. Scattered among the frames were china figurines and a vase that Mummy had adored; I’d brought them from Ashfield to Styles in the hopes of turning this artifice of a house on a carefully orchestrated street into a warm, natural home like Ashfield.

  The mantelpiece clock ticked loudly, or so it seemed, as I waited for him. I studied the steaming bowl of clear consommé that the cook prepared as a first course, a dish that always soothed Archie’s troublesome stomach. The minute hand passed the one, then two, then three. When it hovered between the three and four, I noticed that the soup was no longer steaming. Even though I was not planning on eating until Archie’s arrival, I decided to have the soup, as it would soon be chilled.

  With the sound of the clattering spoon, Lilly reappeared. Her expression was somewhat anxious, and I realized that this situation fell outside her training. Should she clear the table or wait for the master? I could almost see the question pass through her consciousness.

  “You may remove both soup bowls, Lilly. Mr. Christie seems to be running late, so I think you can tell Cook that we will move on to the second course.” I reached down to pet Peter, who’d settled at my feet. The gentle pup seemed to sense the despair that had overtaken me since Archie’s betrayal and rarely left my side these days.

  When I glanced up, Lilly was still looking at me, although her expression had changed from perplexity over the soup bowls to pity over my excuse for Archie’s late arrival. My god, I thought with a start. Not even the staff believes that my husband will return home to me. I wondered if I really even wanted him back. Had the events of this morning changed my mind, but I’d become so accustomed to waiting for him that I hadn’t let that feeling register? Shouldn’t they have changed my mind?

  In a few moments, Lilly reappeared with plates of venison for the second course, and after a suitable interval, she entered the dining room again, carrying the third course. She hesitated before placing the plates of Dover sole down on the table, given that the second course hadn’t been touched. I guided her with a gentle nod; while it was unconventional to serve a third course when the prior course had not been eaten, on this occasion, it was fine.

  I resolved not to eat from either of the two courses Lilly delivered. I wasn’t hungry, but as the minutes continued to pass, refraining almost became a superstitious obsession. If only I could wait until I heard the sound of his car crunching over the gravel, then all would be well. If I took even the smallest nibble of the venison or sole, then Archie would never come home at all. But sometimes, I would look down at my hand, and the fork would be in it, hovering over the food, and I realized that I was vacillating over what I really wanted.

  The road outside Styles grew quiet as the neighbors returned home for their evening meals and settled in behind closed doors with their families and friends. Still, I waited in the dining room as if I’d become one of Mummy’s china figurines awaiting animation. But when the minute hand reached the twelve, I knew. Archie was not coming home to Styles. Perhaps he would never pass through its doors again.

  A swell of sadness overtook me, and I choked down a sob that I didn’t want Lilly or the cook to hear. I’d given Charlotte the night off to visit a friend in London, so I didn’t need to worry about alarming her. I didn’t think I could withstand the wellspring of emotion. All this sorrow, all this pain, it was too much, even if it was tinged with relief. If only I could disappear.

  Then the phone rang, shattering my lonely vigil. When I picked it up, I nearly cried in relief to hear a familiar voice. But then the voice spoke. And in that moment, I knew that everything had changed.

  Part Two

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Tuesday, December 14, 1926

  Harrogate Hydro, Harrogate, England

  I stare at the evening dresses hanging in the wardrobe. Like a pastel-colored rainbow, they shimmer against the dark, burnished wood, and I can’t resist running a finger along their silken lengths. Each gown is lovely in its way and newly purchased from the local dress shops in Harrogate and Leeds. But which to wear? I want to look especially nice. No, that’s not right, I think. I want to look perfect tonight, but only for myself.

  My gaze rests on a salmon-colored georgette gown. With its drop-waist silhouette and its alternating lace panels with subtle pearlescent beading, it is particularly flattering, or so the salesgirl at the exclusive Harrogate store told me. She’d sounded sincere, but was she simply trying to lure me into a purchase? Let’s see, I think as I pull it out of the wardrobe and twirl it around on its hanger.

  I slide the gown on over my new ivory satin slip. I walk over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the hotel room, avoiding my image until the very last second. It’s been quite some time since I enjoyed my reflection. Opening my eyes, I almost gasp. Could that really be me? The gown skims my newly slim figure, and the salmon color gives my complexion a healthy, dare I say younger, glow. For the first time in a very long time, I feel attractive.

  I brush my hair until it has a sheen, tucking a wayward curl behind my ear and arranging another curl to mask the small cut and bruise that are fading on my forehead. I add a sheer coat of apricot-shaded lipstick and dab cologne behind my ear. Strapping my delicate silver heels on around my ankles, I turn this way and that in front of the mirror. A shawl around the shoulders will be the final touch, I think as I drape a finely embroidered swath of fabric around me. A last glance in the mirror confirms that I am ready. This is indeed the perfect gown for this evening.

  The crystal handle feels heavy in my hand as I turn it to swing open the door to my room. An unusually loud din sounds on the hotel’s ground floor, just below the staircase outside my room. Unused to the noise, I shut the door closed, returning to the safety of my room. I’ve grown used to the quiet ebb and flow of the hotel over the past week; I can predict a bustle of activity around breakfast, teatime, and the cocktail hour but a gentle lull in the hours in between. I always choose this hushed hour—the gap between cocktails and dinner—to enter unobtrusively into the hotel’s evening fray and settle down to dinner with one of the books I’ve selected from the Harrogate library for company. Or perhaps a crossword.

  On instinct, I pull aside the heavy brocade curtains covering the main window of my room. The glass looks out at the manicured gardens that serve as the entryway to the hotel, resplendent even in winter with viburnum, holly, and laurel interspersed with flowering hellebore, otherwise known as Christmas rose. I notice that the lot is full of automobiles and that three small groupings of people are outlined against the gaslit lamps that line the gardens. Ah, I think. Here is my explanation for the unexpected racket: a party is assembling in the hotel’s ballroom, perhaps an early Christmas gathering. Or perhaps it is something else entirely, something as well planned as a holiday soiree. Either way, I feel prepared. I have been planning for this moment for some time.

  I open my door once again. My heels make a satisfying clip as I cross the hallway from my room to the wide, impressive staircase that leads down to the lobby. The crimson-red and golden-yellow Persian carpet that lines the stairs muffles my step but not the drama of my en
trance. A sea of faces stares up at me as I descend.

  I nod at Mrs. Robson, with whom I’ve shared a cup of tea and a lively discussion about gardening. Mr. Wollesley, with whom I’ve played several jolly rounds of billiards while discussing the spa’s various services, gives me a wave. I smile at the sweet waitress, Rose, who serves at breakfast and dinner but returns home during the lunch shift to care for her elderly grandmother. What a lovely array of folks I’ve met here at the Harrogate Hydro, I think. In this place, with these people, outside normal time, I feel safe. I am in a cocoon of my own making, in a protected realm that hovers beside reality, and I wish I could stay here longer. Sometimes I long to stay here forever.

  But then I see him, as I knew I would. There, at the base of the staircase, to the side of the column that separates the lobby from the tearoom, stands a man. He looks so small and insubstantial, so different from my memories that, for a moment, I almost don’t recognize him. But then he steps under a pool of light, and suddenly, it is absolutely him. And I know that it is time.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Tuesday, December 14, 1926

  Harrogate Hydro, Harrogate, England

  The man takes a step toward me. I pause, uncertain whether I should ignore him and continue onward toward my dinner reservation. What is the right course at this precise moment in the narrative? As he opens his mouth to speak, I notice that two other gentlemen, one in a rumpled coat and a battered trilby and the other in a perfectly pressed charcoal suit with a black overcoat, which they haven’t bothered to remove indoors, move out of the shadows cast by the eaves of the staircase in my direction. Something about their demeanor makes me uncomfortable, and I step away from all three of them.

  Turning toward these gentlemen, the man holds a hand up, as if keeping them at bay. Disregarding his gesture, to some extent at least, they continue to approach, but they only proceed so far. I glance at them quizzically, but they will not meet my eyes.