Agatha Christie: A very Elusive Woman 5 (Pages 124 - 242)

 

Agatha Christie wrote two plays about marriage: Ten Year and The Lie. 

Ten Years is a one act stage play written by Agatha Christie during the early part of her career. The play is believed to have been written in the 1920s, and remains unpublished.Ten Years is about a couple who reject the conventional thinking about marriage and opt instead for an experiment to live together as man and wife for a period of ten years with the understanding that they will review the relationship at the end of the trial period. 

The Lie is a play written by Agatha Christie. The play was never performed. 

Monty , her brother, returned to England and became a problem for his family. He died in France in 1929. 

At the time Ronald Knox had written Rules for Detective Fiction in 1929. The ten rules are the following: 1.The Criminal Must Be Mentioned Early 2.No Supernatural or Preternatural Agencies 3. Maximum of One Secret Room/Passage 4. No Undiscovered Poisons or Long Scientific Explanations 5.No "Chinaman" (Cultural Stereotypes) 6. No Accidents Must Help the Detective 7. The Detective Must Not Commit the Crime 8.The Detective Must Not Light on Clues Which Are Not Instantly Produced 9. The "Watson" Should Not Hide Thoughts 10. No Twin Brothers/Doubles.

Agatha and Archie called their new home in Sunningdale, the Styles. 

Charlotte Fisher was a woman who played an iportant role in Agatha's life. She was her typist and looked after Rosalind. Charlotte was called Caro. 

In 1926 Clara died of bronchitis, which left Agatha devastated. 

In 1926 Archie confessed that he was in love with Nancy Neele and wanted a divorce. 

In December 1926 Agatha Christie was under too much stress and her health suffered. One night she left her home in her car and she disappeared for ten days. Her car was found Newlands Corner, Guildford, with its lights on and her belongings inside.

Agatha had left the car and found herself at Waterloo Station. She went to Harrods and posted a letter to his brother-in-law, Campbell. Then she went to Harrogate and stayed at the Hydropathic Hotel under the name of Teresa Neele. In the late nineteenth century, it was extensively redeveloped by the "Harrogate Hydropathic Company" as a fashionable spa hotel and included Turkish baths. Its name was "The Harrogate Hydro" or as the locals called it "The Hydro".

There was a big search for Agatha. Deputy Chief Constable William Kenward was the senior police officer assigned to the investigation of Agatha Christie’s disappearance in December 1926. Some fellow writers joined the search, one of whom was Dorothy Sayers. 

Arthur Conan Doyle gave a medium a glove of Agatha and was told that she was not died and would appear. 

Two of the musicians from the hotel reported to the police that Agatha Christie was staying in their hotel. 

After reappearing, Agatha agreed to get treatment for her amnesia in Harley Street. Her doctor was William Brown, specialised in amnesia. 

Agatha agreed to divorce Archie. They needed to provide evidence of his adultery but he didn't want to involve Nancy. So that meant to resort to collusive divorce or Brighton Quickie. Archie went to the Grosvenor hotel in Victoria and paid a solicitor's clerk and a waiter to testify that they'd seen a woman with him. A collusive divorce occurs when spouses conspire to deceive the court by fabricating or suppressing evidence to obtain a divorce, often to bypass legal requirements like separation periods or to gain unfair advantages. 

Archie married Nancy Neele in 1928 and their son Beau was born in 1930. 

Agatha Christie travelled to Ur on the Orient Express. Ur was a major Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. 

Other women of the era also ran awy from problems and went to Asia. One is Gertrude Bell (writer and archaelogist), whose lover died at Gallipolli. She had an unconsummated affair with Major Charles Doughty-Wylie, a married man, with whom she exchanged love letters from 1913 to 1915. Doughty-Wylie died in April 1915 during the Gallipoli Campaign, a loss which devastated Bell.

Freya Start wanted to escape her marriage. Dame Freya Madeline Stark DBE (31 January 1893 – 9 May 1993) was a British-Italian explorer and travel writer.

Katharine Woolley, whose first husband committed suicide. Katharine Elizabeth, Lady Woolley (née Menke; June 1888 – 8 November 1945) was a British military nurse and archaeologist who worked principally at the Mesopotamian site of Ur. On 3 March 1919, she married Lieutenant Colonel Bertram Keeling, the Director-General of the Survey of Egypt and the President of the Cotton Research Board but he committed suicide by gunshot at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza on 20 September 1919. The reason for his sudden suicide is unknown.

Agatha was welcomes to Ur by Katharine Woolley and Charles Leonard Woolley. Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct ancient life and history.

In her second trip to Ur in 1930, Agatha Christie met Max Mallowan. Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan,  (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a British archaeologist specializing in the Ancient Near East. Having studied classics at Oxford University, he was trained for archaeology by Leonard Woolley at Ur and Reginald Campbell Thompson at Nineveh. He then directed a number of archaeological expeditions sponsored by the British Museum and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. 

Although Agatha had many doubts about Max being ten years younger and her sister disapproved, Agatha and Max married in St Cutthbert's Church in Edinburgh on 11 September 1930. 

During this time Agatha had several houses and she enjoyed being a homemaker. One of the houses was at 22, Cresswell Place. 22 Cresswell Place was the home  which Agatha Christie bought and lived in for a time in the 1920s. She bought the house at the end of 1928 shortly after her divorce with the proceeds from the sales of her books and never sold it for the rest of her life. 22 Cresswell is a mews house in Chelsea which Christie renovated and converted into a comfortable house for herself, her daughter and her secretary/governess Charlotte Fisher. 

Another address was 47/8, Campden Street in Kensington. 47-48 Campden Street in Kensington is a pair of townhouses which Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan bought and lived in from the time shortly after their marriage in 1930 to 1934.

Among the social activities Agatha had at the time she met with other detective authors at the Café Royal, all belonging to the Detection Club. The Detection Club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, Hugh Walpole, ohn RhodeJ, Jessie Louisa Rickard, Baroness Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, G. D. H. Cole, Margaret Cole, E. C. Bentley, Henry Wade, Constance Lindsay Taylor and H. C. Bailey. Anthony Berkeley Cox was instrumental in setting up the club, and the first president was G. K. Chesterton. There is a fanciful initiation ritual with an oath written by Sayers, and the club holds regular dinner meetings in London.

During this period Black Coffee was produced for the stage. It premiered on December 8, 1930, at the Embassy Theatre in London. It was her first original stage play, launched to address dissatisfaction with earlier adaptations, and it features her famous detective, Hercule Poirot, alongside Hastings and Japp.

Agatha Christie had a tense relationship with BBC radio over the series that they had agreed to broadcast. In 1930, Agatha Christie participated in a pioneering BBC radio collaborative detective serial titled Behind the Screen, broadcast on the BBC National Programme. She was one of six authors, including Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote and read their own installments of the story.

In 1931 Max found a new boss, Reginald Campbell Thompson who was excavating Nineveh. Reginald Campbell Thompson (21 August 1876 – 23 May 1941) was a British archaeologist, Assyriologist and cuneiformist. He excavated at Nineveh, Ur, Nebo, Carchemish and other sites.

While in Nineveh, Agatha worked on Lord Erdware Dies. 

She also wrote Unfinished Portrait, her most autobiographical novel. Christie wrote under the pen name Mary Westmacott.

Agatha bought a new house at 58, Sheffield Terrace in Kensignton. 58 Sheffield Terrace, Holland Park, London was the home of Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan between 1934 and 1941. They lived there off and on over the years.

Max had his first own dig at ARpachiyah, Iraq, which ended with the Arpadchiyah Scandal. The "Arpachiyah scandal" involving archaeologist Max Mallowan (husband of Agatha Christie) refers to the 1933 excavations at Tell Arpachiyah, Iraq, which marked a turning point in Iraqi antiquities policy. Mallowan's work uncovered a significant "Burnt House" from the Halaf period, but his methods and subsequent disputes over the sharing of excavated artifacts led to stricter regulations. The scandal was part of a larger, early-1930s shift away from the "partage" system, which allowed foreign archaeologists to keep a portion of their finds, toward keeping all artifacts within Iraq.

Next Aatha bought Winterbrook, a house for Max on the outskirts of Wallingford. Winterbrook House, located in Cholsey near Wallingford, Oxfordshire, was the cherished home of author Agatha Christie and her husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, from 1934 until her death in 1976.

Agatha had to buy her family home, Ashfield, and with the proceeds she got Greenway House in Dartmouth. Greenway, also known as Greenway House, is an estate on the River Dart near Galmpton in Devon, England. Once the home of the author Agatha Christie. 

The 1930s can be considered Agatha's golden age. In 1928 he forced herself to finish The Mystery of the Blue Train, which she considered her worst book. The story itself, even though derived from the 1923 Poirot short story The Plymouth Express, did not come easily to her and she referred to this novel in her autobiography stating that she "always hated it".

In 1935 she wrote A Three-Act Tragedy. Three Act Tragedy is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie,published iin January 1935. The book features Hercule Poirot, supported by his friend Mr Satterthwaite, and is the one book in which Satterthwaite collaborates with Poirot.

In 1942 he published Five Little Pigs. Five Little Pigs is a mystery novel published in January 1943.

She also created some characters in the 1930s: Mr Quin, Mr Satterthwaite, Mr Paker Pyne and Mrs Ariadne Oliver. 

Mr. Harley Quin is an enigmatic, supernatural character created by Agatha Christie, often appearing unexpectedly to help solve mysteries related to romance and death. 

Mr. Satterthwaite is a recurring Agatha Christie character, appearing in The Mysterious Mr Quin stories, Three Act Tragedy, and Dead Man's Mirror. He is a 62-to-69-year-old wealthy, "dried-up," elflike observer of human drama who acts as an amateur sleuth, often aiding or partnered with the mysterious Mr. Harley Quin.

Mr. Parker Pyne is a unique, stout, and balding detective created by Agatha Christie who specializes in curing unhappiness rather than just solving crimes. A retired government statistician, he uses his expertise in human nature and data to solve "matters of the heart" for clients, operating from his London office.

Ariadne Oliver is a fictional character in the novels of Agatha Christie. She (like Christie) is a crime fiction novelist, the creator of the fictional Finnish detective Sven Hjerson, and a friend of Hercule Poirot.

Miss Marple first appears in a novel in 1930 (Murder at the Vicarage). Miss Marple makes her first full-length appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage. In this early portrayal she is a gleeful gossip, sharp-tongued, and not always sympathetic. The residents of St Mary Mead respect her but often find her nosiness and habit of assuming the worst in others tiresome. In later novels, however, Christie softened her character: Miss Marple becomes a kinder, more thoughtful figure, though still an astute observer of human nature.

Agatha also wrote some novels in exotic locations like Murder on the Orient express and Death on the Nile.

Murder on the Orient Express is inspired by Agatha's return trip from Nineveh where she met some interesting people. The story is based on the kidnapping and death of the baby of Charles Lindbergh. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 1 January 1934. 

Death on the Nile was inspired by a trip along the Nile to the Cataract Hotel at Aswan. It was published in the UK on 1 November 1937.

Murder in Mesopotamia had its inspiration on the Woolleys and some other archaelogists. It was first published in the UKon 6 July 1936. The novel is set at an archaeological excavation in Iraq, and descriptive details derive from the author's visit to the Royal Cemetery at Ur where she met her husband, Sir Max Mallowan, and other British archaeologists.

In 1939 Agatha Christie wrote her outstanding book, And Then There Were None. The book is the world's best-selling mystery and, with over 100 million copies sold by 2007, among the best-selling books to date.