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 The play is believed to have been written in the 1920s, and remains unpublished.Ten Years is about a couple who reject the conventional thinking about marriage and opt instead for an experiment to live together as man and wife for a period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.