Poirot Pals
Join hosts Caitlin Morris and Chad Lind as they endeavor to read, research, and discuss all thirty-three Hercule Poirot mystery novels.
To get the most out of this audio book club, listen to the pre-read episodes before you read each book. Then, process your thoughts with Chad and Caitlin during each debrief episode.
Join us as we read in real-time, or listen and read at your leisure.
Poirot Pals
The Disappearance of Agatha Christie: A Poirot Pals Halloween Special
Absolutely zero spoilers!
In this Halloween special, Poirot Pals delves into one of Agatha Christie’s most intriguing mysteries—her infamous 1926 disappearance, a real-life whodunit that captivated a nation.
Channel your inner sleuth as we paint a picture of Christie’s life in Sunningdale, where fame from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd mixed with personal shadows, including her husband Archie’s affair with Nancy Neele. Was her vanishing an act of amnesia, a planned escape, or a clever ruse? We’ll explore the emotional turmoil and societal pressures of 1920s England that might have contributed.
Alongside famous detectives and fans, we consider theories from dissociative states to revenge schemes, even touching on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's psychic involvement. Christie’s disappearance continues to inspire popular culture, from the 1979 film Agatha to a memorable Doctor Who episode.
With Halloween approaching, grab a fall-inspired drink, and join us for storytelling magic. Share your theories with us in your best British accent, and celebrate Agatha Christie’s legacy and love of mystery!
Sources:
https://www.windsorgreatpark.co.uk/
https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20speople-investigating-the-strange-disappearance-of-mrs-agatha-christie/
https://www.classiclodges.co.uk/the-old-swan/agatha-christie/
https://cflp.co.uk/a-brief-history-of-divorce/
Theme Music: The Black Cat by Aaron Kenny.
Spooky Music: Tragic Story by Myuu.
Follow us on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/poirotpals?igsh=MXVheGk3M3JsanZnZw==
Send us emails!
poirotpals@gmail.com
The disappearance of Agatha Christie in December 1926 is one of the most intriguing episodes in literary history. On the night of December 3rd, after an argument with her husband, archie, christie vanished for 11 days, prompting a nationwide search. This is Chad doing a solo episode of Pro Files.
Caitlin:Just by yourself, just by myself. I'll just be here, but just quietly judging every choice you make. But just quietly judging every choice you make. Today we're going to do our Halloween special and we thought that we would cover the real-life mystery that Agatha Christie lived through.
Chad:Agatha Christie just up and disappeared for 11 days.
Caitlin:The story's so interesting because, unlike Poirot, we don't get a tidy ending. There are so many unknowns but also that kind of opens up the story to allow all of us to like be our own Poirot and try to figure out what happened. And when I was looking into it, that was actually the most exciting part and I think, because we know she's okay, I think I was able to be a little gleeful because, like everything is fine, she had a wonderful life. She saw like decades and decades of success. After this it's very fun to like I guess you're not going to Poirot, you're going to Hastings your way through this. You know we'll do our best.
Chad:It doesn't have that icky true crime feeling to it where you're talking about somebody who's had something absolutely horrible happen to them.
Caitlin:So yeah, okay. Well, let's get into this story. I feel like Halloween is a great time for story time, actually. Oh yeah, what should people do while they're listening to this episode? I'd say get a fall-themed beverage of your choice. Get cozy.
Chad:Yeah, I'll tell you what. The other thing too If you have a window nearby and you're kind of having a stormy time of day or evening, just leave the shades open. Just a little bit, yeah, a little bit of rain, a little bit of fog, a little bit of wind.
Caitlin:It never hurt anybody during a Halloween story. Oh yeah, pause. Do what you need to do. Get in your cozy clothes If you're wearing jeans. Not allowed Sweats only.
Chad:I concur For our international listeners.
Caitlin:This is my gift to you American athleisure and permission to wear it. This story definitely has a buildup and some context that I think is really important in order to understand what's going on. And we had kind of seen that We'd mentioned it in Lynx, and do you actually have that quote? So Murder on the Lynx was published in 1923. So we can imagine that there's maybe some tension building. We know that Agatha Christie, when she was writing Lynx, they were traveling all around the world. Her husband was on some kind of I don't know some governmental showing off British history, england thing.
Caitlin:Anyways, we had noted that there was a very passive, aggressive dedication and this is to her husband, archie, to my husband, a fellow enthusiast for detective stories and to whom I'm indebted for much helpful advice and criticism. Yeah, yeah. And we we just thought, wow, it sounds like he's kind of a jerk when he's talking about her writing. Yeah, it did feel a little passive, aggressive, a little like a thanks but no thanks, and we had mentioned that that, yeah, like this is kind of building up to this like really kind of big event. So 1926, uh, and it's kind of the timing for us um works out really well, the year starts off really strong for her because she publishes the murder of roger ackroyd. It just has such fame internationallaim. She's doing things with mysteries that have never been done before. You know, we talked for the first couple books like, oh yeah, she's like figuring out her place in the mystery canon and like trying to prove herself. I think that's over. She's written six books so far. She also had published Poirot Investigates, which is the series of short stories.
Caitlin:So she is a big deal and she's very financially successful. She came from a really modest upbringing and so with all of that money she gets, she actually prefers to live a pretty simple lifestyle. She's not very flashy, she doesn't really spend all of this wealth that she's getting and she is very insistent that she controls the family money, which I mean if she's bringing it in. Yeah, that makes sense, right? She's like this is my money from my brilliant brain, and so Archie is resentful of this and we have to think too at the time. She's definitely defying these gender norms of like who is in charge, and she's like this larger than life person already. So that's kind of simmering. You know the success, these financial tensions. It's not like they're living out this blissful lifestyle. Things are kind of tense After Ackroyd is published kind of earlier in the year. Her mother dies and she's described by Archie as mentally fragile and I'm always suspicious of Archie and kind of what he says. I wonder if it's less fragile but just more heartbroken. I think there's a difference.
Chad:I mean, it seems like Archie, in his way too, is also playing the game of. I get to describe her because I'm the guy people will take it seriously, even though he clearly has an agenda here also.
Caitlin:Oh yes, and I think we have to keep that in mind because he actually narrates so much of this story. So at that time they lived in Sunningdale, berkshire. I had so much fun with this episode, finding where every place is on a map and seeing like how many miles away they are from each other. So folks who are kind of like familiar with the London area it's described as like a village, so kind of like a small town southwest of London, and so it's kind of like right outside that M whatever perimeter, that highway perimeter, and it's right at the south end of this Royal Natural Preserve called Windsor Great Park. It's about 10 miles south of Windsor Castle, but it's kind of like this giant royal estate that has now been turned into this public nature area. And the reason why I bring this up is it's important because we're going to start to figure out, we have to map her movements.
Caitlin:But also I was so struck and I don't know I should have sent these to you, chad, but anybody can like Google. Is it Windsor Great? Yeah, it's Windsor great park. I just really want to switch that up. I want to call them Um, I think you're. I think you need to change those words I think it should be great ones. Anyways, if you just Google that and you go to the photos, I was so struck by how clearly it matched so many of the imaginations that I have about the places that we've read so far have about the places that we've read so far Particularly, we joke about the magical, mystical gardens and these kind of interesting areas that are very ethereal. That place has it. There's this kind of sunken waterfall. It reminded me so much of that mystical place in Halloween Party that Poirot remembers where he's on that island and then suddenly he goes over this hill and he's greeted by this hidden garden. It looks so much like her descriptions. So when I saw that I was like, yes, clearly this is where she's from.
Chad:Yeah, I'm looking at photos now and it looks like those novels come to life. It's really interesting.
Caitlin:Yeah, also part of this was I was like, oh well, I'm planning a future Poirot Pals vacation because we got to see these places.
Chad:Oh, definitely.
Caitlin:So the timeline is a little bit weird here, kind of depending on which source you look at. Many say it's in August of 1926. She spent kind of a good part of the middle of that year pretty bereft. She learns that her husband, Archie, has been having an affair with his 25-year-old secretary named Nancy Neal. Some sources say that he tells Agatha this news after he comes back from a trip that he was on while her mother died. Part of me is like he went on a four months long trip, but I guess, like you know, if he was traveling internationally a lot, kind of on behalf of the British government and the crown, Maybe that's possible. But either way, he's gone, comes back and is like BTW, not only has your mother died, but I've been cheating on you.
Chad:It seems so terrible now, but I can't help but think that he was thinking this is just the way things go. Back then I was no doubt traveling with his 25-year-old secretary, nancy Neal, and so, matter of factly, in the very British way, your mother has passed and also I'm having an affair with my secretary. Yeah, it's horrifying, but I can almost hear it just being like okay, so what do we do now?
Caitlin:Yeah.
Chad:It's like wow.
Caitlin:Yeah. So I can only imagine what's going on, what she's feeling, the combination of events that are hitting her all at once. I mean talk about high highs and low lows. They're all. Yeah, it's all happening. They move to sunningdale during this time I don't know where they were before and that's where they moved to that house that they named and they live there the entire time together and they're doing this again for their daughter, but the whole time Archie is seeing Nancy in not a very discreet way. I can only imagine the simmering resentment.
Chad:Yeah, and also what that would do to your self-esteem. I wish I could think of her as being like hey, I'm bringing in the money here and I'm doing all this stuff and you're doing that, but he's the one who asks for a divorce, right, and so she doesn't grant it to him. Yeah, it's like she wants to save the marriage. Yeah, which is really sad, really really sad.
Caitlin:I have some theories about this too. I think there might be more going on there as well, like more incentives for this, but yeah, for whatever reason, she wants to keep things going. On Friday, december 3rd, agatha Christie and Archie get into a fight. Some people call it a domestic dispute. So I'm curious how extreme it was. And sources say like. A couple sources were like, oh, and then he went to stay with friends. Other people were like, oh, he went to stay with Nancy for a couple days and then other sources were like he went to stay with a group of friends and Nancy, which also I felt like was maybe the worst, because if this is like friends that are couple friends with him and Agatha to then like go away with friends and Nancy, these people too are not your friends anymore If they're doing that. He went to spend the weekend in Godalming in Surrey, which is like a couple miles south of where they live, so we're still kind of in that London area, but like Metro London, like the countryside around it, so there's just like a shamelessness maybe about it.
Caitlin:Their daughter, rosalind she's seven at the time and apparently that night Agatha Christie kisses her goodnight gets into their car, which is a Morris Cowley and I had to look it up. I mean, obviously I love that the name Morris is in the story, but it's one of those. I forgot how old the cars are. At that time, like in my head, I was already thinking of those kind of bubbly 30s cars. But no, this is a time where cars still look like carriages those giant square tops, those big tires. So she gets in one of those, she drives away, she kisses her daughter goodnight. She drives away. Her maid was also in the home, so it's not like she abandoned her child completely. Some sources say that she left a letter to her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. It's important, just kind of geography wise. That's about four to five hours north of their location.
Caitlin:The next day, though, her car is found, not north of where they are, but actually a little Southwest, like 14 to 17 miles, depending on which roads you take in this area called Newlands Corner. It's about a 50-minute drive. I was like, okay, what speed could they go? And then how long would it? And really it's give or take 50 minutes, whether it's now or in the 1920s, so not that far, which is really odd too. And the creepy thing is. It's discovered abandoned and it looks like it had been crashed into something above a chalk quarry and I just thought that was so interesting too, because we get a quarry in Halloween Party. It just is really interesting that this kind of like scenery comes back, particularly in such a sinister story Like I think someone found her car and alerted the authorities.
Caitlin:I do have a quote from the police in their little police report says the car was found in such a position to indicate that some unusual proceeding had taken place. The car was found halfway down a grassy slope, well off the main road, with its bonnet buried in some bushes, as if it had gone out of control. In the car was found a fur coat, a dressing case containing various articles of ladies wearing apparel, a driving license that indicated that the owner was Miss Agatha Christie of Sunnydale. So it's interesting that she leaves her ID there.
Chad:Yeah, it is.
Caitlin:It's not just a car, it is her car. So an investigation begins right away. The urgency is prompted definitely by her fame, but also just the mysterious circumstances and, as you said at the beginning, one of the largest manhunts in British history ensues. It just becomes a big deal very quickly. The press pounces on this story. You have a famous woman. Not only is she famous, but she's famous for mysteries. And the story just travels around the world and a ton of theories emerge. People think that Archie has murdered her, people think she's drowned herself. The case gets so much attention and I love this so much that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, in a classic Arthur Conan Doyle move, consults a medium to try to help find her. And I just was like oh man, I want to be in that room.
Chad:No doubt.
Caitlin:They search for 11 days. Some people are skeptical. They're like, oh, I want to be in that room. No doubt they searched for 11 days. Some people are skeptical. They're like, oh, this is just a big stunt to like promote a book or something. Why are we putting so many resources into this? And the hunt was so large that later it went all the way up to parliament. People were really infuriated with how many resources were spent. But the police said that like the magnitude of the search was really exaggerated by the press and they were just like we were really concerned and we wanted to do our best and kind of to defend that.
Caitlin:I have a quote from the police saying the lady disappeared under circumstances which opened out all sorts of possibilities. She might have been wandering, with a loss of memory, over a vast open country around Newland's corner. She might have fallen down one of the numerous gravel pits which is terrifying that abound there and are covered in most instances with undergrowth, lying helpless in agony. So people are just imagining the worst. They're like what could have happened? Is she still alive? Things get more urgent right as time goes on.
Chad:I've seen this just in documentaries and things from this period of time when they would do a quote-unquote manhunt or they're searching. It's not just the police, they're enlisting volunteers from the surrounding towns, so it's 500 to 1,000 people walking through vast fields, combing it over, trying to find a body. There's a lot of people involved in this. The scale of it was even though I know they talk it down a little bit still people who don't have anything to do and are interested. They want to be the one that finds her.
Caitlin:Oh, yeah, because imagine the fame that's such a good point. The image I have in my mind is people in a line in a field with sticks, and I think where I get that from is Midsommar Murder. I feel like every Midsommar Murder episode has a search with sticks in a field and some barking dogs. So, yeah, so we can imagine that that's what's going on. But, like the police, they do say under no circumstances could we have justified inaction. Yeah, what would it look like if we were just like we're treating it as though it's a normal case. We're not going to try that hard. The world would have gone insane.
Caitlin:So, december 14th, a very interesting report comes in from Yorkshire. You can remember that's where she told her secretary she was going. A musician named Bob Tappan thinks that he sees her in a hotel called the Swan Hydro Hotel in Hargate. This hotel is still around today. You can look it up. It's kind of a classic Victorian hotel that's known for its spa and kind of like healing remedies and like things that you can do. This tip gets communicated to the police. Two days later, archie drives with the police to Yorkshire and the way that they tell it is like he goes in on his own, which I think is so interesting, that it's Archie who's doing this. To me that is actually very odd. I'm so surprised that it's not the local police. To me that almost feels kind of controlling or weird. If he's suspected of murdering her. How odd.
Chad:My guess. Okay, so this is my guess Conjecture hour yeah. But I'm guessing that Archie has friends in Scotland Yard that outrank the person who's doing the local investigation. Archie needs to control the narrative, yes, so he needs to be the one who finds her.
Caitlin:Absolutely.
Chad:Potentially to speak with her about how they're going to handle it before anyone else gets to her.
Caitlin:I think so, and at first I was like, oh, would it be reasonable that he has connections? Then it's like, oh, he's literally traveling around the world on behalf of the British government. They're sending him out as an, an envoy For, like, the Commonwealth. So, yeah, he's got friends in high places. He goes into the hotel restaurant and he sits at a table and kind of waits and then he sees her walk in.
Caitlin:She walks past him, she sits at the table and she begins reading a newspaper that is splashed with headlines About her disappearance, which just must have been such a weird feeling. Again, this is his account. So he says that when he approaches her she acts confused, like she doesn't recognize him. He's the one who's always said this, and he makes a public statement on December 15th, so the day after, saying she has suffered from the most complete loss of memory and I do not think she knows who she is. She does not know me, she does not know where she is. I am hoping that rest and quiet will restore her and I'm hoping to take her to London tomorrow to see a doctor and specialist, and so that's kind of been. The prevailing story is that there's some kind of memory loss or fugue state that's happened. I do just want to pause, though, and say how amazing it is that she's just been like chilling in a steam room.
Chad:Right, well, yes, yes, those places, though I'm sure they weren't like saunas and steam rooms that maybe you think of now. The spa was really. In a lot of ways there was a lot of unfounded, unproven medical things happening. I mean, hopefully Agatha Christie, when she disappeared, got to use it just as like a spa and hang out, but there's a lot of like not great stuff going on in there.
Caitlin:Yeah, I hadn't really thought about that, that there is all that weird stuff that's going on at that time, like lots of hacks Anyways. So here are some clues though, so we're going to lay it out. We have. She told them she was going to Yorkshire. We have the car.
Caitlin:She checks in at the hotel under the name and it's been reported in different places by either Nancy or Teresa Neal, which is either the exact name or a very close name to Archie's mistress. She said she was from Cape Town, which is interesting, but also we have to remember that that's where she had visited when she was writing Murder on the Links. That's also a town that had a town, a city that has captured her imagination, like I'm thinking the man in the brown suit all goes down there, so it's like clearly an important place to her. Reports of her at the time say that she seemed like she was having a really good time there. People who saw her at the hotel she was like playing cards with people. She like seemed really normal and just doing really great. So we're going to get into some theories now, and I found this really great article from the Scientific American and it's actually their Italian version, so the authors are Stefano De Vito and Sergio de la Sala, but I guess they translate their articles and then publish them in English, so anyways. So if you're like I don't remember this article, I'm a subscriber, it's because it's from the Italian version.
Caitlin:There are all these theories. Some people they call it a fugue state that was set off by trauma or depression. Some people think, oh, she has partial amnesia, she forgot her identity, but she knows how to go to the hotel and maybe the name Neil stuck in her head and other parts of her were fine, and this is a quote from the article eyewitnesses reported. She had no trouble playing cards with other guests in the hotel lobby and even dancing. This means her procedural memory, which enables people to perform actions such as dancing or psyching automatically, was apparently unaffected. So she definitely has control of some of what she's doing Right. And actually, these authors point out that it doesn't quite meet that amnesia theory. I was like, oh, I'm going to go through every single type of amnesia and talk about how it matches it or it doesn't. And then I was like I have no idea what they're saying, so I'll just give you a little bit.
Caitlin:Short-term memory lapses, such as transient global amnesia lasting no more than 24 hours are known to occur. Although affected persons may be attentive and awake, their access to previously acquired memories may be disturbed. This is called retrograde amnesia. Nor are they able to store new information. This type of amnesia may be caused by severe emotional distress which, if we think about it, that does fit with what has been going on in 1926 for her, her mother, her husband, repeatedly living every day with her husband and his infidelity, the tensions with her finances. Here's the thing With this type of amnesia they always retain knowledge of who they are and of those whom they're close to, so they don't think that she experiences retrograde amnesia.
Caitlin:It's super interesting the types of amnesia that they talk about and they conclude that feigning amnesia from which they say she's suffered is much more difficult than it might appear. Most people have no idea what symptoms they should display and a simple test of episodic, semantic and procedural memory would quickly diagnose fakery. But I do want to remind us she's not the random lay person. She has won awards for how scientifically and medically accurate her books are, and she's also seen people who experienced severe trauma, particularly trauma from World War I when she was a nurse. So she does have a certain amount of knowledge and access to medical information that other people might not.
Caitlin:So that's kind of the amnesia story and it's not. I think the closest that it could be is it's called like a dissociative fugue state, which is triggered by heightened emotions, and there is, in that fugue state, people do have the desire to flee. Apparently they have the desire to like get away, desire to flee. Apparently they have the desire to get away. So that is common. Let's go through some more theories.
Caitlin:Other people think that this was a ruse, that she knew exactly what she was doing and this was made to embarrass Archie and generally make sure he's really stressed out and has a really bad time. This is backed up by a journalist, jared Cade, who does say and I'm curious to hear what his sources are that years later she admitted to Archie that it was a hoax. And this is backed up by another journalist. But the caveat is, this other journalist who supports him is from the Daily Mail, which is a tabloid, so it's like supports him is from the Daily Mail, which is a tabloid, so it's like okay, I do think it's really funny, though, that kind of going along with Archie's experience of stress the police after they get all this flack for like putting all these resources into the search. They asked Archie to cover the expenses. He flatly refuses that's great offenses he's, he flatly refuses.
Caitlin:That's great. So god all meng. Where archie and nancy were was only about eight miles away from where her car was found, so I do wonder if she is drawing attention to, like where her husband is. I was curious about motive and I was very curious about, as we had talked about earlier, archie asking for a divorce, and I'm curious about the money. I'm curious about how much of her money would Archie get if they divorced? Interesting, and so I did look up divorce law from the 1920s and according to the Cambridge Family Law Practice in their blog, the History of Divorce, divorce was changing around like 1923.
Caitlin:The Matrimonial Causes Act put men and women and I'm quoting here on equal footing for the first time, so either spouse could petition divorce, but only on the basis of their spouse's adultery. Here's this thing too is like Archie asks for a divorce. I don't know if he can get it, unless she's cheating on him. I'm not sure. So I have some two options. Are they colluding here? I don't know. It would be. That's a huge public embarrassment, though, for Archie to just admit that he is cheating. But I do wonder if his cheating and his adultery is exposed, if that changes where the assets go.
Chad:Let's say, the night that they have the domesticated dispute. Let's say he's saying I want a divorce, and then they get to a discussion about how it would have to happen. Given the information that you just found and looked up, which is amazing, it would have to be then that she was divorcing him right?
Caitlin:I think so. Yeah, Because she's not committing adultery.
Chad:So I wonder, if he's saying you can do that, you go ahead and divorce me, we'll just be divorced then what that would do with the money. I mean, I would imagine that would take her off the hook of having to pay anything to him.
Caitlin:Yeah, that's what I wonder is that if his adultery is exposed in this really public way, everybody in the world now knows that he has wronged her, and so I think that makes his case in divorce court so strings to be the person that goes and talks to her.
Chad:Yeah, Finds her first, no doubt says potentially I won't say no doubt, potentially says listen, you're going to have a memory loss. You have amnesia. That's the thing.
Caitlin:I'll give you everything. Just say this yeah, everything. Just say this. I don't know. So it's very in the weeds and I'm sure there are people who are like I am an expert in historical British law and are screaming at me, but we would love to know if that's plausible. You can see their divorce papers online, but it's in this handwriting that is very difficult for me to read, and so I just looked at it and was like ugh. So I might go back and look at it with some more detail and that's in an article that we'll put in the show notes. The National Archives has some really interesting stuff they have, like their marriage certificate, the police report of her being missing, the divorce papers. You can see all of that there. But yeah, I just am really curious if this is kind of like a combo power move where she does want to publicly humiliate him but she also wants to set it up in this way that allows means. Is that the reason she was denying him the divorce was because he hadn't been humiliated enough.
Caitlin:Or because the way the divorce would go is that he would get a lot of her money from her books.
Chad:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Caitlin:He wanted it, and that was part of the tension is she wasn't letting him just spend all of her money. So that's, that's my very armchair, very Hastings theory, but I did, you know. The reason why I thought this too, though, is that, from the books that we've read, in each book, there are women using people's assumptions about the frailty of women to their advantage. We haven't gotten there yet, but in Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Mrs Ackroyd, his sister-in-law, does this whole song and dance about needing to be in bed and calling Shepard because she wants to see what Poirot knows. And then we have the like 1 million fainting spells and murder on the links. And then we also have Poirot, who also is using people's assumptions against them, and I think she could out of all the people in the world at the time, she could be someone who could narrate and engineer this. I think that she's capable of it.
Caitlin:That said, there's the other reading, where it's like none of us are above experiencing a traumatic event. We all have moments of chaos in our lives. We can't always be this cold, calculated mastermind. She could have really just had this freak breakdown. That is a possibility, but in her autobiography she just doesn't talk about it. Oh? Is this not wanting to bring up these skeletons in the closet, not wanting to talk about this really sensitive thing? Or is she like I can't divulge what really happened because I don't want to get in trouble legally?
Chad:It could very much have been like a psychological breakdown, with the death of her mother and then knowing that Archie was unhappy, but then finding out not only was he unhappy, he's having an affair with a 25 year old woman he's been traveling with for four months. There's that part of it which is sad and I want to keep it over here in a corner where it's like this could definitely be what happened and it was just complete exhaustion and a breakdown happened. But because it's Agatha Christie, it's impossible to not think of it as a mystery. The thing that sticks out to me is something you said earlier, which was the leaving behind of the driver's license.
Caitlin:Yes, oh, my God, I was just going to say that.
Chad:Because it's going to take people much longer to figure out whose car that is if the first people, the first people on the scene investigating it, don't have concrete proof of whose it is. Yeah, my feeling is that it's something that she was just making up as she went along.
Chad:And obviously something happened with the car. We don't know. It could have been an accident and it could be that she decided to make it look like an accident, but still, let's assume that something happened with the car. And then she was like, oh, how do I get to the place that I want to go to Right, like, how do I do this? And let's also get Archie in trouble, let's make this a real pain in his butt because he's being such a jerk. And then she ends up going to a place that hopefully she got to use as a spa. She's just chilling.
Chad:Or steaming Right. You know, 11 days is a good amount of time to get your wits back about you, yeah, to kind of say, okay, this is what I need to do. I don't believe the amnesia thing, because it always seemed a little hokey, but also what you said about the biography. If she felt strongly that it was amnesia, I could see her mentioning just that I wish I knew more about when I was gone. But I don't remember anything. But she didn't even say that.
Caitlin:Doesn't add up. She is so smart. She is so smart, she is so calculated. She, I'm sure, is full of so much bitterness that, like, why not orchestrate something to fool the world and to humiliate Archie? What an 11 days of revenge. We've got to give her credit for the way she's able to manipulate an audience and the way she's able to, as we talk about all the time, set up this architecture that then Poirot has to unravel, miss Marple has to unravel, and that's kind of what happened. I think it would almost be selling her short to just be like oh, look at this victim, look at this feeble-minded woman. How convenient that she can use that as a guise to manipulate the situation with that amnesia story. Whether it's his idea or her idea, that removes all agency from her, and so it's kind of all Archie's fault.
Chad:Yeah, what if he went in there and she, just for lack of a better term, was like this is what happens when you fuck with me.
Caitlin:That's what I want. So let's go back to some concrete things that happened. It took until 1928 for them to officially get a divorce. He promptly married Nancy Good riddance In some good news a couple years later, so in 1930, so not too long after she is on an archaeological dig in Iraq and meets a handsome dashing.
Caitlin:He's definitely like a silver daddy kind of vibe, uh archaeology or archaeologist named Sir Max Malawian, and so they end up just like totally happy, like maybe we can post there's some really cute pictures of them online in their later years, just looking so thrilled to be together and just looking so happy. He takes her on a lot of archaeological digs. That's why I think we get Poirot in. I think it's like a murder in Mesopotamia. We get a lot of the Middle East, and it's not just Poirot. She has some espionage books that take place in the Middle East and kind of that Northern Africa area, and so they end up traveling together. His work ends up influencing her writing, but on her own terms, or she's just inspired by it. For all intents and purposes, it sounds like they were very happy together.
Chad:That's wonderful.
Caitlin:So, yeah, her life does improve significantly after this. But I am really interested in and this kind of leads us to where we're headed next, because I'm just going to put this in the universe and we're going to do it. But we're going to look at Poirot's Christmas Next, which is a dark and very bloody book. It is not your typical Christmas story and this happened in December and also she and Archie were married on Christmas Eve. So I do wonder if this is a dark time for her, and maybe writing this really violent book perhaps gave it a sense of catharsis. Really violent book perhaps gave it a sense of catharsis. So that's the story itself. But you have some suggestions about how the world has kind of imagined these events in pop culture, so tell us all about it.
Chad:Okay, so we're going to start with this film that came out in 1979. It's called Agatha and it's directed by Michael Apted, who went on to fame directing the 7 Up series, which is this amazing documentary that takes place over decades, where he interviewed kids when they were seven years old and then when they were 14, the same people then when they're 21, 28, 20, all the way up. It's just such a brilliant piece of filmmaking and that is direct opposition to Agatha, which is I don't know how to really explain it. So Lynn Redgrave plays Agatha Christie and then Timothy Dalton plays Archie, and they are both fantastic.
Chad:Timothy Dalton, who later on went on to play James Bond for a couple of films, but Wood was also a famous British stage actor plays Archie as a completely unlikable cad. He's wonderful, unlikable cad, he's wonderful. Lynn Redgrave brings this kind of ethereal sense to Agatha Christie, where she's just in a very delicate place at this point in time. But then the other starring actor in this is Dustin Hoffman, and he plays an American reporter who has moved to London, to Britain, to take a high-paying salary at one of Britain's best papers or whatever. Dustin Hoffman makes some very interesting choices in this movie, acting-wise Towards the end of it, I became convinced that what he's doing is playing a completely American version of Poirot.
Caitlin:Oh no.
Chad:Okay, the story that he wants is to find Agatha Christie.
Caitlin:Yeah, now what is it, foster? Well, what did you want to tell me? Oh yeah, mrs Christie, she disappeared. I beg your pardon. Tell me oh yeah, uh, mrs Christie. Hmm, she disappeared, I beg your pardon. They found her car abandoned when Newlands Corner. How far away is that? About an hour's drive. Let's go.
Chad:This movie is very bizarre, very late 70s, but the thing that it adds to all the research you did and what we just talked about is that it adds. Excuse me, I sang opera for five hours last night. I forgot about that side hustle of yours I know, I know, for five hours last night I forgot about that side hustle of yours. I know, I know I look so great in the tux with all the fake facial hair which I don't really need.
Chad:Who's? Catalino Lindo. He's brilliant, so okay. And the thing that it adds to all of the facts that we know is that Agatha Christie is given the information that there's a rumor that what's the name of the woman?
Caitlin:Nancy Neal.
Chad:That Nancy Neal is going to this spa in Yorkshire to lose weight. Oh okay, it's a weird fucking movie. I'll make sure to put in a like I'm giving away everything before, just in case there are people who are like I've got to watch the 1979 movie Agatha. I've got to, I've got to.
Caitlin:There's like two of them out there, right.
Chad:There's a couple. The other one kind of to give an idea of the scope of this mystery is and how important it is, I think, especially for British people, is there is a episode in season four of Doctor who which is called the Unicorn and the Wasp. It's basically a love letter to Agatha Christie. That's awesome. The doctor and his companion, donna, end up at this party, this British party, and one of the guests is Agatha Christie, and then they put together the fact that this is the night before she disappears. Now, my lady, what about this special guest you promised us here? She is a lady. What about this special guest you promised us here? She is A lady who needs no introduction.
Caitlin:No, please don't. Thank you, Lady Edison, no need.
Chad:Agatha Christie. What about her? That's me. No, you're kidding.
Caitlin:Agatha Christie, I was just talking about you the other day. I said I bet she's brilliant. I'm the doctor this is Donna.
Chad:Oh, I love your stuff. What a mind. You fool me every time.
Caitlin:Well, almost every time. Well once or twice. Well once, but it was a good once.
Chad:You make a rather unusual couple.
Caitlin:Oh no, no, we're not married.
Chad:Well, obviously not, oh no no, we're not married.
Caitlin:Well, obviously not. No wedding ring. Oh well, that was a trick. I'd stay that way if I were you. The thrill is in the chase, never in the capture.
Chad:But I do think it's really interesting that this mystery it's a part of plots of so many little. Tv shows and movies and things. It's really impressive.
Caitlin:People can keep retelling this story because we don't have an answer. And now I mean we don't have those people anymore, so I feel like the mystery will never be solved, Unless they find a really cool journal or something.
Chad:Oh, I know, Wouldn't that be amazing, like a diary or something?
Caitlin:She's like here's my diabolical plan.
Chad:Yes, it's launched in October of 26.
Caitlin:Yes.
Chad:This is what I'm going to do.
Caitlin:Oh my God, Because I feel like we've also been in like book mode for so long. We haven't done a pre-read in a while, so we haven't like checked in with Agatha Christie and what's going on in her life and it will be so interesting. Actually, and this kind of you know, we're going to do Christmas or like holiday special and then we'll kind of pick back up with the chronological order. And Big Four is a weird silly book that she hates. We hate it, but we're going to love hate it together. But you can imagine this came out pretty quickly after this whole incident. No wonder it's kind of all over the place, you know. Yeah, she's kind of had a lot going on and so it'll be really interesting to read the big four with this in the rearview mirror. For sure we want to hear what other people think. What do you think? Do you were? Were you like screaming at us?
Chad:If you were screaming at us, was it in like a really impressive British accent? That would be cool. I wouldn't mind that at all.
Caitlin:Okay, well, wishing you spookiness, but in a way that is mostly pleasant and cozy.
Chad:Yes, yes, have a wonderfully safe Halloween full of spookiness, and if you have to manipulate a complete jerk in your life, do it.
Caitlin:Yeah, yeah. Get that ultimate revenge while you're blissed out at a spa retreat. Exactly right.
Chad:Exactly right. While an entire country freaks the fuck out. Okay, bye, thank you.
