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On the night of 3 December 1926 Agatha Christie left her home in Berkshire and vanished. Her car was found abandoned in Surrey, and a nationwide search began. Eleven days later she was found at a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she had signed in under another name.

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Christie was 36 and already known for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published that year. Her mother had died in April, and in August her husband, Archie, had told her he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele; on 3 December, after a bitter quarrel, he asked for a divorce. Several hundred police officers, by some accounts more than a thousand, joined the search, along with thousands of volunteers. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, even gave one of her gloves to a medium. At the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate she had registered as Teresa Neele, from Cape Town. Two doctors said she had lost her memory. Her autobiography never mentions the episode, and biographers still disagree: some believe she was in a fugue state, a rare loss of memory and identity brought on by severe stress; others think she planned it to embarrass her husband.

Türkçe oku
Agatha Christie, 3 Aralık 1926 gecesi Berkshire'daki evinden çıktı ve ortadan kayboldu. Arabası Surrey'de terk edilmiş olarak bulununca bütün ülkede arama başladı. On bir gün sonra Yorkshire'daki kaplıca kasabası Harrogate'te, başka bir adla kaldığı bir otelde bulundu.

Christie o sırada 36 yaşındaydı ve aynı yıl yayımlanan Roger Ackroyd Cinayeti ile tanınıyordu. Annesi nisanda ölmüştü; kocası Archie de ağustosta ona Nancy Neele adında başka bir kadına âşık olduğunu söylemiş, 3 Aralık'taki sert bir tartışmada boşanmak istemişti. Aramaya birkaç yüz, bazı anlatımlara göre binden fazla polis ve binlerce gönüllü katıldı. Sherlock Holmes'un yazarı Arthur Conan Doyle, Christie'nin bir eldivenini bir medyuma bile götürdü. Christie, Harrogate'teki Swan Hydropathic Hotel'e Cape Town'dan gelen Teresa Neele adıyla kaydolmuştu. İki doktor hafızasını yitirdiğini açıkladı. Otobiyografisinde bu olaydan hiç söz etmez; biyografi yazarları da hâlâ anlaşamıyor. Kimine göre dissosiyatif füg denen durumu yaşıyordu: Ağır stresin tetiklediği bu nadir bellek kaybında insan kim olduğunu bile unutabilir. Kimine göre ise her şeyi kocasını küçük düşürmek için kendisi planlamıştı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Disappearance of Agatha Christie
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