Agatha Christie's vanishing act: an expensive hoax?

Newly discovered recordings of Agatha Christie are causing excitement among aficionados, but they seem not to contain any clues to the biggest Christie mystery of them all: what was going on when she vanished from home in 1929, and turned up after a massive police hunt a week and a half later in a Harrogate spa?

There are two main theories which have stood the test of time: Christie had recently discovered that her husband was having an affair, and staged her disappearance as revenge; or, she had a stress-induced amnesia attack and genuinely didn't remember who she was. But reading contemporary reports in The Times shows that the public, at least, had a less charitable view of events.

The story was hot news, and The Times followed the search with daily reports:

The missing woman novelist: text of the notice posted by the police:
Mrs Agatha May Clarissa Christie, wife of Colonel Christie, aged 35, height 5ft 7in, hair reddish and shingled, eyes grey, complexion fair, well built, dressed in grey stockinet skirt, green jumper, grey and dark grey cardigan, small green velour hat, wearing a platinum ring with one pearl. No wedding ring.

That missing wedding ring might give the edge to the revenge theory, but the same report does mention that the author had recently suffered a nervous breakdown.

The public were drummed in to help the search; lakes were dragged; an advertisement was placed in The Times using a name that the missing novelist was supposed to recognise; the police pursued all sorts of leads - as long as they led no further than ten miles from Christie's home, despite a letter being found saying that she’d gone to Yorkshire.

When she eventually turned up, her erring husband scooped her into hiding, with repeated statements that she had amnesia, couldn’t even remember that she had a daughter, and that he wasn't going to speak to the press for any money.

And as soon as she was safe, the British public reverted to its usual sympathy deficit: Who was going to pay for all that police time, and the divers too – a total of £12.10s? In Parliament and the libel courts, the theory was even expressed that the whole thing had been “a foolish hoax on the police”.

So could it all have been a misguided piece of literary research that went awry? My money, having read these reports, is mainly on the revenge theory, with a bit of research thrown in. Anyway, while we’ll never know what went on behind the closed doors of the Christie home once the lady returned, it didn't take long before the divorce notice appeared, citing Colonel Christie’s infidelity.