December 14, 1926: Agatha Christie Is Found

December 14, 1926: Agatha Christie, the world's best-selling mystery novelist, is found, safe and sound, 11 days after disappearing. It was a story worthy of one of her own fictional detectives.

Born in Torquay, Devon, in England's West Country in 1890, she struggled as a writer until 1920, when The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published, introducing the world to Hercule Poirot, her Belgian private detective. More Poriot stories followed.

She had married Army officer Archie Christie in 1914, and both served in World War I: Archie in the Royal Flying Corps, Agatha as a nurse back in Torquay. He survived the war, and Agatha's only child, Rosalind, was born in 1919.

In April 1926, Agatha's mother, Clara Miller, died, leaving her in a deep depression. In August, Archie asked her for a divorce, because he'd fallen in love with another woman. She wouldn't grant it. On December 3, Archie announced he was going to spend the next weekend with friends, without Agatha. That night, she drove off from their house at Sunningdale, Berkshire, about 25 miles west of London.

The next day, her car, a Morris Cowley, was found at Newlands Corner, about 14 miles to the southeast. Inside were women's clothes and an expired driver's license. The search was on, with the police, civilians, and early airplanes searching the rural area. Sherlock Holmes' creator, Dr. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, gave one of her gloves to a spirit medium, with no luck. The British press, always on the look for a sensational story, the more salacious the better for them, went wild. The rest of the world covered it as well, with The New York Times featuring an account of her disappearance on a front page.

On December 14, she was found, at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, 184 miles north of her house. She was registered as Mrs. Tressa Neele, from Cape Town, South Africa. This was a dig at her husband: His mistress was named Nancy Neele, spelled exactly the same way.

The next day, her sister Margaret, a.k.a. Madge, took Agatha to her home in Cheadle, outside Manchester, and kept her "in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away." "Callers" meaning "visitors." She acted as though she had no memory of leaving Sunningdale, and 2 doctors diagnosed her memory loss as genuine. Perhaps she had a nervous breakdown, but the fact that she had signed her name as that of her husband's mistress led many to consider it a publicity stunt, perhaps to frame her husband for murder (despite the lack of a dead body), and turn on her.

A year later, the December 1927 issue of The Royal Magazine published The Tuesday Night Club, a Christie story that introduced a new consulting detective, an old lady whose vast experience enable her to solve current cases. The following year, Archie got the divorce he wanted, and married Nancy Neele. He died in 1962.

Also in 1928, Agatha first rode the Orient Express, the already-famous Paris-to-Istanbul train, and traveled to the Middle East, to indulge her love of archaeology. On a subsequent trip in 1930, she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 13 years younger, and they married, and went on expeditions together. They were together until death did they part.

In 1934, she published Murder On the Orient Express, in which Poirot is on the eponymous train, and is called on to solve a murder on board. It became her most famous work, although it wasn't filmed until 1974, with Albert Finney playing Poirot. It was filmed again in in 2001, with Alfred Molina; 2010, with David Suchet, who is usually considered to be the role's definitive portrayer; and 2015, with Kenneth Branagh.

Agatha Christie was knighted in 1971, and died in 1976. Her daughter, Rosalind Hicks, married an Army officer just as her mother had, but he was killed in action in World War II. She remarried, and guarded her mother's estate and legacy until her own death in 2004. Her only child, Matthew Prichard, inherited the estate, which is now run by his son, James Prichard.

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December 14, 1926 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't yet been founded. There were 3 NHL games that night:

* The New York Americans lost to the Ottawa Senators, 2-0 at the new Madison Square Garden -- which, since 1968, has been known as the old Madison Square Garden. Cy Denneny scored both goals.

* The Montreal Maroons beat the Toronto St. Patricks, 3-0 at the Montreal Forum. The following season, under new ownership, the St. Patricks were renamed the Maple Leafs, and their dominant color from green to blue.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Cougars, 7-2 at the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena). The Cougars became the Detroit Falcons in 1930, and the Detroit Red Wings in 1932.