November 21, 2025 • 8 mins
Agatha Christie is the biggest selling novelist in world history. Well over 2 billion books sold in 103 languages. She is the forever queen of mystery. But her biggest mystery is her 1926 disappearance. It made headlines all over the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, who do you think is the number one
best selling author in human history. It's the Queen of mystery,
Agatha Christie. She has sold well over two billion copies
of her stories and they continue to sell. But in
nineteen twenty six, she actually became an international mystery herself.
I'm Patti Steele, Agatha Christie's vanishing act. The world's obsession
(00:24):
with finding her and figuring out where she's gone. That's
next on the backstory, the book. The backstory is back.
If you're a fan of classic mysteries, you know Agatha Christie.
Maybe you love the movie Murder on the Orient Express
or the TV show Murder she wrote, which was based
(00:45):
on her stories. Agatha Christie is the Queen of mystery,
the architect of perfect crime puzzles, and the best selling
novelist in human history. But in December of nineteen twenty six,
she didn't just write a mystery. She became one. For
eleven days, it seemed the entire world was searching for her.
As the police looked for clues, newspaper headlines screamed about
(01:09):
every lead, and fans wondered how could the most famous
mystery writer on earth simply disappear. Okay, it's the evening
of December third, nineteen twenty six. Agatha kisses her little
girl good night. She then walks out of her home
in Berkshire, England, and simply vanishes into the cold night air.
(01:30):
Hours later, her abandoned car is found near a chalk
pit and a small lake. Inside the car is her
fur coat, a suitcase and her expired driver's license. But
Agatha is nowhere to be found. Did she drown in
a lake? Was it an accident, a suicide or even murder?
Sounds like one of her books. Right Within days, over
(01:53):
a thousand police officers with tracking dogs and fifteen thousand
volunteers are scouring the countryside. Planes search from the air,
Trains are stopped, divers are sent down into the depths
of nearby lakes, and everyday newspapers run front page updates.
It's not just a missing person case. It's a national
(02:15):
obsession in the UK and internationally, with US papers like
The New York Times splashing the story across their covers.
Of course, one detail the press loves and dives into.
Agatha's husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, had recently asked her for
a divorce, he'd fallen in love with another woman. Is
(02:35):
that some kind of a motive for her disappearance? Maybe?
Does it provide some clues? It good, But if this
is one of Agatha's own novels, it's really just the setup.
Despite the massive search, the mystery is only getting deeper.
Some witnesses say they saw a woman matching Agatha's description
(02:55):
getting on a bus miles away. Another said she was
spotted in London and joyously taking in the Christmas decorations
at Herod's department store. Other folks think she's simply wandering
the countryside in a daze. For the first time in
British history, famous writers joined the hunt. Sir Arthur Canan Doyle,
(03:15):
who created Sherlock Holmes, of course, wants to help. He
takes one of Agatha's gloves to a psychic medium, but
they turn up nothing. Where could she be? Then the
public starts getting suspicious and angry. Accusations start to fly.
Is this a publicity stunt? Is she staging her own
murder to light a fire under a new book. Maybe
(03:37):
she's doing it to punish her husband, or is there
something much darker going on? It's such a huge story
that even the BRIT's Home Secretary gets a daily briefing.
All of Britain is worried about their young national treasure,
but she is absolutely nowhere. Then, eleven days after she disappeared,
(03:59):
a hotel musician in the Spa town of Harrogate walks
past the hotel lounge and freezes. He sees a woman
sitting quietly reading a newspaper. On the front page of
that paper is a photo of Agatha Christie. Talk about
a scene straight out of a movie, right. The musician
tells the hotel staff and they call the cops. When
(04:20):
detectives arrive, Agatha is calm, composed, polite, but she's registered
at the hotel under a different name, Teresa Kneel, the
same last name as her husband's lover. They start to
question her and she seems confused. She tells them she
didn't know she was Agatha Christie, doesn't know how she
(04:41):
got to Harrogate and remembers nothing of the past eleven days.
When her husband finally arrives on the scene, she looks
at him as if he's a complete stranger. The public
wants to know is she lying or is something broken
inside of her? She offers a brief and not very
convincing it explanation, at least not very satisfying. She says
(05:02):
she has amnesia triggered by emotional trauma. Of course, her
doctors support the claim. Friends say she has been under
a ton of stress since her mother had just died,
and to top it off, her marriage is collapsing. A
Lot of folks, though, don't buy the story. Again. They
say it was a planned disappearance. Maybe she was trying
(05:23):
to embarrass her cheating husband or even make it look
like he had murdered her. Or possibly she was gathering
material for a new book. Or it could have been
a cry for help that just spiraled out of control.
One of her biographers claims she went into a fugue state,
a rare form of reversible amnesia in which someone forgets
(05:44):
who they are. But here's what makes this mystery so mysterious.
Agatha Christie never spoke of her disappearance again. She never
addressed it in interviews, her autobiography makes no reference to
those eleven days, and there isn't even a mention of
it in her private letters. She never even spoke about
(06:05):
it to her daughter Rosalind, who always maintained that her
mother truly remembered absolutely nothing. Her husband only referred to
it as a mental health crisis. Agatha had locked the
truth away permanently, but after her disappearance she did rebuild
her life. She divorced Archie and in nineteen thirty got
(06:26):
remarried to a man she adored, Sir Max mallowan an
archaeologist who absolutely adored her. For the rest of her life.
Agatha went on to write some of the most popular
novels and short stories of all time in the aftermath.
They include Murder on the Orient Express and Then There
Was None, Death on the Nile, and The mouse Trap,
(06:49):
to name just a few. They've been turned into over
thirty movies, as well as video games, graphic novels, and
of course, the hugely successful TV show Murder. She wrote
and one of her plays, the aforementioned Mousetrap running in
London's West End, holds the world's record for most consecutive
performances in history, with well over thirty thousand so far,
(07:12):
and she is the most translated author of all time.
Agatha Christie, the greatest mystery writer in history, managed to
take her greatest, most personal mystery to the grave, dying
in nineteen seventy six at the age of eighty five.
But her nineteen twenty six disappearance is a really ghostly
(07:33):
chapter one her fans are still trying to untangle. Was
it trauma, a fugue state, a message to a faithless husband,
or the one plot even Agatha didn't want solved In
the end, maybe the truth doesn't matter, just the art
of the story, because for eleven days, Agatha Christie lived
(07:53):
inside a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes couldn't crack. It
was her one final story where the author herself became
the missing piece of her own puzzle. Hope you like
the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I'd
love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to
get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to dm
(08:15):
me if you have a story you'd like me to cover.
On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser, Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
(08:37):
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
All right, who do you think is the number one
best selling author in human history. It's the Queen of mystery,
Agatha Christie. She has sold well over two billion copies
of her stories and they continue to sell. But in
nineteen twenty six, she actually became an international mystery herself.
I'm Patti Steele, Agatha Christie's vanishing act. The world's obsession
(00:24):
with finding her and figuring out where she's gone. That's
next on the backstory, the book. The backstory is back.
If you're a fan of classic mysteries, you know Agatha Christie.
Maybe you love the movie Murder on the Orient Express
or the TV show Murder she wrote, which was based
(00:45):
on her stories. Agatha Christie is the Queen of mystery,
the architect of perfect crime puzzles, and the best selling
novelist in human history. But in December of nineteen twenty six,
she didn't just write a mystery. She became one. For
eleven days, it seemed the entire world was searching for her.
As the police looked for clues, newspaper headlines screamed about
(01:09):
every lead, and fans wondered how could the most famous
mystery writer on earth simply disappear. Okay, it's the evening
of December third, nineteen twenty six. Agatha kisses her little
girl good night. She then walks out of her home
in Berkshire, England, and simply vanishes into the cold night air.
(01:30):
Hours later, her abandoned car is found near a chalk
pit and a small lake. Inside the car is her
fur coat, a suitcase and her expired driver's license. But
Agatha is nowhere to be found. Did she drown in
a lake? Was it an accident, a suicide or even murder?
Sounds like one of her books. Right Within days, over
(01:53):
a thousand police officers with tracking dogs and fifteen thousand
volunteers are scouring the countryside. Planes search from the air,
Trains are stopped, divers are sent down into the depths
of nearby lakes, and everyday newspapers run front page updates.
It's not just a missing person case. It's a national
(02:15):
obsession in the UK and internationally, with US papers like
The New York Times splashing the story across their covers.
Of course, one detail the press loves and dives into.
Agatha's husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, had recently asked her for
a divorce, he'd fallen in love with another woman. Is
(02:35):
that some kind of a motive for her disappearance? Maybe?
Does it provide some clues? It good, But if this
is one of Agatha's own novels, it's really just the setup.
Despite the massive search, the mystery is only getting deeper.
Some witnesses say they saw a woman matching Agatha's description
(02:55):
getting on a bus miles away. Another said she was
spotted in London and joyously taking in the Christmas decorations
at Herod's department store. Other folks think she's simply wandering
the countryside in a daze. For the first time in
British history, famous writers joined the hunt. Sir Arthur Canan Doyle,
(03:15):
who created Sherlock Holmes, of course, wants to help. He
takes one of Agatha's gloves to a psychic medium, but
they turn up nothing. Where could she be? Then the
public starts getting suspicious and angry. Accusations start to fly.
Is this a publicity stunt? Is she staging her own
murder to light a fire under a new book. Maybe
(03:37):
she's doing it to punish her husband, or is there
something much darker going on? It's such a huge story
that even the BRIT's Home Secretary gets a daily briefing.
All of Britain is worried about their young national treasure,
but she is absolutely nowhere. Then, eleven days after she disappeared,
(03:59):
a hotel musician in the Spa town of Harrogate walks
past the hotel lounge and freezes. He sees a woman
sitting quietly reading a newspaper. On the front page of
that paper is a photo of Agatha Christie. Talk about
a scene straight out of a movie, right. The musician
tells the hotel staff and they call the cops. When
(04:20):
detectives arrive, Agatha is calm, composed, polite, but she's registered
at the hotel under a different name, Teresa Kneel, the
same last name as her husband's lover. They start to
question her and she seems confused. She tells them she
didn't know she was Agatha Christie, doesn't know how she
(04:41):
got to Harrogate and remembers nothing of the past eleven days.
When her husband finally arrives on the scene, she looks
at him as if he's a complete stranger. The public
wants to know is she lying or is something broken
inside of her? She offers a brief and not very
convincing it explanation, at least not very satisfying. She says
(05:02):
she has amnesia triggered by emotional trauma. Of course, her
doctors support the claim. Friends say she has been under
a ton of stress since her mother had just died,
and to top it off, her marriage is collapsing. A
Lot of folks, though, don't buy the story. Again. They
say it was a planned disappearance. Maybe she was trying
(05:23):
to embarrass her cheating husband or even make it look
like he had murdered her. Or possibly she was gathering
material for a new book. Or it could have been
a cry for help that just spiraled out of control.
One of her biographers claims she went into a fugue state,
a rare form of reversible amnesia in which someone forgets
(05:44):
who they are. But here's what makes this mystery so mysterious.
Agatha Christie never spoke of her disappearance again. She never
addressed it in interviews, her autobiography makes no reference to
those eleven days, and there isn't even a mention of
it in her private letters. She never even spoke about
(06:05):
it to her daughter Rosalind, who always maintained that her
mother truly remembered absolutely nothing. Her husband only referred to
it as a mental health crisis. Agatha had locked the
truth away permanently, but after her disappearance she did rebuild
her life. She divorced Archie and in nineteen thirty got
(06:26):
remarried to a man she adored, Sir Max mallowan an
archaeologist who absolutely adored her. For the rest of her life.
Agatha went on to write some of the most popular
novels and short stories of all time in the aftermath.
They include Murder on the Orient Express and Then There
Was None, Death on the Nile, and The mouse Trap,
(06:49):
to name just a few. They've been turned into over
thirty movies, as well as video games, graphic novels, and
of course, the hugely successful TV show Murder. She wrote
and one of her plays, the aforementioned Mousetrap running in
London's West End, holds the world's record for most consecutive
performances in history, with well over thirty thousand so far,
(07:12):
and she is the most translated author of all time.
Agatha Christie, the greatest mystery writer in history, managed to
take her greatest, most personal mystery to the grave, dying
in nineteen seventy six at the age of eighty five.
But her nineteen twenty six disappearance is a really ghostly
(07:33):
chapter one her fans are still trying to untangle. Was
it trauma, a fugue state, a message to a faithless husband,
or the one plot even Agatha didn't want solved In
the end, maybe the truth doesn't matter, just the art
of the story, because for eleven days, Agatha Christie lived
(07:53):
inside a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes couldn't crack. It
was her one final story where the author herself became
the missing piece of her own puzzle. Hope you like
the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I'd
love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to
get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to dm
(08:15):
me if you have a story you'd like me to cover.
On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser, Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
(08:37):
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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