In early December 1926, Agatha Christie’s car was found in Surrey but no trace of the novelist. (Part 5)
In early December 1926, the picturesque Newlands Corner in Surrey was the scene of an event that was widely reported in the English and International press. Agatha Christie’s car was found abandoned. A car of which in fact we know nothing, or so little. Here are all the details of this strange case.
A few hundred meters from the famous viewpoint, an abandoned car with a slight accident was discovered very early on. Inside are various personal items belonging to Agatha Christie, including a Driving Licence in her name. However, the owner seems to have evaporated. Will the car reveal its secrets?
Early in the morning of December 4, 1926, Edward McAllister, described as “a mine worker”, cycled to work. He reports that at about 6:20 am, not far from Newlands Corner, a woman without any hat and with frost in her hair asked him for help starting her car. McAllister says*: “Around 6:20 a. m. Saturday morning, I saw a car with a woman at the back. She said, “Could you start my car, please? I said, “I’ll try. I got off my bike and started the car after a few minor problems. The radiator was cold and the car lights were on.”
Mr McAllister talks about an automobile that he did not see as a priori damaged, whose driver simply has a starting problem because of the cold and with a battery that is not completely discharged, since the lights were “on”. This refers to the vehicle’s position lights, which are mandatory at this time of year.
The car of the main story was found shortly afterwards is a short distance away, on a road bordering a quarry. A few days later, a pseudo reconstruction of the accident was made by the Police. But the vehicle used is a Dennis model. “The interesting thing about this car is that Dennis had a factory in Guildford, just down the road from where Agatha Christie disappeared” says David Fryer’s blog. This is all that can be interesting at this time, since no one knows what really happened, and the vehicle used for, which is an impressive, and tall, landaulet, dates from before 1915. David Fryer also thinks it could have been supplied by the factory.
What did the car look like?
The Morris Cowley model purchased by Agatha Christie remains an enigma. David Fryer says “There are no published photos, no documents, no registration number, and very few details other than an occasional mention in his autobiography and interviews.”
Even the Daily Mail, which devoted several pages to the incident in December 1926, with numerous photos to support it, did not publish any of the Morris Cowley.
For David Fryer, it seems that the car was quickly taken away by the police and sent to the Sanford Garage in Guildford, “probably before the press was alerted.”
According to a source quoted by Andrew Norman**, the Morris Cowley arrived at the Guilford garage on Saturday afternoon, December 4. The employee takes a look at it. In addition to the discharged battery, the damage he noticed was the slightly damaged hood, the broken speedometer cable, and a slightly bent front fender.
We therefore have no image of the damaged car. No pictures were taken, either at the accident site, where she stayed until around noon, or in Guilford’s garage, from where she left for Sunningdale on Sunday, December 5.
On the morning of the event, the minds had focused on the disappearance of the novelist and not on her poor damaged car. In December 1926, the Daily Mail described the vehicle as a two-seater car (a detail that was reported in the French newspapers of the time). In contrast, the description found on a Berkshire police research poster published on 9 December 1926 presents the Morris Cowley as a “4-seater”.
There are no specific date mentioned in Agatha Christie’s writings or interviews about the year of purchase of her car, acquired at her husband’s suggestion, but according to David Fryer “her autobiography offers some useful clues “*.
However, we cannot take all the elements indicated in Agatha Christie’s autobiography literally. In her memories she sometimes associates facts that are not from the same period. The novelist’s memory when she wrote her autobiography is no longer so accurate. For example, she says: “Anna the adventurer had now appeared in the Evening News and I had bought my Morris Cowley”. She learns to drive it and adds “almost immediately the general strike was on us, before I had more than three lessons with Archie”.
Did Agatha Christie buy the car in 1924?
Anne the Adventurer is a serial adaptation of her fourth novel, The Man in Brown Suit, published by her publisher in August 1924. After the publishing of the book for bookstores, the London newspaper Evening News buys the rights to publish it in the form of a daily Soap for £500. As for the general strike in England, it took place in May 1926.
The novelist owned a Morris Cowley Bullnose. And the most surprising thing about this whole 11-day disappearance case is that the central element of the case, the car, remains a mystery. Information about her is almost non-existent. We don’t know anything specific about it.
In 1924, the Christies moved from London to Sunningdale. They first rent one of the two apartments on the upper floors of a large Victorian house called Scotswood. Agatha Christie buys her Morris Cowley shortly after the Christie family arrives in Sunningdale, thanks to the £500 she had won. It was only at the beginning of 1926 that the Christies bought their own house, later named Styles in reference to Agatha’s first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
Agatha Christie begins driving her car with apprehension. Taking charge is difficult and, probably to familiarize herself with it, her husband quickly asked her to drive him to London.
She then gradually gets used to enter into her garage and to mingle with the other drivers “I gained a little self-confidence and after three or four days, I was able to penetrate further into London and brave the dangers of traffic. Oh, how happy that car was for me! (…) One of the greatest pleasures I had when I got out in the car was to go to Ashfield and take Mom for a drive. She loved him passionately, just like me. (…) I don’t think that nothing has given me more pleasure, more joy to succeed than my dear Morris Cowley with a bottle nose.”
What other clues can we find?
Why did the press at the time say that Agatha Christie’s Morris Cowley is a two-seater?
Over the years, we have been able to look in the novelist’s writings for elements of explanation regarding the reasons for her 11-day runaway. Can we also find clues about the car among what the Queen of the Mystery Detective novel published?
In December 1924, precisely two years before his temporary disappearance, a short story was published in a magazine in the United Kingdom. In this short story, The Manhood of Edward Robinson***, we learn that the novelist knew precisely one model of convertible whose price was close to £500. The hero of the story, Edward Robinson, “thinks about how to spend the five hundred pounds he just won in a contest. He knows what he wants to do with it, at least for 465 of them, to buy an elegant, fast, two-seater car.”
Agatha Christie later recovered and kept at least until 1930 her beloved and yet damaged car in 1926. During the first few months of her life with archaeologist Max Mallowan, whom she met in the Middle East, she organized a picnic near Torquay at her daughter’s suggestion.
She says ”(…) it was almost certain that it (editor’s note: the weather) would be wet. Rosalind offered us a picnic on the moor. I was enthusiastic about it, and Max agreed, with an appearance of pleasure… (…) I used to drive my faithful Morris Cowley, which was of course an open touring car, and which had an elderly hood with several gaps in its structure, so that, sitting at the back, water coursed steadily down the back of your neck. (…) So we started and the rain came. I persisted, however, and told Max about the many beauties of the moor, which he could not quite see through the driving fog and rain.”
It is not clear whether Rosalind had offered her mother and friend Max a romantic picnic or whether she was present. In any case, the Morris Cowley in question is a four-seater.
* https://maximalist01.com/agatha-christie-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-morris/
** Agatha Christie: The Disappearing Novelist — Andrew Norman — Google Books
*** Originally published in the United Kingdom as The Day of His Dreams
Photo: Stamp: Amazon
Previously published in French on sofb.fr with images, then May 6, 2019 in English on Medium.com (as Part 3). Updated April 12, 23.
Puzzles & Mysteries 