You Can Run, But You Can't Hide—From Another Mystery Writer
Did you know that Sherlock Holmes’ creator Arthur Conan Doyle based many
of his Holmes’ stories on actual occurrences? Consider Agatha Christie’s
mysterious disappearance in 1926. She drove away from her home one morning. Later
that day, her locked car was found in a ditch with the motor still running. Ten
days later she was discovered in a hotel at the Harrogate Spa in Northern
England. A journalist named Ritchie-Calder believed that Christie had planned
to commit suicide, staging the incident to appear as if her husband and his mistress
had murdered Agatha.
Years
earlier, Conan Doyle had been knighted and appointed deputy-lieutenant of
Surrey. Although he retired in 1921, he was called in as a consultant on the
Christie case. In turn he consulted a medium who told him that Christie was
alive and would surface on the following Wednesday. The prediction came true.
This incident resembles Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Problem of
Thor Bridge.”
Excerpt
from my The Sherlock Holmes Triviography
and Quiz Book.
Did you know that Sherlock Holmes’ creator Arthur Conan Doyle based many
of his Holmes’ stories on actual occurrences? Consider Agatha Christie’s
mysterious disappearance in 1926. She drove away from her home one morning. Later
that day, her locked car was found in a ditch with the motor still running. Ten
days later she was discovered in a hotel at the Harrogate Spa in Northern
England. A journalist named Ritchie-Calder believed that Christie had planned
to commit suicide, staging the incident to appear as if her husband and his mistress
had murdered Agatha.