I stepped off him and smoothed my skirt. My hat was still on my head, it had barely budged.
‘How did she seem?’ he asked, returning to his desk.
‘Sad.’ If she ever told him she’d confronted me, I’d deny it. ‘And worried.’
‘You mustn’t go soft on her,’ he said. ‘It’s kinder to plunge the knife quickly.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
I blew him a kiss and headed towards the door, hoping none of my protestations had made a dent in his resolve. My conversation with Agatha made his leaving her all the more urgent. I unlocked the latch.
‘Nan,’ Archie said, before I could step through the doorway. ‘Next time you see me I’ll be a free man.’
‘Not at all,’ I told him. ‘You’ll belong to me.’
He smiled, and I knew there was nothing for me to worry about, at least in terms of Archie breaking the news to Agatha. The man had a mission. Once he decided to do something, he did it with the coldness required of a pilot releasing bombs to cause death and havoc below. All the while sailing through the sky, untouchable.
The Disappearance
One Day Before
Thursday, 2 December 1926
IN THE HISTORY of the world there’s been one story a man tells his mistress: he doesn’t love his wife, perhaps never loved her at all; there’s been no sex for years, not a whisper of it; his marriage is absent passion, absent affection, absent joy – a barren and miserable place; he stays for the children, or for money, or for propriety; it’s a matter of convenience; the new lover is his only respite.
How many times has this story been true? Not many, is my guess. I know it wasn’t true of the Christies.
That evening Archie made his usual commute from London to Sunningdale. The couple had named their home Styles after the manor in Agatha’s first novel. It was a lovely Victorian house with substantial gardens. When Archie came through the front door Agatha was waiting for him, dressed for dinner. He never told me what she was wearing but I know it was a chiffon dress the shade of seafoam. I imagine the cut emphasized the swell of her bosom, but Archie only said she seemed so distracted he decided to wait till morning to tell her he was leaving. ‘Emotions do run higher at night, don’t they?’ he said.
Agatha, who knew the news was coming, resolved to do silent battle. Usually her little terrier Peter never left her side but tonight she had sent the dog to bed with Teddy so he wouldn’t be an annoyance. She tried to exude the cheerful countenance her husband required.
I’ve sometimes thought Agatha invented Hercule Poirot as an antidote to Archie. There was never an emotional cue Poirot missed, nor a wayward emotion for which he didn’t feel sympathy. Poirot could absorb and assess a person’s sadness, then forgive it. Whereas Archie simply wanted to say Cheer up and have the order followed.
Having decided to postpone the inevitable scene, Archie sat down to a quiet dinner with his wife, the two of them seated at opposite ends of the long dining table. When I asked what they’d discussed, he said, ‘Just small talk.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Sullen.’ Archie spoke the word as if it were a great personal affront. ‘She seemed self-indulgently morose.’
After dinner Agatha asked him to adjourn to the sitting room for a glass of brandy. He declined and went upstairs to see Teddy. Honoria, who doubled as Agatha’s personal secretary and Teddy’s nanny, was in the middle of putting her to bed.
The little dog dashed out the door as soon as Archie stepped inside and Teddy let out a wail of protest. ‘Mother promised Peter would stay with me tonight!’
Luckily Archie had my gift, Winnie the Pooh, to offer as consolation. Once Teddy had torn away the wrapping excitedly, he told me, he read her the first chapter. She begged him to go on reading, so that by the time he retired, Agatha – never knowing this was her last chance to recover him – was already asleep. ‘Like the dead,’ Archie added.