Agatha laughed. In agreement, he realized. ‘I expect that makes two of us,’ she said.
Chilton had considered his heart so utterly undetectable for so long, it surprised him to believe her. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I thought earlier, for a moment, when you were looking at me so intently – I almost believed you were about to kiss me.’
‘I haven’t kissed a man other than my husband in years. Not since the day we met.’
‘You’ve been a good wife.’
Agatha nodded vigorously. It made her furious to think what a good wife she’d been. To Chilton she looked breathlessly young and full of thoughts he couldn’t read. It reminded him of his girl, Katherine, before the war. He felt his mind start to reach, by habit, for the next dark idea to follow, the bitter side of the world. And stopped himself.
‘Mrs Christie,’ he said.
‘Call me Agatha.’ She closed the distance between them and kissed him, a tentative but time-consuming kiss. Chilton didn’t dare lift an arm to her waist. He was afraid if he moved at all, she’d realize what she was doing and it would end – her soft lips on his, her hands resting ever so lightly on his chest. Both their mouths open just enough to inhale each other’s breath. She tasted like roses and spring grass.
‘Agatha,’ Mr Chilton said, when finally she stepped away.
‘You’d better go now.’ It almost wounded him, how even and unphased her voice sounded.
‘Yes.’ He boasted no such calm. His voice cracked like a twelve-year-old boy’s.
‘But you’ll keep your promise? And tell no one?’
‘Yes,’ he said again.
Chilton closed the door behind him. He walked down the stairs and through the front door, feeling like a ghost, as if, instead of stepping, he were gliding, feet still and floating an inch or more above the ground.
The Disappearance
Day Seven
Friday, 10 December 1926
SIR ARTHUR CONAN Doyle loved a mystery too much to admit he’d never heard of Agatha Christie prior to her disappearance. There were whispers of a publicity stunt and so what? If this was a publicity stunt, it was a damn good one.
People do like to be the ones to solve problems. The more people trying to crack a case, the more one wants to be the man to do it.
Donald Fraser, Agatha’s new agent, cleared his schedule to take a meeting with Conan Doyle. The celebrated creator of Sherlock Holmes! Even if he didn’t see how Sir Arthur could help in discovering Agatha, perhaps the author could be persuaded to abandon his current agent and join Fraser’s list?
Not that Fraser’s feelings were mercenary where Agatha was concerned. He was worried. And he felt horrible for Mr Christie. Fraser’s own wife had run off with one of his writers last spring. Fraser fully expected Agatha to have done something similar. She always conducted herself as an unassailable lady but then so had his wife.
Fraser did not have confidence Conan Doyle could discover what every police officer in England had not. The man was an author, not a detective. What’s easier than solving a puzzle of your own invention? Authors created problems, they didn’t solve them. Another mystery writer of the day, Dorothy Sayers, had already invited herself to Sunningdale to search for clues and test the energy. Agatha Christie was not the sort to meddle in such nonsense. She wouldn’t want charlatans involved, Fraser felt sure.
Conan Doyle at sixty-seven (a mere four years from joining the spiritual realm himself) cut a handsome and confident figure. It was almost endearing, that someone so stalwart could believe in messages from the beyond. Once it became clear there would be no wooing him away from his current representation, Fraser resolved to get the meeting done with. The whole business made him sad. He wanted Agatha Christie found as much as anyone and couldn’t bear wasting time about it.
‘Have you got anything of hers?’ Conan Doyle’s moustache sat wonderfully still on his face, no matter how animated he became. ‘Personal possessions she might have left behind? Clothing is best. A handwritten note might do.’
Fraser opened his desk drawer, where a lovely pair of leather gloves had lain going on nine months, waiting for their owner’s return. He hesitated before handing them over.
‘And may I enquire after your plans?’ said Fraser. ‘The hounds have already got her scent, you know. There’s a veritable army in Berkshire, searching for her.’ He mentioned Dorothy Sayers’ involvement and Conan Doyle waved it away as ridiculous.
‘She has no idea what to look for.’ He snatched at the gloves as Fraser tentatively withdrew them. ‘A spiritual fingerprint is what’s needed. I’ve been in touch with Horace Leaf.’
Fraser blinked, indicating the name meant nothing to him.
‘My good man, he’s only the most powerful clairvoyant in Europe.’ How interesting that Conan Doyle of all people employed spiritualism – mediums and divinations – rather than deductive reasoning. ‘And to our great good fortune he happens to reside in London. Have these gloves been worn recently?’
‘Oh, very recently,’ Fraser said. ‘Mrs Christie was here just a day before she went missing. Sitting in that very chair.’
Conan Doyle nodded, stroking the armrests as though collecting molecules Agatha had left behind. He held the gloves up as if he’d found them himself, a most important clue. ‘These will do nicely,’ he said. ‘Horace Leaf will solve this. We’ll find Agatha Christie, alive or dead. By morning, we’ll know her whereabouts. You can be certain of that.’
Fraser felt no guilt whatsoever. If Mr Leaf had any powers at all, the first thing he ought to divine was that the gloves belonged to Mrs Fraser, who’d belonged to Mr Fraser, until she’d absconded to Devonshire and broken her devoted husband’s heart.
The heavy door shut. Fraser stared at it, full of melancholy. Perhaps he’d go by Harrods and buy Mrs Fraser a new pair, send them to her in Devonshire. As a present. Her hands might be cold.
It surprised Fraser that he hadn’t felt star struck meeting Sherlock Holmes’s creator, only moved by the impermanence of life here on earth. Agatha Christie had a new novel, The Big Four, coming out this January. Perhaps she’d be courteous enough to return to her husband by then. Or perhaps the more macabre imaginings would prove correct, and a corpse, rather than the woman, would turn up. Either way – whether or not anyone saw her again – by January she would be a household name in England, indeed if not the whole world. Which couldn’t hurt book sales.
Fraser sighed, made melancholy by his avarice. Nothing in life unfolds the way you think it will, does it?