Albert Jack - Agatha Christie: The Real-Life Agatha Christie Mystery

Agatha Christie

The Real-Life AgathaChristie Mystery

from

Mysteri ou s Wor ld

(2015 eBook Edition)

Albert Jack

Albert Jack Publishing

Copyright Page

The Big Series of Famous World Mysteries

2015 eBook Edition)

Copyright August 2015 Albert Jack

Cover Art: Albert Jack Publishing

Cover Design: Albert Jack Publishing

All rights are reserved to the author. nopart of this book may be used or reproduced in any mannerwhatsoever without written permission, except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is largely a work of non-fictionalthough the author could not resist the temptation to be creativewith historical detail wherever possible. Any reference to any reallife character or name used is purely coincidental, for the mostpart. However, some of these tales are true.

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About the Author

Albert Jack, is a writer and historian. Hisfirst book, Red Herrings and White Elephants explored the originsof well-known idioms and phrases and became an internationalbestseller in 2004. It was serialised by the Sunday Times andremained in their bestseller list for sixteen straight months. Hefollowed this up with a series of bestsellers including Shaggy Dogsand Black Sheep, Pop Goes the Weasel and What Caesar did for MySalad.

Fascinated by discovering the truth behindthe worlds great stories, Albert has become an expert inexplaining the unexplained, enriching millions of dinner tableconversations and ending bar-room disputes the world over. He isnow a veteran of hundreds of live television shows and thousands ofradio programmes worldwide. Albert lives somewhere betweenGuildford in England and Cape Town in South Africa.

Introduction

We all love a good mystery, dont we?And by all, I mean each and every one of us are, or will be,captivated at one time or another by a decent, real-life mystery,either one of the worlds best, or something on a smaller scalesuch as the baffling question of why the best-looking girl is goingout with a loser (again).

And so, after writing my last book,Thats Bollocks! (on urban legends), and inspired by the legend ofthe Beast of Bodmin Moor (described in the book), I started lookingat some other famous mysteries, ones that continue to fascinateus.

The story of the Beast of Bodmin Mooris an example of an urban legend which could also be properlyresearched as a genuine mystery, and the same could be said forvarious other topics covered in the book.

There is clearly a crossover betweenan urban legend and a full-scale mystery. Mysteries are fact-based,of course, and tend to be longer and more complicated; indeed,some, such as the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, crop circles or the LochNess Monster, provide easily enough material for a whole series ofbooks.

But writing a book on just one ofthese would have been relatively easy. The challenge came fromresearching lots and lots of them and then condensing them down ina way that I know you, the reader, who continue to pay my wages,enjoy reading.

And that is short, sharp informativesections you can read on the train, bus queue or while waiting topick the kids up after you arrive at school to find them indetention. In other words, the challenge was to explain the mysteryin a way you can enjoy and absorb in about ten minutes.

Inevitably some information will bemissing, for which I apologize in advance. But the missinginformation isnt critical to the basic story; the core detailsof the mystery in question should all be there. In some cases, suchas the sections on the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot and crop circles,there are literally thousands of examples that I could have used ofcourse, but, in each case, Ive kept it down to just ahandful.

Another challenge has been whichmysteries to select out of the scores of famous stories that exist.I have tried to be as diverse as possible, including mysteriousdisappearances (such as the lighthouse keepers of Eilean Mor or thecrew of the Mary Celeste) or deaths (Marilyn Monroe and RobertMaxwell), famous crimes (the St Valentines Day Massacre or D. B.Cooper jumping off a jet with $200,000 in cash), science (UFOs andUSOs science fact or science fiction?), history (the tale of thelost dauphin) and the arts (the Mona Lisa and Edgar Allan Poe),ranging from the obscure (the Dover Demon) to the world famous(the disappearance of Glenn Miller). For example, did you know thatsometimes it rains frogs or fish, or that the Mary Celeste wasnowhere near the Bermuda Triangle, despite several claims to thecontrary?

And this brings me to an importantpoint. Given that I am a fan of the unknown and the unexplained, Ihave not set out to be a mystery buster in this volume. Instead Ijust wanted to tell the story, provide some little-known detail andoffer a rational explanation wherever I could.

I wanted to provoke a bit of thoughtand conversation, but leave you to decide the answer foryourselves: does the story remain a mystery, in your view, or haveyou managed to piece together a theory of your own.

Although, to be fair, I must admitthere are some cases where I just couldnt resist presenting my ownideas and giving full rein to my scepticism, but dont let thatstop you enjoying yourselves.

But the truth is that the mind canplay tricks on us. We know this is the case; it is why we enjoymarvelling at an optical illusion or a magicians skillful sleightof hand. There are other occasions, however, when we dont (orwont) acknowledge that we have been deceived: we believe we cansee something and, even though we know that it doesnt actuallyexist, we can still see it because we want to.

Perhaps that is why there are still somany sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. A lump of wood floatinginnocently on the surface of Loch Ness is immediately classified asa sighting, while the very same lump of wood goes totallyunnoticed when tossed into a less famous loch nearby.

Some things remain mysterious, ofcourse, such as unsolved crimes and disappearances (the fate of thecrew of the Mary Celeste remains a mystery to this day); or ghostlygoings-on (no one has come up with a satisfactory explanation forthe frightening disturbances that took place in the ChaseVault).

Where there is insufficient evidence amystery will surely arise, but nonetheless we like to blindourselves to this sometimes, preferring the reason to be strangeand otherworldly than clear and matter of fact. The crew of theMary Celeste didnt abandon ship because it was about to sink orcatch fire, but because a giant squid snatched them up in itswrithing tentacles, or a passing UFO swooped them away to anotherplanet.

And why should there always be aboring, down-to-earth answer for everything? A bit of mystery makeslife much less dreary and infinitely more exciting.

But then there are those things thatmystify us but which should really be explained such as what makesthat loser so irresistible to women or why Big Brother aprogramme dependent on an audience of boring people with nothingbetter to do sitting around in a room in a house watching the samesort of people doing the same thing on television remains sopopular. Or, for that matter, how Russell Brand gets to be ontelevision. You see what I mean; some things really should beexplained.

As I wrote this series I had severalimaginary readers sitting at my shoulder. The first was you, ofcourse, who above all want to be entertained. The rest wererepresentatives from the groups of people who passionately believein a particular topic, whether Bigfoot, UFOs or the Loch NessMonster.

While our views will inevitablydiffer, I have still tried to be as sensitive as possible. Well, insome cases I tried. But that is the reason I gave up on my effortsto investigate the Mystery of God and the Mystery of the Mind ofthe Modern Woman.