Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days Read Online Free PDF

cushion covers, tennis, croquet, roller-skating, swimming and riding her horse side-saddle. She made up for the general lack of excitement in her life by taking part in a number of amateur theatricals. While performing in The Blue Beard of Unhappiness she met a young man called Amyas Boston who became for a time the object of Agatha’s affections and an ardent admirer. However, her passion was music, and when Clarissa sent her to finishing school in Paris she took piano and singing lessons and Amyas faded from her life.
    Over the next two years finishing school awakened in Agatha the idea of making a career in the performing arts. Sadly, her dream was not matched by sufficient discipline or ability. Her teachers undermined her confidence, and she eventually concluded that she did not have enough talent to appear in public as a solo pianist. Once she realized that she did not possess the volume of voice needed for opera she gave up the idea of performing in public, since becoming a concert singer fell short of her musical ambitions.
    During this period Nan was attending a finishing school in Florence. The former tomboy had turned into a demure, apple-cheeked brunette whose mischievous sense of humour readily attracted would-be suitors. Agatha kept in touch with her friend by visiting the Italian city during her school holidays.
    After Agatha returned from Paris Clarissa rounded off her education by arranging a coming-out season in Cairo. By now Agatha had developed into a highly attractive blonde of almost Scandinavian appearance: tall and slim, with a radiant smile and an oval face. The one feature that made her self-conscious was what she called her ‘Roman’ nose, and it has been said of her, unfairly, that she was never photogenic. In fact most of the best photgraphs taken of her as a young woman were informal ones taken when she was caught unawares or when she was enjoying herself in a group of friends.
    During her time in Cairo a series of enjoyable flirtations took the edge off Agatha’s natural reticence. But her suitors were more ardent in their pursuit of her than she of them, for none of them had the adventurous qualities she craved, and so she returned to England.
    Agatha recalled that she was ‘gloriously’ idle back at Ashfield, but the tranquillity was undermined by her growing feelings of restlessness. She was recovering from influenza one winter’s day when her mother suggested that she follow in her sister Madge’s footsteps and write a short story to alleviate her boredom; this and other stories that followed were rejected by publishers. With her mother’s encouragement Agatha sought the advice of their neighbour, the celebrated author Eden Phillpots, who, after reading her first attempt at a novel, Snow Upon the Desert , suggested she should refrain from moralizing so much. The novel, written around 1908, was followed by several stories, including Vision and the novella ‘Being So Very Wilful’. Eden Phillpots considered the later showed ‘steady advance’, but it was some years before Agatha’s literary promise would be recognized, for her romantic disposition and attractive looks ensured that her energies were taken up for the most part by courtships in which she did all the rejecting.
    As far as Agatha was concerned, the life led by her friend Nan seemed far more glamorous and exciting. Nan had recently become attracted to a highly undesirable suitor, and her parents had sent her on a round-the-world trip with her Uncle George and Aunt Helen to prevent the romance from developing.
    On 4 January 1910 the unforeseen occurred. The steamer Waikare , on which Nan was travelling with her guardians, struck an underwater rock pinnacle in the Dusky Sound and they were shipwrecked without loss of life on Stop Island off the coast of New Zealand. The two-day ordeal of the 210 passengers and crew was relieved by the fact that they had managed to salvage food supplies, luggage and a grand piano before