Badon Hill, as are the Badbury Hill in Oxfordshire, and the one near Swindon in Wiltshire”) and answering questions about objects sighted by the tourists as they rode along (“That, madam, is a goat”). Several members of the party took advantage the indifferent motorway scenery and the inducement of a full stomach. They slept the untroubled sleep of the jet-lagged.
At one point, noticing the mention of Torquay on a highway sign, Frances Coles asked, “Are we by any chance going to pass the spot where Agatha Christie staged her disappearance in the Twenties?”
Rowan Rover, whose knowledge of English literature did not extend to the private controversies of mystery writers, met this query with a blank stare. “I know she went missing for a week or so,” he said at last. “Somebody produced a movie based on the case. I don’t know where she took off from, though. She was born in Torquay, but I don’t think she lived there as an adult.”
“She disappeared near Guilford,” said Alice MacKenzie, who maintained that Agatha Christie’s work reached a plane of literary perfection to which Thomas Hardy could only aspire. “I’ve read two biographies of her.”
“Oh,
“What do you make of her disappearance?” asked Elizabeth MacPherson, grasping at this straw of a crime.
“Amnesia under a strain isn’t all that uncommon,” Rowan suggested.
“It’s more common if there has been a head injury,” said Kate Conway. “Personally, I’ve never seen a case.”
“Amnesia!” said Alice MacKenzie. “Ha!”
“I really know very little about the incident, but she was a very shy woman, wasn’t she? Hardly the sort of person to stage a publicity stunt.”
“I don’t think it was a publicity stunt,” said Alice, leaning forward and speaking in a stage whisper, so as not to disturb the sleeping Frances. “But I do think she did it on purpose.”
“Wasn’t her husband having an affair?” asked Kate Conway.
“Yes! And he had gone off to spend the weekend with his girlfriend,” said Alice triumphantly. “So Agatha crashes her car into a pond, leaves her expensive fur coat on the seat, and vanishes. The police assume foul play, of course, and guess who they suspect?”
“The husband,” sighed Rowan Rover. “They always do.”
“Right! He gets a grilling from the authorities, and his private life
“Where was she?” asked Charles Warren, postponing his nap.
“In a fancy hotel in Harrogate, attending tea dances and reading newspaper accounts of her own disappearance,” Alice informed him. “If she hadn’t planned her disappearance, how did she happen to be carrying enough money for a two-week stay at an expensive hotel? And what name do you suppose she registered under?”
“The girlfriend’s,” said Rowan with a sinking heart. His second wife was just the sort of person who would have done that.
“Exactly! Agatha wasn’t ill. She was brilliant. She humiliated her rotten husband in front of the entire world. Serves him right!”
“And did he give up the other woman and go back to Agatha?”
“No!” cried Rowan, Charles, and Bernard in unison.
Alice regarded them with the look of an entomologist who has just identified their species. “You’re right,” she said evenly. “A year later Archie Christie divorced her and married the other woman.”
“But he probably wasn’t worth having anyway,” Kate Conway pointed out. “I know a plastic surgeon who’s just like that. He’s married two nurses so far and made them both miserable. Archie Christie sounds rather heartless to me.”
“True,” said Alice. “And at least Agatha made him suffer.”
“We’re coming into Torquay now,” Bernard told Rowan. “So you’re all going to tour this sneaky lady’s museum, eh?”
“Isn’t it thrilling,” said the guide, without any trace of enthusiasm. He was envisioning a Rowan Rover exhibit in a museum, should one be dedicated to his second wife, who, fortunately, was not famous. The Rover Husband display would feature his most unflattering portrait (the hangover one, perhaps) with concentric circles drawn around it, and a list of his faults in easily readable red letters: WEARS SAFETY PINS IN FLY.
With a sigh of resignation, he turned to his notes on Torre Abbey.
Because of their proximity to the Gulf Stream, Cornwall and the coast of Devon enjoy a much warmer climate than most of the rest of Britain, and the south coast’s balmy beaches and palm trees had earned it the title of English Riviera. It was evident that Torquay was the holiday spot for a goodly number of Britons, because the road into the city was lined with large houses displaying bed and breakfast signs on their well-tended lawns.
Since the majority of people on the mystery tour were southern Californians, they were less impressed with Torquay than they might have been. Kate Conway was comparing the city to San Diego’s own island of Coronado and Elizabeth MacPherson, the representative of the other American coast, sniffed and said, “Virginia Beach.” Clearly the group preferred thatched cottages and half-timbered pubs to the twentieth-century bustle of a British seaside community, with its traffic and its commercialism.
“This looks very familiar,” said Nancy Warren, peering out at a motel with balconies and wrought-iron railings. “Doesn’t it remind you of San Diego, Charles?”
Her husband grunted. “Yeah, we could have seen this at home and saved six grand.”
While Bernard navigated through the late afternoon traffic, Rowan Rover consulted a city map and called out street names to look for in order to reach the abbey. Fifteen minutes and several orbits later, Bernard pulled the bus up to the curb on Falkland Road and said, “I don’t think there’s going to be any place to park nearby. Why don’t I let you out here, and come back for you in a bit. All right?”
“Fair enough,” said Rowan, standing up and stretching. “It’s only a block up to the abbey. Ladies and Charles, we’re getting off here.”
As he marched them up the street toward the abbey, Rowan recited the particulars of the afternoon’s attraction. “Torre Abbey has belonged to the city of Torquay since 1930. Before that it was the home of the Cary family, and before that it was a monastery for…” He took a deep breath. “Premonstratensian Canons. Built in 1196.”
“What is… what you said?” asked Kate Conway.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Rowan assured her. “Some species of monk, I presume. Ask your guide at the abbey. They provide their own tours.”
A few moments later they turned the corner and came within sight of Torre Abbey. Very little of the original twelfth-century architecture remained, except some ruins away from the converted abbey. Most of the structure was a solid red-brick building with white-trimmed windows, reminiscent of an American elementary school. It certainly did not resemble the group’s idea of an eight-hundred-year-old edifice.
“And what is its connection with Agatha Christie?” asked Maud Marsh.
“Only that this is the city of her birth,” said Rowan. “And since this is the city’s museum, they have set aside a room in her honor. The abbey also has a restored Victorian kitchen that serves teas. Off we go.”
He bounded up the steps and into the spacious main hallway. Beside the door was an information desk, manned by a guard/ticket-taker.
“Good afternoon,” said Rowan briskly. “I believe you have a reservation for a mystery tour of a dozen persons booked to see the abbey today.”
The man behind the counter glanced at a chart and assured the group that they were expected. “We haven’t any guides this afternoon, though,” he said. “We were terribly busy earlier in the month, and now they’ve all taken advantage of the lull to get a bit of time off themselves.”
“No guides!” Rowan looked stricken.
“Don’t worry. You can take them round yerself, sir. I have a sheet here that specifies what all the exhibits are. Everything is numbered so you can’t get it wrong. All right? Off you go, then!”
