The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [32]
Annie had never understood the male passion for automobiles, although a male writer had once explained to her that beautiful cars were like lovely women: fast, laid back, and free as the wind. But this time, she, too, felt the stirrings of enormous excitement and joined heartily in the cheer that rose from the waiting crowd. Nineteen thirty—oh, that was a glorious year for Christie readers, their first book-length view of St. Mary Mead in the incomparable Murder at the Vicarage.
As the low-slung, scarlet, open touring car slid to a majestic stop in front of the beribboned poles that marked the entrance to the Grand Garden Fete, Annie blinked back tears of joy.
The Christie Caper had begun.
In glorious fashion.
South of the main entrance to the Palmetto House spread an expanse of lawn. Admittedly it was covered with wiry crabgrass tenaciously triumphing over the island’s sandy soil rather than the thickly green, close-cropped grass of an English country house, but it was as close an imitation of the grounds of Nasse House in Dead Man’s Folly as Annie could manage, and today it looked wonderfully festive with the array of brightly colored tents and assorted games.
The elegant car drawing up to the beribboned poles, often seen on Hollywood Boulevard with Clark Gable at the wheel, was the flagship for a shining line of vintage greats:
An 1897 two-cylinder, four-horse-power Daimler Phaeton. In 1897, Agatha was a well-loved, happy seven-year-old who could entertain herself for hours with imaginary playmates.
A 1902 black Curved-Dash Olds, which looked like a baby carriage on wheels. A wonderful year. Sister Madge married, and Agatha met a friend for life, the bridegroom’s younger sister, Nan.
A pale green 1908 Hutton. While recuperating from the flu, a bored Agatha was encouraged by her mother to try her hand at writing. The result: “The House of Beauty,” a six-thousand-word short story that contains, as her biographer Janet Morgan points out, a little bit of everything, including death, delirium, the jungle, madness, music, and a black-robed nun.
A gorgeously blue 1910 Alfa with bright red leather upholstery. Agatha’s coming-out year. She and her widowed mother traveled to Cairo and spent three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel, a wonderful season of dances, croquet, and polo matches—and plenty of attentive young men.
A 1924 gray snub-nosed Morris-Cowley (progenitor of the MG), identical to the one Agatha bought with her five hundred pounds in serial rights money for The Man in the Brown Suit. In her autobiography, she recalled the purchase of that car as one of the two most exciting events in her life. The second was dining with the queen at Buckingham Palace forty years later.
A jaunty green 1925 Opel Laubfrosch. Agatha patterned the Berkshire estate in The Secret of Chimneys after Abney, the ancestral home of her brother-in-law, Jimmy Watts.
A flashy red 1927 Vauxhall. A year of life-altering events, public and personal. The Communist party expelled Trotsky. Lindbergh soloed across the Atlantic. Agatha’s marriage to Archie Christie failed.
A luxurious 1928 six-seater Nürberg Mercedes-Benz. Agatha made her first journey aboard the Orient Express that fall.
A classy red 1934 six-cylinder Riley M.P.H. sports two-seater, which could easily be envisaged parked at the Blue Boar. This was a wonderfully productive year, three novels written.
The door to the Duesenberg clicked shut with the precision of a Christie plot. A liveried chauffeur—mauve uniform with gray spats—moved with quiet dignity to open the rear door of the gleaming lead car.
Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins, a petite woman as softly rounded as a rococo cherub, erupted from the car, faster than a jack out of the box. Her pale reddish hair was bound up in a somewhat lopsided coronet braid. Bright blue eyes, vivid with good humor and eagerness, settled on Annie. “Annie Laurance Darling, at last. What a pleasure to be here. Oh, what glorious tents. Pink-and-white striped! Just like peppermint. And such a marvelous turn-out. My dear, you’ve launched