While the Light Lasts - Agatha Christie [34]
Through the chinks in his fingers he watched them go, hand in hand, without a backward glance, two happy people who had found heaven and had no need of him any longer.
What was he, after all, but a very lonely little god in a strange land?
Afterword
‘The Lonely God’ was first published in the Royal Magazine in July 1926. It is one of Christie’s few purely romantic stories and she herself considered it to be ‘regrettably sentimental’.
Nevertheless, the story is interesting for it foreshadows Christie’s life-long interest in archaeology, which she identified as being her favourite study in her contribution to Michael Parkinson’s Confessions Album (1973), a book published for charity. It was a common interest in archaeology that led to her meeting the man who became her second husband, the celebrated archaeologist Max Mallowan. For many years after the Second World War, she and Mallowan spent each spring at Nimrud in Assyria and Christie’s own account of excavations at Tell Brak in Syria in 1937 and 1938, Come, Tell Me How You Live (1946), is an entertaining and informative guide to the sites and this important other side of her character. While she never, apparently, wrote while on expedition, her experiences did provide material for several novels, including the Poirot mysteries Murder in Mesopotamia (1936), Death on the Nile (1937) and Appointment With Death (1938), as well as the extraordinary Death Comes as the End (1944), which is set in ancient Egypt over two thousand years before the birth of Christ.
Manx Gold
Foreword
‘Manx Gold’ is no ordinary detective story; indeed, it is probably unique. The detectives are conventional enough but although they are confronted with a particularly brutal murder, the murderer’s identity is not their main concern. They are rather more interested in unravelling a series of clues to the whereabouts of hidden treasure, a treasure whose existence was not confined to the printed page! Clearly, some explanation is required…
In the winter of 1929, Alderman Arthur B. Crookall had a novel idea. Crookall was the chairman of the ‘June Effort’, a committee responsible for boosting tourism to the Isle of Man, and his idea was that there should be a treasure hunt, inspired by the many legends of Manx smugglers and their long-forgotten hoards of booty. There would be real treasure, hidden about the island, and clues to its location concealed in the framework of a detectivestory. Initially, some members of the committee expressed reservations about Crookall’s proposal, but it was eventually endorsed. The committee agreed that the ‘Isle of Man Treasure Hunt Scheme’ should take place at the start of the holiday season and run at the same time as the International Tourist Trophy motorcycle races, then in their 24th year, and alongside other annual events such as the ‘crowning of the Rose Queen’ and the midnight yacht race.
But Crookall had to find someone to write the story around which the hunt would be based. Who better than Agatha Christie? Perhaps surprisingly, and for a fee of only £60, Christie accepted this, her most unusual commission. She visited the Isle of Man at the end of April 1930, staying as the guest of the Lieutenant Governor of the island before returning to Devon where her daughter was ill. Christie and Crookall spent several days discussing the treasure hunt, and visited various sites in order to decide where the treasure should be hidden and how the clues should be composed.
The resulting story, ‘Manx Gold’, was published in five instalments towards the end of May by the Daily Dispatch. The Dispatch was published in Manchester and had been selected by the committee presumably because it was felt to be the newspaper that potential English visitors to the island were most likely to see. ‘Manx Gold’ was also reprinted in booklet form, and a quarter of a million copies were distributed to guesthouses and hotels across the island. The five clues were published separately (their location in the text is marked by †) and as the date on which