CHRISTIE DIVORCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 336, 23 April 1928, Page 9

CHRISTIE DIVORCE

COURT GRANTS PETITION JUDGE’S SARCASM (United P. A. —By Telegraph — Copyright.) (Australian Press Association) LONDON, Sunday. The well-known writer of sensational novels, Mrs. Agatha Christie, whose disappearance and loss of memory in December. 1926, caused a sensation, was a divorce from her husband. Colonel Archibald Christie, on the ground of his misconduct. The President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, Lord Merrivale, who heard the case, said: •‘When a gallant gentleman frequents hotels with an unnamed woman, in order to secure release from a marriage he dislikes, the Judge has no other course but to grant a divorce.'

Mrs. Agatha Christie is a well-known writer of invstery novels such as "Th** Murder on the Links.” “The Mysterious Affair at Style." “The Secret Adversaries,” and similar detective stories. Sh»is American by birth, and in 1914 married Colonel Archibald Christie. who served with distinction in th** war, winning the R.F.C. and the D. 5.0.. and other decorations. He visited New Zealand in 1922, while on a tour of the Dominions on behalf of the Empire Exhibition^ On December 3, 1926. Mrs. Christie left her home in Berkshire in a motor-car. which was later found deserted near a chalk pit on the Surrey Downs. Th*-re was no trace of Mrs. Christie for days, and the police, and hundreds of the public, searched everywhere in vain. She was found on December 4 4 at Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she had been staying at an hotel. She was suffering from lack of memory, and had given the name of Miss Teresa Neele, of Capetown.