A DAY AT DAME AGATHA’S SUMMER HOME by Maria Hudgins

 

A few years ago, I left my guided tour of Southwest England, Devon and Cornwall, and made my way down the River Dart to visit Greenway, the home of my hero, Agatha Christie. This is the beautiful Georgian house where Dame Agatha and her family spent many summers. In the photo, you can see the house nestled in woods with the Dart nearby. Grand as it is, it was not her only house. That's what good writing can get you.

I enjoyed the tour of the rooms, because Dame Agatha's grandson, Matthew Prichard, had taped a short introduction in each room, telling his memories about what they did in that room when his grandmother was there. Some of her clothes were still in her bedroom closet. An old typewriter sat on a table in the small writing nook at the top of the stairs. In the library downstairs, a huge mural painted by American soldiers who stayed there during World War II  has been lovingly preserved by the National Trust, current owners of the home. Since my visit was only weeks after the opening of the home to the public, I could sit on the furniture and pull back the drapes. I imagine these liberties have been curtailed by now since they have dealt with a steady flow of tourists for more than a decade.

I left the house for a walk around the grounds. On the porch near the front door, I was shocked to find an actual tablet from ancient Mesopotamia inscribed in cuneiform writing. It was the real thing. As an archaeology enthusiast myself, I couldn't believe this wasn't in a museum and behind glass. How long could it possibly last in England's harsh climate? I assume it was mortared into the stone when Christie was living there and the rules for handling such things had not been codified yet. When she lived here, she was married to the archaeologist, Max Mallowan. Together, they spent many seasons excavating Nineveh, in northern Iraq.

I ambled down a path through the woods and to the river. On my left I spotted a small gazebo that reminded me of a scene from one of Christie's stories, but I couldn't remember which one. Dead Man's Folly comes to mind, because the dictionary defines a folly as "a costly ornamental building with no practical purpose." Is this a folly? The path led me down to an old boat house that definitely brought to mind a scene in . . . that's it . . . Dead Man's Folly. A young girl lies, strangled to death, inside the boat house. Water from the river floods the bottom level and a small boat is tied to a piling inside.

Of course, I have to go inside, don't I? There's no one here to stop me. I pick my way down the slope to an old door on the bottom level. At the door there is a sign. "No entry without a bat license!"

A bat license? I don't think this sign is referring to baseball bats. I go in anyway. No bats. No body. No boat.

Now this was some ten or more years ago and the bat situation may be rectified by now. I wonder if the sign is still there. But I'm certain that Dame Agatha was thinking about this very boat house when she wrote Dead Man's Folly.