When Jared Cade planned the national launch of his new biography on crime writing legend Agatha Christie, there was only one place to go - the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate.

The hotel is known the world over as the place to which Agatha fled in December 1926. Yesterday, Cade, who is from Australia, returned to the scene of the mystery to reveal for the first time what he says are the facts relating to the disappearance.

The book, Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven Days, includes previously secret information gleaned from relatives of the writer's best friends, Nan Watts, who played a significant, but as yet undisclosed, part in the mystery.

Fans have speculated over this for the last 72 years, and Cade found information about the 11 days in the archives of the British Library.

Agatha, it transpires, ran from her house in Berkshire following the break-up of her marriage. After abandoning her car to make it look like suicide, she caught the train to Harrogate where she spent 11 days writing, reading and knitting before the police and her husband caught up with her and spirited her away, press in tow.

After the episode, Agatha and her husband divorced and she became a recluse, but she went on to write some of her best work.

Cade's six years of research was funded by winning the top prize on Bob Monkhouse's television quiz show The $64,000 Question.

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