Agatha Christie delivers another mystery beyond the grave

By Roya Nikkhah, Arts Correspondent Published: 9:00PM GMT twenty-seven February 2010

Previous of Images Next Jewellery found in the antiques box before owned by Agatha Christie"s mother. Photo: JEFF GILBERT The case bears the initials "C.M.M." ? those of Christie"s mother, Clara Margaret Miller Photo: JEFF GILBERT There was a store of sovereigns ? 35 bullion sovereigns and seventeen half-sovereigns ? in a small crocheted bag Photo: JEFF GILBERT

It is a story estimable of one of Agatha Christie"s majority appealing mysteries.

A clearly harmless case paid for for �100 appears to have constructed a little of Christie"s family wealth worth thousands of pounds, together with her mother"s rendezvous ring.

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When Jennifer Grant, an Agatha Christie enthusiast, paid for the smashed board case at a sale of the essence of Greenway House, the author"s former home in Devon, she had no thought of the dark treasures.

The trunk, that bears the initials "C.M.M." those of Christie"s mother, Clara Margaret Miller was sole by the auctioneers Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in Sep 2006, dual years after the genocide of Rosalind Hicks, Christie"s usually daughter, who lived at Greenway until she died.

But when the case was delivered, Ms Grant detected that it additionally contained a sealed box.

"When I perceived it, I realised it contained a sealed strongbox and the auctioneer had no believe of a key," she said. "It was a articulate point at cooking parties for years but I never thought there competence be anything in it."

Curiosity not long ago got the improved of Ms Grant whilst she was carrying construction work finished in her house, and she asked a builder to prize open the box with a crowbar. She was vacant at what she detected inside.

"There was a store of sovereigns 35 bullion sovereigns and seventeen half-sovereigns in a small crocheted bag, a solid ring and a pleasing buckle-shaped badge wrapped in crumpled tissue paper in a card box," she said.

In her journal published in 1977, a year after her death, Christie, the best-selling writer of all time, described a little of her mother"s trinket that she and her sister, Madge, dignified and hoped to inherit.

She wrote: "My mother"s profitable trinket consisted of "my solid buckle, my solid crescent and my solid rendezvous ring" ... They were all earmarked for the destiny on my mother"s demise.

"Madge was to have ... the solid crescent ... I was to have ... the solid buckle."

It is not well known either Christie hereditary the equipment and chose to store them in the trunk, or either she kept the case but ever realising that the trinket was inside.

"I was anxious that I had something that overwhelmed Agatha Christie"s life," pronounced Ms Grant, who contacted Homes & Antiques magazine, that facilities the wealth in the Apr issue, published on Mar 3.

The repository organised for a gratefulness of the wealth by John Benjamin, a trinket dilettante and writer to the BBC"s Antiques Roadshow programme.

Mr Benjamin valued the coins at �5,500; the ring, that is set with 3 brilliant-cut diamonds, at �2,500 to �3,000; and the badge at �5,500 to �7,000.

However, he pronounced the equipment could be worth majority some-more if justification emerged of the story at the back of them.

He said: "If we can infer these are in truth the Christie family diamonds, who knows what someone will be peaceful to pay?"

Mathew (corr sp) Prichard, Christie"s grandson, who runs the Agatha Christie estate, pronounced that the new owners of the case "has been propitious - and great fitness to them".

He added: "I suspect if those sold wealth came on the marketplace I would be meddlesome in buying."

Laura Thompson, Christie"s central memoirist and the writer of Agatha Christie: An English Mystery, described the find of the wealth as "absolutely thrilling".

She said: "I wrote majority of my book at Greenway, and it was stately chaos, with things being incited up all the time that the family didn"t know about.

"The total family were hoarders who kept all and there was a outrageous volume of element at Greenway that simply never got sorted, so it is rarely probable that these are in truth Agatha"s mother"s jewels. In fact, it seems a bit abounding if they are not.

"It is a touching discovery, as Agatha"s mom was the majority critical chairman in her life."

Andrew Thomas, a comparison expert at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood, who oversaw the Greenway sale, said: "This is a warn to me, and if it"s true, I"m not pleased.

"As an auctioneer representing a client, one regularly does one"s most appropriate to remove the last bit of worth out of all you handle.

"I am perplexed, but if we have done a mistake, I will be my initial to put my palm up, though I still find it roughly unbelievable."