Revisiting the Agatha Christie Key Mystery in Room 411 of the Pera Palace Hotel

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Something that’s been on my mind lately is the time we explored one of Agatha Christie’s haunts: the Pera Palace Hotel. Maybe because Turkey has been in the news recently? I don’t know, but it made me look back into it and I discovered something I either didn’t know before, or had forgotten. (It has been a few years since I was better acquainted with the story.)

Writer’s Room

I first learned about the hotel in 2011 on a jaunt to Istanbul. We didn’t stay there, but I discovered it during some pre-trip research.

Room 411 is called the Agatha Christie room because she was a frequent guest at the hotel and it’s believed she wrote Murder on the Orient Express while staying in that room.

But there’s a bit of a mystery involving the room itself: a hidden key that medium Tamara Rand said Christie’s spirit directed her to during a seance in 1979. The key supposedly fit the lock of a box containing a diary that explained Christie’s 11 missing days.

Agatha

In 1979, Warner Brothers released the film Agatha, starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave. It’s a fictional account of the 11 days Agatha Christie went missing in 1926.

In real life (as in the movie), her mother had recently died, and her husband had told her he wanted a divorce because he was in love with another woman. That’s a lot life altering news for anyone to absorb.

On December 3, 1926, Christie’s car was found abandoned with no sign of the author. Over 1,000 police officers and 15,000 volunteers searched for her. Eleven days later, on December 14, 1926, she was discovered at the  Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire. She had registered under the name Mrs. Tressa Neele, which was Christie’s husband’s lover’s surname.

Publicity Stunt

I knew a psychic had allegedly found a key that was said to unlock a box containing a diary belonging to Christie that detailed her missing 11 days. However, I don’t remember knowing it was Warner Brothers who had hired Hollywood medium Tamara Rand to try and make contact with Christie.

Certainly it was all a publicity stunt –or started out that way. It took on a life of its own when reporters flocked to the Pera Palace Hotel on March 7, 1979. Under Rand’s direction to look under the floorboards, a rusty key was found between the door frame and the wall.

The psychic had been right, but where was the diary? If it was in a locked box concealed in another secret hiding place within Room 411, it’s never been found.

Or had the psychic somehow staged an elaborate ruse? Did she have contacts in Istanbul who could’ve helped her pull off such a scheme?

Does a diary of Agatha Christie’s missing days even exist? If such a thing does exist, could it be that it’s in another room within the hotel? Because another key marked “Room 411” was discovered in 1986 –but in Room 511.

Will we ever know the answer to any of these questions?

I don’t know. But it’s fun to see the mystery alive and well and people who jaunt to Istanbul still discovering it. It was also fun to revisit it –and learn something new about it myself.

Boo-K It!

You can stay at the Pera Palace Hotel. You can even book Room 411 and try your hand searching for the diary.

Book it through Expedia!