Taken At The Flood
A man returns from the dead, and the body of a mysterious stranger is found in his room…A few weeks after marrying an attractive young widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune.Shortly afterwards, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man’s sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by ‘spirits’ that Mrs Underhay’s first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world. Yet what mystifies Poirot most is the woman’s true motive for approaching him…
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Taken at the Flood
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
Collins 1948
Agatha Christie® Poirot® Taken at the Floodâ¢
Copyright © 1948 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Title lettering by Ghost Design
Cover photograph © Trevor Payne/Trevillion Images
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008129545
Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780007422838
Version: 2017-04-12
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Contents
In every club there is a club bore. The Coronation Club was no exception; and the fact that an air raid was in progress made no difference to normal procedure.
Major Porter, late Indian Army, rustled his newspaper and cleared his throat. Every one avoided his eye, but it was no use.
âI see theyâve got the announcement of Gordon Cloadeâs death in the Times,â he said. âDiscreetly put, of course. On Oct. 5th, result of enemy action. No address given. As a matter of fact it was just round the corner from my little place. One of those big houses on top of Campden Hill. I can tell you it shook me up a bit. Iâm a Warden, you know. Cloade had only just got back from the States. Heâd been over on that Government Purchase business. Got married while he was over there. A young widowâyoung enough to be his daughter. Mrs Underhay. As a matter of fact I knew her first husband out in Nigeria.â
Major Porter paused. Nobody displayed any interest or asked him to continue. Newspapers were held up sedulously in front of faces, but it took more than that to discourage Major Porter. He always had long histories to relate, mostly about people whom nobody knew.
âInteresting,â said Major Porter, firmly, his eyes fixed absently on a pair of extremely pointed patent-leather shoesâa type of footwear of which he profoundly disapproved. âAs I said, Iâm a Warden. Funny business this blast. Never know what itâs going to do. Blew the basement in and ripped off the roof. First floor practically wasnât touched. Six people in the house. Three servants: married couple and a housemaid, Gordon Cloade, his wife and the wifeâs brother. They were all down in the basement except the wifeâs brotherâex-Commando fellowâhe preferred his own comfortable bedroom on the first floorâand by Jove, he escaped with a few bruises. The three servants were all killed by blastâGordon Cloade was buried, they dug him out but he died on the way to hospital. His wife was suffering from blast, hadnât got a stitch of clothing on her! but she was alive. They think sheâll pull through. Sheâll be a rich widowâGordon Cloade must have been worth well over a million.â
Again Major Porter paused. His eyes had travelled up from the patent-leather shoesâstriped trousersâblack coatâegg-shaped head and colossal moustaches. Foreign, of course! That explained the shoes. âReally,â thought Major Porter, âwhatâs the club coming to? Canât get away from foreigners even here.â This separate train of thought ran alongside his narrative.
The fact that the foreigner in question appeared to be giving him full attention did not abate Major Porterâs prejudice in the slightest.
âShe canât be more than about twenty-five,â he went on. âAnd a widow for the second time. Or at any rateâthatâs what
