Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie Page B

overfurnished with plush armchairs, a blaring radio, a lot of china ornaments and a rather battered-looking pierrot doll thrown across the back of a chair.
    Beatrice Lippincott turned off the radio and indicated a plush armchair.
    â€œI’m ever so glad you came up, Mr. Rowley, and I hope you didn’t mind my writing to you—but I’ve been turning it over in my mind all over the weekend—and as I said I really felt you ought to know what’s going on.”
    She was looking happy and important, clearly pleased with herself.
    Rowley asked with mild curiosity:
    â€œWhat is going on?”
    â€œWell, Mr. Rowley, you know the gentleman who’s staying here—Mr. Arden, the one you came and asked about.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIt was the very next evening. Mr. Hunter came along and asked for him.”
    â€œMr. Hunter?”
    Rowley sat up interestedly.
    â€œYes, Mr. Rowley. No. 5, I said, and Mr. Hunter nodded and went straight up. I was surprised I must say, for this Mr. Arden hadn’t said he knew any one in Warmsley Vale and I’d kind of taken it for granted he was a stranger here and didn’t know any one in the place. Very out of temper Mr. Hunter looked, as though somethinghad happened to upset him but of course I didn’t make anything of it then. ”
    She paused for breath. Rowley said nothing, just listened. He never hurried people. If they liked to take their time it suited him.
    Beatrice continued with dignity:
    â€œIt was just a little later I had occasion to go up to No. 4 to see to the towels and the bed linen. That’s next door to No. 5, and as it happens there’s a communicating door—not that you’d know it from No. 5 because the big wardrobe there stands right across it, so that you wouldn’t know there was a door. Of course it’s always kept shut but as it happened this time it was just a bit open—though who opened it I’ve no idea, I’m sure! ”
    Again Rowley said nothing, but just nodded his head.
    Beatrice, he thought, had opened it. She had been curious and had gone up deliberately to No. 4 to find out what she could.
    â€œAnd so you see, Mr. Rowley, I couldn’t help hearing what was going on. Really, you could have knocked me over with a feather—”
    A pretty substantial feather, thought Rowley, would be needed.
    He listened, with an impassive, almost bovine face, to Beatrice’s succinct account of the conversation she had overheard. When she had finished, she waited expectantly.
    It was fully a couple of minutes before Rowley came out of his trance. Then he got up.
    â€œThanks, Beatrice,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”
    And with that he went straight out of the room. Beatrice felt somewhat deflated. She really did think, she said to herself, that Mr. Rowley might have said something.

Twelve
    W hen Rowley left the Stag his steps turned automatically in the direction of home, but after walking a few hundred yards, he pulled up short and retraced his steps.
    His mind took things in slowly and his first astonishment over Beatrice’s revelations was only now beginning to give way to a true appreciation of the significance. If her version of what she had overheard was correct, and he had no doubt that in substance it was so, then a situation had arisen which concerned every member of the Cloade family closely. The person most fitted to deal with this was clearly Rowley’s Uncle Jeremy. As a solicitor, Jeremy Cloade would know what use could best be made of this surprising information, and exactly what steps to take.
    Though Rowley would have liked to take action himself, he realized rather grudgingly that it would be far better to lay the matter before a shrewd and experienced lawyer. The sooner Jeremy was in possession of this information the better, and accordinglyRowley bent his footsteps straight to Jeremy’s house in the High Street.
    The little maid who opened the