Agatha Christie: Taken At The Flood

‘A mysterious continent,’ Poirot corrected her. ‘Possibly. What part—’

She swept on.

‘Central Africa. The home of voodoo, of the zombie—’

‘The zombie is in the West Indies.’

Mrs Cloade swept on:

‘—of black magic—of strange and secret practices—a country where a man could disappear and never be heard of again.’

‘Possibly, possibly,’ said Poirot. ‘But the same is true of Piccadilly Circus.’

Mrs Cloade waved away Piccadilly Circus.

‘Twice lately, M. Poirot, a communication has come through from a spirit who gives his name as Robert. The message was the same each time. Not dead … We were puzzled, we knew no Robert. Asking for further guidance we got this. “ R.U. R.U. R.U. —then Tell R. Tell R .” “Tell Robert?” we asked. “No, from Robert. R.U.” “What does the U. stand for?” Then, M. Poirot, the most significant answer came. “ Little Boy Blue. Little Boy Blue. Ha ha ha! ” You see?’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I do not.’

She looked at him pityingly.

‘The nursery rhyme Little Boy Blue . “ Under the Haycock fast asleep”— Underhay —you see?’

Poirot nodded. He forbore to ask why, if the name Robert could be spelt out, the name Underhay could not have been treated the same way, and why it had been necessary to resort to a kind of cheap Secret Service spy jargon.

‘And my sister-in-law’s name is Rosaleen,’ finished Mrs Cloade triumphantly. ‘You see? Confusing all these Rs. But the meaning is quite plain. “ Tell Rosaleen that Robert Underhay is not dead .”’

‘Aha, and did you tell her?’

Mrs Cloade looked slightly taken aback.

‘Er—well—no. You see, I mean—well, people are so sceptical . Rosaleen, I am sure, would be so. And then, poor child, it might upset her—wondering, you know, where he was—and what he was doing.’

‘Besides projecting his voice through the ether? Quite so. A curious method, surely, of announcing his safety?’

‘Ah, M. Poirot, you are not an initiate. And how do we know what the circumstances are? Poor Captain Underhay (or is it Major Underhay) may be a prisoner somewhere in the dark interior of Africa. But if he could be found , M. Poirot. If he could be restored to his dear young Rosaleen. Think of her happiness! Oh, M. Poirot, I have been sent to you—surely, surely you will not refuse the behest of the spiritual world.’

Poirot looked at her reflectively.

‘My fees,’ he said softly, ‘are very expensive. I may say enormously expensive! And the task you suggest would not be easy.’

‘Oh dear—but surely—it is most unfortunate. I and my husband are very badly off—very badly off indeed. Actually my own plight is worse than my dear husband knows. I bought some shares—under spirit guidance—and so far they have proved very disappointing—in fact, quite alarming. They have gone right down and are now, I gather, practically unsaleable.’

She looked at him with dismayed blue eyes.

‘I have not dared to tell my husband. I simply tell you in order to explain how I am situated. But surely, dear M. Poirot, to reunite a young husband and wife—it is such a noble mission—’

‘Nobility, chère Madame , will not pay steamer and railway and air travel fares. Nor will it cover the cost of long telegrams and cables, and the interrogations of witnesses.’

‘But if he is found—if Captain Underhay is found alive and well—then—well, I think I may safely say that, once that was accomplished, there—there would be no difficulty about—er—reimbursing you.’

‘Ah, he is rich, then, this Captain Underhay?’

‘No. Well, no… But I can assure you—I can give you my word —that—that the money situation will not present difficulties.’

Slowly Poirot shook his head.

‘I am sorry, Madame. The answer is No.’

He had a little difficulty in getting her to accept that answer.

When she had finally gone away, he stood lost in thought, frowning to himself. He remembered now why the name of Cloade was familiar to him. The conversation at the club the day of the air raid came back to him. The booming boring voice of Major Porter, going on and on, telling a story to which nobody wanted to listen.

He remembered the rustle of a newspaper and Major Porter’s suddenly dropped jaw and expression of consternation.

But what worried him was trying to make up his mind about the eager middle-aged lady who had just left him. The glib spiritualistic patter, the vagueness, the floating scarves, the chains and amulets jingling round her neck—and finally, slightly at variance with all this, that sudden shrewd glint in a pair of pale-blue eyes.

‘Just why exactly did she come to me?’ he said to himself. ‘And what, I wonder, has been going on in’—he looked down at the card on his desk—‘Warmsley Vale?’

It was exactly five days later that he saw a small paragraph in an evening paper—it referred to the death of a man called Enoch Arden—at Warmsley Vale, a small old-world village about three miles from the popular Warmsley Heath Golf Course.

Hercule Poirot said to himself again:

‘I wonder what has been going on in Warmsley Vale…’

Warmsley Heath consists of a golf course, two hotels, some very expensive modern villas giving on to the golf course, a row of what were, before the war, luxury shops, and a railway station.

Emerging from the railway station, a main road roars its way to London on your left—to your right a small path across a field is signposted Footpath to Warmsley Vale .

Warmsley Vale, tucked away amongst wooded hills, is as unlike Warmsley Heath as well can be. It is in essence a microscopic old-fashioned market town now degenerated into a village. It has a main street of Georgian houses, several pubs, a few unfashionable shops and a general air of being a hundred and fifty instead of twenty-eight miles from London.

Its occupants one and all unite in despising the mushroom growth of Warmsley Heath.

On the outskirts are some charming houses with pleasant old-world gardens. It was to one of these houses, the White House, that Lynn Marchmont returned in the early spring of 1946 when she was demobbed from the Wrens.

On her third morning she looked out of her bedroom window, across the untidy lawn to the elms in the meadow beyond, and sniffed the air happily. It was a gentle grey morning with a smell of soft wet earth. The kind of smell that she had been missing for the past two years and a half.

Wonderful to be home again, wonderful to be here in her own little bedroom which she had thought of so often and so nostalgically whilst she had been overseas. Wonderful to be out of uniform, to be able to get into a tweed skirt and a jumper—even if the moths had been rather too industrious during the war years!

It was good to be out of the Wrens and a free woman again, although she had really enjoyed her overseas service very much. The work had been reasonably interesting, there had been parties, plenty of fun, but there had also been the irksomeness of routine and the feeling of being herded together with her companions which had sometimes made her feel desperately anxious to escape.

It was then, during the long scorching summer out East, that she had thought so longingly of Warmsley Vale and the shabby cool pleasant house, and of dear Mums.

Lynn both loved her mother and was irritated by her. Far away from home, she had loved her still and had forgotten the irritation, or remembered it only with an additional homesick pang. Darling Mums, so completely maddening! What she would not have given to have heard Mums enunciate one cliché in her sweet complaining voice. Oh, to be at home again and never, never to have to leave home again!