Taken At The Flood

Taken At The Flood
Agatha Christie

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…

Taken at the Flood

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by

Collins 1948

Agatha Christie® Poirot® Taken at the Flood™

Copyright © 1948 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)

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 author’s 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

Epigraph (#u87ffecb9-f8f2-595c-8c9f-ee439f23ca8c)

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

Cover (#u98b51b43-be17-5974-a6d8-8de87d1d9663)

Title Page (#ubc37cddc-8ab2-530c-a6cf-b927a78f4608)

Copyright (#ud8541f2f-0719-5564-9212-3f77361a841f)

Epigraph (#uea7d5bed-6855-5a0b-81bd-e80f9f82fd09)

PROLOGUE (#ucbe6b8df-3f1a-573c-8383-2d641be0d990)

BOOK I (#ueae21ee5-d87a-5ada-9ee0-d823b8335f99)

CHAPTER 1 (#u077f9081-0a0a-589d-aa4e-f764ee1dd4a0)

CHAPTER 2 (#u04f380e3-fa01-570e-9840-42ab98afb0b0)

CHAPTER 3 (#u06b21a44-10e2-5425-a8e9-0639d5907425)

CHAPTER 4 (#uf2983d50-fd25-5cb1-9dc1-948f4887207c)

CHAPTER 5 (#ud93cb270-3acd-5c03-88a4-de39cce40d13)

CHAPTER 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 13 (#litres_trial_promo)