Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

J. P and Henrietta find leather holster [Chapter 29]

  Taken at the Flood

12 November 1948

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Gordon Cloade is killed in an air raid and his new young wife, Rosaleen, inherits a fortune. When a mysterious death brings Hercule Poirot to Warmsley Vale he realises that the Cloade family, badly in need of money, has good reason to kill her. So why was it not Rosaleen who died?

Taken at the Flood was another novel (like Four-Fifty from Paddington and Ordeal by Innocence) whose title gave trouble. The original suggestions were The Incoming Tide or There is a Tide, until it was discovered that the new Taylor Caldwell novel was called There is a Time. This probably explains why not once, in the course of 30 pages of notes, scattered across 13 Notebooks, is the title Taken at the Flood (or its eventual US equivalent There is a Tide) mentioned. In the body of the novel the quotation appears in Book II, Chapter 16. In fact, the genesis of the title and, indeed, the book itself, is far more complicated. In a letter dated September 1947 Christie’s agent refers to a ‘revised’ version of Taken at the Flood and the ‘marvellous job in altering it’. This tantalising reference must remain a mystery, as there is nothing in either the Notebooks or the surviving correspondence to clarify it.

The plot of Taken at the Flood is one of Christie’s most intricate. To begin with, none of the deaths are as they initially seem. The first death, presumed a murder, is an accident; the second, presumed a suicide, is in fact a suicide (although seasoned Christie readers will suspect murder); and the third, presumed suicide, is a murder. This combination of explanations is unique in the Christie output.

What’s more, both Frances and Rowley Cloade, independently of each other, complicate the real killer’s plan with sub-plots of their own, each of which ends with the violent death of their co-conspirators. Then there is confusion about the identity of the first corpse. Is he Enoch Arden? Is Robert Underhay still alive? Is he the man found dead in the Blue Boar? And if he isn’t, who is that corpse? This plot device is shared, brilliantly, in One, Two Buckle my Shoe, and much less successfully in Four-Fifty from Paddington.

Some of this complexity is mirrored in the notes, due mainly to the fact that they are intertwined for much of the time with those for They Do It with Mirrors and Sleeping Murder. In the notes, the working title for Taken at the Flood hovered between ‘Cover Her Face’, the one-time title for Sleeping Murder, and ‘Mirrors’, shorthand for They Do It with Mirrors. Each is used three times but in all cases with the character names and plot of Taken at the Flood. It is worth remembering that none of the three titles is very specific; all could, with minimal tweaking, apply to any Christie title, whereas titles such as Murder on the Orient Express or Lord Edgware Dies are precise and could not be considered interchangeable.

In the opening pages of Notebooks 19 and 30 we find the genesis of the Cloade family situation:

Cover her Face

Characters

The Cloades

Nathaniel—solicitor—embezzling money [Jeremy]

Frances—His wife daughter of- Lord Edward Hatherly father Lady Angarethick—says her family are all crooks

Jeremy—ex-pilot—lawless—daring [probably the origin of

David Hunter]

Jane Brown—Girl of character engaged to Jeremy? [Lynn]

Susan Cloade—(or a widow?) Cool—discerning [Adela or Katherine]

Rosaleen Hunter

Nathaniel Clode

Frances Clode—(aristocratic wife)

Susan Ridgeway

A Cloade—war widow—breeds dogs

As usual, however, names were to change. The example above, from Notebook 30, is the only use of the name ‘Rosaleen’ anywhere in the notes and it is used with her Hunter, rather than Cloade, surname. Throughout the Notebooks she is referred to as Lena, itself a diminution of Rosaleen. The ‘Cloade war widow’ who breeds dogs may have been inspired by Christie’s own daughter Rosalind, a devoted dog lover and breeder, whose first husband, Hubert Prichard, perished in the war.

Notebook 13 illustrates Christie’s frequently adopted alphabetical system:

A. Mrs. Marchmont asks Lena for money—(gets it?) [Book I Chapter 5]

B. Frances asks—David interrupts—her reaction—for the moment he feels afraid

David and Lena look out of window—sees Lynn. Lena sees too?

He goes off- interview with Lynn—then him and Lena again [Book I Chapter 6]

C. Hercule Poirot—Aunt Kathie—spirit guidance [Prologue]

D. The farm—Lena and Rowley—he looks at it just as he looks at her—(planning its death?) she goes away —stranger comes—asks way to (?) Furrowtown—goes passed it—face is familiar to Rowley [Book I Chapter 8]

E. Rowley goes up to White Hart—Beatrice the barmaid photo of L. and Edmund—Frances and Jeremy— photo—to get H.P’s address [Book I Chapters 11 and 12]

F. David reading letter—get your things packed—go up to London—stay there—I’ll deal with this [Book I Chapter 10]

G. David and E.A.—veiled blackmail—D. says get out of here [Book I Chapter 9]

H. Where is money to be paid? London? Tube? Poirot—seat? etc.—Bessie overhears (David goes to London— to see Lena Tube—Rowley in crowd) [not used]

I. Rowley visits Poirot—urges him to come to Warmsley Heath [Book II Chapter 1]

J. Death of E.A.—David suspected—arrested?—button in dead man’s hand [Book II Chapter 5]

K. Lena and the Church [Book II Chapter 6]

L. Poirot and Lynn—people much the same—don’t change [Book II Chapter 12]

Although most of these, slightly rearranged, appear in the published novel, there are a number of minor differences: scene H does not feature at all; Furrowtown in scene D becomes Furrowbank in the book; it is not a button (scene J) that is found in the room but a cigarette lighter with the initials DH; and scene C in the novel precedes much of the action.

Rosaleen’s religion, apart from being a major factor in her personality, is also an important plot device. Her Roman Catholicism, and its attendant guilt, haunts all of her conversation with David. Read again their scenes in light of the solution and much of the dialogue takes on a different meaning. And it is the scene at the church that gives Poirot one of his clues:

Lena—depressed—says—very worried I’ve been—wants to see priest—asks him—doesn’t go to confession

Priest—Lena—(or clergyman) Go to confession—I’m in mortal sin

Lena gets conscience—her letter—planning of death wickedness—I want to make what reparation I can

Girl and R[oman] C[atholic] church—P sees her

Taken at the Flood is another novel for which quite a few intriguing ideas were rejected: