Free Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie Page B

yes, that was it, an afternoon out just like a servant!
    The rich Mrs Gordon Cloade!
    He smiled grimly as he stood by the gate watching her hurrying up the hill towards Furrowbank. Just before she reached the stile a man came over it - Rowley wondered if it was David but it was a bigger, heavier man. Rosaleen drew back to let him pass, then skipped lightly over the stile, her pace accentuating almost to a run.
    Yes, she'd had an afternoon off - and he, Rowley, had wasted over an hour of valuable time! Well, perhaps it hadn't been wasted. Rosaleen, he thought, had seemed to like him. That might come in useful. A pretty thing - yes, and the calves this morning had been pretty... poor little devils.
    Standing there, lost in thought, he was startled by a voice, and raised his head sharply.
    A big man in a broad felt hat with a pack slung across his shoulders was standing on the footpath at the other side of the gate.
    “Is this the way to Warmsley Vale?”
    As Rowley stared he repeated his question. With an effort Rowley recalled his thoughts and answered:
    “Yes, keep right along the path - across that next field. Turn to the left when you get to the road and about three minutes takes you right into the village.”
    In the self-same words he had answered that particular question several hundred times. People took the footpath on leaving the station, followed it up over the hill, and lost faith in it as they came down the other side and saw no sign of their destination, for Blackwell Copse masked Warmsley Vale from sight. It was tucked away in a hollow there with only the tip of its church tower showing.
    The next question was not quite so usual, but Rowley answered it without much thought.
    “The Stag or the Bells and Motley. The Stag for choice. They're both equally good - or bad. I should think you'd get a room all right.”
    The question made him look more attentively at his interlocutor. Nowadays people usually booked a room beforehand at any place they were going to...
    The man was tall, with a bronzed face, a beard, and very blue eyes. He was about forty and not ill-looking in a tough and rather dare-devil style. It was not, perhaps, a wholly pleasant face.
    Come from overseas somewhere, thought Rowley. Was there or was there not a faint Colonial twang in his accent? Curious, in some way, the face was not unfamiliar... Where had he seen that face, or a face very like it, before?
    Whilst he was puzzling unsuccessfully over that problem, the stranger startled him by asking:
    “Can you tell me if there's a house called Furrowbank near here?”
    Rowley answered slowly:
    “Why, yes. Up there on the hill. You must have passed close by it - that is, if you've come along the footpath from the station.”
    “Yes - that's what I did.” He turned, staring up the hill. “So that was it - that big white new-looking house.”
    “Yes, that's the one.”
    “A big place to run,” said the man.
    “Must cost a lot to keep up?”
    A devil of a lot, thought Rowley. And our money... A stirring of anger made him forget for the moment where he was...
    With a start he came back to himself to see the stranger staring up the hill with a curious speculative look in his eyes.
    “Who lives there?” he said. “Is it - a Mrs Cloade?”
    “That's right,” said Rowley. “Mrs Gordon Cloade.”
    The stranger raised his eyebrows. He seemed gently amused.
    “Oh,” he said, “Mrs Gordon Cloade. Very nice for her!”
    Then he gave a short nod.
    “Thanks, pal,” he said, and shifting the pack he carried he strode on towards Warmsley Vale.
    Rowley turned slowly back into the farmyard. His mind was still puzzling over something.
    Where the devil had he seen that fellow before?
    About nine-thirty that night, Rowley pushed aside a heap of forms that had been littering the kitchen table and got up. He looked absentmindedly at the photograph of Lynn that stood on the mantelpiece, then frowning, he went out of the house.
    Ten minutes later he