Beatrice Taylor was a girl who worked as a domestic servant for Miss Emily Brent. According to her former employer, Beatrice had "nice manners and was very clean and willing." Miss Brent was pleased with her work, but one day discovered that Beatrice was pregnant and immediately dismissed her without notice. Her parents were similarly unsympathetic, and Beatrice committed suicide by throwing herself into a river.

Miss Brent relates this story to Vera Claythorne, who is horrified and asks whether Miss Brent has ever blamed herself for the girl's death. Miss Brent replies that it was Beatrice who behaved immorally, and that she has nothing with which to reproach herself. The little old lady suddenly seems a terrifying figure to Vera. Later, Miss Brent does seem to be haunted by guilt, as she has frightening dreams in which she sees Beatrice's face at a window, begging to be let in.

Agatha Christie often shows an interest in the relationship between sin or evil and crime. The people on the island in And Then There Were None all have incidents in their past for which they could not be punished by the law for some reason or another but for which they are morally guilty. Miss Brent is an extreme example of someone who has been unkind but committed no legal crime. The idea of moral judgment and punishment is explored in a similar way to the guilt of the Birling family in An Inspector Calls, and the circumstances of Beatrice Taylor's suicide closely resemble the death of Eva Smith.