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Lawrence, the younger, had been a delicate youth. He had qualified as a doctor but early relinquished the profession of medicine, and lived at home while pursuing literary ambitions; though his verses never had any marked success.
Her tall, slender form, outlined against the bright light; the vivid sense of slumbering fire that seemed to find expression only in those wonderful tawny eyes of hers, remarkable eyes, different from any other woman’s that I have ever known; the intense power of stillness she possessed, which nevertheless conveyed the impression of a wild untamed spirit in an exquisitely civilised body—all these things are burnt into my memory. I shall never forget them.
“Like a good detective story myself,” remarked Miss Howard. “Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last chapter. Everyone dumbfounded. Real crime—you’d know at once.”
The sinister face of Dr. Bauerstein recurred to me unpleasantly. A vague suspicion of everyone and everything filled my mind. Just for a moment I had a premonition of approaching evil.
Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small—it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.’ That way lies confusion! Everything matters.”
The dead woman had not the gift of commanding love. Her death was a shock and a distress, but she would not be passionately regretted.
One, a coffee-cup that has been ground into powder; two, a despatch-case with a key in the lock; three, a stain on the floor.”
Four, a fragment of some dark green fabric—only a thread or two, but recognizable.”
Five, this!” With a dramatic gesture, he pointed to a large splash of candle grease on the floor by the writing-table.
the sixth point I will keep to myself for the present.”
It has been recently done; is it not so?”
“You are sure it was Mr. Inglethorp’s voice you heard?”
It was Number Six of my catalogue.”
Sleeping draught
never take it in coffee.”
bromide powders.”
Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”
“What have I always told you? Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go.”
The thermometer registered 80 degrees in the shade. Do not forget that, my friend. It is the key to the whole riddle!”
Monsieur Inglethorp wears very peculiar clothes, has a black beard, and uses glasses.”
Surely no woman as beautiful as Mary Cavendish could be a murderess.
“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend,” observed Poirot philosophically. “You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.”
Who on earth but Poirot would have thought of a trial for murder as a restorer of conjugal happiness!
The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world.”
