Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot, #25)

by Agatha Christie

Intrinsically, Philip Blake was too much of an Englishman to take the pretensions of a foreigner seriously.

Meredith Blake was not the man to persuade anyone into or out of any course. His well-meaning attempts would always be set aside—indulgently usually, without anger, but definitely set aside. They would not carry weight. He was essentially an ineffective man.