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August 1 - August 4, 2020
the fancy took me to go once again to the place which first was my home in this country. At my age one enjoys reliving the past.
Behind the veneer of her charming old lady manner, I caught a glimpse of flint-like hardness.
His wrath was so comical and so rueful, that we both laughed.
These girls nowadays always seem embarrassed at having to admit to a father or mother at all.” “Parents,” I said, “are practically a disgrace.”
It was furnished in a cheap modern style which rather disappointed me. I should have preferred a style more nearly approximating to the architecture of the house itself.
My brain, it still functions magnificently.” I could at least perceive clearly that no deterioration of the brain in the direction of modesty had taken place.
As one gets on, one tends more and more to revert to the old days. One tries to recapture old emotions. I find it painful to be here, in a way, and yet it brings back to me a hundred old thoughts and emotions that I’d quite forgotten I ever felt.
You may be quite sure, my dear Hastings, that financial gain is the first thing for which I look.” That was true enough. Poirot had always been completely cynical about money.
It is not a good thing for your husband if you take no interest in his stomach.” “I daresay I shan’t have a husband.” “Certainly you will have a husband. What did the bon Dieu create you for?” “Many things, I hope,” said Judith.
Wishful thinking—a perfectly reasonable neurosis.
Why the worst type of man can always be relied upon to please and interest the nicest of women has long been a problem beyond me. I knew instinctively that Allerton was a rotter—and nine men out of ten would have agreed with me. Whereas nine women or possibly the whole ten would have fallen for him immediately.
They resented being passed over and ignored. Norton might be a murderer of this type. But there was his fondness for birds. I have always believed that a love of nature was essentially a healthy sign in a man.
Her movements were restless and jerky—obviously a woman of nerves. Handsome in a hag-ridden kind of way.
Everyone, my friend, demands a spice of danger in their lives. Some get it vicariously—as in bullfights. Some read about it. Some find it at the cinema. But I am sure of this—too much safety is abhorrent to the nature of a human being.
With pity and scorn Judith made it clear to me that it was not the benefaction of the human race, but the enlargement of human knowledge, that was the only goal worthy of attainment.
“There isn’t much you could teach her about getting her own way. Whatever her ladyship wants happens. Some women are like that—clever as a barrelful of monkeys. If anyone opposes them they just lie back and shut their eyes and look ill and pathetic, or else they have a nerve storm
As usual, his big, buoyant personality seemed to sweep away shadows and intangible worries. He was so large, so sane, so out-of-doors—one of those lovable, forceful personalities that radiate cheerfulness and common sense.
Boyd Carrington had that personal magnetism, that wide experience of life and of places that made him excellent company.
Anno Domini affects head work much less than you’d think. By Jove, I wouldn’t care to undertake to commit a murder under Hercule Poirot’s nose—even at this time of day.”
“One feels,” he said simply, “safer alone.”
The days passed. It was an unsatisfactory time, with its uneasy feeling of waiting for something.
“All the same, one war correspondent does not make a war!” “Certainly not. And one swallow does not make a summer. But one murderer, Hastings, does make a murder.”
Since you cannot use your grey cells as you do not possess them, at any rate use your eyes, your ears and your nose if need be in so far as the dictates of honour allow.”
I’ve always thought of him as absolutely wrapped up in his work.” “So he is.” “Do you call that unhappiness? I should have said it was the happiest state imaginable.” “Oh yes, I’m not disputing it—but not if you’re hampered from doing what you feel it’s in you to do. If you can’t, that is to say, produce your best.”
And she’s nicer than you’d think. It’s having had to pinch and scrape all her life that has made her rather—well—predatory. If you’re always on the make, it does tell in the end.
“That’s the depressing part of places like this. Guest houses run by broken-down gentlepeople. They’re full of failures—of people who have never got anywhere and never will get anywhere, of people who—who have been defeated and broken by life, of people who are old and tired and finished.”
Here we were, a collection of twilit people. Grey heads, grey hearts, grey dreams.
My regret had been for the past as the past, not for the reality. For even then, in that far-off time, there had been no happiness at Styles.
The sun was drawing to the west and the light was a rich golden, bringing out the deeper shades of green in the trees in a deep glowing effect. It was an evening, still and calm, and very English, such as one remembers when in far-off tropical countries.
Luttrell said slowly: “Some men are like that. Everything they turn their hand to succeeds. They can’t go wrong. Some people—have all the luck.” Norton gave a quick shake of the head. “No, no, sir. Not luck.” He quoted with meaning: “Not in our stars, dear Brutus—but in ourselves.”
Poirot said thoughtfully: “You think Mrs. Franklin, do you not, rather a fool?” “Well, I wouldn’t say that—yes, perhaps not a very brilliant intellect.” “Ah, she is not your type.” “Who is my type?” I snapped. Poirot replied unexpectedly: “Open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what the fairies will send you—”
Judith would have treated any remonstrances on his part with the smiling detachment of the young towards the boring counsels of the old.
There was a summerhouse concealed in a grove of lilac trees not far away.
There is something about writing down an anticlimax in cold blood that is somewhat shattering to one’s self-esteem.
“The darkest day, lived till tomorrow, will have passed away?”
“Poirot, you don’t think that because—because of that murder long ago there’s a sort of infection in the air?” “A virus of murder, you mean? Well, it is an interesting suggestion.” “Houses do have an atmosphere,” I said thoughtfully. “This house has a bad history.” Poirot nodded. “Yes. There have been people here—several of them—who desired deeply that someone else should die. That is true enough.”
A contract, he said, is a contract. One enters upon it of one’s own free will, and must abide by it. Anything else resulted in what he called a mess.
“Truth,” he said, “is seldom appreciated. And yet it saves a lot of time and a lot of inaccurate speech.”
George had been with Poirot many years. He was a competent matter-of-fact man, with absolutely no imagination. He
“But have you really no idea why M. Poirot sent you away as he did? Think, man, think.” George endeavoured to do so, but he was clearly not very good at thinking.
For your great Shakespeare, my friend, had to deal with the dilemma that his own art had brought about. To unmask Iago he had to resort to the clumsiest of devices—the handkerchief—a piece of work not at all in keeping with Iago’s general technique and a blunder of which one feels certain he would not have been guilty.
“Norton, the gentle-hearted, loving man, was a secret sadist. He was an addict of pain, of mental torture. There has been an epidemic of that in the world of late years—L’appétit vient en mangeant.
(He has a certain amount of worldly wisdom and a tactful manner, though otherwise he is one of the most pompous and boring individuals that I have ever come across! Just the sort of man you would admire!)
“And last of all, the pistol shot. My one weakness. I should, I am aware, have shot him through the temple. I could not bring myself to produce an effect so lopsided, so haphazard. No, I shot him symmetrically, in the exact centre of the forehead. . . . “Oh, Hastings, Hastings, that should have told you the truth.
They will be happy together, those two. They will be poor and innumerable tropical insects will bite them and strange fevers will attack them—but we all have our own ideas of the perfect life, have we not?
“We shall not hunt together again, my friend. Our first hunt was here—and our last. . . . “They were good days. “Yes, they have been good days. . . .”
