Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot, #41)

by Agatha Christie

know there’s a proverb which says ‘To err is human,’ but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.

“The past is the father of the present,” said Poirot sententiously.

I agree that people aren’t very good sometimes, at reading old ladies’ handwriting, which is very spiky and very hard to read.

Agatha was older, herself, by this time, and her own handwriting was getting spiky and difficult to read. ;)

Look here, Poirot, isn’t this all getting a little too complicated?” “It is getting incredibly complicated,”

This has actually been found to be one of the techniques Christie would employ to hook and "hypnotize" readers, to keep them turning pages and falling for red herrings and such. Putting their minds into overload, it puts readers into a trance-like state.