Murder is Easy

by Agatha Christie

there was something very cosy and English about old ladies like this old lady

He’s quite uneducated and completely credulous—actually believes things he reads in his own papers.

He was dressed in careless-looking country clothes. They were unkind to his figure, which ran mostly to stomach.

‘Truth,’ she said, ‘is seldom romantic.’

I’ve no doubt, all the same, there is a lot of superstition still rife. These village communities are very backward.’

A man who is a child is the most frightening thing in the world …’

a somewhat illogical prejudice against lawyers in general—based on the grounds that so many politicians were recruited from their ranks.

she wasn’t at all a good servant. But nowadays, really, one is thankful to get anybody. She was very slipshod over her work and always wanting to go out—well, of course she was young and girls are like that nowadays. They don’t seem to realize that their time is their employer’s.’

Mr Ellsworthy was a very exquisite young man dressed in a colour scheme of russet brown. He had a long pale face with a womanish mouth, long black artistic hair and a mincing walk.

‘The artistic temperament,’ murmured Bridget. Ellsworthy turned on her with a flash of long white hands. ‘Not that terrible phrase, Miss Conway. No—no, I implore you.

Gossip and malice and scandal—all so delicious if one takes them in the right spirit!’

‘Nasty bit of goods, Mr Ellsworthy,’ he remarked when he and Bridget were out of earshot. ‘A nasty mind and nasty habits I should say,’ said Bridget.

Women with any brains are usually cold-bloodedly cruel.’

‘Most of these rambling old dears are as sharp as nails in some ways.

‘Mr Abbot looks as though he’d appreciate a good-looking girl,’ he said. ‘It’s often the way with gentlemen,’ said Mrs Pierce. ‘They don’t mean anything by it—just a word or two in passing, but the gentry’s the gentry and it gets noticed in consequence. It’s only to be expected in a quiet place like this.’

he isn’t really gentry—not like Miss Waynflete, for instance, and Miss Conway. Why, Lord Whitfield’s father kept a boot-shop only a few doors from here. My mother remembers Gordon Ragg serving in the shop—remembers it as well as anything. Of course he’s his lordship now and he’s a rich man—but it’s never the same, is it, sir?’

Of all the people down here, he’s the only one who is definitely queer. He is queer, you can’t get away from it!’

‘Pah!’ said the major. ‘Young people make me sick. No stamina—no endurance. They can’t stand anything. No fortitude!’

Miss Waynflete flushed a little. ‘I don’t think that Gordon would ever believe that I would do anything to—to bring him into danger.’

‘Men have courage—one knows that,’ said Miss Waynflete, ‘but they are more easily deceived than women.’

Miss Waynflete was fussing a little in a gentle spinsterish manner.

Miss Waynflete wore a straw hat and, to Bridget’s amusement, had put on gloves.

Miss Waynflete laughed her ladylike little laugh again. She said with a horrible kind of pride: ‘Yes, I always had brains, even as a girl! But they wouldn’t let me do anything … I had to stay at home—doing nothing.

there is a touch of insanity in the family. We’ve found that out now. Often the way with these old families.