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She allowed her husband so much out of her wages to keep himself, but he was always getting drunk and coming round and making scenes at the places where she was employed.
What we saw was a mass of average human beings looking with intense interest at the spot where another human being had been done to death.
If I had asked those people for information they would have shut up like oysters. But by making a statement (and a somewhat out of the way and preposterous one) and by your contradiction of it, tongues are immediately loosened.
“Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a prejudice. A prejudice in favour of the deceased.
how timely
And it is very true—when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. She was bright. She was happy. She was sweet-tempered. She had not a care in the world. She had no undesirable acquaintances. There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard and who does not know she is dead! Then, perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me—the truth.”
“I was extremely fond of Betty. But my fondness didn’t blind me from seeing exactly the kind of silly little fool she was—and even telling her so upon occasions! Sisters are like that.” “And did she pay any attention to your advice?” “Probably not,” said Megan cynically.
The spoken word and the written—there is an astonishing gulf between them. There is a way of turning sentences that completely reverses the original meaning.”
Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions. There are confusing indications—sometimes it is as though there were two intelligences at work—but soon the outline will clear itself, I shall know.”
There is nothing so terrible as to live in an atmosphere of suspicion—to see eyes watching you and the love in them changing to fear—nothing so terrible as to suspect those near and dear to you—
One cannot tell everything. Therefore one selects. At the time of a murder people select what they think is important. But quite frequently they think wrong!”
“And how is one to get at the right things?” “Simply, as I said just now, by conversation. By talking! By discussing a certain happening, or a certain person, or a certain day, over and over again, extra details are bound to arise.”
It is looking for the needle in the haystack, I grant—but in the haystack there is a needle—of that I am convinced!”
“You must forgive me, sir. I don’t want to be silly. Crying’s no good. It was just the thought of her—and me—looking forward to our treat. It upset me somehow, sir.” “I know just what you feel like,” said Franklin Clarke. “It’s always the little things that get one—and especially anything like a treat or a present—something jolly and natural.
The same thing happened after Betty—died. Mum had bought some stockings for her as a present—bought them the very day it happened. Poor mum, she was all broken up. I found her crying over them. She kept saying: ‘I bought them for Betty—I bought them for Betty—and she never even saw them.’”
In the midst of death we are in life, Hastings…Murder, I have often noticed, is a great matchmaker.”
“You’re a man milliner, Poirot. I never notice what people have on.” “You should join a nudist colony.”
It’s always worse for a doctor, you know. They can’t buoy themselves up with false hopes.
“Everything’s so dim…One’s body is a nuisance, M. Poirot, especially when it gets the upper hand. One is conscious of nothing else—whether the pain will hold off or not—nothing else seems to matter.”
I’ve always been sorry for mad people—their heads must feel so queer.
I shall, I think, remember that 11th of September all my life.
💀 same
And that is where the gambler (and the murderer, who is, after all, only a supreme kind of gambler since what he risks is not his money but his life) often lacks intelligent anticipation. Because he has won he thinks he will continue to win! He does not leave the tables in good time with his pocket full. So in crime the murderer who is successful cannot conceive the possibility of not being successful!
He takes to himself all the credit for a successful performance—but I tell you, my friends, however carefully planned, no crime can be successful without luck!”
A murderer is always a gambler. And, like many gamblers, a murderer often does not know when to stop. With each crime his opinion of his own abilities is strengthened. His sense of proportion is warped. He does not say ‘I have been clever and lucky!’ No, he says only ‘I have been clever!’ And his opinion of his cleverness grows
So far the luck has been with the criminal—sooner or later it must turn and be with us.
Mr. Leadbetter breathed a sigh of satisfaction as the lights went up. He rose slowly to his feet, blinking a little. He never left the cinema very quickly. It always took him a moment or two to return to the prosaic reality of everyday life.
same
there is nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation!
Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man’s to prevent him from thinking. It is also an infallible means of discovering that which he wishes to hide. A human being, Hastings, cannot resist the opportunity to reveal himself and express his personality which conversation gives him.
“It was just the feeling that everybody else thought me stupid. Very paralyzing. It was the same thing later in the office.” “And later still in the war?” prompted Poirot. Mr. Cust’s face lightened up suddenly. “You know,” he said, “I enjoyed the war. What I had of it, that was. I felt, for the first time, a man like anybody else. We were all in the same box. I was as good as anyone else.”
“It is no answer to say that the man was mentally unhinged. To say a man does mad things because he is mad is merely unintelligent and stupid. A madman is as logical and reasoned in his actions as a sane man—given his peculiar biased point of view.
In a well-balanced, reasoning mind there is no such thing as an intuition—an inspired guess! You can guess, of course—and a guess is either right or wrong. If it is right you call it an intuition. If it is wrong you usually do not speak of it again.
But what is often called an intuition is really an impression based on logical deduction or experience. When an expert feels that there is something wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque he is really basing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely—his experience obviates that—the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong. But it is not a guess, it is an impression based on experience.
