The ABC Murders (Hercule Poirot, #13)

by Agatha Christie

I stared at him, puzzled. Without a word he walked into his bedroom and returned with a bottle in his hand which he handed to me. I took it, for the moment uncomprehending. It bore the words: Revivit.—To bring back the natural tone of the hair. Revivit is not a dye. In five shades, Ash, Chestnut, Titian, Brown, Black. “Poirot,” I cried. “You have dyed your hair!” “Ah, the comprehension comes to you!” “So that’s why your hair looks so much blacker than it did last time I was back.” “Exactly.” “Dear me,” I said, recovering from the shock. “I suppose next time I come home I shall find you wearing false moustaches—or are you doing so now?” Poirot winced. His moustaches had always been his sensitive point. He was inordinately proud of them. My words touched him on the raw. “No, no, indeed, mon ami. That day, I pray the good God, is still far off. The false moustache! Quel horreur!” He tugged at them vigorously to assure me of their genuine character. “Well, they are very luxuriant still,” I said. “N’est ce pas? Never, in the whole of London, have I seen a pair of moustaches to equal mine.” A good job too, I thought privately.