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July 20 - October 10, 2022
It is odd, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial. I burst immediately into indignant speech.
But it is all wrong that Caroline should arrive at the truth simply by a kind of inspired guesswork.
Life is very trying.
You’re a precious old humbug.”
Able-bodied men are apt to leave the place early in life, but we are rich in unmarried ladies and retired military officers.
Ackroyd has always interested me by being a man more impossibly like a country squire than any country squire could really be.
“The essence of a detective story,” I said, “is to have a rare poison—if possible something from South America, that nobody has ever heard of—something that one obscure tribe of savages use to poison their arrows with. Death is instantaneous, and Western science is powerless to detect it. Is that the kind of thing you mean?” “Yes. Is there really such a thing?” I shook my head regretfully. “I’m afraid there isn’t. There’s curare, of course.” I told her a good deal about curare, but she seemed to have lost interest once more. She asked me if I had any in my poison cupboard, and when I replied
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“I see,” I said, rather amused by this patent snobbery, as I thought it.
She gave me a handful of assorted knuckles and rings to squeeze, and began talking volubly.
Such a perfect pair, he so dark and she so fair.
The man reminded me in some ways of a cat. His green eyes and his finicking habits.
To do so would be ridiculous and absurd. I am never ridiculous.”
Method, order, never have I needed them more. Everything must fit in—in its appointed place—otherwise I am on the wrong track.”
“He talked a lot about the little grey cells of the brain, and of their functions. His own, he says, are of the first quality.” “He would say so,” I remarked bitterly. “Modesty is certainly not his middle name.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so horribly American, James.
The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it.
“Just what my poor Hastings used to say,” interrupted Poirot, “but alas! he never did so.”
I played Watson to his Sherlock.
As a matter of fact, though, Flora is like all these young girls nowadays, with no veneration for their betters and thinking they know best on every subject under the sun,
the evidences of considerable physical strength somewhat run to seed.
Really, Caroline is amazing. She never rests until she knows the last details of everybody’s family secrets. Unfortunately, I have never been able to instil into her the decency of keeping them to herself.
“Mademoiselle, it is the business of Hercule Poirot to know things.
Caroline merely looked at me with an air of a Christian martyr enjoying martyrdom.
“Having endowed you with a treble portion, there was none left over for me,” I said drily.
“Never worry about what you say to a man. They’re so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it’s unflattering.”
We went off, leaving Caroline rather like a dog who has been refused a walk, standing on the front door step gazing after us.
