More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
‘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
...more
You know, Hastings, in many ways I regard you as my mascot.’ ‘Indeed?’ I said. ‘In what ways?’ Poirot did not answer my question directly. He went on: ‘As soon as I heard you were coming over I said to myself: something will arise. As in former days we will hunt together, we two. But if so it must be no common affair. It must be something’—he waved his hands excitedly—‘something recherché—delicate—fine…’ He gave the last untranslatable word its full flavour. ‘Upon my word, Poirot,’ I said. ‘Anyone would think you were ordering a dinner at the Ritz.’ ‘Whereas one cannot command a crime to
...more
Classic hastings poirot adventures
There are no fingerprints on it. There are no local clues as to the possible writer.’ ‘In fact there is only your own instinct?’ ‘Not instinct, Hastings. Instinct is a bad word. It is my knowledge—my experience—that tells me that something about that letter is wrong
visit paid to my friend by Chief Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard. The CID inspector had been known to us for many years and he gave me a hearty welcome. ‘Well, I never,’ he exclaimed. ‘If it isn’t Captain Hastings back from the wilds of the what do you call it! Quite like old days seeing you here with Monsieur Poirot. You’re looking well, too. Just a little bit thin on top, eh? Well, that’s what we’re all coming to. I’m the same.’ I winced slightly. I was under the impression that owing to the careful way I brushed my hair across the top of my head the thinness referred to by Japp was quite
...more
‘I have indeed been foolish to take the matter so seriously,’ said Poirot. ‘It is the nest of the horse that I put my nose into there.’ ‘You’re mixing up mares and wasps,’ said Japp. ‘Pardon?’ ‘Just a couple of proverbs. Well, I must be off.
Then there must be a beautiful girl or two—’ ‘With auburn hair,’ murmured my friend. ‘Your same old joke.
‘Supposing,’ murmured Poirot, ‘that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd man out, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is dummy, has gone over and killed him, and intent on the play of the hand, the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?’ ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I can’t see any excitement in that!’ Poirot threw me a glance of reproof. ‘No, because there are no curiously twisted daggers, no blackmail, no emerald that is the stolen eye of a god, no
...more
‘Couldn’t you simply have asked—without all that tissue of lies?’ ‘No, mon ami. If I had “simply asked”, as you put it, I should have got no answer at all to my questions. You yourself are English and yet you do not seem to appreciate the quality of the English reaction to a direct question. It is invariably one of suspicion and the natural result is reticence. 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. We know
...more
‘At a cheap greengrocer’s—not strawberries. A strawberry, unless fresh picked, is bound to exude juice. A banana—some apples—even a cabbage—but strawberries—’ ‘It was the first thing I thought of,’ I explained by way of excuse. ‘That is unworthy of your imagination,’ returned Poirot sternly.
We are confronted here by an unknown personage. He is in the dark and seeks to remain in the dark. But in the very nature of things he cannot help throwing light upon himself. In one sense we know nothing about him—in another sense we know already a good deal.
‘You have not, I presume, a description of the dead girl?’ ‘She was twenty-three years of age, engaged as a waitress at the Ginger Cat café—’ ‘Pas ça. I wondered—if she were pretty?’ ‘As to that I’ve no information,’ said Inspector Crome with a hint of withdrawal. His manner said: ‘Really—these foreigners! All the same!’ A faint look of amusement came into Poirot’s eyes. ‘It does not seem to you important, that? Yet, pour une femme, it is of the first importance. Often it decides her destiny!’
‘That’s sense, that is,’ said Mr Barnard, nodding approval.
‘This is M. Hercule Poirot,’ I said. Megan Barnard gave him a quick, appraising glance. ‘I’ve heard of you,’ she said. ‘You’re the fashionable private sleuth, aren’t you?’ ‘Not a pretty description—but it suffices,’ said Poirot.
Donald Fraser looked suspiciously at Poirot. ‘Who are you? You don’t belong to the police?’ ‘I am better than the police,’ said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.
I mean
it true tho
He was, I knew, deeply unhappy over the case. He refused to leave London, preferring to be on the spot in case of emergency. In those hot dog days even his moustaches drooped—neglected for once by their owner.
A few minutes later he came into the bedroom and demanded: ‘Mais qu’est ce que vous faites là?’ ‘I was packing for you. I thought it would save time.’ ‘Vous éprouvez trop d’émotion, Hastings. It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?’ ‘Good heavens, Poirot,’ I cried, ‘this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?’ ‘You have no sense of proportion, Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one’s
...more
Bless them both
Always, up to now, it has fallen to our lot to work from the inside. It has been the history of the victim that was important. The important points have been: “Who benefited by the death? What opportunities had those round him to commit the crime?” It has always been the “crime intime”. Here, for the first time in our association, it is cold-blooded, impersonal murder. Murder from the outside.’ I shivered. ‘It’s rather horrible…’
‘Poirot,’ I would cry. ‘Pray believe me. I never said anything of the kind.’ My friend would reply kindly: ‘I know, Hastings—I know. 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.’
If Crome and his colleagues were indefatigable, Poirot seemed to me strangely supine. We argued now and again. ‘But what is it that you would have me do, my friend? The routine inquiries, the police make them better than I do. Always—always you want me to run about like the dog.’ ‘Instead of which you sit at home like—like—’ ‘A sensible man! My force, Hastings, is in my brain, not in my feet! All the time, whilst I seem to you idle, I am reflecting.’ ‘Reflecting?’ I cried. ‘Is this a time for reflection?’ ‘Yes, a thousand times yes.’ ‘But what can you possibly gain by reflection? You know the
...more
‘I make the assumption that one—or possibly all of you—knows something that they do not know they know. ‘Sooner or later, by reason of your association with one another, something will come to light, will take on a significance as yet undreamed of. It is like the jig-saw puzzle—each of you may have a piece apparently without meaning, but which when reunited may show a definite portion of the picture as a whole.’
‘Poirot,’ I said. ‘Your mind is incurably sentimental.’ ‘That is the last thing my mind is. You are the sentimental one, Hastings.’ I was about to argue the point hotly, but at that moment the door opened.
‘She really is a lovely girl,’ I said. ‘And wears very lovely clothes. That crêpemarocain and the silver fox collar—dernier cri.’ ‘You’re a man milliner, Poirot. I never notice what people have on.’ ‘You should join a nudist colony.’ As I was about to make an indignant rejoinder, he said,
‘Why did the girl lie about it and say she had seen no one?’ ‘I can think of seven separate reasons—one of them an extremely simple one.’
“He wasn’t the sort of man you’d notice.” Yes—there is no doubt about it…You have described the murderer!’
‘You are determined to accompany the expedition, Hastings?’ ‘Oh, yes. I shouldn’t be happy staying here inactive.’ ‘There is activity of mind as well as body, Hastings.’ ‘Well, you’re better at it than I am,’ I said. ‘You are incontestably right, Hastings. Am I correct in supposing that you intend to be a cavalier to one of the ladies?’ ‘That was the idea.’
Chapter 31 Hercule Poirot Asks Questions
I mean
apt
He went on discussing the matter, speaking of grand mal and petit mal and, to tell the truth, confusing me hopelessly as is often the case when a learned person holds forth on his own subject.
Queer game, dominoes. People go mad about it. They’ll play for hours.
Lol japp
‘Now’s your chance, M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘Crome’s in a fog. Exert those cellular arrangements of yours I used to hear so much about. Show us the way he did it.’ Japp departed. ‘What about it, Poirot?’ I said. ‘Are the little grey cells equal to the task?’
I had an idea there…It ought to be true—it must be true. But if so—’ He was silent for some time. I did not like to interrupt him. As a matter of fact, I believe I fell asleep. I woke to find Poirot’s hand on my shoulder. ‘Mon cher Hastings,’ he said affectionately. ‘My good genius.’ I was quite confused by this sudden mark of esteem. ‘It is true,’ Poirot insisted. ‘Always—always—you help me—you bring me luck. You inspire me.’ ‘How have I inspired you this time?’ I asked. ‘While I was asking myself certain questions I remembered a remark of yours—a remark absolutely shimmering in its clear
...more
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. Every time he will give himself away.’
Next he went to the beach
Let's all go to the beach
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.
Therefore A B C, to persuade her to come out with him, must have had a certain amount of attraction—of le sex appeal! He must be able, as you English say, to “get off”. He must be capable of the click!
‘If Andover is the 155th name under A, then the B crime should be the 155th also—or it should be the 156th and the C the 157th. Here again the towns seemed to be chosen in rather too haphazard a fashion.’ ‘Isn’t that because you’re rather biased on that subject, Poirot?’ I suggested. ‘You yourself are normally methodical and orderly. It’s almost a disease with you.’ ‘No, it is not a disease! Quelle idée! But I admit that I may be over-stressing that point. Passons!
Is it not your great Shakespeare who has said “You cannot see the trees for the wood.”’ I did not correct Poirot’s literary reminiscences.
‘We now come to murder No. 3—the important—in fact, the real murder from your point of view. ‘And here a full meed of praise is due to Hastings, who made a simple and obvious remark to which no attention was paid. ‘He suggested that the third letter went astray intentionally! ‘And he was right!…
‘You unutterable little jackanapes of a foreigner!’ cried Clarke, purple with rage. ‘Yes, yes, that is how you feel.
'Yes, yes'
‘He has said quite enough,’ said Poirot, and he added to Clarke: ‘You are very full of an insular superiority, but for myself I consider your crime not an English crime at all—not above-board—not sporting—’
‘You’re a very great man, M. Poirot.’ Poirot, as usual, did not disdain the compliment. He did not even succeed in looking modest.
