The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot, #1)

by Agatha Christie

Between 1840 and 1845, Edgar Allan Poe created the model to which so many writers after him adhered. It was Poe who gave the world Auguste Dupin and his unnamed Boswell, thus establishing what might be called the Formula Detective Combination.

Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible, I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandyfied little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police.

Voyons! One fact leads to another—so we continue. Does the next fit in with that? A merveille! Good! We can proceed. This next little fact—no! Ah, that is curious! There is something missing—a link in the chain that is not there. We examine. We search. And that little curious fact, that possibly paltry little detail that will not tally, we put it here!” He made an extravagant gesture with his hand. “It is significant! It is tremendous!”

“Ah!” Poirot shook his forefinger so fiercely at me that I quailed before it. “Beware! Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small—it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.’ That way lies confusion! Everything matters.”

Blood tells—always remember that—blood tells.”

“Ne vous fâchez pas! Allow me to interest myself in my coffee-cups, and I will respect your coco. There! Is it a bargain?”

Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”

“What have I always told you? Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go.”

We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.”

“Instinct is a marvellous thing,” mused Poirot. “It can neither be explained nor ignored.”

Ah, my friend, I am like a giant refreshed. I run! I leap!” And, in very truth, run and leap he did, gambolling wildly down the stretch of lawn outside the long window.

“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend,” observed Poirot philosophically. “You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.”

The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world.”