The Pale Horse (Ariadne Oliver, #5)

by Agatha Christie

It came to me suddenly that evil was, perhaps, necessarily always more impressive than good. It had to make a show! It had to startle and challenge! It was instability attacking stability. And in the end, I thought, stability will always win.

“Didn’t somebody called Bacon really write Shakespeare?” asked Poppy. “That theory is quite out of date nowadays,” said David kindly. “And what do you know of Bacon?” “He invented gunpowder,” said Poppy triumphantly.

“How convenient it must have been in those times,” he went on, “to be able to call up a handy murderer whenever you wanted a little job done. Fun if one could do it nowadays.” “But it is done,” protested Hermia. “Gangsters. Hoods—or whatever you call them. Chicago and all that.” “Ah,” said David. “But what I meant was not gangsterdom, not racketeers or Crime Barons. Just ordinary everyday folk who want to get rid of someone. That business rival; Aunt Emily, so rich and so unfortunately long-lived; that awkward husband always in the way. How convenient if you could ring up Harrods and say ‘Please send along two good murderers, will you?’” We all laughed. “But one can do that in a way, can’t one?” said Poppy. We turned towards her. “What way, poppet?” asked David. “Well, I mean, people can do that if they want to…People like us, as you said. Only I believe it’s very expensive.” Poppy’s eyes were wide and ingenuous, her lips were slightly parted. “What do you mean?” asked David curiously. Poppy looked confused. “Oh—I expect—I’ve got it mixed. I meant the Pale Horse. All that sort of thing.” “A pale horse? What kind of a pale horse?” Poppy flushed and her eyes dropped. “I’m being stupid. It’s just something someone mentioned—but I must have got it all wrong.”

One of the oddest things in life, as we all know, is the way that when you have heard a thing mentioned, within twenty-four hours you nearly always come across it again.

And you don’t think they’ll want me to go out to the Pink Horse and have drinks?” “The Pink Horse?” “Well, the Pale Horse. Pubs, I mean. I’m so bad in pubs. I can just drink beer at a pinch, but it makes me terribly gurgly.” “Just what do you mean by the Pale Horse?” “There’s a pub called that down there, isn’t there? Or perhaps I do mean the Pink Horse? Or perhaps that’s somewhere else. I may have just imagined it. I do imagine quite a lot of things.”