The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot, #2)

by Agatha Christie

“Say no more! Nobody loves me! I shall go into the garden and eat worms! Boohoo. I am crushed!”

me also funniest and most real and refreshing and lively and different character like this feels so much more alive than so many of christie's characters

Her laughter was so infectious that I could not help joining in, though I hardly cared for the word “mutt.” “There! Now we’re friends!” declared the minx. “Say you’re sorry about my sister—” “I am desolated!” “That’s a good boy!”

A fingerprint has led sometimes to the arrest and conviction of a murderer.” “And has, without doubt, hanged more than one innocent man,” remarked Poirot dryly.

It is heartrending to see her. Ah, it is not I who would grieve like that for a man who had deceived me with another woman!” Poirot nodded sympathetically. “What you say is very just, but what will you? The heart of a woman who loves will forgive many blows.

Man is an unoriginal animal. Unoriginal within the law in his daily respectable life, equally unoriginal outside the law. If a man commits a crime, any other crime he commits will resemble it closely.

Had he varied his methods, he might have escaped detection to this day. But he obeyed the common dictates of human nature, arguing that what had once succeeded would succeed again, and he paid the penalty of his lack of originality.”

“Money is not the only motive for murder,” I objected. “True,” agreed Poirot placidly. “There are two others, the crime passionnel is one. And there is the third rare motive, murder for an idea, which implies some form of mental derangement on the part of the murderer. Homicidal mania and religious fanaticism belong to that class.

For whom will a woman lie? Sometimes for herself, usually for the man she loves, always for her children.

“Arrange your ideas. Be methodical. Be orderly. There is the secret of success.”

Yes, she is a great woman! If she loved a criminal, she loved him royally!”

It seemed a strange place and a strange time for a declaration of love—and God knows, in all my imagining, I had never pictured love coming to me in such a guise. But I answered simply and naturally enough: “Because I love you, Cinderella.”

“And you love me? Knowing what you do, how can you love me?”

there is only one love story and it's komugi and meruem and every love story is a permutation of that huh

“Don’t be afraid of me, Bella. For God’s sake don’t be afraid of me. I love you, that’s true—but I don’t want anything in return. Only let me help you. Love him still if you have to, but let me help you, as he can’t.”

“It is that, my friend, is it not? It is love that has come—not as you imagined it, all cock-a-hoop with fine feathers, but sadly, with bleeding feet.

why is this so beautiful

I had learned, with Poirot, that the less dangerous he looked, the more dangerous he was.

need to be like this

It would annoy me greatly that anyone should mock themselves at you.”

poirot so sweetie here :( <3

“I know—I know all. You are my enemy! Be my enemy, then. It does not worry me at all.”

Jack Renauld! The words gave me a start. I had completely forgotten that aspect of the case. Jack Renauld, in prison, with the shadow of the guillotine looming over him. I saw the part I was playing in a more sinister light. I could save Bella—yes, but in doing so I ran the risk of sending an innocent man to his death.

by far the most intriguing and compelling dilemma out of many volumes

A decision. Bella or Jack Renauld? The promptings of my heart were to save the girl I loved at any cost to myself. But, if the cost were to another, the problem was altered.

“There are other women in the world who suffer, Hastings.”

He was valiantly shielding the woman he had once loved—but at what cost to himself!

Your crime was a horrible one—to be held in abhorrence by gods and men!”

She was just desperate about Jack Renauld, she’d have lain down on the ground for him to walk on, and when he began to change, and to stop writing so often, she began getting in a state. She got it into her head that he was keen on another girl—and of course, as it turned out afterwards, she was quite right there.

“You were rather high-handed in your methods, mon ami,” said Poirot dryly. “You did not give me a chance.” “But afterwards?” “Ah, afterwards! Well, to begin with, I was hurt at your want of faith in me. And then, I wanted to see whether your—feelings would stand the test of time.

i love human emotions in characters

“She doesn’t say—she doesn’t say—well, not whether she cares for me or not?” Poirot turned back the pages. “I think you are mistaken, Hastings.” “Where?” I cried, leaning forward eagerly. Poirot smiled. “She tells you that in every line of the letter, mon ami.”

“Excite yourself not! Leave it to Papa Poirot. I can find her for you as soon as I have five little minutes!”

Poirot beamed kindly on me. “It is that I have arranged you a marriage, Hastings.”

Strange, how reluctant women always are to destroy the most compromising of objects and documents!

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Dulcie reaching the branch behind me. “Take care,” I exclaimed. “Take care of your grandmother!” retorted the girl. “This is child’s play to me.”

I DONT CARE IF HE'S YOUR GRANDMOTHER SO BELIEVE IT

Still, one must take crimes as one finds them, not as one would like them to be.

“A girl who loves you very dearly—who has been willing to lay down her life for you.” “How could I ask her?” muttered the boy. “After all that has happened, could I go to her and—Oh, what sort of a lame story could I tell?” “Les femmes—they have a wonderful genius for manufacturing crutches for stories like that.” “Yes, but—I’ve been such a damned fool.” “So have all of us, one time and another,” observed Poirot philosophically.

“You are your father’s son, you say. Hastings here will tell you that I believe in heredity—” “Well, then—” “Wait. I know a woman, a woman of courage and endurance, capable of great love, of supreme self-sacrifice—” The boy looked up. His eyes softened. “My mother!” “Yes. You are your mother’s son as well as your father’s.

made this a five star single handedly

“Go to her as a boy no longer, but a man—a man bowed by the fate of the Past, and the fate of Today, but looking forward to a new and wonderful life. Ask her to share it with you. You may not realize it, but your love for each other has been tested in the fire and not found wanting. You have both been willing to lay down your lives for each other.”

She interrupted me. “Cinderella warned him, I’m sure. You see, she couldn’t promise to turn into a princess. She was only a little scullion after all—” “It’s the Prince’s turn to interrupt,” I interpolated. “Do you know what he said?” “No?” “‘Hell!’ said the Prince—and kissed her!” And I suited the action to the word.

He has become more human, less irritating. I admire certain things about him—his passion for the truth, his understanding of human frailty, and his kindliness. And he has taught me something—to take more interest in my own characters; to see them more as real people and less as pawns in a game.