The Labors of Hercules (Hercule Poirot, #27)

by Agatha Christie

He began to wheeze gently—his small fat face crinkled up. Poirot looked at him inquiringly. “Thinking of an imaginary conversation. Your mother and the late Mrs. Holmes, sitting sewing little garments or knitting: ‘Achille, Hercule, Sherlock, Mycroft. . . .’ ” Poirot failed to share his friend’s amusement.

The intro to this collection is rather funny.

But seriously, Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to”—his voice sank to an appreciative purr—“an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long, low room lined with books—must be a long room—not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port—and a book open in your hand. Time rolls back as you read:”

Take this Hercules—this hero! Hero, indeed! What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies!

The whole classical pattern shocked him. These gods and goddesses—they seemed to have as many different aliases as a modern criminal. Indeed they seemed to be definitely criminal types. Drink, debauchery, incest, rape, loot, homicide and chicanery—enough to keep a juge d’Instruction constantly busy. No decent family life. No order, no method. Even in their crimes, no order or method!

“The Nemean Lion,” he repeated, trying it over on his tongue. Naturally he did not expect a case to present itself actually involving a flesh and blood lion. It would be too much of a coincidence should he be approached by the Directors of the Zoological Gardens to solve a problem for them involving a real lion. No, here symbolism must be involved.

“Even the sensible and the competent have been given tongues by le bon Dieu—and they do not always employ their tongues wisely. I have no doubt that the nurse-companion talked, that the servants talked, that everyone talked! You have all the materials there for the starting of a very enjoyable village scandal.

Hercule Poirot sighed. To hunt down a ruthless killer was not his idea of a pleasant holiday. Brain work from an armchair, he reflected, was more in his line.

He steeled himself to endure patiently. He felt, at the same time, a sympathy for Sir George Conway. The man obviously wanted to tell him something—and as obviously had lost the art of simple narration. Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts—not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase—that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

“Nonsense. You’re up to something, Hercule Poirot.” “Are you acquainted with the classics, Madame?” “What have the classics got to do with it?” “They have this to do with it. I emulate my great predecessor Hercules. One of the Labors of Hercules was the taming of the wild horses of Diomedes.” “Don’t tell me you came down here to train horses—at your age—and always wearing patent-leather shoes! You don’t look to me as though you’d ever been on a horse in your life!” “The horses, Madame, are symbolic. They were the wild horses who ate human flesh.” “How very unpleasant of them. I always do think these ancient Greeks and Romans are very unpleasant. I can’t think why clergymen are so fond of quoting from the classics—for one thing one never understands what they mean and it always seems to me that the whole subject matter of the classics is very unsuitable for clergymen. So much incest, and all those statues with nothing on—not that I mind that myself but you know what clergymen are—quite upset if girls come to church with no stockings on—let me see, where was I?” “I am not quite sure.”

😂

“You might start a new religion yourself,” said Japp, “with the creed: ‘There is no one so clever as Hercule Poirot, Amen, D.C. Repeat ad lib.’!”

Hercule Poirot, enjoying the sound of his own voice, went on:

His elderly soul revolted from the stress and hurry of the modern world.

Amen.