The Labors of Hercules (Hercule Poirot, #27)

by Agatha Christie

I gather,” he added, “that you’ve never had much time to study the Classics?” “That is so.” “Pity. Pity. You’ve missed a lot. Everyone should be made to study the Classics if I had my way.” Poirot shrugged his shoulders. “Eh bien, I have got on very well without them.” “Got on! Got on! It’s not a question of getting on. That’s the wrong view altogether. The Classics aren’t a ladder leading to quick success like a modern correspondence course! It’s not a man’s working hours that are important—it’s his leisure hours. That’s the mistake we all make.

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:” he quoted sonorously: He translated: “ ‘By skill again, the pilot on the wine-dark sea straightens The swift ship buffeted by the winds.’ Of course you can never really get the spirit of the original.” For the moment, in his enthusiasm, he had forgotten Poirot. And Poirot, watching him, felt suddenly a doubt—an uncomfortable twinge. Was there, here, something that he had missed? Some richness of the spirit? Sadness crept over him. Yes, he should have become acquainted with the Classics . . . Long ago . . . Now, alas, it was too late. . . .

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!

There is nothing so intangible, so difficult to pin down, as the source of a rumour.”

“Seems kind of wrong to see a woman travelling about alone with no one to see to things for her. A woman needs a lot of looking after when she’s travelling.” Remembering certain American women he had met on the Continent, Hercule Poirot agreed.

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.