The Clocks (Hercule Poirot, #39)

by Agatha Christie

He was a notable example of the fact that nothing can be duller than dull pornography.

“Now why can’t I be like that?” But then, she reflected, she was the boys’ mother. She knew by hearsay that the boys, when they went out, behaved in a manner entirely different from at home. It was always mothers who got the worst of things. But perhaps, she reflected, one would rather have it like that. To have nice quiet attentive polite boys at home and to have little hooligans going out, creating unfavourable opinions of themselves, would be worse—yes, that would be worse.

He laid down the Adventures of Arsene Lupin and picked up another book. “And there is The Mystery of the Yellow Room. That—ah, that is really a classic! I approve of it from start to finish. Such a logical approach! There were criticisms of it, I remember, which said that it was unfair. But it is not unfair, my dear Colin. No, no. Very nearly so, perhaps, but not quite. There is the hair’s breadth of difference. No. All through there is truth, concealed with a careful and cunning use of words. Everything should be clear at that supreme moment when the men meet at the angle of three corridors.” He laid it down reverently. “Definitely a masterpiece, and, I gather, almost forgotten nowadays.” Poirot skipped twenty years or so, to approach the works of somewhat later authors. “I have read also,” he said, “some of the early works of Mrs. Ariadne Oliver. She is by way of being a friend of mine, and of yours, I think. I do not wholly approve of her works, mind you. The happenings in them are highly improbable. The long arm of coincidence is far too freely employed. And, being young at the time, she was foolish enough to make her detective a Finn, and it is clear that she knows nothing about Finns or Finland except possibly the works of Sibelius. Still, she has an original habit of mind, she makes an occasional shrewd deduction, and of later years she has learnt a good deal about things which she did not know before. Police procedure for instance. She is also now a little more rel...

“One thing is certain,” he pronounced. “It must be a very simple crime.” “Simple?” I demanded in some astonishment. “Naturally.” “Why must it be simple?” “Because it appears so complex. If it has necessarily to appear complex, it must be simple. You comprehend that?”

Inspector Hardcastle was professionally prejudiced against people who found bodies. Finding the body avoided so many difficulties for a murderer—it saved the hazards of arranging an alibi, it accounted for any overlooked fingerprints. In many ways it was a cast-iron position—with one proviso only. There must be no obvious motive.

One comes almost to regard actual crimes in the light of fiction. That is to say that if I observe that a dog has not barked when he should bark, I say to myself, ‘Ha! A Sherlock Holmes crime!’ Similarly, if the corpse is found in a sealed room, naturally I say, ‘Ha! A Dickson Carr case!’ Then there is my friend Mrs. Oliver. If I were to find—but I will say no more. You catch my meaning? So here is the setting of a crime in such wildly improbable circumstances that one feels at once, ‘This book is not true to life. All this is quite unreal.’ But alas, that will not do here, for this is real. It happened. That gives one to think furiously, does it not?”

“Just tell me one thing, Poirot. If, as you said, you could do all this sitting in your chair in London and could have got me and Dick Hardcastle to come to you there, why—oh, why, did you come down here at all?” “I told you, they make the reparation in my apartment.” “They would have lent you another apartment. Or you could have gone to the Ritz, you would have been more comfortable there than in the Curlew Hotel.” “Indubitably,” said Hercule Poirot. “The coffee here, mon dieu, the coffee!” “Well, then, why?” Hercule Poirot flew into a rage. “Eh bien, since you are too stupid to guess, I will tell you. I am human, am I not? I can be the machine if it is necessary. I can lie back and think. I can solve the problem so. But I am human, I tell you. And the problems concern human beings.” “And so?” “The explanation is as simple as the murder was simple. I came out of human curiosity,” said Hercule Poirot, with an attempt at dignity.