The Clocks (Hercule Poirot, #39)

by Agatha Christie

What I wanted—what Hardcastle wanted—was some nice gossipy, prying, peering old lady with time hanging heavy on her hands. Always hoping to look out and see something scandalous. The trouble is that that kind of old lady seems to have died out nowadays. They are all sitting grouped together in Old Ladies’ Homes with every comfort for the aged, or crowding up hospitals where beds are needed urgently for the really sick. The lame and the halt and the old didn’t live in their own houses anymore, attended by a faithful domestic or by some half-witted poor relation glad of a good home. It was a serious setback to criminal investigation.