The Z Murders Quotes

“In the grip of perfect comfort, we are dulled to the discomfort of others. From steaming water we can think dispassionately of the Arctic. From a cool sea, the Equator is a theory. In a woman's arms, the loneliness of others has no power to chill. And so Richard Temperley, regaining his vigour beneath the rippling warmth of a hotel bath, must not be censured for his temporary inability to share in the tragedy that lay so near at hand. He was merely accumulating, in his callousness, new strength to deal with it, as you or I might have done in his place.

After the bath, he dressed thoughtfully. Already his sense of responsibility had returned to him, and his resuscitated mind was grappling with its problems.”
― J. Jefferson Farjeon, The Z Murders

“We like to believe ourselves sympathetic, but, in truth, Nature has designed us, perhaps necessarily, to be callous. A murder in Newcastle is of less importance than a cut finger in our own home, and therefore Winifred Mostyn was only mildly interested. All at once, however, the mildness evaporated. In the next column a name had caught her eye.”
― J. Jefferson Farjeon, The Z Murders

“As his figure joined the toilet articles in the mirror, he paused and questioned it.

'I say—who was the last figure reflected here?' he asked. 'The one before you?'

The reflection stared back solemnly. It knew no more than did its origin. And mirrors themselves never reveal their secrets. If they did, their stories would put those of mere novelists to shame.”
― J. Jefferson Farjeon, The Z Murders

“If one man's meat is another man's poison, one person's murder may be another person's income. Thus tragedy and happiness interweave, forming life's queer pattern. Fall over a cliff to-morrow, and somebody will benefit from your fall—a press photographer, a gossip-monger, a little boy who had previously been rather bored with existence, or an aunt in India.”
― J. Jefferson Farjeon, The Z Murders