There just didn’t seem anyone else who could have done it. I thought perhaps he’d gone a little mad.” “Did he ever seem to you a little – what shall I say – queer?” “Oh no. Not queer in that way. He was just shy and awkward as anyone might be. The truth was, he didn’t make the best of himself. He hadn’t confidence in himself.
I’ll break every bone in your damned body, you dirty little whippersnapper,” he said.
Marriage, especially at my age, is not to be undertaken without full–er–consideration. Equality of birth, similarity of tastes, general suitability, and the same religious creed–all these things are necessary and the pros and cons have to be weighed and considered.
How can you and I set about preventing a murder? You’re about a hundred and I’m a broken-up old crock.
One sees then with the eyes of the mind.
He was clearly marked with the stamp of the Philistine.
If my Rolls-Royce splashes you with mud as you’re waiting for a bus, you’ll know that I’ve taken to crime.
Reflection had never been Mrs Oliver’s strong point.
The people who do us most harm are the people who shield us from reality.
Such a landscape was best enjoyed from a car on a fine afternoon. You exclaimed, “Quel beau paysage!” and drove back to a good hotel.
Your criminal is someone who wants to be important, but who never will be important, because he’ll always be less than a man.
You don’t stop being in love with anyone because you get old. People like Derek and Deborah think you do. They can’t imagine anyone who isn’t young being in love.
I should hardly advise you to go too much by all I’ve told you. I’m a malicious creature.
You tell your lies and you think nobody knows. But there are two people who know. Yes – two people. One is le bon Dieu -” He raised a hand to heaven, and then settling himself back in his chair and shutting his eyelids, he murmured comfortably: “And the other is Hercule Poirot.
Will you be so kind, Mademoiselle, as to write down your permanent address on this piece of paper?’ She complied. Her writing was clear and legible.
Decidedly it was the policy of an imbecile.
Los viejos pecados tienen largas sombras.
A murderer is seldom content with one crime. Give him time, and a lack of suspicion, and he’ll commit another.
Oh, I leave it to your imagination, Mr. Latimer. I would not presume to give you advice, you know. The advice of such elderly fogeys as myself is invariably treated with scorn. Rightly so, perhaps, who knows? But we old buffers like to think that experience has taught us something. We have noticed a good deal, you know, in the course of a lifetime.” A.
I’d like to give these detective story writers a course of routine work. They’d soon learn how most things are untraceable and nobody ever notices anything anywhere!