Forewarned is forearmed.
My dear lady, in my experience of ill-doing, Providence leaves the work of conviction and chastisement to us mortals – and the process is often fraught with difficulties. There are no short cuts.
No, Captain Lombard, the matter rests there. It is understood by my client that your reputation is that of a good man in a tight place. I am empowered to hand you one hundred guineas in return for which you will travel to Sticklehaven, Devon. The nearest station is Oakbridge, you will be met there and motored to Sticklehaven where a motor launch will convey you to Soldier Island. There you will hold yourself at the disposal of my client.” Lombard.
M. Poirot,’ she said somewhat breathlessly, ‘Can I speak to you alone?’ ‘Milady, Captain Hastings is as my other self. You can speak before him as though he were a thing of no account, not there at all. Be seated, I pray you.
This seems to have taken me a long way from detective stories, but explains, perhaps, why I have got more interest in my victims than my criminals. The more passionately alive the victim, the more glorious indignation I have on his behalf, and am full of a delighted triumph when I have delivered a near-victim out of the valley of the shadow of death. Returning.
I should hope so. But, my dear, I do beg of you to guard your tongue and be careful of what you say. These women are singularly deficient in humour, remember, and take everything seriously.
I think it was the lavatory to which I retired- a perfect place for quiet meditation, where no one could possibly pursue you.
One should never go by what people say.
He had known George Barton ever since the latter’s boyhood. Barton’s uncle had been a country neighbour of the Races. There was a difference of over twenty years between the two men. Race was over sixty, a tall, erect, military figure, with sunburnt face, closely cropped iron-grey hair, and shrewd dark eyes.
Colonel Race was not good at small talk and might indeed have posed as the model of a strong silent man so beloved by an earlier generation of novelists.
If you will forgive me for being personal – I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,’ Poirot said.
He doesn’t seem to have been one of those food faddists who’ll eat any mortal thing so long as it isn’t cooked. My sister’s husband’s like that. Raw carrots, raw peas, raw turnips. But.
Race nodded. He had only met George’s wife once. He had thought her a singularly lovely nitwit – but certainly not a melancholic type.
Here again, she was amazingly clever. Without make-up of any kind, her features seemed to dissolve suddenly and re-form themselves into those of a famous politician, or a well-known actress, or a society beauty. In each character she gave a short typical speech. These speeches, by the way, were remarkably clever. They seemed to hit off every weakness of the subject selected.
I had learned, with Poirot, that the less dangerous he looked, the more dangerous he was.
In every family there is usually one member who is a source of trouble and worry.
The supernatural seems supernatural. But the science of tomorrow is the supernatural of today.
Who on earth but Poirot would have thought of a trial for murder as a restorer of conjugal happiness!
I said, life will not pass her by. Strange and exciting events will surround her. You’ve only got to look at her to know it.
Real grief is real. It makes you feel awful but it does something to you. I mean, it works it out like perspiration.