Is it off-season for the criminals or is our little gallery about to be robbed?
Hercule PoirotOh, alas, monsieur, non. Non. I am here purely in my private capacity. But I see that you yourself have lent a few pieces.
Oh, one picks up trifles here and there. I have a few interesting objects I could show you. I daresay I could even produce one or two things in your line, Poirot.
Hercule Poirot
Ah. So you have, then, your private Black Museum?
Oh, no, no, no. I don't collect the artifacts of crime. The murderer's hammer, the poisoner's cup. I collect only the finest objects of their kind.
Hercule Poirot
And what do you consider to be the finest objects, artistically speaking, in crime?
Why, the human beings who commit them, monsieur.
[after Poirot reveals Shaitana's killer] But why did Shaitana drug himself?
Hercule Poirot
He is tired of life. He has a madness in his soul. He is searching for a thrill that would be for him the ultimate. And in order to achieve this, he invites four people to his house whom he believe have killed, and then he goads them.
[flashback, the night of the murder] There's always an accident. A shooting accident, for example. Or a domestic accident. One of the little tragedies that never gets reported.
Hercule Poirot
And then he takes the sleeping draught so that when it happens he will feel no pain. And it does happen. And as an extra twist, he tries to throw the blame on one of us. He makes us to believe that the crime that is opportunistic is made to look as though it was planned most carefully. And we start ... Oh, pardon, even Hercule Poirot, he starts to believe it. When all the time the plan was to allow a crime that was opportunistic to happen.
As a plot, that is distinctly odd.
Hercule Poirot
The plots, madame, they are all the same. It is only the psychology that is different.
Hercule Poirot
Do you know when the priest, he is buried, he is always facing his parishoners? Oui. Because when the Day of Judgment, it comes, and the dead, they all arise, he can greet them, and lead them through the gates of paradise. It is a beautiful idea.
RCRosaleen Cloade
He shan't be leading me.
Hercule Poirot
You must not say that, ma chere. Despair is a sin.
RCRosaleen Cloade
I'm cut off from the mercy of God.
Hercule Poirot
No, no, no, no, no. Nobody is cut off from the mercy of God. Ever.
DHDavid Hunter
I would never harm my sister.
Hercule Poirot
No. But the lady presently watching you from over there, she is not your sister.
LCLionel Cloade
Good heavens!
Hercule Poirot
No. Her name is Eileen Corrigan, a simple farm girl, as she defined herself to me at the church. And, whatever the papers may say, she did not die in Mayfair two years ago. No. But the real Rosaleen Cloade, she did. Why? Because you murdered her! More than any Cloade, you hated Rosaleen. For in her happy marriage to Gordon Cloade, she had excluded you. Your first love, your little sister, had surrendered herself to another man. But you had already made your own arrangements to deal with her, for you had drawn under your spell a parlourmaid who was young, Irish, and in the service of your sister. Her name? Eileen Corrigan. You had seduced her, had deliberately impregnated her. And had had the baby disposed of.
Hercule Poirot
True! Outside of the church, Eileen Corrigan told me that she had been cut off from the mercy of God!
DHDavid Hunter
She miscarried.
Hercule Poirot
No, Monsieur! She endured abortion! As it was always your intention that she should. You wanted to crush the very soul of this simple Catholic girl. To make her so terrified by the state of her own life that she would deliver it to you. Maintained by morphine, ruled by terror, Eileen Corrigan would do whatever you told her to do. Why? Why? Because you, Monsieur, offered her salvation if she did. And the fires of hell if she did not.
Robin Upward was in the clear. He and I were working all day on that wretched dramatisation. Now he wants Sven having sex in a sauna. Sven has never had sex in his life. You don't know how I suffer.
Hercule Poirot
Madame, I, too, suffer. The cooking of Madame Summerhayes, it is beyond description. Well, it is not cooking at all. And the currents of the cold air, the long hairs of the dogs, the chairs, the terrible, terrible beds in which I try to sleep. And the coffee ... Words cannot describe to you the fluid they serve to you as coffee.
BMiss Bulstrode
I hope you're enjoying your little sojourn with us, Monsieur. I'd hate to think you were bored.
Hercule Poirot
Bored? Pas de tout, mademoiselle. There does not need to be present a crime for the investigator to thrive. This school, it is like the world in miniature. It is like the, what is the word? The...
BMiss Bulstrode
Microcosm.
Hercule Poirot
Just so. Just as in the outside world. Hopes, dreams, fears, secrets. This place, so full of the promise of youth, the future of the nation. And yet, how lonely and silent are its corridors at night. Lonely and silent as the chambers of the heart.
Hercule Poirot
The psychology, Inspector, it is fascinating, is it not? A pupil with a loathing most deep for Mademoiselle Springer, a colleague who was jealous, or a lover thwarted.
IKInspector Kelsey
Well, even games mistresses have their love lives.
Hercule Poirot
It must have seemed that there was a sort of vendetta against the mistresses of Meadowbank. But I can assure you that this was not so.
BMiss Blake
Could've fooled me.
Hercule Poirot
There have been here two murders, an attempted murder, and what appeared to be a kidnapping, but I understand from Mademoiselle Bulstrode that this kidnapping, it has already been explained to you, oui?
JMiss Johnson
I said, didn't I? That whole business with the brassiere.
Hercule Poirot
All through this affair, the problem, it has been to clear out of the way all the extraneous matters which, though criminal in themselves, obscure the thread most important. The thread that leads us to a killer who is determined, ruthless, and in your midst. A cat among the pigeons.
Hercule Poirot
Did Lady Boynton harm you physically?
RBRaymond Boynton
My mother had little recourse to violence. She was too smart for that. Instead, she just prized open the top of our skulls and raked her poisonous tongue through our brains. No place to hide, Poirot. Even in your own head. Ever. Carol, um ... Carol grew up petrified. Did her best to ingratiate herself, you know, to win approval, which she never got. Jinny just was terrified to the point of madness. Possibly beyond.
Hercule Poirot
Did you murder your mother, monsieur?
RBRaymond Boynton
No. But only because I lacked the moral courage. She was a monster, Poirot. It was her pleasure, always, to watch us suffer.
Hercule Poirot
Why was she driven to be so cruel?
RBRaymond Boynton
To punish us, I guess.
Hercule Poirot
For what offense?
RBRaymond Boynton
For being someone else's kids.
JBJinny Boynton
Carol and I are going to Egypt to see the Sphinx. It's not much of an adventure, but we're doing it on our own. It's a start. It was actually my idea. Lady Boynton would have said I was constitutionally too feeble, that my skin was too fair. But I think it's probably time I showed my feeble skin who's boss.
Hercule Poirot
C'est bien, mademoiselle. Before he leaves, you will permit an old man to pontificate? Alors, mademoiselle, there is nothing in the world so damaged that it cannot be repaired by the hand of Almighty God. I encourage you to know this, because without this certainty, we should all of us be mad.
CCSir Charles Cartwright
[after Poirot exposes him as the murderer] Well, I'm hooked. Go on. Tell me, what was my motive for murdering my dearest friend, the man I had known since boyhood?
Hercule Poirot
It was the doctor himself who gave to me the clue when he said, "Cherchez la femme." You know, Sir Charles, it was obvious to me you were in love, deeply in love with Mademoiselle Lytton Gore. You loved her with a passion that was so arid, so terrible. So why the hesitation, huh? Why did you not ask her to marry you when you were sailing around Loomouth? What was the obstacle, hein? Poirot, he will tell to you. The obstacle, it was this, that you already had a wife. Oh, but of course, you enact the role of the bachelor. But this marriage of yours it took place since many years before. When you were young. Long before you were Sir Charles Cartwright, the actor renowned. And when your name, it was something else. Voyez, mes amis. There are only two situations in the law of our land when a divorce, it cannot be permitted. The first: when either the husband or wife is serving a life sentence in prison. And the second: when one or either of them is confined to a lunatic asylum. And of course, Sir Charles, you cannot kill her yourself because immediately you would become the prime suspect. But what if nobody knew, hein? Well, then you'd be free to marry Mademoiselle Lytton Gore without having the need to tell her the truth. But one person did know and one person only. Your oldest friend. The best man at your wedding. And so, before you can remarry, it is necessary that Dr. Bartholomew Strange, your friend so dear to you, he must be eliminated.
CCSir Charles Cartwright
And Babbington? I suppose he knew too?
Hercule Poirot
Ah, oui, that was the one flaw in my theory. Because even if it was you, Charles, who placed the liquid nicotine into the glass, you could never make sure of it reaching one particular person. No, the poison was never intended specifically for the Reverend Steven Babbington, no. It was intended for anyone who was there present. Except, of course, Dr. Bartholomew Strange, who never touched a cocktail, and Mademoiselle Lytton Gore, the young lady with whom you were in love.
HLHermionie Lytton-Gore
You handed me my cocktail yourself.
Hercule Poirot
The murder of the Reverend Steven Babbington was nothing more nor less than a dress rehearsal. Sir Charles, he is the actor. He rehearses the murder before he commits it. And the rehearsal it goes well. Steven Babbington, he dies. And foul play, it is not suspected, not even by Hercule Poirot. Which is why, of course, I was invited to go to Loomouth. Because if Poirot suspects nothing, nor indeed will anyone else.
Agatha Christie's Poirot · 166 quotes
