Colonel Hughes quotes from Agatha Christie's Poirot

Ariadne Oliver

It's jolly curious. Here are the four of us and we're all, well, for want of a better word, sleuths. So who are those four in there?

Colonel Hughes

Criminals?

Ariadne Oliver

They don't look like criminals.

Most criminals don't look like criminals, Mrs. Oliver.

I had every motive for disliking Shaitana. For disliking him, not killing him.

Colonel Hughes

And what were your motives for disliking him, Major?

He dressed like a ... Well, you know. And the perfume.

And yet you accepted his invitation to dinner.

Were I only to dine in houses where I approved of my host, I wouldn't eat out much, I'm afraid.

Colonel Hughes

Don't you like London society?

What we call civilization? Only for very short periods. To come back from abroad to well-lit rooms, beautiful women in beautiful clothes ... Yes, it's pleasant for a time. But after a while, it palls. The insincerity sickens me, and I want to be off again.

Colonel Hughes

I know what you mean.

Colonel Hughes

[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.

Mr. Shaitana

[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.

Ariadne Oliver

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.