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SEASON 1

Agatha Christie's Poirot · Season 1

Agatha Christie's Poirot Season 1 quotes

166 quotes · page 11 of 12

S1 E15Unfinished Business

RDRowena Drake

[after Poirot accuses her and Michael Garfield of being complicit in six murders and exposes Garfield as Miranda Butler's father] It's you I should have drowned, you filthy little beast! It should have been you! And you never had him! Never! I'm the only one he ever wanted. Ever loved! Say it isn't so, Michael! Please! Please!

MGMichael Garfield

Don't make a fuss, you silly creature. It's so undignified. It's true. I did it all for the money. Of course, I did. And for the garden. Actually, I was thinking about buying a little Greek island. Start afresh. I just like pretty things, you see. Is that so wrong? And one must have money to get pretty things. [to Judith] I was very fond of you, Judith. Once. But even you're losing your looks now. [to Poirot] It is an awful shame, do you not think, Monsieur? That we must all wither and die?

EMEdward Masterman

Put a sewer rat in a suit, and he's still a sewer rat. He's just in a suit.

GOGreta Ohlsson

There is a higher justice than the rule of law, monsieur.

Then you let God administer it, not you!

GOGreta Ohlsson

And when He doesn't? When He creates a Hell on Earth for those wronged? When priests who are supposed to act in His name forgive what must never be forgiven? Jesus said, "Let those without sin throw the first stone."

GOGreta Ohlsson

Well, we were without sin, monsieur. I was without sin!

MDMary Debenham

When you've been denied justice, you are incomplete. It feels that God has abandoned you in a stark place. I asked God (I think we all did) what we should do. And he said, "Do what is right". And I thought if I did, it would make me complete again.

And are you?

MDMary Debenham

...But I did what was right.

CMChristopher Mabbutt

The irony is, Lieutenant, it's in our country's interests to have peace with Germany, to stop the Communists creeping ever westward. We are patriots who pass information to Hitler because if Chamberlain's policy of appeasement doesn't hold and someone like Churchill gets his hands on power, we will be dragged into a war a hundred times worse than the last one. And in that scenario, the quicker Germany knocks out a weak liberal England, the better for all Europe.

Or what would remain of Europe under the Nazis. Monsieur, you have not seen your country overrun by foreign tyranny. I have. And I tell you, monsieur, that I value the "weak liberal England," as you call it, as a country well worth the fighting for.

PMiss Pebmarsh

But you won't do the fighting, will you, monsieur? It will be the young boys again. And if I can save one life by keeping this country weak so it cannot engage in war with Germany, then I will be proud of what I've done.

CRColin Race

Fiona Hanbury had a life.

CMChristopher Mabbutt

I think people like that are called collateral, Lieutenant. They die for a greater good.

VBValerie Bland

[after Poirot exposes her and her accomplices] Kathy said she knew how to make it work, that there was a young tart at the bureau who no one would miss, who would deserve it. She said she'd set her up, it would be all right. They said there would be no reason for the body to be at the blind woman's house with Sheila Webb and it would just confuse the police. It would be confusion upon confusion, complication upon complication. Joe worked so hard all his life for nothing, and the money was so huge. It, it was so huge! But they made me do it. They, they made me put the knife into Sheila Webb's bag at the inquest. They made me press Merlina to come and lie, to falsify the marriage and falsely identify the body. And, and, and then, when she was scared, to, to come to the seafront so they could kill her! It was only going to be the one death. It was only going to be the one!

Give me one moment of your time. My friend Margaret Ravenscroft died a horrible death. I have to find out why. What should I do?

Bien sûr. Madame, what have you told to me? A husband and wife who never argue, who live in complete harmony. Whoever has heard of such a thing?! There was a motive. There is always a motive. And if the police, they could not find this motive at the time, then this motive, it is ... How do you say? It is unorthodox. The answer, madame, lies in the past. You must delve into the past. You say they lived near to Eastbourne? You have acquaintance there? Then go! Allez-y! Allez-y! Drive about, ask the questions. Be the person with a nose.

Oh, I see. Someone will remember something.

Always someone remembers something.

You mean elephants. [off Poirot's confused look] Sorry. I was thinking of elephants at that dinner last night.

With hesitation, I ask why?

Because the meringue got stuck in my teeth.

I see. Well, the pathway of logic, it is there somewhere, but...

Meringue, dentures. Ivory, elephants. Must find the elephants. Elephants can remember.

CDClaude Darrell

I just had to wind you up like a clockwork toy and off you went. You and your little newspaper. Spreading fear, confusion, hate. An emotional soup, pulsing. You really have been a most useful ally.

LTLawrence Tysoe

But my informer? The letters? The playing cards?

All sent from Monsieur Darrell.

So the fella who turned up with a knife in his back?

In reality a tramp dressed in a theatrical costume, the clues of the playing cards planted upon him.

CDClaude Darrell

Reality, Monsieur Poirot? Who is to say where fantasy ends and reality begins?

Well, let us speak of beginnings, monsieur! Act One of a drama so very strange. Albert Whalley. A boy, an orphan, poor and unloved, who was sent away to live with his uncle who was cold and aloof.

CDClaude Darrell

Albert Whalley is a name I haven't used in years.

Non, but an uncle who disapproved of your fantasies and your desire to tread the boards.

CDClaude Darrell

All those years of listening to that old fool. Going on about his precious Chinaman, Li Chang Yen. I began to see possibilities.

Oui. But then you had the task most difficult, non? To worm your way into the confidences of the members of the Peace Party.

CDClaude Darrell

Child's play. I forged my references and quietly took up my position as Dr Quentin. Paynter's condition, it's not really very difficult to research. I'm an actor, Monsieur Poirot, and a bloody good one.

Oh, yes, indeed, monsieur, your ability to blend in, to pass yourself off in all manner of disguises, which has proven so useful. You have the genius of the character actor. Savaranoff was killed to implicate Abe Ryland. Your uncle died to throw suspicion onto Li Chang Yen. And Stephen Paynter, who was innocent, murdered to incriminate Madame Olivier.

CDClaude Darrell

He was a weak fool. His weakness was his conscience. I merely persuaded him that it wasn't decent for them to continue their silly love affair.

That's all it was, then? Diana Paynter overheard him ending the affair? It had nothing to do with the Big Four?

Indeed so, mon ami.

LTLawrence Tysoe

But why? In God's name, what the hell was it all for?

FMFlossie Monro

For me. Wasn't it, Mr. Poirot?

Oui, mademoiselle. For the woman who spurned him all those years ago. For therein lies your tragedy, Monsieur Darrell. The very gift that could have turned you into the actor supreme makes you forgettable. The man who blends in. The man whose name nobody ever can quite remember. The man who disappears. Albert Whalley, Claud Darrell, Dr Quentin, Number Four. Whatever you choose to call yourself, monsieur, you adore the flourish that is theatrical.

CDClaude Darrell

You've got a nerve.

Comment?

CDClaude Darrell

All this. You'd already worked out where I was. You could have sent the police to arrest me at any time. But instead you wanted your grand finale, show everyone just how clever you've been. Oh, we're more alike than you think, Poirot.

I'm well aware you think me irrational.

Madame, one calls things by different names, hein? It may indeed be that you have seen something, it may indeed be that you have heard something. And it may be, if I may so put it, that you do not know what it is that you know. You are aware only of the result. And that, madame, it is your intuition.

HLDr. Heinrich Lutz

May I ask you something? Why do you insist on referring to yourself in the third person? It is intensely irritating!

Because, Dr. Lutz, it helps Poirot achieve a healthy distance from his genius.

ACAlice Cunningham

The Labours of Hercules. That is how you unconsciously conceive your career. You are the modern incarnation of Hercules.

How resourceful of me.

ACAlice Cunningham

Dr. Lutz should name a condition after you. The Hercules complex. The compulsion to conquer all obstacles, however forbidding. It is why you are driven to chase Marrascaud. You simply have to.

CVCountess Vera Rossakoff

Hercule, spare my daughter. Spare her, as years ago you spared me. Please.

No, Countess. Poirot, he is not your love. He is Poirot.

CVCountess Vera Rossakoff

Then I shall accompany my daughter. A love like ours could have burnt down a city. Such a waste.

There is always still so much more to do. But the clock, it ticks, no? Such is the will of God.

CTColonel Toby Luttrell

We'll all miss you, old chap. But you won't be forgotten.

Good God, Poirot, you look awful! I'll go call an ambulance!

No, Hastings. What good would that do? What will be, will be. [after a brief silence] Hastings, do you think God will forgive me?

Why, of course, God will forgive you. You are a good man, Poirot. The best man the world has ever known.

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