Quotes About Investigation

There are more important things than finding the murderer. And justice is a fine word, but it is sometimes difficult to say exactly what one means by it. In my opinion, the important thing is to clear the innocent. - Hercule Poirot

As you yourself have said, what other explanation can there be?' Poirot stared straight ahead of him. 'That is what I ask myself,' he said. 'That is what I never cease to ask myself.

Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.

Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid, spinsterish face and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it all as in the day's work....where crime is concerned, she's the goods.

The dog hunts rabbits. Hercule Poirot hunts murderers.

My friend, in working upon a case, one does not take into account only the things that are "mentioned". There is no reason to mention many things which may be important. Equally, there is often an excellent reason for not mentioning them.

In fact-Dr. Sheppard!

One cannot be interested in crime without being interested in psychology. It is not the mere act of killing, it is what lies behind it that appeals to the expert.

Murder, I have often noticed, is a great matchmaker.

Why didn't they ask the Evans?

Hercule Poirot's methods are his own. Order and method, and 'the little gray cells'.

I have always disapproved of murder.

What one does not tell to Papa Poirot he finds out.

And that very same evening - that very same evening - Lord Edgware dies. Good title that, by the way. Lord Edgware Dies. Look well on a book stall.

In fact the marriage has been arranged by heaven and Hercule Poirot. All I have to do is to compound a felony.

Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.

What are you doing, Poirot?" "I dissect rucksacks. It is very interesting.

So you think that the coco- mark well what I say, Hastings, the coco- contained strychnine?" "Of course! That salt on the tray, what else could it have been?" "It might have been salt." replied Poirot placidly.

Hercule Poirot addressed himself to the task of keeping his moustaches out of the soup.

The motto of the mongoose family, so Mr Kipling tells us, is: 'Go and find out.' If Caroline ever adopts a crest, I should certainly suggest a mongoose rampant. One might omit the first part of the motto. Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home.

Miss Howard: Like a good detective story myself. Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Everyone dumbfounded. Real crime - you'd know at once.

I don't want to write about it at all. I want, you see, to think about it as little as possible. Hercule Poirot was dead - and with him died a good part of Arthur Hastings.

Hercule Poirot spread out his hands in his most foreign manner.

What does one say to a woman who has just killed her husband?