How convenient if you could ring up Harrods and say ‘Please send along two good murderers, will you?’ - Agatha Christie

There is no telling what a human character is. Until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way — - whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.

It is always a shock to meet again someone whom you have not seen for a long time but who has been very much present in your mind during that period.

But how much are the delicate convolutions of the brain influenced by the digestive apparatus? When the mal de mere seizes me I, Hercule Poirot, am a creature with no grey cells, no order, no method — a mere member of the human race somewhere below average intelligence!