The Labours of Hercules

Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.

My remarks are, as always, apt, sound, and to the point. (Hercule Poirot)

These blondes, sir, they're responsible for a lot of trouble.

Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence—it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute!

It is fundamentals that matter --- not the trappings. (Alice Cunningham)

Got on! Got on! It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view altogether. The Classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success.

Take this Hercules -this hero! Hero, indeed! What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies!

I gather," he added, "that you've never had much time to study the classics?" "That is so." "Pity. Pity. You've missed a lot. Everyone should be made to study the classics, if I had my way." Poirot shrugged his shoulders. "Eh bien, I have got on very well without them." "Got on! Got on? It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view all together. The classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success, like a modern correspondence course! It's not a man's working hours that are important--it's his leisure hours. That's the mistake we all make. Take yourself now, you're getting on, you'll be wanting to get out of things, to take things easy--what are you going to do then with your leisure hours?

It will prove, I fear, too Herculean a task for us.

Poirot, watching him, felt suddenly a doubt--an uncomfortable twinge. Was there, here, something that he had missed? Some richness of the spirit? Sadness crept over him. Yes, he should have become acquainted with the classics. Long ago. Now, alas, it was too late....

It's really very unpleasant. And not being able to say anything to answer back makes it rankle more, if you know what I mean.

My dear Mr. Schwartz, you appeared in the nick of time. It might have been a drama on the stage! I am very much in your debt.

It is the sex angle that sells stories, that makes news. give people scandal allied to sex and it appeals far more than any mere political chicanery or fraud. (Hercule Poirot)

But seriously Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to--" his voice sank to an appreciative purr--"an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long low room lined with books--must be a long room--not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port--and a book open in your hand. Time rolls back as you read.

Can one build an honest house on dishonest foundation? I do not know. But I do know that I want to try. (Edward Ferrier)

Take this Hercules - this hero! hero, indeed! What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies! Poirot was reminded of one Adolfe Durand, a butcher who had been tried at Lyon in 1895 - a creature of oxlike strength who had killed several children. The defence had been epilepsy - from which he undoubtedly suffered - though whether grand mal or petit mal had been an argument of several days' discussion. This ancient Hercules probably suffered from grand mal. No, Poirot shook his head, if that was the Greeks' idea of a hero, then meassured by modern standards, it certainly would not do. The whole classical pattern shocked him. These gods and goddesses - they seemed to have as many different aliases as a modern criminal. indeed they seemed to be definitely criminal types, Drink, debauchery, incest, rape, homicide and chicanery - enought to keep a fuge d'Instruction constantly busy. No decent family life, No order, no method. even in their crimes, no order or method!

The Agatha Christie Collection Christie Crime Classics The Man in the Brown Suit The Secret of Chimneys The Seven Dials Mystery The Mysterious Mr Quin The Sittaford

You might start a new religion yourself, with the creed: 'There is no one so clever as Hercule Poirot, Amen, D. C. Repeat ad lib.'!

starting off from Cranchester. All later events seem to have been wiped