ABC Murders - Agatha Christie [38]
“Who it is?”
“No, Hastings, I shall not know his name and address! I shall know what kind of a man he is….”
“And then?…”
“Et alors, je vais à la pêche.”
As I looked rather bewildered, he went on:
“You comprehend, Hastings, an expert fisherman knows exactly what flies to offer to what fish. I shall offer the right kind of fly.”
“And then?”
“And then? And then? You are as bad as the superior Crome with his eternal ‘Oh, yes?’ Eh bien, and then he will take the bait and the hook and we will reel in the line….”
“In the meantime people are dying right and left.”
“Three people. And there are, what is it—about 120—road deaths every week?”
“That is entirely different.”
“It is probably exactly the same to those who die. For the others, the relations, the friends—yes, there is a difference, but one thing at least rejoices me in this case.”
“By all means let us hear anything in the nature of rejoicing.”
“Inutile to be so sarcastic. It rejoices me that there is here no shadow of guilt to distress the innocent.”
“Isn’t this worse?”
“No, no, a thousand times no! There is nothing so terrible as to live in an atmosphere of suspicion—to see eyes watching you and the love in them changing to fear—nothing so terrible as to suspect those near and dear to you—It is poisonous—a miasma. No, the poisoning of life for the innocent, that, at least, we cannot lay at A B C’s door.”
“You’ll soon be making excuses for the man!” I said bitterly.
“Why not? He may believe himself fully justified. We may, perhaps, end by having sympathy with his point of view.”
“Really, Poirot!”
“Alas! I have shocked you. First my inertia—and then my views.”
I shook my head without replying.
“All the same,” said Poirot after a minute or two. “I have one project that will please you—since it is active and not passive. Also, it will entail a lot of conversation and practically no thought.”
I did not quite like his tone.
“What is it?” I asked cautiously.
“The extraction from the friends, relations and servants of the victims of all they know.”
“Do you suspect them of keeping things back, then?”
“Not intentionally. But telling everything you know always implies selection. If I were to say to you, recount me your day yesterday, you would perhaps reply: ‘I rose at nine, I breakfasted at half past, I had eggs and bacon and coffee, I went to my club, etc.’ You would not include: ‘I tore my nail and had to cut it. I rang for shaving water. I spilt a little coffee on the tablecloth. I brushed my hat and put it on.’ One cannot tell everything. Therefore one selects. At the time of a murder people select what they think is important. But quite frequently they think wrong!”
“And how is one to get at the right things?”
“Simply, as I said just now, by conversation. By talking! By discussing a certain happening, or a certain person, or a certain day, over and over again, extra details are bound to arise.”
“What kind of details?”
“Naturally that I do not know or I should not want to find out. But enough time has passed now for ordinary things to reassume their value. It is against all mathematical laws that in three cases of murder there is no single fact nor sentence with a bearing on the case. Some trivial happening, some trivial remark there must be which would be a pointer! It is looking for the needle in the haystack, I grant—but in the haystack there is a needle—of that I am convinced!”
It seemed to me extremely vague and hazy.
“You do not see it? Your wits are not so sharp as those of a mere servant girl.”
He tossed me over a letter. It was neatly written in a sloping board-school hand.
“Dear Sir,—I hope you will forgive the liberty I take in writing to you. I have been thinking a lot since these awful two murders like poor auntie’s. It seems as though we’re all in the same boat, as it were. I saw the young lady’s picture in the paper,