Agatha Christie's Poirot

Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989–2013) is a British television drama airing on ITV that stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. In the United States, it airs as Poirot.

Season 1

The Adventure of the Clapham Cook [1.1]

Hastings: [Reading headlines from the newspaper] "Belgravian Overseas Bank Clerk Absconds With Fortune".

Poirot: How much is this fortune?

Hastings: Er... 90,000 pounds.

Poirot: No.

Hastings: It's a king's ransom, Poirot!

Poirot: When it is used to ransom a king, it becomes interesting to Poirot.

Poirot: Unless the affair is one of national importance, I touch it not.

Mrs. Todd: Well, let me tell you, Mr. High-and-Mighty Poirot, a good cook is a good cook. And when you lose one, it's as much to you as pearls are to some fine lady.

Poirot: [chuckles] ...Madame, you are in the right, and I am in the wrong.

Hastings: There doesn't seem to be any crime at all as far as I can see.

Poirot: No, it is a curious case. Full of contradictory features. I am interested. Yes, I am distinctly interested.

Poirot: Do they think they can get rid of Hercule Poirot like that? No! No-no-no-no-no-no! 36 times NO!!

Poirot: And you, Hastings, do not you run away with such celerity. I have work for you too.

Hastings: Oh! Er... As a matter of fact, I was thinking of popping down to Sandown this afternoon... There's a horse running a pal of mine owns a leg of.

Poirot: When he owns four legs, I pop with you. But now it's time for work, yes?

Mr. Cameron: Newspapers love scandals about banks.

Poirot: That is human nature, Mr. Cameron. But it is comforting for us mere mortals to know that banks too have their difficulties.

Japp: Someone was trying to tell me you were going into the missing domestics business. "No, no," I said. "Not Poirot", I said. "Hard times or not, he wouldn't fall that far".

[As they trek through the muddy hillside to a cottage]

Hastings: Look at that view!

Poirot: Yes, well, views are very nice, Hastings. But they should be painted for us so that we can study them in the warmth and comfort of our own homes. That is why we pay the artist for exposing himself to these conditions on our behalf.

Hastings: What do you mean conditions? It's a wonderful day. Just fill your lungs with that air.

Poirot: No, my poor friend. This sort of air is intended for birds and little furry things. The lungs of Hercule Poirot demands something more substantial - the good air of the town!

Constable: Sarge, there's some French gent at the door.

Poirot: No-no-no-no, I am not some French gent. I am some Belgian gent.

Porter: [Annoyed by Hastings] I'm talking to the engineer, not the oil rag!

Poirot: [About the guinea he earned] It is to me, Hastings, a little reminder never to despise the trivial or the undignified. A disappearing domestic at one end, a cold-blooded murder at the other.

Murder in the Mews [1.2]

[At Guy Fawkes Night]

Hastings: Where is Mrs. Japp tonight then?

Japp: She can't abide fireworks.

Poirot: Ah, the noise disturbs the delicate sensibilities of many ladies.

Japp: Maybe, maybe. I think it's more that she doesn't like to see people enjoying themselves.

Hastings: Tell you what though, what a good night for a murder, eh? I mean, if somebody wanted to kill anybody, nobody would know if it was a gunshot or a firework.

Poirot: But not so good, my friend, if your chosen method is strangulation.

Hastings: No. That's true, no.

Japp: Or poisoning, come to that.

Lemon: You won't forget your dental appointment at eleven, will you, Mr. Poirot?

Poirot: Hercule Poirot does not need to go to the dentist, Miss Lemon.

Lemon: You've put it off once already.

Poirot: My teeth are perfection. It is sacrilege to tamper with them.

Japp: [About Charles Laverton West, MP] What a stuffed fish. No, not a stuffed fish. A boiled owl.

Poirot: As you say, Japp. More concerned about the newspapers than his fiancée being dead.

Japp: The Plenderleith girl was quite right about him. Mind you, he's a good looking chap. Might go down well with some women.

Poirot: Perhaps. But it would not do, I think, for them to have a sense of humour.

[About complaint letters to Poirot's Chinese laundry service]

Lemon: When the boy brings your laundry back, he brings the letters back too for me to explain to him.

Poirot: And you do?

Lemon: No.

Poirot: Why not?

Lemon: I don't speak Chinese.

Poirot: So what do you say to him?

Lemon: Well, I say: "Him collar no very good starchy". I show him the collars and say it.

Poirot: Hastings, my friend, you spent some years in China, did you not?

Hastings: Absolutely. Fine fellows, fine fellows.

Poirot: Did you ever have any trouble with your laundry?

Hastings: Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.

Poirot: And what did you say to them?

Hastings: Well, I said: "Him collar no very good starchy".

Lemon: That's where I got it from, sir. I asked the Captain knowing he'd been in the East.

Poirot: But Hastings, my collars, they do not get any better.

Hastings: No. Neither did mine, now that I come to think about it. Why don't you get yourself some turn-down collars? They're much more the thing, you know.

Poirot: The "thing", Hastings? You think Poirot concerns himself with mere "thing"ness? The turn-down collar is the first symptom of decay of the grey cells!

Japp: That's something in your line, Poirot. You like chasing about after the kind of triviality that leads nowhere.

Poirot: The name of Poirot is feared on golf courses all over the continent.

Golfer: You don't happen to have a handicap certificate on you, do you, sir?

Poirot: No, no, I'm fine.

The Adventure of Johnny Waverly [1.3]

Hercule Poirot: It is nearly 11:00. It is important that I have my tisane punctually.

Felicity Lemon: Of course, Mr. Poirot. It's nearly complete, you see. My system. Every one of your cases, classified and cross-referenced five different ways.

Hercule Poirot: Five?

Felicity Lemon: Oh, yes. In this cabinet, names of witnesses. In this, name of perpetrator, if known, Victim's trade or profession, type of case. Abduction, addiction, adultery, see also under "marriage," bigamy, see also under "marriage," bombs.

Hercule Poirot: See also under "marriage"?

Hercule Poirot: Monsieur Waverly felt that Scotland Yard was not convinced about the seriousness of the case.

James Japp: So he came to you, eh, Mr. Poirot?

Hercule Poirot: Monsieur Waverly is a man of fine judgment and intelligence. Perhaps this is a serious matter.

James Japp: You think so, eh?

Hercule Poirot: I think better the safeness than the sorrow, Chief Inspector.

James Japp: Very true, Mr. Poirot, very true, if you've got unlimited manpower. We see a hundred of these every day, Mr. Waverly. If we was to go chasing about after every one...

Hercule Poirot: A hundred, Chief Inspector?

James Japp: Well, perhaps not a hundred. Mustn't be too literal, Mr. Poirot.

Hercule Poirot: Ah. Every day?

James Japp: Every week, anyway. This is some disaffected employee, some envious neighbor.

Marcus Waverly: We're wasting our time, Mr. Poirot.

James Japp: No call to take umbrage, Mr. Waverly.

Marcus Waverly: I'm a simple country squire. I pay my taxes, and I'm used to something in return. Now I know better.

James Japp: There are a lot of taxpayers, Mr. Waverly. There are even quite a lot of country squires. If we was to...

Marcus Waverly: You're not only uncooperative, sir. You're damned offensive.

James Japp: As you so rightly point out, you are paying me to exercise my judgment and discretion as to what is a serious threat to public order and what is not, and this is not.

Marcus Waverly: Your superior shall hear of this.

James Japp: I hope he enjoys it as much as I have.

Hercule Poirot: Prevention of crime is not what policemen are best at. They will need to have one constable for every citizen and go everywhere with him. [gesturing to his head] But fortunately for the human race, most of us have our own little policeman up here.

Arthur Hastings: Why won't you let me drive you?

Hercule Poirot: Hastings, the train has one advantage over the car. It does not often run out of coal.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds [1.4]

Poirot: I have a dinner engagement with my dentist.

Hastings: Your dentist? That's positively morbid.

Lemon: But you're always trying to avoid him!

Poirot: Not at all. Off duty he's quite charming. Besides, he likes to see the end product at work.

The Third Floor Flat [1.5]

Lemon: It's only been three weeks since your last case.

Poirot: Three weeks is an eternity to a brain like mine. Without the constant stimulation, my little grey cells will starve and die.

Hastings: [The car]'s been running like a bird since I've fitted the new gaskets.

Poirot: Birds do not run, Hastings. When you were little, you should have paid more attention to your lessons in biology.

Hastings: You're really in a bad way, aren't you?

Poirot: Well, my friend, as one approaches the end, one begins to see life as it truly is.

Poirot: You know, Mademoiselle Patricia, I once loved a very young beautiful English girl who resembled you greatly. But, alas, she could not cook. And the relationship withered.

Hastings: [Grieving over his now totaled car] The front axle's sheared right through.

Poirot: Oh, mon pauvre Hastings. [With sudden enthusiasm] But you must not brood! You must occupy yourself, eh? Go and telephone the Chief Inspector Japp and tell him we have caught his fish.

Lemon: I've got your Friar's Balsam for you.

Poirot: My what?

Lemon: Your inhalant for your cold.

Poirot: Poirot does not have colds, Miss Lemon. It is well-known that Poirot scorns but the greatest of afflictions.

Lemon: But yesterday you-

Poirot: Miss Lemon, yesterday was yesterday. My tisane, if you please.

Triangle at Rhodes [1.6]

Pamela Lyall: [observing some Blackshirts] Look at them. Troublemakers always looking for a fight.

Hercule Poirot: Perhaps. But for me, the English is more cold-blooded. His violence is more calculated.

Pamela Lyall: [Noticing what looks like the beginning of an extramarital affair] Don't you think that human beings tend to reproduce certain patterns, Mr. Poirot? [Draws a triangle] Stereotype patterns?

Poirot: Précisément, madamoiselle.

Poirot: Nature gives to the quarry of the viper a chance to identify his attacker. If every killer was as clearly marked, I would be without a job.

Poirot: The mullet was excellent.

Major Barnes: Glad you enjoyed it.

Poirot: Oh, yes. Where did you buy it?

Major Barnes: What do you mean? I had to go out a long way for that!

Poirot: No-no-no-no, Major. Your interests are closer to the shore.

Major Barnes: [Reluctantly] You're very sharp-eyed, Mr. Poirot.

Poirot: The sharp eyes are important in both our professions, Major.

Poirot: I feared such an outcome.

Pamela: Then why didn't you do something?

Poirot: Do what? What is there to do before the event? Tell the police someone has murder in their heart?

Pamela: There are so many streets. Where do we begin?

Poirot: Madamoiselle, we must now appear the mad English who go out in the midday sun. We must trust in the old town to give up her secrets.

Inspector: You crazy English! If you do not stop trying to kill each other, I shall put you all under arrest!

Problem at Sea [1.7]

Mrs. Clapperton: "You're so alive, Adeline," they say to me. But really, Monsieur Poirot, what would one be, if one wasn't alive?

Poirot: Dead, madam.

General Forbes: You should get a bit of exercise, Ms. Henderson. Does you no good sitting around thinking, you know.

Ellie Henderson: No, I know. Unfortunately, my religion forbids it at this time of year.

Forbes: Oh... [Realises what she means] Oh!

Mrs. Clapperton: What was your name again?

Mrs. Tolliver: Tolliver. Mrs. Tolliver.

Mr. Tolliver: And I'm her husband, Mr. Tolliver.

Mrs. Clapperton: [Sarcastically] What a clever arrangement.

Kitty Mooney: [To Colonel Clapperton] You're coming with us. It's a kidnapping!

Pamela Cregan: A Clapperton-napping! Turn about deck!

Mrs. Clapperton: Don't be foolish, John. You'll catch a chill.

Kitty: Not with us, he won't. We're hot stuff.

Poirot: Many odious women have devoted husbands. It is an enigma of nature.

Poirot: Oh Hastings, Hastings.

Hastings: What?

Poirot: Whatever is the use of me introducing you to nice young ladies if all you do is talk about the shooting of the clay pigeons.

Hastings: But they like it. You heard what Ms. Henderson said. She'd love to talk about it tomorrow.

Poirot: [Shaking head] Oh Hastings, Hastings, Hastings.

Colonel Clapperton: [Why he won't play bridge] You see, any man who can deal his partner and adversaries any hand he pleases had better stand aloof from a friendly game of cards.

Kitty: We're trying to get [Colonel Clapperton] to ourselves for the day.

Pamela: Lure him into the souq.

Kitty: Cajole him into the kasbah.

Ellie: Was Colonel Clapperton alone when he came ashore?

Poirot: Was he alone? Let me think... Maybe someone was with him.

Ellie: Ms. Mooney and Ms. Cregan perhaps.

Poirot: Yes, yes, the two little girls. Yes.

Ellie: They're not children, Monsieur Poirot. Nor am I.

Bates: I've carried out my examination of the body, sir.

Captain Fowler: And?

Bates: [checks his notebook] Um, the deceased died from a knife wound to the upper thorax, sir.

Captain: Good God, Bates. We can all see that for ourselves.

Bates: I'm sorry, sir. But I've only got me first aid book, haven't I.

Pamela: Kitty is making such a blessed racket. She blames herself, you see. Well, and me.

Poirot: But how can she blame herself?

Pamela: Well, we did say some pretty dreadful things about her.

Poirot: My dear Mademoiselle Cregan, if everyone on board who had said unpleasant things about Madame Clapperton were to make as much noise as your friend, this vessel would become a danger to shipping.

Ellie Henderson: [after Poirot exposes Colonel Clapperton as the killer] When did you guess it was him?

Hercule Poirot: His self-control was too perfect. No matter how galling was the conduct of his wife, it never seemed to touch him. That either meant that he was so used to it that it no longer stung, or else he knew his bondage would soon be over.

Ellie Henderson: It was a cruel dirty trick you played, Monsieur Poirot.

Hercule Poirot: I do not approve of murder.

The Incredible Theft [1.8]

Arthur Hastings: How would you work out cubic what-you-call-'ems?

Hercule Poirot: Comment?

Arthur Hastings: Cubic thingummies. How do you work them out? I mean, this ceiling's, what, ten feet up, yes? So, do you multiply ten...

Hercule Poirot: Hastings, I am trying to instruct you in the care of patent leather, something that will be of use to you in later life.

Arthur Hastings: Well, so will cubic whatsits. Suppose I had to survey something or something.

Hercule Poirot: You do not deceive me, Hastings. You are having these eccentric thoughts because of this girl of yours, huh? This student of architecture.

Arthur Hastings: Well, we never seem to have anything to talk about. I tried reading a book about Bernini. She's very keen on Bernini. I couldn't make head or tail of it.

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no, no, no, no, Hastings. Women do not wish to talk about Bernini and cubic thingummies. I don't know that she wants to talk about anything.

Arthur Hastings: She's never in when I call 'round to see her. I end up having tea with her mother every day.

Lady Margaret Mayfield: [after interacting with Mrs. Vanderlyn] You see what sort of woman she is.

Hercule Poirot: The sort of woman Mrs. Vanderlyn is does not make a matter of national importance.

Tommy Mayfield: Why do politicians treat everyone else like idiots?

Sir George Carrington: Probably because they voted for us in the first place.

Tommy Mayfield: No need to go into that, Mister Poirot. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no, no, Monsieur Mayfield. Between the husband and the wife, there should be not the sleepy dogs.

James Japp: Must be depressing for you when that sort of things happen, eh, Poirot?

Hercule Poirot: What sort of things?

James Japp: Everything working out for the best. Some married couple ready for a second honeymoon. Orphan children reunited with their parents.

Hercule Poirot: Yes, it is hard. But we must put on it the brave face, eh? And not allow cheerfulness to keep breaking through.

The King of Clubs [1.9]

Hercule Poirot: Films are very boring, Hastings, but the actors who are paid to deceive us? Now they are interesting, eh?

The Dream [1.10]

Poirot: Hastings, to say that Benedict Farley makes pies is like saying that Wagner wrote semiquavers.

Hastings: They're good pies, are they?

Poirot: No, horrible. But there are a great many of them.

Joanna Farley: [seeing Poirot observe her fencing lessons] Hello, Monsieur Poirot. Fancy your chances?

Poirot: No, no, no, no. Thank you very much, mademoiselle, but essentially Hercule Poirot is a man of peace.

Poirot: This is not like the grey cells, Hastings! I have given them every chance. They have been cosseted, I have slept to allow them to do their work, I have eaten fish for breakfast. Result: Nothing!

Poirot: Hastings, there are two reasons why I should never become a millionaire.

Hastings: What are they, Poirot?

Poirot: The first: That I should never make the detestable pork pies, eh? And the second: I am too understanding towards my employees.

Season 2

Peril At End House [2.1]

Hastings: [Looking out the window during a flight] Looks just like a patchwork quilt, doesn't it?

Poirot: [Terrified of heights, his eyes closed] No!

Hastings: Well, it does to me. Does to everybody else.

Poirot: Not to Poirot!

Hastings: I suppose you don't think [those clouds] look like a great mass of cotton wool.

Poirot: No!

Hastings: I don't think you've got any imagination at all, Poirot.

Poirot: That is true, mon ami. But fortunately, you have enough for both of us.

Poirot: Hastings, did you notice the way Mademoiselle Nick [Buckley] flinched as a bee flew past? A bee in the bonnet, a hole in the hat?

Hastings: A bee couldn't make a hole like this.

Poirot: But a bullet could, my friend.

Commander George Challenger: It's not exactly courteous, Lazarus, to ignore us like this, what.

Frederica Rice: Jim is far too good a dancer to be a gentleman, aren't you, darling?

Jim Lazarus: Hope so, Freddie. Awful waste of expensive education otherwise.

Nick Buckley: The first accident was that picture. I should think the painter may have said that when he finished it, don't you?

Poirot: You do know who I am?

Nick: No, I don't.

Poirot: I forget. You are but a child, eh? Alors my friend here, Captain Hastings, he will tell it to you.

Hastings: Well, um... Monsieur Poirot is a detective... [Gets a look from Poirot] Um... er... a great detective.

Poirot: My friend, is that all that you can find to say? Mais dis donc, say then to Mademoiselle that I am the detective unique! Unsurpassed! The greatest that ever lived!

Hastings: There doesn't seem much point now. You've told her yourself.

Poirot: Well, yes, but it is more agreeable to preserve the modesty.

Poirot: These little curious things. I like to see them appear. They point the way.

Poirot: You know, Hastings, you have the most extraordinary effect on me.

Hastings: Really?

Poirot: Yes. You have so strongly the flair in the wrong direction that I am almost tempted to doubt [your conclusions].

Poirot: [Introduces himself] Hercule Poirot.

Charles Vyse: Bwarrot?

Poirot: Poirot. [Mutters to himself] What kind of place is this?

Poirot: [After having to see 5,000 photographs of Australia] The man who invented the camera has a lot to answer for, mon ami.

Poirot: You care for Monsieur Lazarus?

Frederica: He is rich.

Poirot: Oh-la-la, that is a terrible thing to say.

Frederica: Better to say it myself than to have you say it for me.

Poirot: You are very intelligent, madame.

Frederica: You'll be giving me a diploma next!

Poirot: To all of us, mademoiselle, there comes a time when death seems preferable to life. But the grief, it passes.

Commander Challenger: I say, you any farther?

Poirot: Comment?

Challenger: You are going to get to the bottom of this, aren't you?

Poirot: I am the dog who stays on the scent, Commander, and does not leave it.

Hastings: [Chiding him for snooping through some love letters] Poirot, you really can't do that. It's not playing the game.

Poirot: We are not playing the game, Hastings. We're hunting down a murderer.

Japp: Poirot says that 93% of all police work is a waste of time.

Poirot: I do not like these urgent messages, Miss Lemon.

Lemon: I never reply to urgent messages. I know they're going to be unpleasant.

Poirot: It is satisfying, is it not, Chief Inspector, in a case when at last one knows everything?

Japp: I thought you already knew everything, Poirot.

Poirot: Well...

The Veiled Lady [2.2]

Hercule Poirot: You know, Hastings, sometimes I wish that I was not of such a moral disposition.

Arthur Hastings: Really?

Hercule Poirot: Would not Hercule Poirot do better than any criminal? Hercule Poirot would use his grey cells, eh? Hercule Poirot would change his modus operandi for every crime. Scotland Yard would never be able to pin him down.

Lady Millicent Castle-Vaughan: I've heard such wonderful things about you. Perhaps you can do the impossible.

Hercule Poirot: The impossible, it pleases me always.

James Japp: Do you ever think of going to sea, Poirot?

Hercule Poirot: No, no, my friend. This is as close as I like to get.

The Lost Mine [2.3]

Poirot: [Playing Monopoly] I will build a hotel on Fenchurch Street.

Hastings: You can't build a hotel on a railway station.

Poirot: Do not be absurd, Hastings. There are plenty of hotels at railway stations.

Hastings: But it's not in the rules.

Poirot: Well, then, Hastings, the rules are wrong!

Poirot: If you put your head in the mouth of the lion, you cannot complain if one day he bites it off, eh?

Hastings: [Aside to Miss Lemon] Never made a speculative investment in his life.

Poirot: And I still have my head, Hastings.

Poirot: It is a point of principle that I always keep my [bank] balance at four hundred and forty-four pounds, four shillings and four pence.

Lord Pearson: Mr. Poirot, I can't apologize enough.

Poirot: [Thinking he's there about Poirot's missing bank balance] I am very pleased to hear you say so personally.

Lord Pearson: Yes, I realize it's a little late but you see-

Poirot: Not at all, not at all, Lord Pearson. It is better late than never, as you English say. Please do take a seat, eh? And may I offer you a drink?

Lord Pearson: A dry sherry, thank you. You see-

Poirot: Hastings, a little something for you, my friend?

Hastings: Oh, why thank you.

Lord Pearson: This is a matter of such vital concern to us all that I don't think that I or any of the bank's directors will sleep easily in our beds until it's been sorted out.

Poirot: Well, I must admit that I have not seen it in quite that light but,um... yes, I must agree with you. It is certainly most vital.

Lord Pearson: You know about the disappearance of Mr. Wu Ling then?

Poirot: Monsieur Wu Ling? [It dawns on him] Ah... Hastings, be so kind as to pour me a little brandy.

Poirot: Well, Hastings, while the Chief Inspector is frying his important fish, let us see what we can catch, eh?

Poirot: The Americans always put the month before the date, Hastings. They are very backwards people.

The Cornish Mystery [2.4]

Hercule Poirot: Of the digestive organs, the liver is the king. Look after the liver and life will take care of itself.

Dr. Adams: Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, every word of it! Was I or was I not in attendance in this case?

Hercule Poirot: Indeed. All I...

Dr. Adams: Did I or did I not say the first day I went to see Mrs. Pengelley, gastritis? Yes! Did I ever waver from that diagnosis? No, I did not!

Hercule Poirot: But this is undoubtedly...

Dr. Adams: This town is a hotbed of gossip. A lot of scandal-mongering old women get together and invent God knows what.

Hercule Poirot: But the fact remains...

Dr. Adams: They read these scurrilous rags of newspapers, and nothing will suit them better but that someone from their town should be poisoned, too.

Hercule Poirot: But Madame Pengelley...

Dr. Adams: Why should anyone want to poison her?

Hercule Poirot: Dr. Adams, will you please listen to me?

Dr. Adams: Why? I'm telling you.

Hercule Poirot: It was yesterday that Mme. Pengelley came to London in order to consult me. She believed she was being poisoned.

Dr. Adams: Never.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, Hastings, do you hear that? Now I am a liar, hein? Dr. Adams, please, allow me. Madame Pengelley believed that her husband was the poisoner.

Dr. Adams: Rubbish. I know Edward Pengelley. Wouldn't poison his grandmother's dog.

Hercule Poirot: But it is not the dog of Madame Pengelley's grandmother that has been poisoned! Madame Pengelley believed that her husband had fallen in love with his receptionist.

Dr. Adams: Fallen in love?

Hercule Poirot: Yes.

Dr. Adams: Edward Pengelley isn't the sort of man to fall in love. We play golf together. Never been in love in his life. Damn fine dentist, too. I'll be blunt with you, Mr. Poirot. We in Polgarwith don't need you outsiders coming in spreading your tittle-tattle.

Hercule Poirot: All I am trying to tell you, Monsieur le Docteur, is what Madame Pengelley thought.

Dr. Adams: If she thought that, she must have gone mad. She should have come to me. I'd have told her.

Hercule Poirot: And have all her fears ridiculed?

Dr. Adams: Ridiculed? Certainly not. I have an open mind, I hope.

Jacob Radnor: You don't know what these small towns are like.

Hercule Poirot: Most of us are selfish, Monsieur Radnor. Not all of us admit so freely. Yes, I will do what you ask but I tell you frankly you will not succeed in hushing it up.

Jacob Radnor: Why not?

Hercule Poirot:Vox populi, Monsieur Radnor. That is why. The voice of the people.

Arthur Hastings: [after Poirot solves the case] There's Japp. I don't know what you're going to tell him.

Hercule Poirot: Nothing at all, Hastings. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. He will learn soon enough that his open-and-shut cases has the broken hinges.

Policeman: Sir! Sir! The inspector says, "Can you come, please, sir?" The trial's been adjourned.

James Japp: Adjourned? What for?

Policeman: Mr. Radnor's confessed, sir.

James Japp: Confessed?

Policeman: To the murder. He confessed to that French gent. In writing.

The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim [2.5]

Hercule Poirot: It is most obscure, Chief Inspector, which gives me the great hopes of solving it.

James Japp: I'm afraid I can't see it myself.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, but I do not see, mon ami. I shut my eyes and I think. One must always seek the truth from within.

Arthur Hastings: I'd still like to know what the color of Lowen's trousers has got to do with anything.

Hercule Poirot: Surely that is obvious, Hastings. Monsieur Lowen says that he did not pass Monsieur Davenheim in the lane, oui? Now, is he lying, Hastings, or did he in fact kill Monsieur Davenheim? A messy scuffle in the country road, a disposal of a body in a muddy field, and still he manages to turn up at the house minutes later so immaculately dressed.

Arthur Hastings: Ah. Seemed rather trivial.

Hercule Poirot: No, Hastings. Nothing is trivial in the matter of murder. I commend also to your attention the fact that before he leaves a room, Monsieur Davenheim puts onto the gramophone a record of the "1812 Overture."

Arthur Hastings: Well, that was highly significant, too, was it?

Hercule Poirot: Well, we may as yet be on the wrong track, but at least it is suggestive.

Arthur Hastings: Track! That was it! Gerald Lowen.

Hercule Poirot: Comment?

Arthur Hastings: Gerald Lowen. Races a couple of Bugattis, just beginning to make a name for himself on the circuit. I bet it's the same chap.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, the racing of the cars, hein? Round and around in the circles. Never will I understand the passion for such a pointless pastime.

Arthur Hastings: Well, you've got to experience it, Poirot. The sheer exhilaration of flying around on the seat of your pants.

Hercule Poirot: Yes, well, Hastings, perhaps you should try cleaning them first.

Deliveryman: Morning, sir. Got a parrot for Mr. Poor-rot.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, no, no, no, no. "Poirot." It is pronounced "Poirot."

Deliveryman: I beg your pardon, Governor. I've got a Poirot for Mr. Poor-rot.

Arthur Hastings: It's a wonder Japp didn't lock me up for breaking and entering.

Hercule Poirot: But, Hastings, you performed magnificently.

Arthur Hastings: I don't see what it proves, except that you need a strong hand to get that thing open. Lowen isn't exactly a weakling.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, our old friend Monsieur Lowen, hein? He has suffered so badly at the hands of Monsieur Davenheim that he vows to exact his revenge on the demon banker. So, first, he kills his adversary, then he turns up at the house in order to ransack the safe and make off with the family jewels, hein?

Arthur Hastings: It's the only explanation that fits.

Hercule Poirot: Like the round hole into the square peg.

Arthur Hastings: You know, Poirot, I sometimes wonder if you don't set me these little tasks just to find out how much embarrassment I can take in any one day.

Hercule Poirot: The facts, Hastings. This is of critical importance.

Arthur Hastings: Charlotte and Mathew Davenheim have occupied separate bedrooms since the spring.

Hercule Poirot: Ah. And it is now the middle of October. Bon. And the bathroom cabinet?

Arthur Hastings: You sure want to hear all this?

Hercule Poirot: Hastings, do you think I play the games?

Arthur Hastings: Two toothbrushes, one hairbrush, one pot of skin cream, one bottle of liver pills, one tube of toothpaste, one shaving brush, one packet of razor blades, one bottle of sleeping pills, one nasal spray, one bottle of eye drops...

Hercule Poirot: Thank you, Hastings. I have heard enough.

Arthur Hastings: There's another two pages.

Hercule Poirot: The evidence, it is complete. Now, Hastings, Miss Lemon, I trust you have no monies deposited in the bank of Davenheim and Selmon?

Felicity Lemon: None.

Arthur Hastings: No? Nor me. Why?

Hercule Poirot: Because I should advise you to withdraw it all, mon ami, before it is too late.

Felicity Lemon: You think there's trouble looming?

Hercule Poirot: I expect a big crash within the next few days, Miss Lemon. Perhaps sooner, hein? So, if you please, a note to the Chief Inspector Japp. Advise you to withdraw any monies deposited with the firm in question. Ah, still he will not comprehend.

Arthur Hastings: I'm not sure I comprehend.

Hercule Poirot: Hastings, as I told you at the start, once all the facts were placed before me, the solution, it becomes inevitable.

Double Sin [2.6]

Arthur Hastings: I'm worried about Poirot, Ms. Lemon. He's talking about retirement.

Felicity Lemon: That's because he hasn't had an interesting case for five minutes. That, and the fact that someone said he was middle-aged.

Arthur Hastings: Well, he's always been middle-aged. Have you seen that photograph of him in his christening? He looked as though he was about to address a board meeting.

James Japp: The professional private detective, ladies and gentlemen, is not the glamorous figure of fiction. He is a man who, failing in more worthy walks of life and being of meddlesome and troublemaking disposition, finally comes to rest in a dingy office over the chip shop, where he plies for hire in the sordid world of petty crime and divorce. Except, I have to say, for one. I have been fortunate in my career, in that many, in fact most of my cases have been shared with the most extraordinary of private detectives and, if I may borrow a word from his own native tongue, that doyen of the Belgian police force, Monsieur Hercule Poirot. I think I may say without fear of contradiction that Hercule Poirot has one of the most original minds of the 20th century. Intelligent, brave, sensitive, devastatingly quick, Hercule Poirot stands head and shoulders above any other detective of my considerable experience.

The Adventure of the Cheap Flat [2.7]

FBI Agent Burt: Japp, I hope you're not so short of manpower you're hiring a shamus. What are they good for, chasing lost dogs? This is a matter of international security we're dealing with here.

Japp: I have no intention of hiring anyone, Burt. And if you must know, Mr. Poirot here has an outstanding reputation.

Burt: Oh! A gumshoe of distinction. And I suppose Al Capone's running for president.

Poirot: Sometimes a lost dog can be found in a place so conspicuous it is the last to be considered.

Poirot: [About the Robinsons] Did they strike you as being the gullible young couple, Hastings?

Hastings: No, they didn't.

Poirot: So we assume they possess a special quality the others were lacking, no?

Hastings: They're just an ordinary couple.

Poirot: Voila! There lies the intrigue.

Lemon: Anyone who claims to have been stag-hunting in the Bois de Boulogne, Mister Poirot, has been seriously misinformed about life on the Continent.

The Kidnapped Prime Minister [2.8]

Sir Bernard Dodge: Seems I may owe you an apology, M. Poirot.

Hercule Poirot: No, no, Sir Bernard. You were cleverly misled.

Sir Bernard Dodge: How did you get onto it?

Hercule Poirot: Whenever the occasion arises, Sir Bernard, to look into someone's address book, always first look under the letter "X" because that is where the secrets are kept. In the address book of Monsieur Egan which I found under his pillow, under the letter "X," there was only one number. No name. Just "X." It was a Mayfair number, which I thought strange. But when I pretended to use the telephone of Commander Daniels, I noticed that his number was the same as that in the address book. An interesting connection, n'est-ce pas?

The Adventure of the Western Star [2.9]

Hercule Poirot: I have worked hard, Hastings, to prepare for you the delicious dinner. I have searched the shops for the exotic herbs. I have argued with the butcher, who is a fool. I have beaten your scallops with a little mallet until my arm, it aches. And you sit there shoveling food in your mouth and writing in your little book.

Arthur Hastings: Oh, I'm sorry. You're always rotting at me about order and method, so I've started to keep this notebook. I've got two columns. The first is to write down all the things I don't understand. Then the second is to write down the explanation.

Hercule Poirot: What is it that you write now?

Arthur Hastings: Well, the first thing is, if Lady Yardly's got the real diamond now and the other one was imitation, who's got the other eye of the Chinese god?

Hercule Poirot: Hastings, there was no Chinese god. There was no connection with China whatsoever. Now, close your little book and eat your dinner.

Season 3

The Mysterious Affair at Styles [3.1]

How Does Your Garden Grow? [3.2]

The Million Dollar Bond Robbery [3.3]

The Plymouth Express [3.4]

Wasps' Nest [3.5]

The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor [3.6]

The Double Clue [3.7]

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest [3.8]

Arthur Hastings: I never knew you were so keen on opera, Poirot.

Hercule Poirot: Generally, mon ami, I am not, but the Rigoletto. The father who is jealous. His daughter, she is dishonored, so he plans the murder parfait, but he has failed to understand the psychology. The result, catastrophe. That is what interests me.

Arthur Hastings: Well, it does have a couple of good tunes, I suppose.

The Theft of the Royal Ruby [3.9]

The Affair at the Victory Ball [3.10]

The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge [3.11]

Season 4

The ABC Murders [4.1]

Superintendent Carter: There's not the least clue who the victim may be.

Hercule Poirot: It is possible that the surname of the intended victim will begin with the letter B.

Superintendent Carter: That would be something.

Hercule Poirot: I suggest it as a possibility, no more. It came to my mind when I read the signature "A.B.C." on the first letter and again when I heard the name of the unfortunate woman in Andover.

Arthur Hastings: You mean, first a Mrs. Ascher in Andover, then someone beginning with B in Bexhill?

Hercule Poirot: Oui.

James Japp: Well, that's possible, I suppose. I mean, we are dealing with a madman.

Arthur Hastings: But so far he hasn't given us any clue as to his motive.

James Japp: Does a madman have any motive?

Inspector Glen: Perhaps he's gonna murder someone in every town of the alphabet all the way from Andover to, uh...

Hercule Poirot: Zennor. [off Superintendent Carter's baffled look] I've thought a lot about it, you see.

Death in the Clouds [4.2]

Norman Gale: This is all very ingenious, but I'm afraid Monsieur Poirot doesn't really mean it. He keeps deliberately changing his story. First, poor Jane killed Giselle. And now her daughter did.

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no, Monsieur Gale, the daughter did not kill the mother. The maid of Lady Horbury, she left the first-class cabin at the start of the flight, and we know that Madame Giselle did not die until shortly before we landed.

Norman Gale: Then how did she die?

Hercule Poirot: You will recall, Monsieur Gale, that I asked you to disguise yourself as a reporter to go to see Lady Horbury.

Lady Horbury: What, he was...

Hercule Poirot: I apologize for the deceit, madame. But you know, at first, the disguise of Monsieur Gale, it was hopelessly unconvincing, hein? But why? Why was the disguise of Monsieur Gale so unconvincing? There are two reasons for this. First, to make me believe that it would be impossible for him to impersonate the mysterious American. And secondly, and most important of all, to ensure that I would never learn the truth about how this murder was committed.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe [4.3]

Alastair Blunt: I wish I could make you understand, Monsieur Poirot, about my meeting with Rebecca and my marriage. Gerda understood, didn't you, old girl? We could have married again after Rebecca's death, but, do you know, we'd come to rather enjoy all the secrecy. She's an actress through and through. She would have found it very dull being just one character. Well, I've killed three people, so presumably I ought to hang. But haven't I done something for England? I have held it firm. I have kept it solvent. I have kept it free from dictators. I am necessary to the continuing peace and well-being of this nation.

James Japp: Is he saying what I think he's saying?

Frank Carter: What about me? He was gonna let me hang.

Hercule Poirot: Précisément. Monsieur Blunt, with his usual efficiency, had provided for himself a second line of defense. If things went wrong, you, Monsieur Carter, you were to be the scapegoat. You see, by now, Monsieur Blunt knows of Monsieur Morley's opinion regarding you, and so he arranges for you to be engaged in a most mysterious fashion as a gardener. And how easy for Helen Montressor to fire a shot vaguely in your direction, drop the pistol at your feet, where you are bound to pick it up? You are caught red-handed, and of course nobody is going to believe your story, your ridiculous story about being employed by the secret service. No. As far as Monsieur Blunt is concerned, you can end your short life on the gallows.

Alastair Blunt: I don't waste pity on people like him.

Hercule Poirot: Eh bien, Monsieur Blunt. That is where you and I, we do not see alike, for to me, the lives of those three people are just as important as your own life. [starts to leave but stops and faces Blunt] Monsieur Blunt, you talk of the continued peace of this nation, hein? Oh, yes, that is very good. But Poirot is not concerned with nations. Poirot is concerned with private individuals, who have the right not to have taken from them their lives.

Season 5

The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb [5.1]

Hercule Poirot: Miss Lemon, if you please, would you come through for a moment with your notepad and pencil? I want that you send a telegram to the Assistant Commissioner Bergman in the police department of New York. "Please supply all available biographical material on Monsieur Rupert Bleibner, nephew to the wealthy Monsieur Felix Bleibner. Best wishes, Hercule Poirot."

Felicity Lemon: I could say "biog."

Hercule Poirot: Comment?

Felicity Lemon: Instead of "biographical," I could say "biog."

Hercule Poirot: Is that a word, Miss Lemon?

Felicity Lemon: It sounds efficient. I heard someone say it in a picture. "Give me the biog on Dutch Schultz, Miss Longfellow."

Hercule Poirot: "Biographical material" will do very nicely, thank you, Miss Lemon.

The Underdog [5.2]

The Yellow Iris [5.3]

The Case of the Missing Will [5.4]

The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman [5.5]

The Chocolate Box [5.6]

Claude Chantalier: You remember Paul Deroulard?

Hercule Poirot: I remember that it was not I who made the mistakes in that case. It was everyone else.

Claude Chantalier: The old modesty lives on. Paul Deroulard died of natural causes, Hercule. The verdict of the court is there for all time.

Hercule Poirot: And it is wrong.

Dead Man's Mirror [5.7]

Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan [5.8]

Season 6

Hercule Poirot's Christmas [6.1]

James Japp: What are these bloomin' things, Poirot?

Hercule Poirot: Ah. Now these are the miniature gardens of Madame Alfred Lee.

James Japp: What's the point of havin' a miniature garden? I mean, you can't do anything with it, can you? You can't take a deck chair out and sit it in.

Hickory Dickory Dock [6.2]

Murder on the Links [6.3]

Arthur Hasting: Nothing like eighteen holes to build up an appetite. You really ought to try it, you know. You might find you actually enjoy it.

Hercule Poirot: To hit a little ball into the little hole, in the middle of a large open field, I think it is not to the taste of Poirot.

Dumb Witness [6.4]

Season 7

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd [7.1]

Hercule Poirot: A man may labor and toil to attain a certain kind of leisure in retirement. And then find that, after all, he yearns for the old busy days, and the old occupations he had thought himself so glad to leave. I had already begun to miss the daily toil of my previous employment when, tout à coup, I was flung back into the midst of the most perversely fascinating work that there is in the world: the study of human nature.

Lord Edgware Dies [7.2]

Arthur Hastings: Everything was going fine until I made a foolish mistake. I invested in the Pampas de Fernandez Consolidated Railway. Well, they weren't consolidated. They didn't have a railway. And there's a huge mountain range between the two places. I lost just about everything. Poor Bella stayed behind to sell the ranch. I've come over here to find somewhere for us to live. Not that she's said a word against me. She's such a wonderful person. We're still as much in love as the day we met.

Hercule Poirot: When, if I remember correctly, you thought her to be guilty of murder, n'est-ce pas?

Arthur Hastings: Yes, well, since then I think I've learned what makes women tick.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, yes. The ticking of the women. It has always been a mystery to Poirot.

Arthur Hastings: There's nothing like marriage, that's the truth of it. The day I met Bella, it was as if I'd found myself. Ever since, I've been a completely different man.

James Japp: Different man, yes. Could say the same about me, I suppose.

Felicity Lemon: But you're happily married, Chief lnspector.

James Japp: I don't know about that, Miss Lemon. You see, my Emily, she just doesn't understand my work. She never lets me talk about murder at the dinner table. And her tidying! It just gets worse and worse. Sometimes, I wonder how I've lived with her these twenty seven-and-a-half years.

Felicity Lemon: It's a shame you've never considered marriage, Mr Poirot.

Hercule Poirot: There were occasions, Miss Lemon, when I did have la tentation. The temptation. But now, alas, I think it is too late.

Penny Driver: So you knew all along that it wasn't Brian, then?

Hercule Poirot: Oui, mademoiselle. But Monsieur Martin was not alone in his dislike for Lady Edgware. [to Miss Carroll] You, Miss Carroll. When I asked you the identity of the woman you saw entering the hall of Regent Gate...

Miss Carroll: [flashback, talking to Poirot and Hastings] It was her. I'd know her anywhere. And I saw her quite clearly.

Hercule Poirot: But you were standing high up on the landing. The person who entered that night wore a hat with a slanting brim. From where you were standing, it would have been impossible to see the face.

Miss Carroll: I saw her.

Hercule Poirot: Non, mademoiselle. You saw, I think, what you wished to see, hein? The woman who had wronged the man you had well served.

Miss Carroll: It's true. She never deserved him.

Hercule Poirot: And it would have been impossible for Jane Wilkinson to have committed the murder. Because as we now know, Jane Wilkinson changed her mind and attended the dinner at Holborn. [to everyone] But from the beginning, I have been perplexed by five questions. One: What happened to the letter written by Lord Edgware informing his wife that he had agreed to the divorce? Two: Who is this letter P on the little gold medicine box? Three: Who made the telephone call to Jane Wilkinson at the dinner at Holborn? Four: How did a pair of pince-nez come to be discovered in the handbag of Carlotta Adams? And five: Why did the letter of Carlotta Adams state quite clearly that it was Ronald Marsh who paid to her the sum of $2,000 when it was impossible he could have afforded that sum?

Ronald Marsh: Do you have the answers?

Felicity Lemon: Of course Mr. Poirot has the answers. That's why you're here.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, madame. You are a woman most remarkable. Eh, parbleu, to pull over my eyes the cotton wool. The letter, the disguise. Et surtout, to send me to your husband, to turn me into a witness that you had no motive for murder. Ma foi! You made of me, Hercule Poirot, your cat's-paw.

Felicity Lemon: But it's true, Mr. Poirot. There was no motive if she was going to get a divorce.

Hercule Poirot: A divorce would have been of no use to her, Miss Lemon. Which is why she pretended never to have received the letter from her husband. [to the Duke of Merton] Monsieur le Duc, you are of the religion catholique, n'est-ce pas?

Duke of Merton: Yes, I am. How did you know?

Hercule Poirot: Jane Wilkinson told me you intended to get married at Westminster. Et naturellement, I assumed that she meant the Abbey. But later, you invited me to the Cathedral. Westminster Cathedral. Et voila. It was then that I knew that you must be catholique.

James Japp: And he couldn't marry a divorced woman.

Hercule Poirot: Oui.

James Japp: So that's why Lord Edgware had to die.

Duke of Merton: My God, Jane. Tell me it isn't true.

Jane Wilkinson: I'm sorry, Percy. [to Poirot] I really thought I'd get away with it, you know. I thought I had you, ze great detective, 'round my little finger. I've always had that, you know. A power over men.

Hercule Poirot: I wished only to protect you, madame. But I could not protect you from yourself.

Duke of Merton: Jane!

Jane Wilkinson: Oh, I'm not going to deny it, Percy. Why should I? After all, I've actually enjoyed it. All of it. Even being caught. I mean, it does put me centre stage. And who knows? Maybe they'll put me in Madame Tussauds.

Season 8

Evil Under the Sun [8.1]

Arthur Hastings: But surely no one could think of murder in such a beautiful place.

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no, no, Hastings. It is romantic, yes. It is peaceful. The sun shines, the sea it is blue. But you forget, mon ami, that there is evil everywhere under the sun.

Hercule Poirot: [after Hastings theorizes that Arlena Stuart was hiding from someone] Hastings, once again, you come up with an explanation that makes everything clear.

James Japp: Not to me it doesn't.

Arthur Hastings: You mean she was afraid of someone?

Hercule Poirot: I mean, Hastings, that there is evil on this island. And the murder that took place here was the work of a mind that was brilliant. But there is one thing the killer did not expect. The mind of Hercule Poirot. Eh bien. It is now time for these two minds to meet, and the truth at last must come to light.

Murder in Mesopotamia [8.2]

Frederick Bosner/Eric Leidner: [after being exposed as the murderer] I am so tired. I'm sorry about Anne Johnson. That was bad, senseless. It wasn't me. It was fear on my part. You'd have made a good archaeologist, Mr. Poirot. You have the gift of recreating the past. I loved Louise, and I killed her. [to Richard] But you shan't have her, Carey! You betrayed me. You betrayed both of us. [to Poirot] Oh, if you'd known Louise, you'd have understood. No, I think you understand anyway.

Season 9

Five Little Pigs [9.1]

Elsa Greer: You're very clever, aren't you? I hope you don't expect me to confess. So, what are you going to do?

Hercule Poirot: I shall do what I can to induce the appropriate authorities to grant to Caroline Crale the posthumous free pardon.

Elsa Greer: And me? What are you going to do about me?

Hercule Poirot: I shall lay my conclusions before the necessary people. If they decide that there is a case against you, they may act. But it is my opinion that the evidence is not sufficient. Inferences only, eh? Not facts. Moreover, I believe they will not be anxious to proceed against a person in your position.

Elsa Greer: When I saw Caroline take the coniine, I thought she meant to kill herself. But the next morning when I overheard them talking about me, I ... I loved him and he was just stringing me along and she felt sorry for me. I watched him die, Monsieur Poirot, and I never felt more alive. But what I didn't understand was that I was killing myself. It was as if they hadn't died at all, but I had. I died, Monsieur Poirot.

Sad Cypress [9.2]

Elinor Carlisle: Aunt Laura, tell me something. Honestly. Do you think love is ever a happy thing?

Mrs. Welman: Oh, Elinor. Perhaps it always brings more sorrow than joy. But who could do without it? Anyone who has never really loved hasn't lived.

Nurse Hopkins: As I said before, Mr. Poirot, let the dead rest in peace.

Hercule Poirot: Not when one has to consider the living.

Death on the Nile [9.3]

Jacqueline de Bellefort: You were surprised to find me here.

Hercule Poirot: I am more sorry than surprised. You have chosen a path that is most dangerous, mademoiselle. I doubt that you would turn back now, even if you could.

Jacqueline de Bellefort: Oh, well. One must follow one's star.

Hercule Poirot: Love is not everything.

Jacqueline de Bellefort: Oh, but it is. It is. You must know that, Monsieur Poirot. Surely, you understand.

Hercule Poirot: [after a long silence] It is terrible, mademoiselle, all that I have missed in life.

Hercule Poirot: Ah, Monsieur Allerton, I would like very much to have a little word with you.

Tim Allerton: What can I do for you?

Hercule Poirot: There's nothing you can do for me, monsieur, but to sit and to listen.

Tim Allerton: Right, well, I'm very good at that. You can rely on me to say, "Ooh, ah" at all the right moments.

Hercule Poirot: "Ooh, ah" will do very nicely. Thank you. [time transition, Poirot, Race, and Allerton seated at a table as a servant places a teapot before them] Merci. [to Allerton] So, to begin, your friendship with your cousin, Joanna Southwood. For the past three years, Scotland Yard has been preoccupied with a number of jewel robberies. And, you know, the method has been always exactly the same. Oui. The substitution of the original with an imitation. Attention soon focused on Mademoiselle Southwood. You see, every one of the victims had been either a friend or an acquaintance. It also became clear that she did not make the substitution herself. No, no, no. She would have a jeweler make her a copy, and then the substitution would be made by someone else. But the identity of this person has remained a mystery.

Tim Allerton: Ooh, ah.

Hercule Poirot: Oui. But over the past few days, certain facts have emerged that have been most helpful. Your attendance at the house party when one such robbery occurred, your obvious resentment of my presence here, and the discovery that the pearls belonging to Linnet Doyle were missing. But what do I find? I find that the pearls that were stolen and returned were imitation, previously substituted for the real thing. It would have been easy for Mademoiselle Southwood to have found an opportunity of examining the pearls of her friend and to have made a copy. And it was then just a question of waiting for the right moment for you to make the substitution. Eh bien, you learned that Linnet Doyle was to honeymoon in Egypt, so, oh, parfait, hein? Mademoiselle Southwood sends to you the imitation, concealed, I suggest, in a parcel of books. You then bide your time. Finally, you make the substitution, return to your cabin, and conceal them by gluing them into a rosary. Unfortunately for you, the night you chose to do the deed was the same night that Linnet Doyle was murdered. But even more unfortunately was the fact that someone saw you leave her cabin. "Ooh, ah," would you not say, Monsieur Allerton?

The Hollow [9.4]

Henrietta Savernake: Aren't you an artist, too, Monsieur Poirot?

Hercule Poirot: On the whole, I would say no. Oh, I have known crimes that were artistic, supreme exercises of the imagination, but the solving of them, no. No, the creative power is not what is needed. What is required is a passion for the truth.

Gudgeon: If you see me with a pistol in my hand, Simmons, the proper thing to do is to come to me and say, "Mr. Gudgeon, would you be so kind as to give me an explanation?"

Simmons: Yes, Mr. Gudgeon.

Gudgeon: The improper thing to do is to go babbling to the police. That is common. Now where would her ladyship be if we all ran around doing things like that, hmm?

Henrietta Savernake: Why did you do it, Gerda? Why did you kill John?

Gerda Christow: Because it was all a lie! Everything! I thought he was the noblest man in the world. But I saw his face when he followed that woman that evening. I knew he'd loved her before he'd married me, but I thought ... I thought it was over. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. It was the middle of the night. I had to know. They were there. I could hear them. John and Veronica Cray. I believed in him as though he were God. I worshipped him. And it was all a lie. I had to kill him. You do see that? I had to.

Henrietta Savernake: What happens to me now?

Hercule Poirot: Go, my child. Your place is with the living. I will remain here with the dead.

Season 10

The Mystery of the Blue Train [10.1]

Hercule Poirot: May Poirot sit, signora? He wishes to tell to you a little story.

Mirelle Milesi: I despise fiction.

Hercule Poirot: Ah. But this little story, it is true. It is about Monsieur Rufus Van Aldin, a man of authority accustomed to acquiring whatever he wants whenever he wants it. But he is not able to secure the divorce of his daughter, Ruth, without the evidence of the adultery of his son-in-law, Monsieur Derek Kettering. Alors, he learns that his son-in-law plans to join his daughter, Ruth, on the Blue Train.

Mirelle Milesi: I don't know any of these people.

Hercule Poirot: And, you know, he does a thing most extraordinary. He sends his lover on the train, also, to offer herself to Monsieur Derek Kettering. Et quel cauchemar. The plan, it fails, no? Monsieur Kettering proves immune to her powerful charms because he has a secret that nobody else knows.

Mirelle Milesi: He loves his wife.

Hercule Poirot: C'est ça. Why did you enter the compartment of Madame Kettering?

Mirelle Milesi: That was weakness. I wanted to see her things.

Hercule Poirot: But while you were in there, you found and kept the page of a letter concerning the wife of Monsieur Van Aldin. And reading it at dinner, it naturally upset you. But you resolved to see the woman for yourself.

Mirelle Milesi: I was curious to see what would be my fate should I ever marry Rufus. She was convinced that I was her daughter. Color-blind as well as mad. However, it seemed cruel to disabuse her. Her life has been sufficiently unfortunate.

Hercule Poirot: Well, that was kind.

Mirelle Milesi: I've spent most of my life being kind, monsieur. Mostly to men of about your age. And look where it has got me. Whoring for no pay. Life. Grossly overrated, I find.

Cards on the Table [10.2]

Mr. Shaitana: Is it off-season for the criminals or is our little gallery about to be robbed?

Hercule Poirot: Oh, alas, monsieur, non. Non. I am here purely in my private capacity. But I see that you yourself have lent a few pieces.

Mr. Shaitana: Oh, one picks up trifles here and there. I have a few interesting objects I could show you. I daresay I could even produce one or two things in your line, Poirot.

Hercule Poirot: Ah. So you have, then, your private Black Museum?

Mr. Shaitana: Oh, no, no, no. I don't collect the artifacts of crime. The murderer's hammer, the poisoner's cup. I collect only the finest objects of their kind.

Hercule Poirot: And what do you consider to be the finest objects, artistically speaking, in crime?

Mr. Shaitana: Why, the human beings who commit them, monsieur.

Dr. Roberts: Good to see you, Shaitana. I'm not late, am I? An elderly patient called me out. She thought she had a tumor. I thought she was depressed.

Mr. Shaitana: And what did you prescribe?

Dr. Roberts: Champagne and oysters at Wilton's. She'll be right as rain by tomorrow.

Ariadne Oliver: [sotto voce, to Poirot] Remind me never to go to him if I'm poorly.

Ariadne Oliver: It's jolly curious. Here are the four of us and we're all, well, for want of a better word, sleuths. So who are those four in there?

Colonel Hughes: Criminals?

Ariadne Oliver: They don't look like criminals.

Superintendent Wheeler: Most criminals don't look like criminals, Mrs. Oliver.

Major Despard: I had every motive for disliking Shaitana. For disliking him, not killing him.

Colonel Hughes: And what were your motives for disliking him, Major?

Major Despard: He dressed like a ... Well, you know. And the perfume.

Superintendent Wheeler: And yet you accepted his invitation to dinner.

Major Despard: Were I only to dine in houses where I approved of my host, I wouldn't eat out much, I'm afraid.

Colonel Hughes: Don't you like London society?

Major Despard: What we call civilization? Only for very short periods. To come back from abroad to well-lit rooms, beautiful women in beautiful clothes ... Yes, it's pleasant for a time. But after a while, it palls. The insincerity sickens me, and I want to be off again.

Colonel Hughes: I know what you mean.

Ariadne Oliver: Have you redecorated?

Hercule Poirot: No, madame. I have moved.

Ariadne Oliver: Of course. How silly of me not to remember. What was wrong with your last apartment? Walls not straight enough?

Hercule Poirot: You've hit the nail right on the head.

Mrs. Lorrimer: No one can always be right.

Hercule Poirot: But I am. Always I am right. It is so invariable it startles me. And now it looks very much as though I may be wrong, and that upsets me. And I should not be upset, because I am right. I must be right because I am never wrong.

Colonel Hughes: [after Poirot reveals Shaitana's killer] But why did Shaitana drug himself?

Hercule Poirot: He is tired of life. He has a madness in his soul. He is searching for a thrill that would be for him the ultimate. And in order to achieve this, he invites four people to his house whom he believe have killed, and then he goads them.

Mr. Shaitana: [flashback, the night of the murder] There's always an accident. A shooting accident, for example. Or a domestic accident. One of the little tragedies that never gets reported.

Hercule Poirot: And then he takes the sleeping draught so that when it happens he will feel no pain. And it does happen. And as an extra twist, he tries to throw the blame on one of us. He makes us to believe that the crime that is opportunistic is made to look as though it was planned most carefully. And we start ... Oh, pardon, even Hercule Poirot, he starts to believe it. When all the time the plan was to allow a crime that was opportunistic to happen.

Ariadne Oliver: As a plot, that is distinctly odd.

Hercule Poirot: The plots, madame, they are all the same. It is only the psychology that is different.

After the Funeral [10.3]

Hercule Poirot: Each and every one of you would have killed Cora Gallaccio to stop her revealing your murder of Richard Abernethie. But are these two deaths inextricably linked? Certainement, Richard Abernethie, he dies most suddenly. But there would have been no reason to suspect the foul play had it not been for those words uttered by his sister, Cora Gallaccio, at the funeral. But because of those words, you all believed that murder had taken place. And so I ask myself a question that came into my mind, you know, so suddenly. How well did each of you know Cora Gallaccio?

Maude Abernethie: H-How do you mean?

Hercule Poirot: The answer, mes amis? Not well at all. And so I ask myself another question. Suppose it was not Cora Gallaccio who attended the funeral that day.

Rosamund Shane: So Aunt Cora wasn't Aunt Cora? Somebody else was murdered?

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no. No, madame, it was Cora Gallaccio who was murdered. But perhaps it was not Cora Gallaccio who attended the funeral of Richard Abernethie. No. The woman who attended the funeral that day, she came for one purpose only. To exploit the fact that Richard Abernethie had died most suddenly and to implant into the minds of the relatives the thought that he had been murdered. And this she managed to do most successfully.

Timothy Abernethie: What nonsense. I mean, what was the point of it?

Hercule Poirot: Permit me to explain. If Cora Gallaccio announces that her brother has been murdered and then she herself is killed the very next day, then those two deaths are bound to be considered cause and effect. And for Hercule Poirot, the prime suspect would be one of the family. But if Cora Gallaccio is killed and her cottage is broken into and Hercule Poirot is not convinced by this burglary, then where is he to look? Close at home. At the woman who shared a house with her.

Miss Gilchrist: You're not suggesting I'd commit murder for an amethyst necklace and a few sketches?

Hercule Poirot: Oh, no. No, no. Mademoiselle, no. For something much more important than that. One of the sketches of Cora Gallaccio was of Polflexan Bay. It was Susannah Henderson who observed that it must have been copied from a postcard because it showed that the old pier was still in place. But, in fact, the old pier had burnt down several years before. And Madame Gallaccio always painted from the real life. You told that to us, Mademoiselle Gilchrist. And then I remembered the smell of the oil paint as soon as I arrived at the cottage. You can paint, can you not? And you know a great deal about painting because your father, he was an artist, n'est-ce pas? And then Richard Abernethie, he dies suddenly, and the plan, it sprang into your mind. How easy for you to administer a sedative in her morning cup of tea to render her unconscious for the day of the funeral while you play her part at Enderby. Oh, you knew Enderby well from hearing Cora Gallaccio speak of it. So simple, then, to begin with a remark to Monsieur Lanscombe, well, to convince him of your identity.

"Cora Gallaccio": [flashback, the day of the funeral] Dear, dear Lanscombe. Do you remember when you used to bring meringues out to the tree house for us?

Miss Gilchrist: But that's preposterous. Nobody would have been fooled for a moment.

Hercule Poirot: But nobody had seen Cora Gallaccio for over twenty years. You wore her clothes. You padded yourself out to show her gain in weight. No one would have suspected that you were not Cora Gallaccio. And because Cora Gallaccio always wore the hair that was false, it was easy for you. But mannerisms are remembered. And Cora Gallaccio had mannerisms that were most definite. All of which you practiced most carefully in front of a mirror. And that was where you made your first mistake. You forgot that an image in a mirror, it is always reversed. So when you observed your reproduction, oh, parfait of the birdlike tilt of the head of Cora Gallaccio, you forgot it was the wrong way around. And it was this that puzzled Madame Helen Abernethie at the moment that you made your insinuation. She could not quite put her finger on what it was. But then with all the talk about mirror images and how one sees oneself as others see us, she remembered. So she tiptoed downstairs to make a telephone call. But someone else was about. And they followed her down to listen in. And, fearful of what revelations she was about to make, struck her over the head with a...

Miss Gilchrist: I never did anything of the sort. The whole thing is a wicked, wicked lie.

Michael Shane: It was you that day. When we arrived, I vaguely felt I'd seen you before. But, of course, one never really looks at...

Miss Gilchrist: No. One doesn't bother to look at a mere companion help. A domestic drudge. But go on, Mr. Poirot. Go on with this fantastic piece of nonsense.

Hercule Poirot: Merci, mademoiselle. I intend to. And then, to cover yourself still further, you planted a letter, from Richard Abernethie to his sister. Of course, in a place where somebody would be bound to find it. And in this letter, there was a phrase, oh, so cryptic, telling her that he had not long to live. And then you actually poison yourself with arsenic, badly but not fatally. Mademoiselle, you know, that is a device that is also very old. It aroused my suspicions but immediately.

Susannah Henderson: And what about the picture of Polflexan?

Hercule Poirot: Ah. I commissioned the valuer of painting, Signore Gallaccio, to go to the cottage, remove the painting, and take it to the London Academy of Art. If you please, signore. [puts on his pince-nez and takes out a small knife as Signore Gallaccio sets the painting on an easel] If you please to observe. [cuts around the edges before, with Signore Gallaccio's help, removing it to reveal another painting underneath] Voilà. A Rembrandt. Authenticated by two experts.

Miss Gilchrist: I recognized it immediately. She didn't. Always going on about how much she knew about art and unable to recognize a Rembrandt when it was under her nose. She was a thoroughly stupid woman. Endlessly wittering on about this place and what you all did as children. You don't know how truly stultifying it is to listen to someone talking about the same things day after day and pretending to be interested. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Gallaccio," and, "Really, Mrs. Gallaccio?" And in truth just bored, bored, bored. And nothing to look forward to but more of the same. And then, then ... a Rembrandt. A Rembrandt had sold in London a few weeks before for £5,000.

Susannah Henderson: You killed her in that brutal way for £5,000?

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no. No. Mademoiselle, you mistake. £5,000 would have bought and equipped a tea shop.

Miss Gilchrist: You understand. It was the only chance I'd ever get. I had to have a capital sum. A chance to recreate The Willow Tree. My own little place. Freedom. Independence. A servant to no one.

Inspector Morton: Perhaps you'd like to come along with me, Miss Gilchrist.

Miss Gilchrist: [rising from her chair] Of course. I don't want to be any trouble. If I can't have my little tea shop, nothing much else matters. [suddenly starts imitating Cora Gallaccio] How very silly of me. I, I always do the wrong thing. Oh, please forgive me. It was really very stupid. I'm sorry. I, I'm so sorry. But, uh...

George Abernethie: Extraordinary. [to Poirot] How did you work it out?

Susannah Henderson: What made you suspect her?

Hercule Poirot: It ... It was the flowers of wax. Mademoiselle, you remember when you and your sister were arguing on the evening that everyone arrived here? Mademoiselle Gilchrist remarked how artistic the flowers of wax looked on the table made of malachite. Well ... Well, she could not have seen them there because Madame Helen Abernethie had removed them before she arrived. So the only time she could have seen them was when she was here, masquerading as Cora Gallaccio.

Taken at the Flood [10.4]

David Hunter: You must marry Rowley Cloade. And do it quickly. Forget about me. I shall make it my business to forget about you.

Lynn Marchmont: I don't believe you.

David Hunter: You and I, we'd tear each other to pieces, destroy each other.

Lynn Marchmont: You're lying to me. Why? Why are you lying to me?

David Hunter: I'd certainly destroy you. It's in my nature, Lynn, to desecrate the things I cherish. And I love you too much for that.

Hercule Poirot: Do you know when the priest, he is buried, he is always facing his parishoners? Oui. Because when the Day of Judgment, it comes, and the dead, they all arise, he can greet them, and lead them through the gates of paradise. It is a beautiful idea.

Rosaleen Cloade: He shan't be leading me.

Hercule Poirot: You must not say that, ma chere. Despair is a sin.

Rosaleen Cloade: I'm cut off from the mercy of God.

Hercule Poirot: No, no, no, no, no. Nobody is cut off from the mercy of God. Ever.

David Hunter: I would never harm my sister.

Hercule Poirot: No. But the lady presently watching you from over there, she is not your sister.

Lionel Cloade: Good heavens!

Katherine Cloade: What?

Hercule Poirot: No. Her name is Eileen Corrigan, a simple farm girl, as she defined herself to me at the church. And, whatever the papers may say, she did not die in Mayfair two years ago. No. But the real Rosaleen Cloade, she did. Why? Because you murdered her! More than any Cloade, you hated Rosaleen. For in her happy marriage to Gordon Cloade, she had excluded you. Your first love, your little sister, had surrendered herself to another man. But you had already made your own arrangements to deal with her, for you had drawn under your spell a parlourmaid who was young, Irish, and in the service of your sister. Her name? Eileen Corrigan. You had seduced her, had deliberately impregnated her. And had had the baby disposed of.

David Hunter: Not true.

Hercule Poirot: True! Outside of the church, Eileen Corrigan told me that she had been cut off from the mercy of God!

David Hunter: She miscarried.

Hercule Poirot: No, Monsieur! She endured abortion! As it was always your intention that she should. You wanted to crush the very soul of this simple Catholic girl. To make her so terrified by the state of her own life that she would deliver it to you. Maintained by morphine, ruled by terror, Eileen Corrigan would do whatever you told her to do. Why? Why? Because you, Monsieur, offered her salvation if she did. And the fires of hell if she did not.

Season 11

Mrs McGinty's Dead [11.1]

Ariadne Oliver: Robin Upward was in the clear. He and I were working all day on that wretched dramatisation. Now he wants Sven having sex in a sauna. Sven has never had sex in his life. You don't know how I suffer.

Hercule Poirot: Madame, I, too, suffer. The cooking of Madame Summerhayes, it is beyond description. Well, it is not cooking at all. And the currents of the cold air, the long hairs of the dogs, the chairs, the terrible, terrible beds in which I try to sleep. And the coffee ... Words cannot describe to you the fluid they serve to you as coffee.

Cat Among the Pigeons [11.2]

Miss Bulstrode: I hope you're enjoying your little sojourn with us, Monsieur. I'd hate to think you were bored.

Hercule Poirot: Bored? Pas de tout, mademoiselle. There does not need to be present a crime for the investigator to thrive. This school, it is like the world in miniature. It is like the, what is the word? The...

Miss Bulstrode: Microcosm.

Hercule Poirot: Just so. Just as in the outside world. Hopes, dreams, fears, secrets. This place, so full of the promise of youth, the future of the nation. And yet, how lonely and silent are its corridors at night. Lonely and silent as the chambers of the heart.

Hercule Poirot: The psychology, Inspector, it is fascinating, is it not? A pupil with a loathing most deep for Mademoiselle Springer, a colleague who was jealous, or a lover thwarted.

Inspector Kelsey: Well, even games mistresses have their love lives.

Hercule Poirot: It must have seemed that there was a sort of vendetta against the mistresses of Meadowbank. But I can assure you that this was not so.

Miss Blake: Could've fooled me.

Hercule Poirot: There have been here two murders, an attempted murder, and what appeared to be a kidnapping, but I understand from Mademoiselle Bulstrode that this kidnapping, it has already been explained to you, oui?

Miss Johnson: I said, didn't I? That whole business with the brassiere.

Hercule Poirot: All through this affair, the problem, it has been to clear out of the way all the extraneous matters which, though criminal in themselves, obscure the thread most important. The thread that leads us to a killer who is determined, ruthless, and in your midst. A cat among the pigeons.

Third Girl [11.3]

Ariadne Oliver: What a calculating mind. Tortuous. That's what I call it. Tortuous.

Hercule Poirot: Am I so calculating, madame? Am I the solver of puzzles with a heart that is cold? Or are we looking at the greatest of mysteries that life ever throws up? The mystery that even I, Hercule Poirot, will never be able to solve. The nature of love.

Appointment with Death [11.4]

Hercule Poirot: Did Lady Boynton harm you physically?

Raymond Boynton: My mother had little recourse to violence. She was too smart for that. Instead, she just prized open the top of our skulls and raked her poisonous tongue through our brains. No place to hide, Poirot. Even in your own head. Ever. Carol, um ... Carol grew up petrified. Did her best to ingratiate herself, you know, to win approval, which she never got. Jinny just was terrified to the point of madness. Possibly beyond.

Hercule Poirot: Did you murder your mother, monsieur?

Raymond Boynton: No. But only because I lacked the moral courage. She was a monster, Poirot. It was her pleasure, always, to watch us suffer.

Hercule Poirot: Why was she driven to be so cruel?

Raymond Boynton: To punish us, I guess.

Hercule Poirot: For what offense?

Raymond Boynton: For being someone else's kids.

Jinny Boynton: Carol and I are going to Egypt to see the Sphinx. It's not much of an adventure, but we're doing it on our own. It's a start. It was actually my idea. Lady Boynton would have said I was constitutionally too feeble, that my skin was too fair. But I think it's probably time I showed my feeble skin who's boss.

Hercule Poirot: C'est bien, mademoiselle. Before he leaves, you will permit an old man to pontificate? Alors, mademoiselle, there is nothing in the world so damaged that it cannot be repaired by the hand of Almighty God. I encourage you to know this, because without this certainty, we should all of us be mad.

Season 12

Three Act Tragedy [12.1]

Sir Charles Cartwright: [after Poirot exposes him as the murderer] Well, I'm hooked. Go on. Tell me, what was my motive for murdering my dearest friend, the man I had known since boyhood?

Hercule Poirot: It was the doctor himself who gave to me the clue when he said, "Cherchez la femme." You know, Sir Charles, it was obvious to me you were in love, deeply in love with Mademoiselle Lytton Gore. You loved her with a passion that was so arid, so terrible. So why the hesitation, huh? Why did you not ask her to marry you when you were sailing around Loomouth? What was the obstacle, hein? Poirot, he will tell to you. The obstacle, it was this, that you already had a wife. Oh, but of course, you enact the role of the bachelor. But this marriage of yours it took place since many years before. When you were young. Long before you were Sir Charles Cartwright, the actor renowned. And when your name, it was something else. Voyez, mes amis. There are only two situations in the law of our land when a divorce, it cannot be permitted. The first: when either the husband or wife is serving a life sentence in prison. And the second: when one or either of them is confined to a lunatic asylum. And of course, Sir Charles, you cannot kill her yourself because immediately you would become the prime suspect. But what if nobody knew, hein? Well, then you'd be free to marry Mademoiselle Lytton Gore without having the need to tell her the truth. But one person did know and one person only. Your oldest friend. The best man at your wedding. And so, before you can remarry, it is necessary that Dr. Bartholomew Strange, your friend so dear to you, he must be eliminated.

Sir Charles Cartwright: And Babbington? I suppose he knew too?

Hercule Poirot: Ah, oui, that was the one flaw in my theory. Because even if it was you, Charles, who placed the liquid nicotine into the glass, you could never make sure of it reaching one particular person. No, the poison was never intended specifically for the Reverend Steven Babbington, no. It was intended for anyone who was there present. Except, of course, Dr. Bartholomew Strange, who never touched a cocktail, and Mademoiselle Lytton Gore, the young lady with whom you were in love.

Hermionie Lytton-Gore: You handed me my cocktail yourself.

Hercule Poirot: The murder of the Reverend Steven Babbington was nothing more nor less than a dress rehearsal. Sir Charles, he is the actor. He rehearses the murder before he commits it. And the rehearsal it goes well. Steven Babbington, he dies. And foul play, it is not suspected, not even by Hercule Poirot. Which is why, of course, I was invited to go to Loomouth. Because if Poirot suspects nothing, nor indeed will anyone else.

Muriel Wills: I've just had a terrible thought. If anyone could have drunk the poisoned cocktail, golly, it could have been me.

Hercule Poirot: And there is a possibility even more terrible, mademoiselle. It could have been me.

Hallowe'en Party [12.2]

Hercule Poirot: Poirot, he has seen much evil in this world. It should not be the subject of such mockery.

George: Oh, it's just a bit of fun, sir. I love a good blood-curdler, me. And very appropriate for the time of year.

Hercule Poirot: George, at this time of year in Belgium, it is the custom to light the candles in memory of the dead, not to tell the stories macabre.

Rowena Drake: Would you all be dears and help round up the little waifs and strays? Some of the older ones gravitate to the cloakrooms and what have you.

Judith Butler: Whatever for?

Ariadne Oliver: What have you, I should think.

Mrs. Goodbody: I don't mind what people think. You'll always get the truth out of Mother Goodbody, mister. More than from most others 'round here. I's always been on the outside me, looking in. That ways, you get to see things different. I sees things all the time. Sometimes with me eyes, sometimes in the leaves.

Hercule Poirot: Comment? The leaves?

Mrs. Goodbody: Tea leaves, me duck. You can see a lot in 'em. Past, future, sometimes just tea.

Hercule Poirot: Chère madame, you should not work, you should rest.

Ariadne Oliver: I have deadlines, Poirot, in sickness and in health.

Rowena 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!

Michael 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?

Murder on the Orient Express [12.3]

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

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

Hercule Poirot: Then you let God administer it, not you!

Greta 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."

Hercule Poirot: Oui.

Greta Ohlsson: Well, we were without sin, monsieur. I was without sin!

Mary 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.

Hercule Poirot: And are you?

Mary Debenham: ...But I did what was right.

The Clocks [12.4]

Christopher 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.

Poirot: 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.

Miss 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.

Colin Race: Fiona Hanbury had a life.

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

Valerie 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!

Season 13

Elephants Can Remember [13.1]

Ariadne Oliver: 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?

Hercule Poirot: 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.

Ariadne Oliver: Oh, I see. Someone will remember something.

Hercule Poirot: Always someone remembers something.

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

Hercule Poirot: With hesitation, I ask why?

Ariadne Oliver: Because the meringue got stuck in my teeth.

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

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

Ariadne Oliver: You and I are elephants, you know. We're good at remembering.

Hercule Poirot: Non, non, non, madame. We are the human beings. And human beings, mercifully, they can forget.

The Big Four [13.2]

Claude 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.

Lawrence Tysoe: But my informer? The letters? The playing cards?

Hercule Poirot: All sent from Monsieur Darrell.

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

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

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

Hercule Poirot: 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.

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

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

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

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

Claude 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.

Hercule Poirot: 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.

Claude 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.

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

Hercule Poirot: Indeed so, mon ami.

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

Flossie Monro: For me. Wasn't it, Mr. Poirot?

Hercule 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.

Claude Darrell: You've got a nerve.

Hercule Poirot: Comment?

Claude 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.

Dead Man's Folly [13.3]

Ariadne Oliver: I'm well aware you think me irrational.

Hercule Poirot: 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.

The Labours of Hercules [13.4]

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

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

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

Hercule Poirot: How resourceful of me.

Alice 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.

Countess Vera Rossakoff: Hercule, spare my daughter. Spare her, as years ago you spared me. Please.

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

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

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case [13.5]

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

Colonel Toby Luttrell: We'll all miss you, old chap. But you won't be forgotten.

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

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

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

Hercule Poirot: [after explaining to Hastings via manuscript how he deduced Stephen Norton was a killer and how he killed Norton] I have no more to say. Am I justified in what I have done? I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands. But by taking the life of Norton, have I not saved others? I have always been so sure, but now? When the moment comes, I will not try to save myself but humbly offer my soul to God and pray for His mercy. It is for Him to decide. Ah, Hastings, my dear friend. They were good days. Yes, they have been good days.

Cast

David Suchet – Hercule Poirot (1989–2013)
Hugh Fraser – Captain Arthur Hastings (1989–2002, 2013)
Philip Jackson – Chief Inspector James Japp (1989–2001, 2013)
Pauline Moran – Miss Felicity Lemon (1989–2001, 2013)
Zoë Wanamaker – Ariadne Oliver (2005–2013)
David Yelland – George, Poirot's valet (2006–2013)
Other miscellanious characters are linked to their respective actors, if found.

External links

Encyclopedic article on Agatha Christie's Poirot on Wikipedia
Media related to Agatha Christie's Poirot on Wikimedia Commons