“Instead of which you sit at home like—like—”
“A sensible man! My force, Hastings, is in my brain, not in my feet! All the time, whilst I seem to you idle, I am reflecting.”
“Reflecting?” I cried. “Is this a time for reflection?”
“Yes, a thousand times yes.”
“But what can you possibly gain by reflection? You know the facts of the three cases by heart.”
“It is not the facts I reflect upon—but the mind of the murderer.”
“The mind of a madman!”
“Precisely. And therefore not to be arrived at in a minute. When I know what the murderer is like, I shall be able to find out who he is. And all the time I learn more. After the Andover crime, what did we know about the murderer? Next to nothing at all. After the Bexhill crime? A little more. After the Churston murder? More still. I begin to see—not what you would like to see—the outlines of a face and form but the outlines of a mind. A mind that moves and works in certain definite directions. After the next crime—”
“Poirot!”
My friend looked at me dispassionately.
“But, yes, Hastings, I think it is almost certain there will be another. A lot depends on la chance. So far our inconnu has been lucky. This time the luck may turn against him. But in any case, after another crime, we shall know infinitely more. Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions. There are confusing indications—sometimes it is as though there were two intelligences at work—but soon the outline will clear itself, I shall know.”
“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!”