M. Poirot went back to Syria and about a week later he went home on the Orient Express and got himself mixed up in another murder. He was clever, I don’t deny it, but I shan’t forgive him in a hurry for pulling my leg the way he did. Pretending to think I might be mixed up in the crime and not a real hospital nurse at all!
Doctors are like that sometimes. Will have their joke, some of them will, and never think of your feelings!
I’ve thought and thought about Mrs. Leidner and what she was really like . . . Sometimes it seems to me she was just a terrible woman—and other times I remember how nice she was to me and how soft her voice was—and her lovely fair hair and everything—and I feel that perhaps, after all, she was more to be pitied than blamed. . . .
And I can’t help but pity Dr. Leidner. I know he was a murderer twice over, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. He was so dreadfully fond of her. It’s awful to be fond of anyone like that.
Somehow, the more I get older, and the more I see of people and sadness and illness and everything, the sorrier I get for everyone. Sometimes, I declare, I don’t know what’s becoming of the good, strict principles my aunt brought me up with. A very religious woman she was, and most particular. There wasn’t one of our neighbours whose faults she didn’t know backwards and forwards. . . .
Oh, dear, it’s quite true what Dr. Reilly said. How does one stop writing? If I could find a really good telling phrase.
I must ask Dr. Reilly for some Arab one.
Like the one M. Poirot used.
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate . . .
Something like that.