Detective Methods

Subject:  Detective Methods—Viewpoint
Quote:  “[S]o far, we’ve only seen the case from the outside.  That’s where the Yard’s at a disadvantage in a case of this kind, where the murder’s only out, so to speak, after the inquest.  A lot depends on being on the spot first thing, and that’s where Mr. Poirot’s had the start of us.”
Character:  Chief Detective James Japp
Chapter/Story: 7—Poirot Pays His Debts
Book Title/Copyright:  The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920


Subject:  Detective Methods—Evidence
Quote:  “But the evidence is so conclusive.”
            “Yes, yes, too conclusive…. Real evidence is usually vague and unsatisfactory.  It has to be examined—sifted.  But here the whole thing is cut and dried.  No, my friend, this evidence has been very cleverly manufactured—so cleverly that it has defeated its own ends.”
            “How do you make that out?”
            “Because, so long as the evidence against him was vague and intangible, it was very hard to disprove.  But, in his anxiety, the criminal has drawn the net so closely that one cut will set Inglethorp free.”
Characters:  Captain Arthur Hastings and M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  7—Poirot Pays His Debts
Book Title/Copyright:  The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920


Subject:  Detective Methods—Originality
Quote:  “Man is an unoriginal animal.  Unoriginal within the law in his daily respectable life, equally unoriginal outside the law.  If a man commits a crime, any other crime he commits will resemble it closely.  The English murderer who disposed of his wives in succession by drowning them in their baths was a case in point.  Had he varied his methods, he might have escaped detection to this day.  But he obeyed the common dictates of human nature, arguing that what had once succeeded would succeed again, and he paid the penalty of his lack of originality.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  9—M. Giraud Finds Some Clues
Book Title/Copyright:  Murder on the Links, 1923


Subject:  Detective Methods--Energy Expended
Quote:  “Why keep a dog and bark yourself?  Japp brings us here the result of the physical energy you admire so much.  He has various means at his disposal which I have not.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  18 – The Other Man
Book Title/Copyright:  13 at Dinner [Lord Edgware Dies], 1933


Subject:  The Truth Will Out
Quote:  “[T]here is nothing so dangerous for any one who has something to hide as conversation!  Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man’s to prevent him from thinking.  It is also an infallible means of discovering that which he wishes to hide.  A human being, Hastings, cannot resist the opportunity to reveal himself and express his personality, which conversation gives him.  Every time he will give himself away.”
Character:  M. Hercule Poirot
Chapter/Story:  31 – Hercule Poirot Asks Questions
Book Title/Copyright:  The A.B.C. Murders, 1936


Subject:  Detective Methods
Quote:  “Keep a murderer talking…. [Hercule Poirot] Says everyone is bound to speak what’s true sooner or later—because in the end it’s easier than telling lies.  And so they make some little slip they don’t think matters—and that’s when you get them.”
Character:  Superintendent Battle
Chapter/Story:  “A Fine Italian Hand—V”
Book Title/Copyright:  Towards Zero, 1944