Jigsaw Puzzles

Subject:  Jigsaw Puzzles
Quote:  In front of him were various objects that were not square; that were instead violently and almost impossibly curved.  Each of them, studied separately, looked as if they could not have any conceivable function in a sane world.  They appeared improbable, irresponsible, and wholly fortuitous.  In actual fact, of course, they were nothing of the sort.
     Assessed correctly, each had its particular place in a particular universe.  Assembled in their proper place in their particular universe, they not only made sense, they made a picture.  In other words, Hercule Poirot was doing a jigsaw puzzle.
     He looked down at where a rectangle still showed improbably shaped gaps.  It was an occupation he found soothing and pleasant.  It brought disorder into order.  It had…a certain resemblance to his own profession.  There, too, one was faced with various improbably shaped and unlikely facts which, though seeming to bear no relationship to each other, yet did each have its properly balanced part in assembling the whole.
Character:  Omniscient Narrator
Chapter/Story:  16
Book Title/Copyright:  Dead Man’s Folly, 1956