It was five minutes past nine when I entered our joint sitting-room for
breakfast on the following morning.
My friend Poirot, exact to the minute as usual, was just tapping the
shell of his second egg.
He beamed upon me as I entered.
“You have slept well, yes? You have recovered from the crossing so
terrible? It is a marvel, almost you are exact this morning.
_Pardon___, but your tie is not symmetrical. Permit that I rearrange
him.”
Elsewhere, I have described Hercule Poirot. An extraordinary little
man! Height, five feet four inches, egg-shaped head carried a little to
one side, eyes that shone green when he was excited, stiff military
moustache, air of dignity immense! He was neat and dandified in
appearance. For neatness of any kind, he had an absolute passion. To
see an ornament set crooked, or a speck of dust, or a slight disarray
in one’s attire, was torture to the little man until he could ease his
feelings by remedying the matter. “Order” and “Method” were his gods.
He had a certain disdain for tangible evidence, such as footprints and
cigarette ash, and would maintain that, taken by themselves, they would
never enable a detective to solve a problem. Then he would tap his
egg-shaped head with absurd complacency, and remark with great
satisfaction: “The true work, it is done from _within___. _The little
grey cells___—remember always the little grey cells, _mon ami!___”
I slipped into my seat, and remarked idly, in answer to Poirot’s
greeting, that an hour’s sea passage from Calais to Dover could hardly
be dignified by the epithet “terrible.”
Poirot waved his egg-spoon in vigorous refutation of my remark.
“_Du tout!___ If for an hour one experiences sensations and emotions of
the most terrible, one has lived many hours! Does not one of your
English poets say that time is counted, not by hours, but by
heart-beats?”
“I fancy Browning was referring to something more romantic than sea
sickness, though.”
“Because he was an Englishman, an Islander to whom _la Manche___ was
nothing. Oh, you English! With _nous autres___ it is different. Figure
to yourself that a lady of my acquaintance at the beginning of the war
fled to Ostend. There she had a terrible crisis of the nerves.
Impossible to escape further except by crossing the sea! And she had a
horror—_mais une horreur!___—of the sea! What was she to do? Daily _les
Boches___ were drawing nearer. Imagine to yourself the terrible
situation!”
“What did she do?” I inquired curiously.
“Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique___. He was also very calm,
the crises of the nerves, they affected him not. _Il l’a emportée
simplement!___ Naturally when she reached England she was prostrate,
but she still breathed.”
Poirot shook his head seriously. I composed my face as best I could.
Suddenly he stiffened and pointed a dramatic finger at the toast rack.
“Ah, par exemple, c’est trop fort!” he cried.
“What is it?”
“This piece of toast. You remark him not?” He whipped the offender out
of the rack, and held it up for me to examine.
“Is it square? No. Is it a triangle? Again no. Is it even round? No. Is
it of any shape remotely pleasing to the eye? What symmetry have we
here? None.”
“It’s cut from a cottage loaf,” I explained soothingly.
Poirot threw me a withering glance.
“What an intelligence has my friend Hastings!” he exclaimed
sarcastically. “Comprehend you not that I have forbidden such a loaf—a
loaf haphazard and shapeless, that no baker should permit himself to
bake!”