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Quotes from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
To celebrate Agatha Christie's masterpiece on its 100th anniversary, we are revisiting some of the best quotations and characterisations from this book.
Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home. I don’t know how she manages it, but there it is.
Such have been our preoccupations in King’s Abbot for the last few years. We have discussed Ackroyd and his affairs from every standpoint.
‘You must have indeed been sent from the good God to replace my friend Hastings,’ he said, with a twinkle. ‘I observe that you do not quit my side. How say you, Doctor Sheppard, shall we investigate that summer-house? It interests me.’
I looked at Poirot, but he was busy inspecting his appearance in a tiny pocket glass. He paid particular attention to his moustaches, and none at all to me. I saw that he did not intend to be communicative.
‘You seem to have invented a romantic fairy story of your own,’ I said. ‘You read too many trashy novels, Caroline. I’ve always told you so.’
I will wish you good morning. I believe that you have told me the truth. If you have not—so much the worse for you, my friend.
The superintendent went into a roar of laughter. ‘Many’s the time I’ve heard Inspector Japp say that. M. Poirot and his little ideas! Too fanciful for me, he’d say, but always something in them.’ ‘You mock yourself at me,’ said Poirot, smiling; ‘but never mind. The old ones they laugh last sometimes, when the young, clever ones do not laugh at all.’
Always, when I have had a big case, he has been by my side. And he has helped me—yes, often he has helped me. For he had a knack, that one, of stumbling over the truth unawares—without noticing it himself, bien entendu. At times, he has said something particularly foolish, and behold that foolish remark has revealed the truth to me!
