Heather Badcock meant no harm. She never did mean harm, but there is no doubt that people like Heather Badcock (and like my old friend Alison Wilde), are capable of doing a lot of harm because they lack - not kindness, they have kindness - but any real consideration for the way their actions may affect other people. She though always of what an action meant to her, never sparing a thought to what it might mean to somebody else.

Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.

I have no pity for myself either. So let it be Veronal. But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.

If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!

Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.

One does what one can, not what one cannot.

Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.