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

When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't, luckily, have to bother about that.

Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.

It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.

I suppose without curiosity a man would be a tortoise. Very comfortable life, a tortoise has.

Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?