Убийства по алфавиту

I treated it as though it had been an intuition. In a well-balanced, reasoning mind them is no such thing as an intuition — an inspired guess! You can guess, of course — and a guess is either right or wrong. If it is right you call it an intuition. If it is wrong you usually do not speak of it again.
But what is often called an intuition is really impression based on logical deduction or experience. When an expert feels that there is something wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque he is really basing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely — his experience obviates that — the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong. But it is not a guess, it is an impression based on experience.

It is no answer to say that the man was mentally unhinged. To say a man does mad things because he is mad is merely unintelligent and stupid. A madman is as logical and reasoned in his action as a sane man — given his peculiar biased point of view. For example, if a man insists on going out and squatting about in nothing but a loincloth his conduct seems eccentric in the extreme. But once you know that the man himself is firmly convinced that he is Mahatma Gandhi, then his conduct becomes perfectly reasonable and logical.

"I speak the language of the tables. At roulette there may be a long run on the black — but in the end red must turn up. It is the mathematical laws of chance."
"You mean that luck turns?"
"Exactly, Hastings. And that is where the gambler (and the murderer, who is, after all, only a supreme kind of gambler since what he risks is not his money but his life) often lacks intelligent anticipation. Because he has won he thinks he will continue to win! He does not leave the tables in good time with his pockets full.
So in crime the murderer who is successful cannot conceive the possibility of not being successful! He takes to himself all the credit for a successful performance — but I tell you, my friends, however carefully planned no crime can be successful without luck!"

"Vous prouvez trop d'emotion, Hastings. It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?"
"Good heavens, Poirot," I cried, "this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?"
"You have no sense of proportion, Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one's clothes will not be the least helpful in preventing a murder."

But if you are a sufficiently great and important person, it is necessary that you should be spared small annoyances. If a fly settles on your forehead again and again, maddening you by its tickling — what do you do? You endeavour to kill that fly. You have no qualms about it. You are important — the fly is not. You kill the fly and the annoyance ceases. Your action appears to you sane and justifiable. Another reason for killing a fly is if you have a strong passion for hygiene. The fly is a potential source of danger to the community — the fly must go. So works the mind of the mentally deranged criminal.