How we cite our quotes:
Quote #7
The doctor watched him with great interest. He flattened out the two humps of wire, and with great care wriggled the charred scrap of paper on to one of them. He clapped the other on top of it and then, holding both pieces together with the tongs, held the whole thing over the flame of the spirit lamp. (1.7.119)
Not one to stick only to old-fashioned methods, Poirot ingeniously sets up a makeshift crime lab to illuminate the script on the scrap.
Quote #8
"I thought there were no detectives on the train when it passed through Yugo-Slavia – not until one got to Italy."
"I am not a Yugo-Slavian detective, Madame. I am an international detective."
"You belong to the League of Nations?"
"I belong to the world, Madame," said Poirot dramatically. (2.7.78-81)
Poirot is a truly modern detective in that he belongs not to one nation, but to the world, as he tells Countess Andrenyi. In that sense, he's a lot like the train itself, traveling across many nations.
Quote #9
Poirot shook his head violently.
"That is just it – it is impossible – quite impossible – that an honourable, slightly stupid, upright Englishman should stab an enemy twelve times with a knife! Do you not feel, my friends, how impossible it is?"
"That is the psychology," said M. Bouc.
"And one must respect the psychology. This crime has a signature and it is certainly not the signature of Colonel Arbuthnot." (2.8.118-121)
Poirot's reliance on psychology also has a modern flair to it.