“These blondes, sir, they're responsible for a lot of trouble.”

“Will you pour out tea, Miss Brent?' The el­der wom­an replied: 'No, you do it, dear. That tea-​pot is so heavy. And I have lost two skeins of my grey knitting-​wool. So an­noy­ing.' Ve­ra moved to the tea-​ta­ble. There was a cheer­ful rat­tle and clink of chi­na. Nor­mal­ity returned. Tea! Blessed or­di­nary everyday af­ter­noon tea! Philip Lom­bard made a cheery re­mark. Blore re­spond­ed. Dr. Arm­strong told a hu­mor­ous sto­ry. Mr. Jus­tice War­grave, who or­di­nar­ily hat­ed tea, sipped ap­prov­ing­ly. In­to this re­laxed at­mo­sphere came Rogers. And Rogers was up­set. He said ner­vous­ly and at ran­dom: 'Ex­cuse me, sir, but does any one know what's become of the bath­room cur­tain?' Lom­bard's head went up with a jerk. 'The bath­room cur­tain? What the dev­il do you mean, Rogers?' 'It's gone, sir, clean van­ished. I was go­ing round draw­ing all the cur­tai­ns and the one in the lav -​ bath­room wasn't there any longer.' Mr. Jus­tice War­grave asked: 'Was it there this morn­ing?''Oh, yes, sir.' Blore said: 'What kind of a cur­tain was it?''Scar­let oil­silk, sir. It went with the scar­let tiles.'Lom­bard said: 'And it's gone?''Gone, Sir.'They stared at each oth­er. Blore said heav­ily: 'Well - af­ter all-​what of it? It's mad - ​but so's everything else. Any­way, it doesn't matter. You can't kill any­body with an oil­silk cur­tain. For­get about it.'Rogers said: 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir.' He went out, shut­ting the door.”

“One's own troubles sharpen one's eyes sometimes.”

“Melchett said gloomily, 'Well, we know where we are -- or rather, where we aren't!''Where we aren't expresses it rather better, sir.”

“The trouble with you and me, is that we don't live in the real world. We dream of fantastic things that may never happen.”

“There is, as Miss Marple would say, a lot of human nature in all of us.”

“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”