Ecr Quotes

Folks in village don’t go reporting things,” he said. “We live and let live. Life wouldn’t be worth living if us got telling on one another.” “Live and let live. In this case it’s been die and let die, hasn’t it?” said Macdonald.

a great hawk flew in front of them and came back again and again as though to protest against their intrusion into his territory.

Never was good coffee more enjoyed,

Never make trouble in the village’ is an unspoken law, but it’s a binding law. You may know about your neighbours’ sins and shortcomings, but you must never name them aloud. It’d make trouble, and small societies want to avoid trouble.

This village has its own peculiar character, you know. You’ll realise that when you’ve lived here a bit longer. At first one sees only its charm, everybody fitting together pleasantly, according to their station in life—but there’s more to it than that.

Closing the door behind him, Macdonald stood still in the darkness, as he had stood so often in other buildings. Houses, barns, shops, flats, warehouses, all dark, as this passage was dark, but having in the darkness their own character because each had its own peculiar smell. Gramarye smelt of floor polish and carbolic and soap: something of the unwelcoming smell of an institution, but behind the overlay of modern cleanliness, the smell of the ancient house declared itself, of old mortar, of stone walls built without damp courses, of woodwork decaying under coats of paint, of panelling and floor boards which gave out their ancient breath as the coldness of the stone house triumphed over the warmth of the midsummer evening.

Far below him, the River Lune wound its serpentine curves across the wide flood plane: beneath the clear September sky the water shone blue, flowing out to Morecambe Bay, whose golden sands gleamed palely in the western distance. On the opposite side of the valley the ground rose in a series of ridges, wooded in places, but in the main showing the chequered carpet of farm land: intense green of the fog grass in the rich rivers dales, pale gold of stubble on the higher levels, blue-green of unharvested kale and mangold crops, lighter green of pasture. The sun caught the stone farm buildings of the hamlet of Gressthwaite, half hidden among the trees mid-way up the slope across the river. Far beyond to the north, the blue hills of the Lake District stood out clear against the sky - Scafell, the Langdale Pikes, and Helvellyn. Staple had climbed them all, and he knew every ridge and notch of the blue outlines. Behind him, on the farther side of the wall, the fell was clothed in heather, its fragrance heavy with the sweetness of honey. At his feet the rough pasture, in which bracken and bramble and bilberry mingled, sloped down to the richer pasture of the lower levels. Staple stood very still, his hands gripping his stick, enjoying the keen wind which whistled round him, in his ears the call of peewits and curlews, while his grey eyes dwelt lovingly on the rich valley and embracing hills. His mind was not given to formulating his thoughts in explicit words, and it would have been alien to him to express the facile enthusiasm of the more vocal southern Englishman, but he was conscious of some warmth of comfort which dwelt in the wide prospect, of an unchanging certainty in an unstable and changing world.

I set out this evening to learn something about the district, to study the roads and paths, and to get the hang of it, the feel of the land. It's no use rushing to ask questions when you're ignorant of the place, especially a place like this. As I see it, coming here as a stranger, this crime is conditioned by the place. To understand the one you've to to study the other.

Je suis en train de me dire que le problème noir aux États-Unis pose une question qui le rend prati- quement insoluble: celui de la Bêtise. Il a ses racines dans les profondeurs de la plus grande puissance spi- rituelle de tous les temps, qui est la Connerie. Jamais, dans l'histoire, l'intelligence n'est arrivée à résoudre des problèmes humains lorsque leur nature essen- tielle est celle de la Bêtise. Elle est arrivée à les contourner, à s'arranger avec eux par l'habileté ou par la force, mais neuf fois sur dix, lorsque l'intel- ligence croyait déjà en sa victoire, elle a vu surgir en son milieu toute la puissance de la Bêtise immortelle. Il suffit de voir ce que la Bêtise a fait des victoires du communisme, par exemple, du déferlement des spermatzoïdes de la « révolution culturelle », ou au moment où j’ecrIs, de l’assassinat du « printemps de Prague » au nom de la « pensée marxiste correcte ». (Chien blanc)

Je suis en train de me dire que le problème noir aux États-Unis pose une question qui le rend pratiquement insoluble: celui de la Bêtise. Il a ses racines dans les profondeurs de la plus grande puissance spirituelle de tous les temps, qui est la Connerie. Jamais, dans l'histoire, l'intelligence n'est arrivée à résoudre des problèmes humains lorsque leur nature essentielle est celle de la Bêtise. Elle est arrivée à les contourner, à s'arranger avec eux par l'habileté ou par la force, mais neuf fois sur dix, lorsque l'intellidence croyait déjà en sa victoire, elle a vu surgir en son milieu toute la puissance de la Bêtise immortelle. Il suffit de voir ce que la Bêtise a fait des victoires du communisme, par exemple, du déferlement des spermatzoïdes de la « révolution culturelle », ou au moment où j’ecrIs, de l’assassinat du « printemps de Prague » au nom de la « pensée marxiste correcte ». (Chien blanc)

three steps leading up the necessary. Funny notion of preserving dignity on undignified occasions. You either go up steps or else go down them for all purposes

the dull fire, whose logs smouldered sulkily in the vast open hearth.

during which he probably gave them chapter and verse concerning his forthcoming tour.

Mind the cat.

In his heart of hearts Layng believed that all farmers were stupid—otherwise they wouldn’t have been farmers.

Our researches unearthed the appalling fact that he is a Jew. His father’s name was originally Levi. Mrs. Attleton, it appears, loathes Jews, and Thomas knew it. He was willing to spend several more nights in his unpleasing cell rather than own up to his race.

If you were landed with a corpse on your hands, by what method could you dispose of it so as to avoid any future liabilities? Highest marks will be given for a method which is not only ingenious, but possesses the elements of practical common sense.

The whole thing is so demented that its ingenuity staggers me,” groaned Colonel Wragley.

Anybody can write an ECR. It has to be formally dispositioned. There is no ducking it. Thiokol has a similar system. All the aerospace contractors have this approach.

Let us get this quite clear,” she said. “Are you suggesting that I am insane because I had a nervous breakdown five years ago?

John Staple turned round with an inquiring “Eh…?” that aggregate of vowels uttered in such varying tones by all good Lancastrians, and quite inimitable to the southerner.

Mrs. Hoggett would make a good witness, thought Macdonald. She only said she was certain of a thing when she really was certain, and she added chapter and verse with exemplary clarity. A judge would appreciate Mrs. Hoggett, meditated the C.I.D. man but the jury would like her husband.

The harvest moon was just past the full, and it seemed to sail overhead in a sea of luminous iridescence, due to the vaporous clouds in the high steely vault of the sky.

Have you got a hot toddy in that cottage of yours?” “No, I haven’t and I’d say you don’t need one,” retorted Hoggett. “You’re a rotten runner anyway. You can have a cup of tea and get dry while you’re explaining why I shouldn’t get you certified.

As he walked over the sour grass toward the house, he found himself leading a procession; two hens, one of them almost bald, three ducks, and a goose in a bad way followed him hopefully; then the goat joined in.

None of your cows has any feeling for discipline,” murmured Katherine.

Sister’s old bag’s not nowhere’ and Cook said, ‘That be’n’t our business. Us hasn’t got t’ old bag. Likely it fell in mill-race or maybe they’ve got it. But it be’n’t our business.’ And I said, ‘that’s right, that be. If I say Sister’s old bag be’n’t here, sergeant will say, “ ’Tis that old fool Hannah stole he’.” Him went all around, opening everything with Sister’s keys, counting this, counting that, spying and staring and jumping out on we with questions till us was fair dazed like.” Some part of Macdonald’s mind was almost fascinated by the sing-song drone of Hannah’s voice: there was a peculiar primitive rhythm to her sentences, and this, together with the liquid Devonshire vowels, gave the effect of some ancient ballad, akin to song rather than speech.

bats cut erratic tangents across the pale sky,

He knew that all was well in the silent house. Reeves was here—somewhere—as good as a watch dog and an insurance policy in one. Reeves would have been all over the house, as silent as a shadow, prying and guarding both. He would have looked in at the two sleeping women, quite calm and unembarrassed. Reeves was a very domestic character

Raymond is constitutionally honest and not at all unobservant, and the two qualities often cause him mental indigestion.

You’re one of that kind, are you?” said Fuller disgustedly. “You first kick another chap in the middle, and then offer him a bribe to get off. Well, you’ve made a little mistake this time. Bates” (this to the constable) “I’m detailed to stop here. You’d better whistle up your point-mate at the next corner and tell him to take over your beat till you return. Report to the superintendent that the man you’ve got in charge was arrested for suspicious behaviour attempting to enter the Belfry, and that he attacked the officer in charge in attempting to escape. And you can keep your explanation for my superior officers, sir,” he ended up in his best manner.

the other sat with his face in his hands. Looking up at the stern-faced man beside him, Mr. Burroughs shuddered weakly. “Is this a nightmare?” he asked. “No. It’s very grim reality,” retorted Macdonald. “This is a police station, and I am an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department working on a case of murder. It’s better for you to remember it.

Mr. Attleton’s way of life—not what you’d call regular, sir—and yet it’s all against his interests to have an open break with Mrs. Attleton. He liked his comfort, sir. Good service, good food, a good club, Turkish baths, swimming, fencing, motoring and all. Mr. Attleton’s a very pleasant gentleman to work for, appreciates good service, and is generous when he’s in funds, but if anything isn’t just so, he’ll not put up with it. If his linen sheets aren’t always the same quality, his bath water as hot as he likes it, his bath salts just so, he mentions it. Likes good living, as I say, sir, but who pays for the linen, and the heating, and the service, in this house, sir? Not Mr. Attleton.” Macdonald nodded his appreciation of this really oratorical effort on the part of Weller,

If Macdonald had spoke aloud the thought in his mind, he would have said: “What a perfectly loathsome pair you seem to have been.

Sucking away at his pipe, he realised that there wasn’t any glamour about a murder case in which you knew the parties involved.

You might give my department a call, and tell them I shall be at the hospital. We seem to be having a busy evening. Explosion, fire, assault, and the chief actor fished out of the river too late for him to be helpful.

the man was real—and the man was dead, still and inscrutable, having taken his secrets with him into the cold flood of London’s river.

I suppose the policeman grows to resemble the famous parent at school—their kids are always unusual kids, and want careful handling.

A good type of head, the face already settled into the half-smiling lines of death, waxen, untroubled, inscrutable.

This is where I examine his effects, as the lawyers say.” “Well, I wish you luck. Rather you than me. Thames mud isn’t too savoury.

Now then, looking at this, and speaking as one optimist to another, do you think he could have cracked his own skull by being over-enthusiastic in staging an accident?” The doctor took the “cosh” with an amused smile. “Want me to try it out on myself? Speaking as one fool to another, which is what you were thinking of saying, I should say not. More in your line than mine, this. Oh, I see. Rubber loops. Quite a nice rebound. Of course, you could hit yourself, if you were a fakir or a contortionist. Try it on yourself, laddie. I’m here to attend to the lesions. You won’t get pneumonia, otherwise, ceteris paribus... Come along, put some spunk into it! Scotland for ever. I’ve met your scrum half, and he wasn’t half so careful of himself as you’re being.” “Deuce take it,” said Macdonald, “if I really try to hit the back of my own head—so,” and he bent his long head well forward, “I can’t regulate the blow. I don’t want to be laid out just now—but there is a possibility.” The surgeon had succumbed to mirth. He laughed till he shook. “Pity there isn’t a movie merchant at hand,” he spluttered. “Nothing Charlie Chaplin ever did is so funny as the sight of a Scots detective trying to hit the base of his own skull with a loaded rubber cosh. Man, ye’re a grand sicht!

Very good, Weller. I should like to see your mistress.” The butler cocked an eyebrow. “Madam is in her bath, sir. I’m afraid you may have to wait some time.” This was a facer. To wait while Mrs. Attleton completed her toilet was no part of Macdonald’s programme. Still with the same air of respectful helpfulness the butler added: “If you would step into the telephone cabinet, sir, I could put you through to her. There is a phone in her bathroom.” “Live and learn,” thought Macdonald.

said the stockbroker faintly. “I’ve fairly put my own neck into a halter.” “With outside assistance, so you assure me,” replied Macdonald. “It’s up to you to get yourself out of it—and believe me, the police system in this country does not aim at charging a man if it is possible to prove he is innocent.

Elizabeth felt a sudden disposition to cry. She had not had any affection for Bruce Attleton; had, in fact, resented the whim which had made her father put her into Attleton’s charge, but now she began to remember the way in which he had been kind to her. It was Bruce who had insisted on Elizabeth coming to live with himself and his wife, instead of living in a club or hostel as she had suggested, and he had done his best in many ways to see that she had had a good time, and even done what he could to teach her to read, to appreciate literature and despise trash, to listen to music as well as to jazz, and to speak English instead of schoolgirl slang. Alone in the room which had been peculiarly his, Elizabeth visualised his tall figure and dark head, with the black forelock he tossed back from his high forehead, and was sorry that she had disliked him.

Arrived at Scotland Yard, feeling very conspicuous and more than a bit of a fool, Elizabeth asked the uniformed man at the entrance how she should set about finding Chief Inspector Macdonald, and was surprised to find herself led, without further question, through corridors and up stairs in a building which reminded her of a tax-collector’s office which had got confused with the County Hall. Nothing sensational, she decided, and policemen without their lids looked rather like lambs.

I want to know who knocked Mr. Grenville down, too.” “So do I!” said Elizabeth trenchantly. “He was a goop! Fancy going to the beastly place!” “He certainly was a goop,” agreed Macdonald,

You’d better leave off thinking of me as a sophisticated wench who is snappy at cocktail parties, and watch the emergence of a countrywoman. I shall be debating fat stock prices before the year’s out, and prodding pigs at the market.

The outlying farm houses are scattered all over the moor. There are a few hamlets, clusters of cottages around some farm houses, and there’s one mining village where tin mining goes on on a small scale, out on the moor. It’s incredibly primitive so far as housing goes, but they look a fine healthy lot of toughs.

Major Rootham stretched out his hand for the phone. “I’ll ask for a first rate man,” he said to himself. The upshot of Major Rootham’s request to the Commissioner’s Office was that Chief Inspector Macdonald was detailed to investigate the matter of Sister Monica’s death.

You say deceased used to be treasurer of this, that and the other. What reason is given for her being relieved of those activities?” “ ‘Her was tired out. Terrible tired Sister was’,” quoted Peel sardonically.

My first impression of Miss Torrington was that she had the dominating power of the worst type of old-fashioned hospital matron, plus the religious fanaticism which makes the most hypocritical sort of egoist.

I like detective stories myself, they make me laugh, whereas real crime isn’t funny,

Elimination” is a byword at the Yard. If you can’t find where a man—or woman has gone, you can sometimes find out where they have not gone.

got the handcuffs on his prostrate victim, having told him what he thought of him in language more forceful than academic.

I admit that Sergeant Peel put my back up. He regards me as his hope of promotion, but you’ve been both fair and reasonable and I’d gladly talk to you again.” “Thanks. But don’t be too hard on Peel. He put a lot of hard work into this job, and his report was an honest effort, not a biased one.

Green walls, green paint, green curtains, green carpet, all faded to despondency:

The old man was working himself up into a temper, as old men do,

The north western sky was still lambent, glowing with pale golden light, and when they reached the summit of the rough road the very air seemed drenched with the aftermath of sunset.

They sat in silence and listened to the call of the moorland birds and watched kestrels hovering until the light faded and the northern sky paled, misted to faint amethyst and then to lilac grey. Reeves lay on his back and watched the stars strengthen,

he was aware of near bird call and far constellation, of fragrance and the chill of evening air, of the reflection of headland lights flashing out from hidden lighthouses:

rustles in heather and bracken told of unseen small beasts busy on nocturnal occasions, and the last bird call died away in sleepy cuck-cuckings, save for the mournful hoot of owls.

Macdonald drove on up the hill to the little plateau between inn and manor and church. Every south-facing wall was white in the moonlight, white as milk: every thatch gleamed with the faintest tinge of gold on its well-combed surface, and beneath the eaves the shadows were purple black.

She’d have made enough noise to wake your dog and the dog would have barked.” “The dog didn’t bark,

as for the row the chap made when he did his swooning act, you’d have thought the whole bridge had copped a V.1.

Macdonald let her babble on uninterrupted for a while. Saintliness and halos, self-abnegation and devotion, floated in the air like incense, until Macdonald put his abrupt question.

He gazed out of the window for a moment, fingering his stock, obviously in two minds whether to continue or not. Then he turned and faced Macdonald and added: “There are occasions in married life when, for one reason or another, a husband puts his foot down without regard to ensuing recriminations. The same is true of a wife. Sister Monica did not constitute one of these occasions.

I’ll go hungry when there’s any object in going hungry,” he observed, “but I work better when I’m fed.” “In common with other domestic animals,” agreed Macdonald.

Can you identify this bag, Mrs. Yeo?” asked Macdonald. The Chief Inspector had put his attaché case on the counter of the village post-office-cum-shop, and felt rather like a commercial traveller as he raised the lid to display his wares.

I’m having a pleasant day,” replied Macdonald. “The world seems full of amiable people, all willing to oblige. I’ve met some conversationalists who would have given you real pleasure, including one charlady with latitudinarian views about living in sin, and a liking for a rolling pin as a corrective to laziness in poets, painters and others.

I have always been rather sorry for Keston, as was Crewdon himself. Keston is one of the world’s lonely fellows.

Do you ever read detective stories, Chief Inspector?” “Quite often. I’m afraid the entertainment I derive from them is not quite what the author intends.” “I feel as though I’m in the middle of a rather bad detective novel,

wanted to pose as Sherlock Holmes cum Peter Wimsey,

Bruce Attleton mixed himself a whisky and soda calculated to reduce funereal impressions to a minimum, and

The two men stepped out into a cold, white mist, in which all sound seemed to be muffled, as is the curious paradox of fogs. In actual fact the silence was due to the slowing down of the traffic.

Gorgeous place to live! I tell you I got a fright one night. That jolly piano up there is rusted all to glory, most of the strings bust, but one of the remaining bass strings took it into its head to snap just after I’d turned the lights off. It was uncanny. First a report which sounded as loud as a pistol shot, then the quiver and hum of the string springing back, and that woke the echo of every remaining string—the dampers have all rotted to glory—and the whole thing seemed to sing. Then a cat began to howl in accompaniment and the owls woke up and hooted. Very pretty! A sort of diabolic concert.

I think Sybilla wanted to get a divorce from Bruce—and he wouldn’t agree. Holy deadlock—and all that.

The light-hearted London to which Emmeline had looked forward was no longer there, and herself, a comparatively young married woman of leisure, seemed out of the picture. Everything seemed to be a problem—food, service, even laundry, all those things which had been taken for granted so gaily in the old world, were now major problems, crises occurring afresh week after week.

London, then, being a disappointment, and arduous work unpalatable, she decided to give life at Valehead a trial while she “considered things.

Eve Merrion had developed from a kindly, light-hearted girl into a mature woman of wide information and generous mind. Her sister, Emmeline, had married an officer in the Indian Army, and her environment since her marriage had crystallized all that was conventional in her. “Empire, Prestige, Dignity”—these were Emmeline’s values, described laughingly by Eve as “E.P.D.” In the narrow sphere of army life and thought, Emmeline had grown into what her sister ruefully described as “a perfect lady, perfect within the limitations of social convention.” Emmeline, at thirty-three, was a beautiful woman, still slender, her fine skin unspoiled by tropical suns, though there were wrinkles around her fine dark eyes, and something in her expression told of weariness and disillusionment.

Emmeline Stamford met Macdonald’s eyes with a glance such as she might have bestowed on an intelligent Hindu, remote, condescending and faintly tinged with dislike.

Likes and dislikes are fundamentally irrational.

Macdonald wondered what nature of mind had its being behind that enigmatic countenance

Macdonald nodded. “Life in the country would be almighty dull if it weren’t enlivened by conjectures about infiltrating ‘foreigners,

I’d better go back and be ready to do the sympathetic friend act. It’s a darned funny show. I seem to have tumbled into the story with the lid off.

Anything else you want to know?” “His address, if you can bring yourself to be so explicit,

I reckon he can live on the proceeds of that book until he shuffles off this mortal what not—” “If you want to quote, for the good Lord’s sake don’t interlard decent English with your own corrupt idioms,

Reeves had summed up Elsie Harford as a shrewd, capable young woman of the modern type, “hard as nails, but quick in the uptake” was Reeves’ estimate of her,

The sun had just set, and mist was settling in white swathes over the grass, waist high, the fantastic wraiths ghost-like in the still air. The rose of sunset was fading from the sky; the west now faintly saffron with a white pinprick of evening star just strengthening against the fading daylight. Inside the house the panelled hall was sombre and shadowy, its colours merged into the grey tones of twilight.

Congratulations on your Sherlocking,

he heard nothing save the characteristic groans and grumblings of the ancient house.

About twenty yards,” answered Waring. “The road had been gravelled not long since and . . . but it’s not the best sort of story to tell a lady, Miss,” he finished inconclusively. “Rubbish, Waring!” snapped Miss Hanton. “How old are you? Twenty-three? Well, when you were seven years old, I was Commandant of a hospital in France. I’ve been bombed, and I’ve been torpedoed. I’ve bandaged men who were half blown to bits. If you think your corpse on the road is going to upset me, you’re making the mistake of your life. I only wish I’d been there,—I’m much more observant than most people, and corpses were commonplaces to me at one time.

Her brother and niece disposed of, Miss Madeleine got herself settled into her electrically propelled motor-chair. It was a neat vehicle and assured her of “independent mobility” when she wanted to be on the move. This afternoon she decided to inspect the garden, particularly the shrubbery near the chauffeur’s cottage; if the Scotland Yard man were to arrive, Miss Madeleine intended to have a word with him.

You’re jumping at conclusions. What I want to know is the process of detection in detail, step by step.” “I’m afraid that it doesn’t always work out like that, Mrs. Hoggett,” rejoined Macdonald. “I try to emulate scientific method. In actual fact I often resemble one of the less methodical birds—say, a starling—who hops about picking up other birds’ food and imitating their voices. In a narrative like this, I tend to make the detective method much more orderly than it is in actual fact, because I omit the irrelevant and the unsuccessful gropings.

every mickle helping towards the muckle,