The A B C Murders by Agatha Christie Page B

Commissioner struck the table with his fist.
    “My God, are you telling me we're going to have five more murders?”
    “It won't be as much as that, sir,” said Inspector Crome. “Trust me.”
    He spoke with confidence.
    “Which letter of the alphabet do you place it at, Inspector?” asked Poirot.
    There was a slight ironic note in his voice. Crome, I thought, looked at him with a tinge
     of dislike adulterating the usual calm superiority.
    “Might get him next time, M. Poirot. At any rate I'd guarantee to get him by the time he
     gets to E.”
    He turned to the Assistant Commissioner.
    “I think I've got the psychology of the case fairly clear. Dr. Thompson will correct me if
     I'm wrong. I take it that every time he brings a crime off, his self-confidence increases
     about a hundred per cent. Every time he feels 'I'm clever - they can't catch me!' he
     becomes so overweeningly confident that he also becomes careless. He exaggerates his own
     cleverness and every one else's stupidity. Very soon he'll be hardly bothering to take any
     precautions at all. That's right, isn't it, doctor?”
    Thompson nodded.
    “That's usually the case. In non-medical terms it couldn't have been put better. You know
     something about such things, M. Poirot. Don't you agree?”
    I don't think that Crome liked Thompson's appeal to Poirot. He considered that he and he
     only was the expert on this subject.
    “It is as Inspector Crome says,” agreed Poirot.
    “Paranoia,” murmured the doctor.
    Poirot turned to Crome.
    “Are there any material facts of interest in the Bexhill case?”
    “Nothing very definite. A waiter at the Splendide at Eastbourne recognizes the dead girl's
     photograph as that of a young woman who dined there in company with a middle-aged man in
     spectacles. It's also been recognized at a roadhouse place called the Scarlet Runner,
     halfway between Bexhill and London. There they say she was with a man who looked like a
     naval officer. They can't both be right, but either of them's probable. Of course, there's
     a host of other identifications, but most of them not good for much. We haven't been able
     to trace the A.B.C.”
    “Well, you seem to be doing all that can be done, Crome,” said the Assistant Commissioner.
     “What do you say, M. Poirot? Does any line of inquiry suggest itself to you?”
    Poirot said slowly:
    “It seems to me that there is one very important clue - the discovery of the motive.”
    “Isn't that pretty obvious? An alphabetical complex. Isn't that what you called it,
     doctor?”
    “
    
    
     ‚
    
    
     a, oui,” said Poirot. “There is an alphabetical complex. A madman in particular has always
     a very strong reason for the crimes he commits.”
    “Come, come, M. Poirot,” said Crome. “Look at Stoneman in 1929. He ended by trying to do
     away with any one who annoyed him in the slightest degree.”
    Poirot turned to him.
    “Quite so. 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. But
     consider now this case - if the victims are alphabetically selected, then they are not
     being removed because they are a source of annoyance to him personally. It would be too
     much of a coincidence to combine the two.”
    “That's a point,” said Dr. Thompson. “I remember a case where a woman's husband was
     condemned to death. She started killing the members of the jury one by one. Quite a