The King of Clubs
'Truth,' I observed, laying aside the Daily Newspaper, 'is stranger than fiction?’
The remark was not, perhaps, an original one. It appeared to incense my friend. Tilting his egg-shaped head on one side, the little man carefully flicked an imaginary fleck of dust from his carefully creased trousers, and observed:
'How profound! What a thinker is my friend Hastings!'
Without displaying any annoyance at this quite uncalled-for gibe, I tapped the sheet I had laid aside.
'You've read this morning's paper?'
'I have. And after reading it, I folded it anew symmetrically. I did not cast it on the floor as you have done, with your so lamentable absence of order and method.' (That is the worst of Poirot. Order and Method are his gods. He goes so far as to attribute all his su
