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Jul. 10th, 2023 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelSo I've been listening to an audiobook collection of the Poirot stories, and one, "Problem at Sea" is ... rather bothering me.
I'm keeping the details of the crime itself vague so I don't ruin it for others. (Never mind that I figured out the how before we were told.) But just in case, adding a cut. And altering pronouns.
So in the "Poirot assembles everyone to explain, he demonstrates how it was done, and the guilty party cries out and collapses. The doctor pronounces them dead by heart failure, which Poirot attributes to shock at being found out. There is then a conversation between one of the spectators and Poirot:
...okay yes murder is wrong, and sudden death by shock is less horrible than trial and hanging, but doesn't "deliberately startling someone with a weak heart knowing it will probably kill them" come awfully close to committing murder himself?
I'm keeping the details of the crime itself vague so I don't ruin it for others. (Never mind that I figured out the how before we were told.) But just in case, adding a cut. And altering pronouns.
So in the "Poirot assembles everyone to explain, he demonstrates how it was done, and the guilty party cries out and collapses. The doctor pronounces them dead by heart failure, which Poirot attributes to shock at being found out. There is then a conversation between one of the spectators and Poirot:
"Did you know [their] heart was weak?"
"I guessed it...[explanation redacted]"
"So you thought it might end this way?"
"The best way, don’t you think?"
[deduction redacted]
"It was a trick — a cruel trick"
"I do not approve of murder," said Hercule Poirot.
...okay yes murder is wrong, and sudden death by shock is less horrible than trial and hanging, but doesn't "deliberately startling someone with a weak heart knowing it will probably kill them" come awfully close to committing murder himself?