Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989-2008)

With his fastidious habits, he would not have fit in his native Belgium. In London, a city accommodating (but not indifferent to) eccentrics, he is accepted, with his peculiarities dismissed as foreign quirks. Rearing his thoughts in discipline, he expects exacting discipline from the world that he inhabits. When such discipline is found lacking, it is introduced by interference (e.g., adjusting items on a mantelpiece) or inference (e.g., discovering the necessary in what initially seemed to be arbitrary). His unique ability to bring order---the ability that is the defining characteristic of being alive---is what makes others consider Poirot a hero.

In the "Sad Cypress," Poirot says that to wish a murder is not the same as to commit a murder. The difference is qualitative, not quantitative. To wish for something is to evaluate the prospect of attaining it. Someone who wishes for something may eventually conclude its undesirability, whereas someone who refrains from wishing may do so only because he anticipates his inability to resist the temptation of committing whatever he wishes for.