Hickory Dickory Dock

"Hercule Poirot frowned.
"Miss Lemon," he said.
"Yes, M. Poirot?"
"These are three mistakes in this letter."
His voice held incredulity. For Miss Lemon, that hideous and efficient woman, never made mistakes. She was never ill, never tired, never upset, never inaccurate. For all practical purposes, that is to say, she was not a woman at all. She was a machine- the perfect secretary. She everything, she coped with everything. She ran Hercule Poirot's life for him, so that it, too, functioned like a machine. Order and method had been Hercule Poirot's watchwords from many years ago. With George, his perfect manservant, and Miss Lemon, his perfect secretary, order and method ruled supreme in his life. Now that crumpets were baked square as well as round, he had nothing about which to complain."

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"Another shock. Poirot had never conceived of Miss Lemon's having a sister. Or, for that matter, having a father, mother, or even grandparents. Miss Lemon, somehow, was so completely machine made-a precision instrument so to speak-that to think of her having affections or anxieties, or family worries, seemed quite ludicrous."

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""Yes," she said, "I don' think I've ever mentioned her to you. Practically all her life has been spent in Singapore. Her husband was in the rubber business there."
Hercule Poirot nodded understandingly. It seemed to him appropriate that Miss Lemon's sister should spent most of her life in Singapore. That was what places in Singapore were for.

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Excerpts from Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie :) What amuses me is the fact the way Poirot views women, apart from his queer obsession with order and symmetricality, the words used to describe a women that is so highly efficient really fascinates me. Another point would be the mentioned of Singapore haha yup the tiny red dot, in Agatha's book, which was written in 1955. rubber business ? i am sure she meant Malaysia but then you'd never know :)

=do something right=