Cyril Hare > Quotes

“That is all the money in the world at my disposition." She dropped the stilted words into the court like pebbles into a calm pool, wrapping her strange dignity around her like a cloak.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“It is seldom that any judge really gets to the bottom of a case. The well of truth is usually too deep for the merely judicial plumb-line.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“Sir Julius, vain gregarious soul that he was, had made his career by impressing other people. It was a cruel fate that had given him for guardian a man whom the warm rays of his personality impressed no more than if they had been the cold beams of the moon.”
― Cyril Hare, An English Murder

“You know, sir," he said, "she was easily the nicest woman I ever knew." Sampson suppressed a smile. It was funny to hear a boy of seventeen talk like that. All the same, he reflected, the lad might live to seventy and still find no reason to change his opinion.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“The other was until a fortnight ago in the occupation of a liaison officer from the Ministry of Manpower, when the Treasury in its wisdom decided that co-operation with other branches of the Government was a luxury that could not be tolerated in time of war.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“The ceiling showed ominous stains of damp and the sagging wire mattress of the bed uttered a tired protesting creak when Derek incautiously tried it with his hand. Remembering that this was the room that Beamish had described as "passable", he shivered as he thought of the descending degrees of discomfort to which the staff would be subjected. Leaving the room, Derek duly fell down the two steps outside the door into the dark corridor beyond. He recovered himself and picked his way down three or four further steps into a broader passage, out of which the main rooms of the lodgings opened.”
― Cyril Hare, Tragedy at Law

“Giving judgment," he read, "the learned deputy observed that the plaintiff had alleged that Mrs. Gallop was a very difficult customer to fit. Having seen Mrs. Gallop in the witness-box he could well believe it.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“Nothing of the smallest interest was going to happen today, at all events, and he could not for the life of him say why he had come there himself, except that, having finished the lecture on torts, he was at a loose end that morning, and that sitting with his neighbours in the village hall made a change from pottering round the garden at home.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“All his working life had been spent in resolving other people’s problems, but they had been the problems of strangers, dealt with at arm’s length through the medium of a solicitor, and considered in the quiet, dust-laden atmosphere of the Temple, where matters of life and death, fortune and bankruptcy resolved themselves into carefully phrased opinions and the comparison of reported cases.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“Glad to see you, Pettigrew. Are you defending the bigamy to-morrow?” “Alas! I am neither prosecuting nor defending. In fact, I am here on false pretences. For the time being, I am the lowest thing in the scale of human creation.” The Clerk’s bushy eyebrows met in a frown. “You’re not going to tell me you’ve been summoned on a jury?” he said incredulously.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“The English," said MacWilliam, a trace of Highland accent appearing for once in his speech, "are not by and large an educated people.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“In a word (which he had coined specially for the occasion) he disliked his unsnubbability.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“Then perhaps you wouldn't mind assisting us by answering a few questions?" "I am at your service, Superintendent." (That was much better. It was what all the chaps in books said, anyway.)”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“It is hideous to contemplate such things occurring in a department under my control,” he said. “But what can one expect with the material at one’s command? The temporary civil servant is the bane of government in war-time.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“Daily he was called upon to solve the insoluble, to divine the truth between competing perjuries, to apportion derisory incomes among innumerable creditors,”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“Such, social historians of the future please note, were the housing conditions of Markshire in the year of grace 1952.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“Like many other people, Mrs. Marshall imagined that business in the criminal courts was a succession of breath-taking thrills, that every case was a drama, every counsel a cross-examiner of genius “who could get anything out of you if he tried”, every speech a torrent of eloquence, every Judge a Solon.”
― Cyril Hare, Tragedy at Law

“I’ve got my rights, haven’t I? If I choose to say nothing, I suppose I can. It’s no use your trying to use third degree methods on me.” “Nowadays,” said Mallett quietly, “people of your sort usually call them ‘Gestapo methods’. You should try to be a little more up to date.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“Obviously not,” said Pettigrew, beginning to feel like a participant in one of Plato’s dialogues when Socrates really got going.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“The last sitting before the Easter vacation was at Markhampton. Pettigrew occupied the old Assize Court there, recalling battles long ago on the Southern Circuit, while he listened to a long and preternaturally dull dispute relating to a dressmaker's bill. (In his innocence, he did not realize that anything relating to women's clothes is automatically News, and he was astonished to find the case featured in all but one of the next morning's newspapers, garnished with a quantity of judicial sallies which he was quite unconscious of having uttered.)”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“She spent a great deal of her time in an endeavour, becoming yearly more and more difficult in a world increasingly disturbed, to "place" people properly, and she was obviously overjoyed that in this case the task had been so easy, and the result so satisfactory.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“the Controller, blond, fattish, and a little bald, lunching tête-à-tête with the head of the Export Department, one of the few other permanent Civil Servants in the Control. In their neat, black suits, and with their serious, aloof expressions, they contrived to bring into their incongruous surroundings an indefinable atmosphere of Whitehall.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“Estate duties, as you are no doubt aware, are calculated on the prices ruling at the date of death. It is therefore sometimes quite important to expire at the right moment.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“Marshal," the whisper went on, "ask Pettigrew to lunch."

It was the second day of the assize. The hour was 12.30 p.m. and Pettigrew was just tying the red tape round his second and last brief before leaving the court. Barber, if he had so desired, could have sent his invitation at any time after the sitting of the court that morning. By delaying it to the last moment he must have known that he was combining the pleasures of dispensing hospitality with the maximum of inconvenience to his guest. Such, at least, was Pettigrew's first reflection when, having bowed himself out of court, he finally received the message in the dank and cheerless cell that served as counsel's robing-room at the Shire Hall.”
― Cyril Hare, Tragedy at Law

“The duplicity of Mrs. Pink in having concealed the existence of a husband was enthusiastically condemned by one and all. She was variously described as sly, deceitful, and even—ultimate reproach—as no better than she should be.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods

“Who do you suppose the Nicey Priors were?” asked Pettigrew, beginning to chuckle again. “They sound an amiable crowd of old gentlemen.” “I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Miss Brown, blushing uncomfortably, “but that is what you dictated, Mr. Pettigrew.” She began to turn over the leaves of her shorthand notes. “No doubt it was. Don’t bother to turn it up. It was my fault for not explaining that I was talking lawyer’s Latin, and with a lawyer’s false quantities at that.” He crossed out the words, wrote in “Nisi Prius”, and murmured, “Poor old Priors! I’m quite sorry to see them go. But they had no business in the Court of Exchequer. Their proper place obviously was the Council of Nicea.”
― Cyril Hare, With a Bare Bodkin

“Judge Jefferson was still a sick man, and his deputy continued to be called upon to fill his place. Pettigrew travelled the length and breadth of Markshire. He passed from draughty town halls, where inaudible witnesses competed vainly with the roar of traffic outside, to stuffy police-courts loud with the clamour of imprisoned stray dogs. Daily he was called upon to solve the insoluble, to divine the truth between competing perjuries, to apportion derisory incomes among innumerable creditors, or to discover what had caused two stationary cars, each hugging its proper side of the road, to smash each other to pieces in the middle of the highway. He found time in the intervals to order the adoption of dozens of babies. He enjoyed himself immensely.”
― Cyril Hare, Death Walks the Woods