" M. Poirot,’ she said somewhat breathlessly, ‘Can I speak to you alone?’ ‘Milady, Captain Hastings is as my other self. You can speak before him as though he were a thing of no account, not there at all. Be seated, I pray you. "

― Agatha Christie , Poirot's Early Cases: 18 Hercule Poirot Mysteries (Hercule Poirot, #11.5)