“Born to be hanged or born to be drowned”

“Born to be hanged or born to be drowned” is an old saying raised by Miranda Butler while she speaks with Hercule Poirot about death at a former quarry. Its appearance links a fatality associated with the site to the recent drowning of Joyce Reynolds, which Miranda then names directly.

The Saying and the Former Quarry

Miranda asks whether the saying is true after explaining that someone was killed at the place long before it became a garden. She recalls its earlier uses as a quarry and then as a gravel or sand pile, where a woman’s body was found. Her question joins the site’s buried past to the saying’s stark alternatives: hanging or drowning.

Poirot’s Reply and Miranda’s Disclosure

Poirot answers that people are no longer hanged in their country, while Miranda points out that executions by hanging still occur elsewhere, including in the streets. When he asks whether that is good or bad, her answer does not strictly address the question; Poirot senses that she may nevertheless intend it as a response. She then says, “Joyce was drowned,” revealing the death that gives the saying immediate personal force.

Miranda explains that her mother had not wanted to tell her, but she considers that silence unnecessary because she is twelve. She describes Joyce as a friend who sometimes told her interesting things, including stories about elephants and rajahs, and says they used to share secrets. The saying thus sits at the intersection of an old death attached to the landscape and a child’s plain acknowledgment of her friend’s death.

Narrative Significance

The exchange moves from an apparently general question about whether fate determines the manner of death to a specific loss Miranda has already encountered. The shift is quiet rather than dramatic: Poirot’s reflection on the meaning of her answer precedes her direct statement about Joyce. In this brief conversation, the old saying provides a frame for Miranda’s thoughts about death, while her disclosure makes the discussion personal and establishes Joyce as both her friend and a victim of drowning.