"Detective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coming down the path, and turned to meet a man who had "detective" written largely all over him. Jack turned and looked down again at the body ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... room—Soames sitting haggard in that hat and cape which nowhere at any season had I seen him doff, and this other, this keenly vital man, at sight of whom I more than ever wondered whether he were a diamond merchant, a conjurer, or the head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames didn't want my company; but I asked, as it would have seemed brutal not to, whether I might join him, and took the chair opposite to his. He was smoking a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of something on his plate and a half-empty bottle of Sauterne before him; and ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... is well known. We were flattered by the attentions of a celebrated cracksman. I've seen the detective in charge of the case, and given him all the particulars. He says that the men were assisted by some one inside the house—one ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... other so he can't read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit. Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... hardly of the chauffeur type. Now as a detective—can't you imagine him in a pair of ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... philanthropists who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.—I do not say that Phrenology was ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... looked about the deck. There was no one near the big gun. "Ned," whispered his chum, "there's something wrong here. It's more of that conspiracy to defeat my aims. Don't say anything about this, and we'll keep our eyes open. We'll do a bit of detective work." ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... said one man, who was the chief of the railroad detective bureau, Captain Haskins, famed in a dozen states. "This is a fine haul. Omaha Pete, Tom Galway, and 'Frisco Sammy. Glad to see you, boys! There are rewards of about eleven thousand dollars for the three of you. You'll be as welcome as the flowers that bloom in the spring ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Young ferret, detective, said: "I'll show you where To track the bold rabbit right into his lair." Then he never saw bunny right under his eyes, But went swaggering ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... made about the petitions and the report of the Consuls. I can't forget how critical things seemed to me when three Consuls came to Harmony late at night, while you were at Irene, to warn me that the whole detective force was on the track of the petitioners. Poor Mr. Cinatti was frightfully excited and said that it was his duty to see that his petitioners' names did not become known. He warned me that everything would be done to find us out, traps would be set for us, and he advised me, ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Carrados. "Do you know, Louis, I always had a secret ambition to be a detective myself. I have even thought lately that I might still be able to do something at it if the chance came my way. That makes ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... say a word about the box to any one, Nellie, nor even that it is lost," added the captain. "If I do not find it, I shall employ a skilful detective to look it up, and he may prefer to work in ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... enlightened constabularies, they would undoubtedly shift the settee and drag him into a publicity from which his modest soul shrank. He was enchanted, therefore, a few moments later, to hear a gruff voice state that th' mutt had beaten it down th' fire-escape. His opinion of the detective abilities of the New York police force rose with ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... inflexible rigidity of form, such harrowing cork-screw curls, and chronic expression as of smelling something disagreeable, is Mrs. LADLE, the hostess. A widow. Her husband, the late TIMOTHY, was a New York detective. Amassing a competency, he emigrated to Indiana, became a Bank Director and Sunday-School Superintendent, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... For a detective whose talents, had not been recognized at headquarters, I possessed an ambition which, fortunately for my standing with the lieutenant of the precinct, had not yet been expressed in words. Though I had small reason for expecting great things of ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... Boythorn, had more reason to be satisfied. Besides these one may mention Joe, the outcast; and Mr. Turveydrop, the beau of the school of the Regency—how horrified he would have been at the juxtaposition—and George, the keeper of the rifle gallery, a fine soldierly figure; and Mr. Bucket, the detective—though Dickens had a tendency to idealize the abilities of the police force. As to Sir Leicester Dedlock, I think he is, on the whole, "mine author's" best study of the aristocracy, a direction ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... the lights on the rear coach fade away into the night. "It's all off till to-morrow, that's settled. My only hope is that she really stopped in Albany. There's a train through here at three in the morning; but I'm not detective enough to unravel the mystery of any woman's berth. Now, where the deuce ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... it worth something!" responded Miss Lacey. His deliberate manner was driving her to frenzy. "Send a telegram if you can't send a detective. Say, 'News to your advantage coming,' or something like that. Anything to keep her there while ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... time the detective had come within earshot. Making an effort at self-possession, the dentist said: "Very well. I will meet you at my office in a half-hour and see what can ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... The private detective's face fell. He had been congratulating himself on having secured a "good thing." But he brightened ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... back the "big" surprise, the startling denouement, until the very end. The most enjoyable feature of Anna Katherine Green's "The Leavenworth Case" was that she kept the reader in the dark until the last chapter as to who was the real murderer. All the many detective novels that have since appeared have been successful exactly in proportion as the solution of the mystery has been withheld from the reader until the end of ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... that there were vermin in the straw roof), and accepted the hospitality of a pastry-cook's shop. We felt the more at home with the kind woman who kept it because she had a brother at Chicago in the employ of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and had once been in Stratford-on-Avon; this doubly satisfied us as cultivated Americans. She had a Welsh name, and she testified to a great prevalence of Welsh and Irish in the population of Liverpool; besides, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... to farce, but underlying the steady humour of it all is a perfectly consistent, even saddening, criticism of the Hoopdriver type. He has imagination without ability; life is made bearable for him chiefly by the means of his poor little dreams and poses; he sees himself momentarily in the part of a detective, a journalist, a South African millionaire, any assumption to disguise the horrible reality of the draper's assistant; and yet there is fine stuff in him. (Perhaps the suggested antithesis is hardly justified!) We leave him at the door of the Putney ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... the risk of shocking the reader, it has been decided that the real permanent detective stories of the world were ill represented without Dostoyevsky's terrible tale of what might be called "self- detection." If to sensitive readers the story seems so real as to be hideous, it is well to recall that Dostoyevsky ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... The patient research of scholars, the scraps of evidence found in books and archives, the amazingly accurate hypotheses of bibliographers who have sifted the material so painstakingly gathered together, combine to make its history a bookish detective story par excellence. ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... but suggestive, and that it suggests mystery to me makes me feel as if I myself, instead of a serious practitioner, am a professional detective." ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said he, "I know what the clodhopper is after; and even if I must suffer in consequence, I shall take good care that he cannot shake off his bonds. Wait a bit! I can play the detective too, and be down on him without letting him see the hand that deals the blows. It'll be a wonder if I can't find a naked sword to suspend ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... necessity of catching the two confederates, and the importance of not interfering with the appointment that had been made for the next morning. Such coolness as this, under trying circumstances, is rarely to be found, I should imagine, in a young beginner, whose reputation as a detective policeman is still ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... have a detective down as soon as possible," says Mr. Craig, as Corliss lays one ruthless hand on an overturned chair. "If I were you, Corliss, I would leave everything exactly as I find it, for the benefit of whoever works ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... from me my twin sister. The shadow—forever the shadow of Larry Kildene hangs over me." He was silent for some moments, then he said: "Mr. Ballard, if, after the search, my son is found to be murdered, I will put a detective on the trail of the man who did the deed, and be he whom he may, he ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... recognizing the old detective, touched his hat. "Can't get in," said he. "Have rung all the bells. Would think the house empty if I had not seen something like a stir in one of the windows overhead. Shall I try to make my way into the rear yard through one of the lower windows of Knapp & Co.'s ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... him till to-morrow," the officer added, "but out on the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-light zone, and there wasn't any time to lose. . . . I don't know what your business with him was," the long-moustached detective said to Jean Jacques, "but whatever the grudge is, if you don't want to appear in court in the morning, the walking's good out of town night or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... life, of his character, ways, habits. It proved that he lived quite modestly, and that his income was somewhere between sixty and seventy dollars a week. Mine was three times as large. That I should have to rack my brains, do detective work, and be subjected to all sorts of humiliation in an effort to obtain an audience with him seemed to be a ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... it was inconvenient for me to remain longer in your apartment, Mr. Harleston—and so I exchanged places with your detective," ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... independently for the future, having conceived the idea of making a regular business of doing, on behalf of such clients as might retain him, similar work to that he had just done with such conspicuous success for Messrs. Crellan, Hunt & Crellan. This was the beginning of the private detective business of Martin Hewitt, and his action at that time has been completely justified by the brilliant professional successes he has ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... flashed into the minds of those three lads was the fact that somebody had been trying to get to see what the contents of those mysterious cases might be; which person they now knew must have been a Government Secret Service man, a detective from Washington, on the track of the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... Secret Service detective of the Imperial Austrian police, is one of the great experts in his profession. In personality he differs greatly from other famous detectives. He has neither the impressive authority of Sherlock Holmes, nor the keen brilliancy of Monsieur Lecoq. Muller ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... First Act, after many trivialities and the waste of precious time over a description of certain characters that were presently to appear and endorse it, there was a sudden diversion. The professional card of a private detective was discovered in an arm-chair. No one seemed to know how it got there, and, as the curtain chose this moment to fall, we were left in a state of palpitation, wondering how we were to get through the interval with our curiosity unappeased. Ultimately it turned out that the detective was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... and take a detective with us. Iris will at once feel happier if she is doing something. The fact is this: I am certain the ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... evidently the new tenant. Sometimes she comes alone; sometimes with a dark-eyed, handsome lad, probably her son. Who can she be? what is she? what is her name? her history? has she a right to settle in Gloucester Place, Portman Square? The detective police of London is not peculiarly vigilant; but its defects are supplied by the voluntary efforts of unmarried ladies. The new comer was a widow; her husband had been in the army; of good family; but a mauvais sujet; she had been left in straitened circumstances ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had met him socially at an entertainment—at Mrs. de Graffenried's! He had met him as one gentleman meets another, had shaken hands with him, had gone and talked with him freely and frankly! And then Hegan had sent a detective to worm his secrets from him, and had even tried to get at the contents of ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... believed that an older hand was concerned in it; but in the midst of the consternation and confusion, while the manager stood rubbing his hands nervously together, and Mr. Huntingdon, in his cold, hard voice, was giving instructions to the detective, Maurice Trafford quietly asked to speak to him a moment, and offered ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... To the detective the exclusion card on Tom's door did not apply, and the conferences between the hired and the hirer were frequent and prolonged. If we shall overhear one of them—the final one, held on the day of the Farleys' return to Paradise and Warwick ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... is he so keen about it, anyway? It don't seem nat'ral for a business man built after Johnson's style, and a rich man to boot, to go into this detective business. It ain't the reward, we know that. Is ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... rattled," said the host, consolingly. "I'm not a policeman, sheriff, or detective, mate. I'll report this case as Captain Downs and so many souls saved from the schooner Alden. You'd better trot along up to the city and face 'em as a man should. I'll rig you out in some of my clothes. Your old ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... action was at once silent, stealthy and purposeful. Our young clergyman's shortness of sight rendered their appearance the more peculiar. His normal attitude was not so completely restored, moreover, but that they caused him another nervous tremor. Then he grasped the truth; while the detective, latent in every moralist, sprang to attention. Here were criminals to be brought to justice, criminals caught red-handed. Reginald Sawyer, having been rather badly scared himself, lusted—though ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... is the language of men at war with the law; therefore you are either a detective who has acquired it for no healthy purpose, or else you yourself are a scamp so high up in the profession that it behooves all the little fish of outlawdom to ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... was the lines and formation of hands, yet I did not confine myself alone to that particular page in the book of Nature. I endeavoured to study every phase of thought that can throw light on human life; consequently the very ridges of the skin, the hair found on the hands, all were used as a detective would use a clue to accumulate evidence. I found people were sceptical of such a study only because they had not the subject presented to ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... known of five or six who attempted this singular task. To cite only two names out of the many, the idea of this unusual Vapereau ran through the head of that keen and delicate critic, M. Henri Meilhac, and of that detective in continued stories, Emile Gaboriau. I believe that I also have among the papers of my eighteenth year some sheets covered with notes taken with the same intention. But the labor was too exhaustive. It demanded an infinite patience, combined ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... alone was left to guard their interests. Harrowing memories of tales she had read, terrifying visions of escaped criminals whom she had witnessed in the "movies," and who exactly resembled Mr. Crusoe, came to disturb her rest and haunt her dreams. She was a quaking detective, watching Mr. Crusoe's every act, and discovering treachery and evil design in ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... he was fool enough to set the detective police after me—me, who could snap all their noses off! For he saw how your heart was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his serf forever, by the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed, as they always do. He also failed ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... it almost overwhelms you to think a Southern spy could get close to Union headquarters. A clever trick did it—a trick I learned when I was in the detective bureau at Washington." ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... vaguely described appeared on the spot the next morning. To mention the name of Edward Taggett is to mention a name well known to the detective force of the great city lying sixty miles southwest of Stillwater. Mr. Taggett's arrival sent such a thrill of expectancy through the village that Mr. Leonard Tappleton, whose obsequies occurred this day, made his exit nearly unobserved. Yet there was little in Mr. Taggett's physical aspect ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... no mistaking the genuineness of the appeal, and Reg frankly gave him his hand. From that day they were "Reg" and "Hal" to each other, and Wyck had two determined men on his track, the one endowed with all the shrewdness of a keen detective, possessing also a thorough knowledge of Australian life and habits; the other of strong determination and obstinate will that no obstacles would foil. Both awkward customers to deal with, and whose bitter enmity no man ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... no news of Cornelius. In vain the detective to whom the major had made liberal promises continued his inquiries. There was a rumour of a young woman in whose company he had lately been seen, but she too had disappeared ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... straight as a soldier on guard. The light from the lantern illumined her gray hair and threw into strong relief her upraised hand—the first of millions raised in protest against the invasion of the homes of the South. The detective saw the movement and a grim smile came into ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... me that a detective should call that night at the hotel in Great Marlow where I had volunteered to remain, and give me all particulars concerning the examination of the House by the Lock. The appointment made was for eight o'clock, by which time, allowing for obstacles and unforeseen delays, ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... Frank Hunter, born in Massachusetts, migrated to the Indian country, and was very successfully employed as a government detective in "Camp Carling," between Cheyenne and Fort Russell. In the winter of 1868, a bold robbery was committed by a man employed in taking care of horses by Major J. D. Woolley, the post-trader at ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... find her was to employ a detective to track her down. He clenched his hands in impotent revolt. Not only had it been laid upon him to betray her confidence, but he must follow this up by dragging her from her hiding-place, and returning her to the bitter bondage from which he had once helped ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... war-songs, "patriotic" speeches, or martial processions may arouse an unreasoning jingo spirit. The love of deviltry is fostered in boys by many of the penny novels, by sensational "movies" and newspaper "stories"; a famous detective has said that seventy per cent of the crimes committed by boys under twenty are traceable to "suggestions" received from these sources. Should art be censored in the interests of morality? Art, then, with its vast potentialities of both good and harm, needs supervision in the interests ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... watchin' on my own account," said the detective. "I'm comin' up with him, and some day I'm goin' to light on him." His eye gave a flash and then became as calm and cold as usual. Presently ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Barzilla, you take care of the mail. No letters must go out to-night. Jonadab, you set up and watch all hands, help and all. Nobody must leave this place, if we have to tie em. And I'll keep a gen'ral overseein' of the whole thing, till we get a detective. And—if you'll stand the waybill, Mr. Sterzer—we'll have the best Pinkerton in Boston down here in three hours by special train. By the way, are you sure the thing IS ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to expose the roguery of a suspected individual, he was that person. In conducting the present examination he only wanted Derastus Clapp for the terror of his name, rather than his professional skill as a detective. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... The detective fever burned hotly in Laura Belding's veins on this morning. From Jess she could not keep her discovery for long; but she swore ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... week after this that Detective Hefflefinger, of Inspector Byrnes's staff, came over to Philadelphia after a burglar, of whose whereabouts he had been misinformed by telegraph. He brought the warrant, requisition, and other necessary papers with him, but the burglar had flown. One of our reporters had worked ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... enough to escape without detention. During the next fortnight several letters were stopped in this way, carried by different sailors, and the whole correspondence went straight to the Cardinal. It was not often that he troubled himself to play the detective in person, but when he did so, he was not easily baffled. And now he observed that about a week after the interception of the first letter the small drafts which used to come so frequently to Del Ferice's address from Florence suddenly ceased, proving beyond a doubt that each letter was paid ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... now intended to amuse themselves by ruining him. It was a matter to him of over three thousand francs,—very nearly the whole capital he had scraped together since the peace. Driven by the desire for vengeance, the man now displayed the cunning and stealthy persistence of a detective to whom a large reward is offered. Hiding at night in different parts of Issoudun, he soon acquired proof of the proceedings of the Knights of Idleness; he saw them all, counted them, watched their rendezvous, and knew of their ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Anisty—Handsome Dan Anisty, the notorious jewel thief, wanted badly by the police of a dozen cities. You understand?... I'm going now to motor to the village and get the constables; I may," he invented desperately, "be delayed—may have to get a detective from Brooklyn. If this scoundrel stirs, don't touch him. Let him alone—he can't escape if you do. Above all things, don't you ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... standing on a pedestal labeled S C I E N C E, without a glimmer of any ordinary affections or emotions or human frailties except temper. Betsy and I are simply eaten up with curiosity to know what sort of past he came out of; but just let us get inside his house, and to our detective senses it will tell its own story. So long as the portal was guarded by a fierce McGurk, we had despaired of ever effecting an entrance; but now, behold! The door has ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... any doubt in the detective's mind as to Joe's guilt, he might have taken more trouble, and searched for him, even there; but from the first everybody but ourselves had been sure Joe had escaped with the burglars, so ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... hanged if my stepmother and uncle Bumpkin didn't stop my allowance." He laughed ruefully. "However, I kept the inquiries going by selling my two horses, my jewellery, my guns, and my clothes. That's why I'm in these rags. But no good came of it; the private detective discovered nothing, and charged me nearly three hundred for discovering it. But the crowning point of my stepmother's madness came yesterday. We had the proper business interview on my coming of age; and she and ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... while, because folks said Mount Mark was so fast asleep it did not even wake up long enough to read the daily papers. I heard about this parsonage bunch, and knew the old man had gone off to get more religion. This afternoon at the station I saw a detective from Chicago get off the train, and I knew what that meant. But I needed some cash, and so I wasn't above a little job on the side. I never dreamed of getting done up by a bunch of preacher's kids. ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... time he sat there, his head low on his breast, and his eyes half closed as his brain went over scheme after scheme. The detective that Nat had brought from St. Andrew's stuck his head down the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... weaver of detective tales Mr. Fletcher is entitled to a seat among the elect. His numerous followers will find his latest book fully as absorbing as anything from his pen that has previously appeared."—New ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... tellin' him this road agent's a friend o' mine, because I called for a registered letter for him once, ain't you? An' now you're takin' him inside to show him the written order Bob McGraw give me for that registered letter, ain't you? You're quite a nice little old maid detective, ain't you, Miss Molly? You're tellin' him that I knew the man that saved Donnie Corblay, an' that he was a friend o' mine, too, because I led his roan horse up into the feed corral an' guaranteed the feed bill. An' everybody knows, or if they don't they soon will, that the initials ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... if he did," said Mrs Davidson, with a look of surprise, "that Miss Ruth would go about actin' the part of a detective, do you?" ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... though he may be in the employ of Government, though he may be in the Secret Service, you will take care not to be offended and not to return blow for blow. Understand that the very moment you return the blow from the detective, your cause is lost. This is your non-violent campaign. And so I ask everyone of you not to retaliate but to bottle up all your rage, to dismiss your rage from you and you will rise graver men. I am here to congratulate ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... is one of the few writers who can make a political novel as interesting as a good detective story.—The ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... methods of administration which had been the cause of much complaint on the part of German exporters. In this inquiry I became satisfied that certain vicious and unjustifiable practices had grown up in our customs administration, notably the practice of determining values of imports upon detective reports never disclosed to the persons whose interests were affected. The use of detectives, though often necessary, tends towards abuse, and should be carefully guarded. Under our practice as I found it to exist in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a bad time of it, Clarice. He was a changed man when I got there—rough and morose and unmanageable; kept hinting at some mysterious crime he had committed. It was a day or two before I could bring him to book, by methods on which I need not dwell. Detective work is not a nice business; the means has to take its justification from the end. He made his confession as if it were another's; said how superior you were, and how basely he had repaid your condescension. He thought that ended the affair, except ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... who saw much of the poet's father during his residence in Paris, has spoken to me of his extraordinary analytical faculty in the elucidation of complex criminal cases. It was once said of him that his detective faculty amounted to genius. This is a significant trait in the father of the author of ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Bank," by Edward S. Van Zile, is a most amusing and interesting detective story for boys and girls, in which a couple of bright boys and girls appoint themselves amateur detectives and are able to run down a couple of bank robbers who are planning to rob the bank of which the father of one of the boys is president. This ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... noticed that the young man walked out of court behind his father with as drooping a head as if he had gone under sentence; so much so that by common consent he was allowed to slip quietly away. Miss Belton departed, followed by the detective, whose services were promptly transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of those who scented further entertainment in her perfumed, perjured wake. But the majority hung back, leaving their places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd wanted to shake hands with to say just a word of congratulation ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... easy matter for a detective so simple as Buvat to trace Raoul's progress; he had learned from a neighbor that he had been seen to spring upon a gray horse which had remained some half hour fastened to the shutter, and that he had turned round the Rue Gros Chenet. A grocer, who lived at the corner ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... habit of seeing the Household Words regularly; but a friend, who lately sent me some of the back numbers, recommended me to read "all the papers relating to the Detective and Protective Police," which I accordingly did—not as the generality of readers have done, as they appeared week by week, or with pauses between, but consecutively, as a popular history of the Metropolitan Police; and, as I suppose it may also be considered, a history of the police force in ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... looking singularly unlike a detective—which, I suppose, is how a detective wants to look—was taking the air on the football field when I left the house next morning for a before-breakfast stroll. The sight of him filled me with a desire for first-hand information ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... At the detective's own suggestion she had put on her hat when arrested, and she had worn it during the time she had been searched, during the examination by the magistrate, and during ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... very exciting incidents led up to the scene we have depicted. One week prior to the meeting on the beach a young detective known as Dudie Dunne, owing to the fact that he often assumed the role of a dude as a throw-off, was seated in a hotel smoking-room when a shrewd-faced, athletic-looking man approached ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... a detective with them—not a tin badge detective, but a real one. Don't try to go out today. Get your dinner and rest up for the afternoon performance. I think you had better go to the train in my carriage tonight. I'm not going to take any ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... ago," he could not but reflect, "I was a careless young dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothing but boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned country-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would have made no inquiry as to the drains. How a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a person so highly placed would dare risk his future by kidnapping a European girl, and Jeanne Soubise advised Stephen to turn his suspicions in another direction. Still he would not be satisfied, until he had found and engaged a private detective, said to be clever, who had lately seceded from a Paris agency and set up for himself in Algiers. Through him, Stephen hoped to learn how Sidi Maieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud had occupied himself after ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... her. There was no one he could ask to introduce him; there was no one he could apply to for information concerning her. He could n't very well follow her carriage through the streets—dog her to her lair, like a detective. Well—what then?" ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... Pete, bes' shot in the Badlands, an' Canada, too, fer that matter—least that's so, now Dutchy's gone, an' it was nip 'n' tuck between us—'magine me, cow-puncher from my born days, sometime rustler, sometime Mounted P'lice detective, sometime—oh, sometime pretty near everythin' with a horse in it, an' a rifle, an' a rope—'magine me workin' 'longside a gang o' Dagoes 'n' Poles that think a knife's fer stickin' people, an' a rifle fer the P'lice ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... grace the outlaw dove into his pocket and handed over a bundle of papers. Wandering Will—we mean Detective Sam Kelly—took them and handed them ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... It's plain that they hae auld freen's veesitin' them at the gairden, sae we'd better lat them alane. Besides, I want ye for a wutness; I'm no much o' a polis man, nevertheless I'm gaun to try my haund at a bit o' detective business. Just you come wi' me, and niver say a word till ye're ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... which the moon drove in between the columns he paused and stared, and drew from his pocket something dark which lay easily in his hand. "What's that? What's that?" she asked in panic. "Only an electric torch," he muttered, without surprise at her suspicion, and went with springing, silent, detective gait up the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... determining the Government to embark upon a new policy, that of investigating assiduously the inner life of the Jews. At the end of the sixties a man appeared in Vilna who offered his services to the authorities as a detective and spy among the Jews. Jacob Brafman, a native of the government of Minsk, had deserted his race and religion in the last years of Nicholas' conscription, hoping thereby to escape the nets of the vigilant Kahal "captors" who wished to draft him into the army. Embittered against the Kahal agents ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... account for his exclamation, resumed in an easy way: "Ah! I said there was a smell of the police about the place! You see that fellow—he's a detective, a very clever one, named Mondesir, who had some trouble when he was in the army. Just look at him, sniffing like a dog that has lost scent! Well, well, my brave fellow, if you've been told of any game you may look and look for it, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... John. With a little more rummaging of old account-books we shall be enabled to "comprehend all vagrom men." It is a pity that the Sheriff of Nottingham could not have availed himself of the services of our "detective."] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... gray hair, with big cheek-bones and a heavy chin, . . . a pale face, lustreless gray eyes, a metallic voice, and a languid manner." He was born of humble parents, and began his career as a bartender. He next became a private detective for a street railway corporation, and by successive steps developed into a professional strikebreaker. Pocock V., the last of the line, was blown up in a pump-house by a bomb during a petty revolt of the miners in the Indian Territory. ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... have confessed to me that they watch their husbands habitually. One said she did it for love of excitement: there was always a risk of being caught, and nothing else ever amused her half so much. Another declared she did it because she could not afford to employ a private detective, and she wanted to have evidence always ready in case it should suit her to part from her husband at any time. Another said she loved her husband, and it hurt her less to know than to suspect. But I could not really believe that Evadne would ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Italian frontiers without difficulty; but at the station at Modena a too-zealous detective of the French police, struck with the Alsatian accent of the orderly, immediately decided that they were two Prussian spies, and refused to allow them to proceed, since they could show him ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... Mr Elliot's library was the same as on the week previously, with the addition of a detective, who had detected nothing, and Mr Rabbits, who now testified that he saw skates hanging round Buller's neck when he was getting in at the window. The question was concerning a further remand, for the magistrate firmly refused to commit ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... fighting bravely for king and country. But for this stroke of bad luck he might have been an admiral, and there is little doubt he would have been a brave one too. Appointed to the revenue service, he soon proved that, in addition to cunning, tact, and bravery, he possessed detective qualities of no mean order. His timber toe, as the sailors called his wooden leg, was no drawback to him. Timber toes in those stirring times were as common as sea-gulls in every British sea-port; and Butler's powers of disguising himself, or making up to act a part in order to gain ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... tell you," and she seemed to be in better control of herself than at any time that day. "This must be gone into systematically, and we can best do it through a detective." ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... detective left the morning-room together, and they were all startled at the sound of the key turning in the lock as the door closed after them. Half an hour, an hour, and at length a ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... gifted with many of the qualities which make up the equipment of a good detective. In addition, he had the education and training of an engineer. That the underground room existed, he knew by certain structural evidence, and waited about in the street until he saw three men come out and the door close behind them. After awhile, another two emerged. ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... robber; it was his task to narrowly watch every passenger who arrived at Suez, and to follow up all who seemed to be suspicious characters, or bore a resemblance to the description of the criminal, which he had received two days before from the police headquarters at London. The detective was evidently inspired by the hope of obtaining the splendid reward which would be the prize of success, and awaited with a feverish impatience, easy to understand, the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... the door gently, and with soft feline step was about to enter the Sunday-school room to reach his study, when through the glass sliding partition she heard the voice of Van Meter talking in the dark to a detective and ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... behind the other, but on the opposite side of the street, Jimmie Dale followed the detective. There was hardly any use now in going to Kenleigh's, for, if the detective was really bound for there, it made his, Jimmie Dale's, errand useless—the summoning of the Headquarters' man was prima facie evidence that the robbery had already been committed. And yet a certain ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... preventing her from hearing (her sole solace) the soft voices of her saintly visitors—was not her only disturbance. Her solitude was broken by curious and inquisitive visitors of various kinds. L'Oyseleur, the abominable detective, who professed to be her countryman and who beguiled her into talk of her childhood and native place, was the first of these; and it is possible that at first his presence was a pleasure to her. One other visitor of whom we hear accidentally, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... It's easy for you to talk. You see the newspapers are beginning to grumble. They reproach us, they say we are slack. My dear child, you don't realize—there 's a question of sending a detective down from Paris! It would be such a disgrace! And everything promised so well! You can't imagine how excited your father was when they waked him up to tell him that an old man of eighty-seven had been murdered ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... Government in reference to our fortifications, etc. The present trouble has arisen from the fact that a letter containing important information has been mislaid; he accuses Joseph Kellert, a Montreal detective, and two other persons of entering his room and stealing this letter. They are making such a fuss over the matter that the letter must have ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... in Mr. Holmes, sir," said the police agent loftily. "He has his own little methods, which are, if he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... of an adjoining room opened, and a detective and one of the wardens of the minister's church entered. They had been concealed in the next room, and had heard and witnessed the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... afternoon and evening Mrs. Payne watched them. The role of detective was unnatural to her, and once or twice she couldn't help feeling that it was unworthy, and that she herself was an ogress, they were so young and so unsuspicious. She had an impression not that they were deliberately hiding anything from her, ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... of adventure, mystery and amateur detective work, with scenes laid in England, India, and the distant and comparatively unknown Thibet. A band of mystics from the latter country are the prime movers in the various conspiracies, and their new, unique, weird, strange methods form ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who that Laws fellow is," he said gravely. "He's rotten! And I shouldn't wonder if I could locate his friend. I get around quite a bit on my motor-cycle. May I use your 'phone a minute? I have a friend who is a detective. They ought to be rounded up. Miss Leslie, would you tell me carefully just what roads you took, as nearly ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... scavenger. Americans don't talk scandal, but I fail to see how they will keep their homes clean without it. The scandal-mongers may be inspired by no lofty motives, but they make a wonderful unpaid detective force. Sheridan was not a philosopher. Ubiquitous and omniscient, Mrs. Grundy is always with you. Once you might have escaped her by making the grand tour, but now she has a Cook's circular ticket and watches you from ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Mr Todhunter for being murdered, or against the latter for having dared to want to marry her daughter, and for not having lived to do it. They passed through the narrow passage in the front of the house until they came to the lodger's door at the back, and there Dr Hood, with the trick of an old detective, put his shoulder sharply to the panel and burst ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... to this shop that Bucket the detective came under the pretence of wanting a second-hand 'wiolinceller' (see p. 29). In the course of conversation it turns out that Master Bagnet (otherwise 'Woolwich') 'plays the fife beautiful,' and he performs some popular airs for the ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood |
