"Detective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instant, and catching up the bunch carried it along. She closed the den door after her without a sound, and creeping beside the wall, hid behind the door curtain and peeped into the library. There were two men who evidently were a detective and a policeman. She saw Lucette backed against the wall, her hands clenched, her eyes wild with fear. She saw her husband's back, and on the table beside him a little box, open, its wrappings near, its ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "Of course, in detective stories, Hawkshaw can take the ashes right out of the grate and piece them together and pour chemicals on them and decipher the mystery of the lost rubies, and all that. But this isn't a story, you see; and what's more, Hawkshaw doesn't have to work with ashes nearly ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... am called Valmont, the name will convey no impression to the reader, one way or another. My occupation is that of private detective in London, but if you ask any policeman in Paris who Valmont was he will likely be able to tell you, unless he is a recent recruit. If you ask him where Valmont is now, he may not know, yet I have a good deal to do with the ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... let me say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... delighted." He had knocked off the blotting paper as he turned, and now stoops to pick it up, a moment that Minnie takes to see that he has no letter half begun before him, and no letter finished either, as the rack on the side of the wall testifies. Minnie would have done well as a female detective! ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... that I act as a detective. But one homogeneous to every situation could hardly play a pleasanter part for once. I have thought that our great masters in theory and practice, Machiavel and Talleyrand, were hardly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... heard footsteps 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 as ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... 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 ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... in the town—cautiously disclosed the essentials respecting the stolen casket—expressed his suspicions of the robbery having been effected by Hippus, under Itzig's directions—and revealed the incomplete warnings of the worthy Tinkeles. The detective listened with attention, and at length said, "Out of all the inadequate information that you have given, the name of Hippus interests me most. He is a very dangerous character, and hitherto I have not exactly known how to get at him. On ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... "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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to feel uncomfortable before that piercing gaze, so I decided to floor the aspiring detective working so zealously for the Fatherland and to point out the danger of jumping at conclusions. I ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... he writes at the top of his voice. He is so loud that one cannot bear what he says. Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding. He hunts down the obvious with the enthusiasm of a short-sighted detective. As one turns over the pages, the suspense of the author becomes almost unbearable. The horses of Mr. William Black's phaeton do not soar towards the sun. They merely frighten the sky at evening into violent ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... lady detective?" Ruth's clear laughter rang out on the evening air. "Why, no, you foolish girl; I'm a newspaper woman, and I've earned a rest—that's all. You mustn't read books ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... men. The prick of the needle was like the touch of a spark; soon after came a mystery of general wretchedness, followed by pains in the loins, a rise of temperature and extreme, in Dion's case even intense, weakness. He lay in his bunk trying to play the detective on himself, to stand outside of his body, saying to himself, "This is I, and I am quite unaffected by my bodily condition." For what seemed to him a long time he was fairly successful in his effort; then the body began to show definitely the power of its weakness upon the Ego, to ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... perhaps, this trick of giving one direction in the hearing of the hotel servants, and then another when the hotel was out of sight. But, as the reader must know, this kind of thing is always done in novels—particularly in detective stories. ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... to hold detective stories in the same regard that the Scotchman is supposed to entertain towards whisky—some are better than others, but there are no really bad ones. The Pointing Man (HUTCHINSON) is better than most, in the first place because it takes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... part of Fleet Street which contained Tanner's Court. The erect, black figure of Major Brown, seen from behind, was a quaint contrast to the hound-like stoop and flapping mantle of young Rupert Grant, who adopted, with childlike delight, all the dramatic poses of the detective of fiction. The finest among his many fine qualities was his boyish appetite for the colour and poetry of London. Basil, who walked behind, with his face turned blindly to the stars, had the look ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... hand, it was losing a great opportunity, to refrain, as a mere matter of courtesy. Also I comforted myself by thinking that if anyone needed to feel ashamed it would be the ones who cheated, and not the detective. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... the social feeling of distrust of this unhappy young man allayed when the party learned, through a boarder of detective instincts, that Mr. Desole Arcubus was an enthusiast in scientific pursuits, and that the "romance of a poor young man," as shadowed out by him, was no romance at all, but an unpleasant reality. Toxicology was the branch of science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... like you. What is it, a little detective work? Going to get acquainted with them, I suppose, and see how they treat you. Then you can size them up as to hearts and habits, and drop the golden plum into the lap of ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... became a journalist and was for long on the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph, but he is best known for his detective stories—especially Trent's Last Case—and as the inventor of a special form of rhyme, known from his second name as the Clerihew. He wrote the first of these while still at school, and the best were later published in a volume called Biography for Beginners, which G.K. illustrated. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... level of imagination, as in The House of Usher, while The Gold Beetle or Golden Bug is one of the first examples of the cryptogram story; and in The Purloined Letters, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue he is the pioneer of the modern detective story. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... "I should think so. You might make your fortune as a detective, if you were well enough to go about ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... appearance made no impression upon her. "But that don't matter. I guess they've got your record at Hoskin & Marl's. You worked there all right; sure you worked there, in the jewelry section. You stole something. I saw the store detective, Miss Hopwell, take you up to the manager's office. I never heard what they did to you, but they did a plenty, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... detective confessed. "I will just have the coffin lid off for a few moments, and will see the doctor before I ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... search for the lady might prove a case for Sherlock Holmes, while Paul's own detective ability, he admitted, was more of ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... do it again for twice the money," said Balthasar; "the nervous strain I've been under. A custom-house detective was on our trail, but one of my men took care ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... group of loafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window, directed me to the house which I had come to see. A tall, thin man with coloured glasses, whom I strongly suspected of being a plain-clothes detective, was pointing out some theory of his own, while the others crowded round to listen to what he said. I got as near him as I could, but his observations seemed to me to be absurd, so I withdrew again in some disgust. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The private detective's face fell. He had been congratulating himself on having secured a "good thing." But he brightened at his patron's ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... The detective was at that period of his story where the emperor parted from old Conrad and his daughters. He now paused to see ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... was disappointed over this failure. She was not much of a detective, and had less reason for being so than falls to the ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... for investigation by Dovstone's detective intellects. We were honoured by a visit from two special constables, looking rather like the Bing Boys. Their collective eagle eye grasped the situation in less than a second. I happened to be standing in the centre ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... a very ready wit and inventiveness in the great art of "grab" in war, though as he said to his father he was "a late learner" in such matters. Cf. in modern times the duties of a detective or some such disagreeable office. G. O. Trevelyan as Irish secretary. Interesting for war ethics in the abstract, and for Xenophon's view, which is probably Hellenic. Cyrus now has the opportunity of carrying out the ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... romantic tale 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 one of the ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... good-nature by Mr. STONE. But enough. It was a good performance. Memories came floating back of a notable performance of this same play by the A. D. C. far back in the remote ages between '70 and '80. The Bob Brierly of those days has been Under-Secretary of State for India, Hawkshaw, the Detective, occupies a thorny throne as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, while Jem Dalton has become the Burglar at the Court Theatre—a very natural transition. Very great was Mr. BROOKFIELD fifteen years ago as the Cracksman, but great, also, was Mr. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... The detective at the boarding house table having satisfied himself that nobody had observed him, folded up his magnifying glass and put ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... that "the author, who was obviously a woman, had treated with singular delicacy and feeling the ever-urgent problem of female employment in our great industrial centres." Another said that the book was "a brilliant burlesque of the fashionable type of detective fiction." Another wrote that "it was a conscientious analysis of a perplexing phase of agricultural life." John thought that must refer to the page where he had described the allotments at Shepherd's Bush. But he was pleased and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... other books better—detective stories and that kind," she ventured. "Didn't you ever ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... which, by its postmark, may possibly throw some light or hint some theory as to his possible movements. He is very clever; and having taken this plan of concealing his residence, will conduct it skilfully. If the case were mine I should be much tempted to speak with the detective authorities, and try whether they might not give their assistance, of course without eclat. But this is, I am aware, open to objection, and, in fact, would not be justifiable, except under the very peculiar urgency of ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... slowed down to a saunter. He was strolling toward the house with the white columns. Suddenly coming into view, as she turned a corner and walked on before him, appeared a young lady. Not much ability in the detective line would be necessary for the recognition of her by any of this girl's acquaintances, within any ordinary range of vision. If there were no certain revelation in the short, smartly-attired, quick-moving figure, there could be no mistake concerning the vividly ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... smoke, if you feel so inclined, by all means," replied the detective, watching with a puzzled twinkle in his eye the fair, boyish face of his visitor. "No, thank you," he said, as Rex tendered him an Havana; "I never smoke ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the dirty work must be done somehow. Mrs. Grundy is your 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 the Pyramids or the temples of Japan,—especially ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... to classify THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY. It is possible to say that it is a gripping adventure story of murderous criminals and brilliant policemen; but it was to be expected that the author of the Father Brown stories should tell a detective story like no-one else. On this level, therefore, THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY succeeds superbly; if nothing else, it is ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... election Big Tim's detective wired from Shelby, Tennessee, the outline of a story that got two front page columns in both the Advocate and the Herald. Jefferson Davis Farnum was the son of a thief, of a rebel soldier who had spent seven years in the penitentiary for looting the bank of which he ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... "Anti-Gallican" Tavern was a haunt of low sporting men, being kept by Harry Lee, father of the first and original "tiger," invented and made fashionable by the notorious Lord Barrymore. During the Chartist times violent meetings were held at a club in Shire Lane. A good story is told of one of these. A detective in disguise attended an illegal meeting, leaving his comrades ready below. All at once a frantic hatter rose, denounced the detective as a spy, and proposed off-hand to pitch him out of window. Permitted by the more peaceable to depart, the policeman scuttled downstairs as fast as he could, and, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... fat, freckled boy with chubby cheeks, who took half a dozen boys' story-papers and was always being kept in for reading detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he walked like a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip worked hard in his father's grocery store every afternoon, and swept it out ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... dismissal, rested his elbows on the table, and again puffed away at his brierwood. Being mistaken for a central office detective might or might not be of assistance. At present, he would ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... luggage in advance from Euston," said Lord Torrington, "under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel went in for—well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church, ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... people saying. Then she faced them and somehow walked with the woman detective toward the ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... the station-houses. This bill was recommended by our best charitable and religious societies, but failed to receive the sanction of the governor, although he very promptly signed a bill to increase the number of the detective force." ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of spirit and administration was never before reached without an election by the people. The faithfulness and nerve of one official backed by the ability of a detective employed by a public-spirited citizen rescued the city government from the control of corrupt and irresponsible men and substituted a mayor and board of supervisors of high character and unselfish purpose. This was ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... of Sweetwater beach, which lay uphill from the old house in which McAllen and Fredericks lived, and provided a good view of the residence and its street entry. He didn't go near the place himself. Operatives of a Los Angeles detective agency went on constant watch in the bungalow, with orders to photograph the two old men in the other house and any visitors at every appearance, and to record the exact times the pictures were taken. At the end of each day the photographs ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... how a valuable solid silver service was stolen from the Misses Perkinpine, two very old and simple minded ladies. Fred Sheldon, the hero of this story, undertakes to discover the thieves and have them arrested. After much time spent in detective work, he succeeds in discovering the silver plate and winning the reward. The story is told in Mr. Ellis' most fascinating style. Every boy will be glad to read ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... been ugly. She endued it with grace and beauty. She invented a mystery of crime surrounded by everyday circumstances, yet avoiding the "detective novel" mechanism. A new story, 'Aurora Floyd,' repeated the immense success of 'Lady Audley.' Novel after novel followed, full of momentous incidents, of surprises leading to new surprises. All the time Miss Braddon was observing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... hand, which he lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth marked by him in the crowd. The objectionable youth is a pickpocket, or a "sneak-thief," or both, and the man with the cane is the private detective attached to the place. He is well acquainted with the regular thieves of these localities, and his business is to "spot" them, and keep them from edging in among the loose articles lying about the store. He says that there area ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... moment this paralysed the Young Adventurers, but Tuppence, recovering herself, plunged boldly into the breach with a reminiscence culled from detective fiction. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... who had set forth to the rescue of Tug and History had no more clue as to the whereabouts of the kidnapped twain than some broken furniture and an open door; and even one who was so well versed in detective stories as B.J., had to admit that this was very little for what he called a "slouch-hound" to begin work on. There had been no snow, and the frost had hardened the ground, so that there were no footprints to tell the way the crowd of ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... cosmopolitan crowd in the streets or on the wharves. At night we may visit China without the trouble of a voyage, and perambulate a city of 25,000 Celestials under the safe guidance of an Irish-accented detective. So often have the features of Chinatown been described—its incense-scented joss-houses, its interminable stage-plays, its opium-joints, its drug-stores with their extraordinary remedies, its curiosity shops, and its restaurants—that no repetition need be attempted here. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... journalist obtained, along with the claret, his first glimpse of the great and extraordinary schemes with which Kitchener was already working to avenge the comrade who had fallen in Khartoum. This part of the work was as personal as that of a private detective plotting against a private murderer in a modern detective story. Kitchener had learned to speak the Arab tongue not only freely but sociably. He wore the Arab dress and fell into the Arab type of courtesy so effectively that even his blue northern eyes did not ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... a detective," I told him; "though I don't know how closely I resemble Stodger." A sound came from that worthy that made me think he was strangling. "Swift is ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... thinks of being sorry for Marconi or Edison or Wilbur Wright, or Bell, or any big inventor in business or even for a detective like Sherlock Holmes, the whole joy and efficiency of whose life is the way he steals a ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... "Sherlock Holmes" had become the literary rage. Everybody was talking about the masterful detective of Baker Street. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... that 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 ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... considerable space of 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
... elder man was watching the younger with the keen eye of a detective. For to old John McAlpine every soul with whom he came in contact was a burden to be carried until it was laid safely at the foot of the cross, and he was yearning to know if this young man, so respectful and kindly of manner, had yet had his ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... peered into the windows of the refreshment-room, and behold, the sun broke in and scared all the revellers. The ladies scurried away like so many ghosts at cock-crow, some of them not caring to face that detective luminary. Cigars had been lighted ere this; the men remained smoking them with those sleepless German waiters still bringing fresh supplies of drink. Lord Kew gave the Duchesse d'Ivry his arm, and was leading her out; M. de Castillonnes ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... answer; and in that case, so sternly conscientious was she, that, under the notion of saving me from ruin, my address would have been immediately communicated to my guardians, and by them would have been confided to the unrivalled detective talents, in those days, of Townsend, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Greatest Detectives. The most famous cases of the great Sleuths of England, America, France, Russia, realistically told, with biographical sketches of each detective. Fully ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... sudden recollection of his patrol leader's love for mysterious cases—his great liking for detective work. ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... meeting Cowperwood, and, besides, Mrs. Cowperwood might not know of her husband's duplicity. He thought also of going to Cowperwood personally and threatening him, but that would be a severe measure, and again, as in the other case, he lacked proof. He hesitated to appeal to a detective agency, and he did not care to take the other members of the family into his confidence. He did go out and scan the neighborhood of 931 North Tenth Street once, looking at the house; but that helped him little. The place was ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... dainty gowns of the girls, and the active figures of the few boys who had been favored with invitations to share in the games on the lawn. The ever-present amateur photographer had thought so too, apparently, and from his position in the street, he had already aimed his detective camera at them, when Alan discovered him and gave the alarm, only just in time ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... said the Kid, airily. "I'm a kind of a private information bureau and detective agency 'round this track, and my hours are from twelve to twelve, twice a day. I shake hands with the night watchman when he comes on duty and I'm here to give the milkman the high sign in the morning. They tell me things they've seen and ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... terrified seaman, who was glad 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 ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... he was when I first saw him again. Just making first attempts in the stick and limp stage, poor beggar. That was back in February. Early in February. Mark the date, as they say in the detective stories. I can't remember what the date was, but never you mind. You just mark it. Early in February, two months ago. There was good old me down in Tidborough on business—good old me doing the heavy London solicitor in a provincial town—they always put down a ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... us get 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 friend, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... less seen than felt. The inoculation of evil human thoughts ought to 449:21 be understood and guarded against. The first impression, made on a mind which is attracted or repelled according to personal merit or de- 449:24 merit, is a good detective of individual character. Cer- tain minds meet only to separate through simultaneous repulsion. They are enemies without the preliminary 449:27 offence. The impure are at peace with the impure. Only virtue is a rebuke to ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... external peace. Even the strongest advocate of administrative nihilism admits that Government may prevent aggression of one man on another. But this implies the maintenance of an army and navy, as much as of a body of police; it implies a diplomatic as well as a detective force; and it implies, further, that the State, as a corporate whole, shall have distinct and definite views as to its ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... it is," said Roy. "The plot grows thicker. If Sir Guy Weatherby were only here, or Detective Darewell—or some ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... seaside hotel, "all our employees are former Service men, every one of them. The reception clerk is an old infantry man, the waiters have all been non-coms., the chef was a mess-sergeant, the house doctor was a base hospital surgeon, the house-detective was an intelligence man; even the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... one was more successful than a recruit from distant Australia, by name Richard Hodgson. Hodgson, unlike Sidgwick and Myers and many others of his associates, had not engaged in psychical research from the hope that the truths of the Bible might thereby be demonstrated. His motive was that of the detective eager to unravel mysteries. From his boyhood he had had a singular fondness for solving tricks and puzzles of all sorts; and when, in 1878, he came to England to complete his education at Cambridge, he naturally gravitated into the company of Sidgwick, Myers, and Gurney, as men busied in an undertaking ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... a private detective was hovering around, I'd have kept the whole lot of my friends! As it was, Jimmie was looking ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... to the London detective the dramatic scene up at Glencardine that day, and the officer of the Criminal Investigation Department walked along to the cell much interested to see what manner of man was this, who was even more bold and ingenious in his criminal methods than ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... said he. "I am the son of Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, and grandson of A. J. Raffles, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... the tale until the episodes were known almost by heart, but still The Sign of the Four held powerful sway over his imagination. Thaddeus Sholto lived again to tell his nervous, halting tale to the astute Baker Street detective. Tobey took the two eager sleuths through the episode of the trail which led to the creosote barrels. Holmes appeared and reappeared on his fruitless expeditions as the boy's eyes narrowed with excitement, ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... sense this is true,—for imagination, chastened by correct observation, is our best guide in the study of Nature. We are too apt to associate the exercise of this faculty with works of fiction, while it is in fact the keenest detective of truth. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... given any information to the police; that would have been too dangerous to himself. Besides, if the police had heard of such a story, they would have given some sign. In England every thing is known, and the police are forced to work openly. Their detective system is a clumsy one compared with the vast system of secrecy carried on on the Continent. Had they found out any thing whatever about so important a case as this, some kind of notice or other would have appeared in the papers. Gualtier had never ceased to watch for some such notice, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... day the officers of the law returned, and confirmed the report, already current in the town, that Champney Googe had outwitted them and made his escape. Every one believed he would attempt to cross the Canada border, and the central detective agency ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... 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
... sometimes brightened when his well-known uniform appeared. Footmen opened to him with good-will, and servant-girls with smiles. Even in the low neighbourhoods of his district—and he traversed several such— Solomon was regarded with favour. His person was as sacred as that of a detective or a city missionary. Men who scowled on the world at large gave a familiar nod to him, and women who sometimes desired to tear off people's scalps never displayed the slightest wish to damage a hair of the postman's head. He ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... so great that they can afford to have the whole truth told about them. At any rate, it is easier to convey a picturesque general impression than to collect all the available evidence with the untiring persistence of a model detective and to present it with the impartial acumen of a competent judge. Moreover, the inertia of pre-existing opinion has to be overcome. Once readers have been accustomed to accept as absolutely authentic an idealized conventional portrait of a man of genius, it is difficult to induce ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... and will report to-morrow morning. I count on your co-operation to put seals wherever they are necessary, and to select the guard over the chateau. I shall send an architect to draw up an exact plan of the house and garden. Well, sir," asked M. Domini, turning to the detective, "have you ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... from this port on its last voyage and who disappeared immediately after the affidavit was made public, was produced by Secret Service men before the Federal Grand Jury yesterday afternoon at a proceeding to determine whether Paul Koenig, alias Stemler, who is the head of the detective bureau of the Hamburg-American Line, and others unnamed, had entered into a conspiracy to defraud the United States Government. The fraud is not stated specifically, and the charge is a technical one that may cover a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... The French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be admitted that at that moment our detective organization was not ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... view, 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 ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... to be an inquest—your people must give immediate notice to the coroner. Then—the body—that must be properly attended to—that, too, you will see about. Before you go away yourself, I want you to join me in collecting all the evidence we can get on the spot. You have one of your detective staff ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly waited till he was out of hearing, and then aid to his wife; "For all Tom's heroics, I'm just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need'st know nought ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... riffraff of the Levant they had recruited a large detective force which operated under the sanctuary of their Legations.[10] The primary function of these gentry was to discover attempts at the fuelling and victualling of German submarines; and, stimulated by a permanent offer of a reward ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... one of the Englishisms he had picked up during his six months' work in England as a tyro in the records department of Scotland Yard, before he had come to Hamilton to make a humble beginning as a cub detective on the Homicide Squad—yes, by Jove, she was all dressed up, for some reason ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... getting you into the witness-box. And worse yet: when Mr. Armadale still said No, Mr. Pedgift, after having, as I suspected by the sound of his voice, been on the point of leaving the room, artfully came back, and proposed sending for a detective officer from London, simply to look at you. 'The whole of this mystery about Miss Gwilt's true character,' he said, 'may turn on a question of identity. It won't cost much to have a man down from London; and it's worth ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the gentleman, who, it had dawned on me, was not a bank official, but a detective, returned with Doubleday, who carried in his hands a few books ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... "A mechanical detective," said Russ. "A sort of mechanical shadow. While you were busy with the stock market stunt, I made several of them. One for Wilson and another for Chambers and still another for Craven." He hoisted and lowered the one in his hand. "This ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... so many mysteries, is himself something of a problem even to those who know him best. Although young, wealthy, and of high social position, he is nevertheless an indefatigable worker in his chosen field. He smiles when men call him a detective. "No; ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... the fellow to Berlin to-night. The message was here all the time—that numskull Heinrich forgot it. And we've got to keep the fellow here till then! An outrage, having the house used as a barrack for a rascally detective!" Thus much I heard, as the door had been left open. Then it closed and ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... that Everard is a regular sleuth-hound," said Tommy. "He is more native than the natives when there is anything of this kind in the wind. He is a born detective, and he and that old chap in the bazaar are such a strong combination that they are practically infallible ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... 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 lifted? ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... murder of Fraser is told very differently in Bosworth-Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, where all the detective credit is given to Lord L., apparently on his own authority. See also an article in the Quarterly Review for April 1883, by Sir H. Yule, and another in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... nightly in the balconies of two of London's largest music halls. It was upon the program of another London theater that I came across the advertisement of a lady styling herself "London's Woman Detective" and stating, in so many words, that her specialties were "Divorce Shadowings" and "Secret Inquiries." Maybe it is a fact that in certain of our states marriage is not so much a contract as a ninety-day option, but the lady ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... thieves and the like, much more than the detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. It was a very slack institution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the police-office; ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... never have been recovered without the skilled assistance of the historical offices of the various services and Office of the Secretary of Defense. At times their search for lost documents assumed the dimensions of a detective story. In partnership with Marine Corps historian Ralph Donnelly, for example, the author finally traced the bulk of the World War II racial records of the Marine Corps to an obscure and unmarked file in the classified ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... a detective who turned villain and was executed for burglary in 1725; the hero of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
