"Detective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... week. Not once, however, in the midst of all these outside interests, had they forgotten their strange adventure. When they were alone together they talked of it incessantly, and laid elaborate plans for future amateur detective work. ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... wholesome peculiarities that, having once distrusted a person, his suspicions could hardly be allayed, even by evidence that would have satisfied a hypochondriacal ex-detective. This safeguard against deception effectually preserved him from the dangerous extremes both of indigence and greatness. He looked upon his second cousin with a shocked and doubtful eye. She had come very close. Did she expect him to ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... a slim-built, powerful guy with a foreign face and voice and way. He wanted to know if he had the honour — as he put it — to introduce himself to a detective or game constable, or a ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... the detective that came to see Mrs. Rogers," said Tom, musingly. "She told me a strange man had been there from Mr. Forbes, to inquire all ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... fishing season was a good one, and men were scarce, the fisherman had gladly received my son as an apprentice for his board. The novelty, excitement, and sometimes danger of the pursuit pleased Myndert greatly, and the old fisherman said that he was a good hand for a boy. When the detective found him, however, he was beginning to be tired of his strange occupation (nothing pleases him long), and he consented to come home on condition that I would not scold him, and would give him plenty of pocket money. I had been weak enough to authorize the making ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... your clothes, with hay sticking all over them, tells me that, as a detective would say. Also, your garments are as wrinkled as though you'd been put through ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... Mr. Detective Brownson walked over to the trunk, gazed intently at the manikin, and gingerly poked it once or twice in the ribs. He turned red and swallowed at something in ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to Sunny Slopes as soon as possible, take a look at this land, and employ an attorney, if need be, to be sure her title is clear. Then if this man is illegally trying to wrest the land from its rightful owner, we will employ a detective and see that the fellow is brought to justice. I want to lift the load from these young shoulders," he said, looking down at Nan with the nice smile that made everybody like him. "They are too young to carry the troubles ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... down the room, melodramatically clutching at her hair and staring at Nan with her blue eyes. "It is a deep-laid plot, but it shall be foiled by Patricia Sherlock,—the only lady detective in captivity!" ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... stop it, of course," said a lean, blond man whose name was Stout. He could be relied on to say the obvious and keep a discussion driving to the point. "I understand we have a good detective agency. If we put them on this with ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... return. Miss Amory's old nerves were strung taut. She had passed through many phases of feeling with regard to him as the years had gone by. During those years she had believed that she knew a hidden thing of him known by no other person. She had felt herself a sort of silent detective in the form of an astute old New England gentlewoman. She had abhorred and horribly pitied him. She had the clear judicial mind which must inevitably see the tragic pitifulness of things. She had thought too much to be able to indulge in ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... need a little more time," remarked Ned. "But I think we can at least bluff them into playing into our hands. I have a report to hear from a private detective I ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... clearly called 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 of the group, still clad in flying ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... of fish in the room restored me. I knew not whence it came, but its soft presence yielding to my keen detector restored my professional pride and self-respect. I then felt I was something of a detective after all. I eyed a revolving ventilator in the window-pane as a possible avenue of its entrance from the culinary department. I ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... other a small, alert person, very neat and dapper, in a frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little side-whiskers and an eye-glass. The latter was Colonel Ross, the well-known sportsman; the other, Inspector Gregory, a man who was rapidly making his name in the English detective service. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the medium the ectoplasm flies back with great force on exposure to light, and, in spite of the laughter of the scoffers, there is none the less good evidence that several mediums have been badly injured by the recoil after a light has suddenly been struck by some amateur detective. Professor Geley has, in his recent experiments, described the ectoplasm as appearing outside the black dress of his medium as if a hoar frost had descended upon her, then coalescing into a continuous sheet ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the detective squad. The force is charged with the duty of guarding about three hundred day and four hundred night posts, about four hundred and twenty-five miles of streets in the patrol districts, and fourteen miles of piers. There are twenty-five station houses fitted up as lodging rooms for the men, and ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... often 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 more, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... mean, and this isn't a grammar test," pouted Cleo. "Well, then, first, I am going to write to Uncle Guy. He knows so much about detective work—all writers do, you know, and I feel he could help us solve the mystery. I am going to send him that picture we took the other day, so he can see what Mary ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... violated international ethics, and for the laws of nations he substituted his own. One by one he annihilated the thieves of cattle, sometimes in open fight, but oftener by surprise and deliberate massacre. The country was delivered. And then, with indefatigable energy, Senor Johnson became a skilled detective. Alone, or with Parker, his foreman, he rode the country through, gathering evidence. When the evidence was unassailable he brought offenders to book. The rebranding through a wet blanket he knew and could prove; the ear-marking of an unbranded calf until it could ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... position of inevitable doubt; let us not be bigots with a doubt and persecutors without a creed. We are beginning to see this, and we are railed at for so beginning: but it is a great benefit, and it is to the incessant prevalence of detective discussion that our doubts are due; and much of that discussion is due to the long existence of a government requiring constant debates, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... The detective smiled wearily. "Don't be a fool, Calendar," he began. But the porter's hand fell upon his shoulder and the giant bent low to bring his mouth close to the other's ear. Kirkwood heard indistinctly his own name followed by Calendar's, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... could have been counted on both to keep the secret and to help him. They always stuck together, he and Cathy, until she had changed. Now half the time she acted as if she were against him. Look at the way she had snooped around the attic like a bum detective. If she had found the money she would have very likely said it was her duty to tell on him. Jerry almost never could know in advance how she was going to act. Almost he did not like her ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... Mr. Chester's detective instincts. He says there's no other red clay like that that plasters your car. By the way, that's a fast machine of yours. Did you lose control on ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... improved, and nowadays, our whole social organisation is subservient to detection. Cut your telegraph wires, substitute sail boats for steam, and your old fair and easy forty-miles-a-day stage-coaches for the train and the rail, disband your City police and detective organisation, and make the transit of a letter between London and Dublin a matter of from five days to nearly as many weeks, and compute how much easier it was then than now for an adventurous highwayman, an absconding debtor, or a pair of fugitive lovers, to make good their retreat. Slow, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Graeme went down to a detective agency and left a memorandum. A few days later he received a message from the agency: "Yes, he is the same man. He frequents the pool-rooms a good deal. Came from Kentucky. He used to be known as ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... replied, with a gracious smile. "Monsieur Lecoq of the detective force, sent by the prefect of police in reply to a telegram, for ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... all traveling jewelry salesmen belong to a league, and if thieves get away with anything belonging to any member, we have the services of a good detective agency to run the criminals down. The professional thieves know this, and, as capture is almost certain in the end, we have little fear of being robbed. These swindlers took my personal property, and nothing belonging to the firm, I'm glad ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... to free the poor boy of suspicion. You may be a better messenger than you are a detective, Mr. Le Drieux, but that doesn't convince me you are a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... hesitate exactly. Only, just think what it amounts to— prying into the affairs of a stranger. It seems to me a rather intrusive, private detective sort ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... 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 ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... 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 them in a ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... Detective," "Melnotte and Detectives," "Professional Thieves and Detectives," "Railroad Forger and Detectives," "Mollie Maguires and Detectives," "Spiritualists and ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... her home. "In the meantime I am going back to give the baby his bath," she thought. She glanced at the watch on her gloved wrist. And a man who looked like a detective, or a villain in the "movies," looked after her in ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... made my promise to him, Mr. Caspian was so silly as to be jealous of Mr. Storm. He thought, like all of us, that there was some mystery, but unlike us, he believed it was a bad one. He wished to do Mr. Storm some harm. He even threatened to hire a detective to watch always what he did. But after we were engaged Mr. Caspian did not feel the same. I suppose he said to himself that he was more safe. He did not want Mr. Storm to go away, because he enjoyed being a tyrant to him, and showing ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... dear friend," said the portly gentleman, "but you are sure you are not provided with a detective of General Winder's?" ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... bed, and try and sleep, with this dread of being found out on their consciences! Bardolph, who has robbed a church, and Nym, who has taken a purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke their pipes with their companions. Mr. Detective Bullseye appears, and says, "Oh, Bardolph! I want you about that there pyx business!" Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks away quite meekly. He is found out. He must ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... slowly,—and the sweetness of her low, cultured voice was very marked in contrast to the Sheriff's thundering tones,—"I think, sir, that this is the first time in my life that I ever saw a real detective. I have read about ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... that attracted general attention. The radio boys hurried to the spot in question to find Buck and Lutz talking excitedly while Larry and Tim were standing near them with flushed and indignant faces. The manager of the hotel and a house detective were also ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... proceeded to search around with the care of a detective looking for clues. He did find evidences of some one having been in the cave; he found the handle of a dirk, a small bit of a deerskin hunting jacket, and finally a little bit of pure gold. He examined the latter under his lamp, satisfied ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... portion of the strange story within his ken. The new correspondent, too, might or might not be the man whom Dick had seen in Hyde Park and at Charing Cross Station. But the same curious guardedness was apparent in each missive. The lawyer dealt in generalities; the private detective merely asked for the corroboration of a single detail in the statement which, doubtless, awaited Mr. Fenshawe's perusal among the letters now piled on a table by the side of Miss ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... "'I'm a Wells-Fargo detective,' says the squar'-built gent, 'an' this yere,' p'intin' to Old Gentry, 'is Jim Yates, the biggest hold- up an' stage-robber between hell an' 'Frisco. That old tarrapin'll stop a stage like a young-one would a clock, merely to see what's into ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and highly original tale called the 'Murders in the Rue Morgue,' the earliest of all detective-stories, Poe displayed his remarkable gift of invention; but he revealed his share of penetrative imagination far more richly in the simpler story of the 'Fall of the House of Usher.' Wilkie Collins had more invention than Dickens, as Dickens had more ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... 'Don't attempt amateur detective work yourself,' he urged, 'but stay with Ross until proper official inquiries can be made into the case. There is nothing for it but to remain inactive for the present, but gather information quietly where you can. The law out here is a clumsy mover, and you may have to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... doing detective work," I said shortly. "I am trying to help some one who is dying of anxiety ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had a clever detective here, like Sherlock Holmes!" he said to himself. "I suppose he'd just look round and find some clue which would explain the whole matter. I must confess I can't see anything. Now that's what began it all," he continued, as his eye rested on the grindstone. "I ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... detective star and also papers and business cards the other day at the Fair. I met him this time in the store. While we were talking there he showed me a blue book which he said was a list of the best society of Chicago, and he showed me his ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... (Ass. of Sasan), "The neighbour before the house and the traveller before the journey." In certain cities the neighbourhood is the real detective police, noting every action and abating scandals (such as orgies, etc.) with a strong hand and with the full consent of public opinion and of the authorities. This loving the neighbour shows evident signs ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... light cane in his 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 great many notorious pickpockets in the crowd, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... on his ability to "size up" people at first glance. It was a gift with him, like the intuition of women; and to it, he thought, he owed his best work as a detective. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... like this the management finds it very unwise to make any disturbance over a case of loss or robbery. The store detective held on to Nan's arm; but he waited ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... note in the man's voice that made the Captain turn and look sharply at him. A swarthy, strongly built man in a rough coat, and with that in his dark face which told that he had lived longer than his years, stood at the door of the Detective Office. His hand that gripped the door handle shook so that the knob rattled in his grasp, but not with fear. He was no stranger to that place. Black Bill's face had looked out from the Rogues' Gallery longer than most of those now there could remember. The Captain ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... of his motives would have revealed in part his plans, and a detective had probably spent a month in a vain pursuit. The detective's report must have startled even the lawyers. All clues led to nothing. Sonia had no money to throw away, nor would she dare to appeal too strongly to Aunt Lois and Horace ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... as the thief was the only man contented with the arrangement. Every innocent man became a detective, as he was determined not to pay a fine for another's theft. A tremendous row took place, every one was talking and no one listening, and the crowd went away from my court of justice, determined to search the affair ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... a moment that I am advising you to take up any of those forms of work which we both agree in despising, and which are quite unworthy of your traditions, as for instance stealing pictures on commission out of the houses of dealers and then turning detective to recover them again. It is much too easy work for a man of your talents, much too ill-paid, and much too dangerous. It is all very well for the picture dealer to leave the door open, but what if the policeman is not in the know? No, you will always find me on your side in your ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... and his fond parent did not know it, this remark was overheard by a detective who had been sent to the Nelson homestead to spy upon the boy. He at once left the place and informed his superior that the lad was innocent, and to watch further in that direction would be merely a ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... bailiff is a man employed by Irish landlords to warn tenants of the rent day, serve notices upon them, watch their movements, see how they manage their farms, play the detective in a general way, and supply useful information to the landlord and his agent. They are regarded with pretty much the same feelings as tithe-proctors were, until that historic class became extinct. They are called drivers by the people, because ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... breakfast which I needed as badly as any meal I ever ate, she questioned me as to relatives, friends, habits, and everything which a good detective would want to know in forming a theory as to how a clue might be obtained. She suggested that I find every man in the village who had a team and did hauling, and ask each one if he had moved ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... "What, play detective—spy? Not me. It's ridiculous, unheard of. I've done it once on your account, and I never felt such a sneak in my life. I won't do it again, even for you, ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... capitalist, but you are a capitalist because you want to be. No one forces Hillquit to be a lawyer; he could get a job in a lumber yard. There is no more excuse for a man being a capitalist or a lawyer than there is for him being a Pinkerton detective. He is either by his own free will and accord. The system,—they acclaim in one breath,—the system makes us do what we do not wish to do. The system does nothing of the kind; the system gives a man the choice between honest labor and dishonest labor skinning, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... 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 ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... possessed him?—and after all these years! He says his conscience troubles him! He fears he was too cruel and hard-hearted! Humph! it's pleasant for me, I must say. Fancy him putting me on the scent—asking me to turn private detective! I suppose I'll have to humor him, or pretend to. It will be the safest course. Can there be any truth in his theory, I wonder? No, I don't think so. And after such a lapse of time the task would be next to impossible. I will ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... lend her torch to light my dearth—her wings to bear me up—her anchor wherewith to moor my hark of life wherever cast, and to the poor waif I cherished I owed this immeasurable good. Had Mrs. Clayton anticipated him with her infallible besom—that housewifely detective, that drags more secrets to light than ever did paid policeman—I should never have grasped this talisman of love and hope, never have waked up as I did wake up from that hour to the endurance which immortalizes endeavor, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 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 ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... one know to this day, you blamed fool, who shot that government detective that was snooping into that clearing you and me made—five years back? Gaston'll pay or you'll take one of them never-failing shots of ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... The detective's case is solved at the end, however. But even at the end of a ghost story, the underlying mystery remains. In the ghost story, we have the very quintessence ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... leaves of her Bible, Ann Eliza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellins, of course, had long since suggested the mediation of the police, and cited from her favourite literature convincing instances of the supernatural ability of the Pinkerton detective; but Mr. Hawkins, when called in council, dashed this project by remarking that detectives cost something like twenty dollars a day; and a vague fear of the law, some half-formed vision of Evelina in the clutch of a blue-coated "officer," kept ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... summer time, or the one they were passing had betrayed him. As it was, he had to snatch suddenly at his moustache and tug fiercely at it, to conceal the furious tumult of exultation, the passion of laughter, that came boiling up. Detective! Even in the shadow Bechamel saw that a laugh was stifled, but he put it down to the fact that the phrase "men of honour" amused his interlocutor. "He'll come round yet," said Bechamel to himself. "He's simply holding out ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... The Detective Police, and other Nouvellettes. By Charles Dickens. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Skylark of Space," ought to have about six sequels), the late Mr. Serviss, Verrill, Poe, Wells, Verne, Flint (o-o-oh, for that "Blind Spot"), Hall, England, Hasta (one story by him is all I've read, but it only whetted my appetite), and Simmons. Oh, yes, the two Taines, the detective of Dr. Keller's and the author. But there's something missing. Hm-m—ah, A. Merritt! What a writer! How could I have forgotten him? Which reminds me of Burroughs who has been left out in the rain for quite a while. He ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... 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 arrival ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... of the 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... of seeing the wedding presents; but it is not judicious for visitors at a big function to poke about among the gifts unless accompanied by one of the family or, perhaps, a bridesmaid, because it is generally deemed wise to have a detective present on such an occasion, and he might misinterpret this friendly interest to the discomfort of the prying guests. In arranging the presents a nice thoughtfulness and tact are necessary. Let the smaller offerings have ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... 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, a citizen of Rouen, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... said the Man in the Big Fur Coat; 'my theory of the Simple Human Sense of Authority still holds. I am a detective officer, and you will both be good enough to follow me to ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... sufficiently aware of the habits of the family to make the attempt just before the jewels were to be removed, and when the master was likely to be absent. The appearance of the back door had led to the conclusion that the thieves had been admitted from within; a London detective had therefore been sent for, who was to come in the guise of a clerk from the distillery, bringing down the books to Mr. Fulmort, and Phoebe was forbidden to reveal his true character to any one but Miss Fennimore. So virulently did Mervyn ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that sword was as much as proclaiming that I had infernal machines about me somewhere, and even my pockets were not sacred. Having turned out all my insides at sea, I had to turn out my exterior pockets and portmanteau now. It was monstrous. That was not all. I am sure a detective followed me to town. When I got into a hansom at Charing Cross, the sword would go nowhere except between my knees, with the blade shooting up between the reins of the driver, high above the top of the conveyance. I caused great amusement as ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... 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 man ripens ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bring you news," he continued. "Our detective returned this morning and presented a full report of his investigation and its result. You will be pleased ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... count," the marshal replied with the air of a great and mysterious detective. "And now," he added, "have you any idea or any suspicion as to who led ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... the chief use, of our contemporaneous journals. Apparently, however, notarially authenticated boasts of circulation had not yet been made the delight of their readers, and the press had not become the detective agency that it now is, nor the organizer and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... The detective agency to which she finally applied, after weeks of soul-racking suspense, was one of those disturbingly human implements which many are not opposed to using on occasion, when it is the only means of solving a troublous ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... eyes widened just a trifle. Malone felt as if he could have fallen into them and drowned. "Oh, my," she said. "You must be a detective." And then, like the ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... searching for a live man in the cemetery of Montmartre? The Prefect of Police would set a hundred intelligences at work to find him; the Seine might be dragged, les miserables turned over at the dead-house; a minute description of him would be in every detective's pocket; and he—in M. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... arrived from Canada; he having been obliged to turn over his establishment hastily to his trusty friend, Burk, and fly the Province; as through some successful espionage, his connection with the Brotherhood had been discovered. From a friendly detective who had learned the true state of the case and the danger that threatened him, he received the hint that urged him to make his escape, and which doubtless saved him from the horrors of a dungeon if not from death. His sister was to follow him ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... evidence at the Old Bailey on one of the many cases of assault and even murder where the victims were brought into hospital as patients. London was ringing with the tale of a barefaced murder at Murray Hill in North London, where an exceedingly clever piece of detective work, an old lantern discovered in a pawnbroker's shop in Whitechapel—miles away from the scene of the crime—was the means of bringing to trial four of the most rascally looking villains I ever saw. The trial preceded ours and we had to witness it. One of ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... gravestone in the crowded churchyard and saw a strange man who was staring at the ground. A detective? He believed that this man was watching his feet, measuring them, saying to himself, "Yes, those are the feet that ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... they will 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 up ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... might the steps have proposed to pursue meteors playing at hide-and-seek among the clouds of a midnight sky that the tempest was troubling. Nevertheless, Colin Bell, who by virtue of his ceaseless stir in the exercise of his heathen-god-like abilities, had constituted himself captain of the detective band, would be up and at hand immediately, and would say 'Master—sir, Young an' me will bring them, sir, if ye'll let's.' It was just as good to 'let' as to hinder, for, for others to be out thus, and he in, seemed to be ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pleasant voice she answered all our questions—not very far from tears, I think, but saved by native stolidity, and perhaps a little by the fear that purifiers of Society might not be the proper audience for emotion. When she had left us we recalled the detective, and still, as it were, touching the delicate matter with the tips of our tongues, so as not, being men of the world, to seem biassed against anything, we definitely elicited from him her profession and these ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... commissary wrote down their depositions in a more condensed form, and he had got so far, when the investigating magistrate arrived, attended by the chief of the detective police, and one ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... 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
... its compensations. In the three days that the Detective Inspector had been on Earth, Forrester had had time to think and to find out some things. Gerda, for instance, was getting married to Alvin Sherdlap. Forrester wondered what kind of love would let a woman choose a name like Gerda ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... printed stuff and a good book which is "the Precious life-blood of a Master Spirit." The bookman will of course upon occasion trifle with various kinds of reading, and there is one member of the brotherhood who has a devouring thirst for detective stories, and has always been very grateful to the creator of Sherlock Holmes. It is the merest pedantry for a man to defend himself with a shamed face for his light reading: it is enough that he should be able to distinguish between ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... missing documents. It was very strange. Mr. Ford and his lawyer friends could not understand it. The interests opposed to him were preparing to take action, it was rumored, and if the papers were found this would be stopped. Even a detective agency that made a specialty of tracing lost articles had no success. Prince and the papers seemed to have vanished ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... not save my life or hers from utter wreck, but I can do my duty, and I will do it, if only it is pointed out to me. Oh, sir, point it out to me!" cried the hypocrite, clasping her hands with a look of sincerity that might have deceived a London detective. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... pertinacity, and went down into his cabin. I wonder why we should both take such an interest in this man! I suppose it is his striking appearance, coupled with his apparent wealth, which piques our curiosity. Harton has a theory that he is really a detective, that he is after some criminal who has got away to Portugal, and that he chooses this peculiar way of travelling that he may arrive unnoticed and pounce upon his quarry unawares. I think the supposition is rather a far-fetched one, but Harton bases it upon a book which ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you may be sure. One man hurried to notify the door-keeper and the private detective employed oh all such occasions, while others hastily searched the booth—of course in vain. Diana seemed distracted and the news ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... as a reasonable familiarity with the accents of the country; but her Arcadia was full of painful discrepancies, and she did not add to her own pain by too serious an attempt to reconcile them. Besides, what is a policeman compared with a detective? ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... got a quiet Tip from another Moral Detective, that the Man had stayed out until 2 A.M., at a Banquet given to a Militia Company, so he knew it was Time for him to Act. He lay in Ambush until the Coast was Clear, and then he went across the Dead-Line ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... did not conflict essentially with the success of the government, and to give the Gars a fair chance of dying honorably, sword in hand, before he could fall a prey to the executioner, for whom this agent of the detective police ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... of Mr. Paul Snyder's Detective Agency in New Oxford Street had grown in the course of a dozen years from a single room to an impressive suite bright with polished wood, clicking typewriters, and other evidences of success. Where once Mr. Snyder had sat and waited for clients and attended to them himself, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... shut up? I know what I'm about and I'm going to call up another detective. Bessemer may go to the devil for all I care! How do you know but he has, and taken her with him? The first thing to do is to get that girl back! You ought to have had more sense than to show your whole hand to my brother. You might ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... Alphonse Prefontaine had a friend named Lalonde, a very clever man and a member of that useful profession which lives upon the lives and secrets and follies and crimes of others—in fine, a detective, and having quite recently lost his wife (a cousin of Mme. Prefontaine) he had given up his house and come to live at the Hotel Champlain. He had been present when Ringfield first appeared in the rotunda with his countrified carpet-bag, had heard him ask for his friend, had seen him again later ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... grows gradually to a climax in the ninth grade, and remains well up through the course. The tender sentiment has little charm for the average grade boy, and only in the high school course does he acknowledge any considerable use of love stories. In the sixth grade he is fond of detective stories, but they lose their charm for him as he grows older." For girls, "stories of adventure are popular in the sixth grade, and stories of travel are always enjoyed. The girl likes biography, but in the high school, true to her sex, she prefers stories of great women ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... in love with Diana Charteris, sloshed her husband, Lord Freddy, over the head with his own decanter (vide Chap. XXI.) he rather overdid it. For "the jagged thing fell with a sullen thud behind his (Lord Freddy's) ear," and that discourteous nobleman collapsed to rise no more. When the detective arrived the following noon he convinced himself that there was no necessity to detain any of the guests, even though no windows had been found open or doors unlocked, and though Dicky had a contused lip from the conflict overnight and everybody ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... which would make life worth living for—except love—which is good to a certain extent, but not absolutely all in all, save to the eroto-maniac. And as most novelists now pretend to instruct and convey ideas, beyond mere story-telling, or even being "interesting," which means the love or detective business, I would suggest to some of these writers that the marvelous latent powers of the human mind, and also some art which does not consist of the names and guide-book praises of a few great painters and the Renaissance rechauffee ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... not so easy. Of course if Sir Charles was to die, you could claim the estate, and give them a great deal of pain and annoyance; but the burden of proof would always rest on you. My advice is not to breathe a syllable of this; but get a good detective, and push your inquiries a little further among house agents, and the women they put into houses; find that charwoman, and see if you can ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Secretary," he said, "I regret to have been the cause of putting you in this most trying position, and before I decide to accompany this officer or detective I must think, so with your permission I will light a cigar." He walked over to a table and very slowly selected one from ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... visited the police headquarters, situated on the east side of Portsmouth Square. This is a large building of several stories with numerous offices. The chief in his office on the main floor, on the right hand of the entrance, received us courteously and assigned to us a detective according to an arrangement previously made with Ashton. In the office were portraits of police commissioners and the chiefs and others who had been connected with the department for many years. Entering an elevator we were soon on the topmost floor where were the cells in which prisoners ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... municipal councils in Canada. The wholesale denunciations of disloyalty and treason against the people of a country was calculated to exasperate and produce the very feelings imputed; and the proposal of the two Houses of Parliament to make the Governor of Massachusetts Bay a detective and informer-general against persons opposed to his administration and the measures of the British Ministry, and the proposition to have them arrested and brought 3,000 miles over the ocean to England, for trial before ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... like playing the part of a spy, but it must be remembered that he was an old college officer, and had something of the detective's sagacity, and a certain cunning derived from the habit of keeping an eye on mischievous students. If any underhand contrivance was at work, involving the welfare of any one in whom he was interested, he was a dangerous person for the plotters, for he had plenty of time to attend to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the Patriots' League," said the younger detective to Hilary as Greenleaf moved off. "They've got your friend down in their Send-'em-to-hell book and are after him now. That's how come we ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... 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 a ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... strangely erect; they were pale, and seemed to wait for something. All at once the door opened noiselessly. Many men entered, making a loud noise with their boots—first a police official, then another, then a detective in gold-rimmed spectacles, a house-porter, another house-porter, a muzhik, a policeman, another muzhik, another house-porter. More and more came; they filled the room, and still they came—huge, moody, silent fellows. Elisaveta felt ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... the least depend upon any one's actually looking over it. That is merely a matter of form. It is a little hard to express it. What one feels—at least in our library—is that one is in a kind of side-looking place. One feels a kind of literary detective system going silently on in and out all around one, ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... shows 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 selfish decalogue, the topsy-turvy morality set ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... undisprivacied. He makes his life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with consciousness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, 210 And each bystander a detective were, Keen-eyed for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... comprehending vaguely. A blindfolded man can understand quite well, if he is first informed of the business in progress, or if it be something with which he is familiar; imagination seems then to take the place of eyes. A detective, having overheard the conversation between the two men, had not required sight of them; but the young monk was too recently from the cloisters of Bielo-Osero to be quick in the discernment of villanies. He knew the world abounded in crime, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... out his troubles before the public in the newspapers. On the contrary, if he found out that his daughter had been killed—supposing that she was—he probably made up his mind at once that the world should not know it till he had caught the murderer. So he sent for the best detective in America, put the matter in his hands, and inserted a notice of his daughter's death that agreed with what the doctor had said. That would be the detective's advice, I'm sure, and probably ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... not answer this letter, but sent a representative to Colorow to investigate the writer's claims. The detective returned to say that "the parties" had gone to Boston, but that they had a fine reputation in the region, and that the father was a rich and well-considered citizen. "No one knows anything out o' the way with the girl," the ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... was that plum puzzled that I meant ter find out why Streeter was takin' sech notice, if I hung fur it. So I set to on a little detective work of my own, knowin', of course, that 't wa'n't no use askin' of him himself. Well, an' what do you s'pose I found out? If that little scamp of a boy hadn't even got round him—Streeter, the skinflint! He ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... commonplace; but a very close observer of human nature might have said, "He may be commonplace, but do not feel too certain; he simply possesses one of those faces which express nothing, from which not the cleverest detective in Scotland Yard could ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... there was one Schottler, who had kept a public-house, called The Ship and Punchbowl, in High Street, Wapping. In that direction, therefore, inquiries were instituted. The Schottlers had, it was found, gone and left no trace, but it was easy to instruct a detective to inquire after old neighbours, to show them a portrait of the Claimant, and to ask if any one in that locality recognised the features. At last the man prosecuting inquiries found himself in the Globe public-house in Wapping, the landlady of which hostelry at once declared the carte de ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... be held to have invented a new species of detective story—the sort that has no crime, no criminal, and a detective whose processes are transcendental. The Club of Queer Trades is the first batch of such stories. The Man who was Thursday is another specimen of some length. More recently, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... Let me think! Two clear days, Sunday and Monday, then a day of uncertainty before they begin to look for me; altogether, three days and four nights' respite. I have a couple of passports and two different disguises; is not that enough to throw the cleverest detective off the scent? On Tuesday morning I shall draw a million francs in London before the slightest suspicion has been aroused. My debts I am leaving behind for the benefit of my creditors, who will put a 'P'* on the bills, and I shall live comfortably in Italy for the rest of my days ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... he said, clutching his son's arm, "that is a very foolish saying about 'murder will out'? I remember Pilkington, the detective, who was a member of our church when I used to worship at Durham Street, speaking on this subject. He said that it was his opinion that people are being continually made away with, and that not more than one in ten are ever accounted for. Nine chances ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle |
