"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heard from Jim Farland since the evening before, when he had engaged the taxicab and had started in pursuit of the limousine Kate Gilbert had entered. Prale wondered what Farland had been doing, whether he had discovered anything concerning Kate Gilbert, whether he had found a clew that would lead to an unraveling ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... given him a valuable clew, for he reasoned that the barnyard home of Mr. Rooster must be near the general buildings of a farm. These buildings he decided to avoid. So, when he came to a fork in the path he chose the direction that led him further from what he believed ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... Paris and at the Olympia and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though the family has had a small army of detectives on his trail they've not discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You might think it easy to disappear like that, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... discover. It can not be denied to the Admiral, except with great injustice, that as he was the first discoverer of those Indies, so he was really of all the mainland; and to him the credit is due. For it was he that put the thread into the hands of the rest by which they found the clew to more distant parts. It was not necessary for this that he should personally visit every part, any more than it is necessary to do so in taking possession of an estate; as the jurists hold." This generous protest by Las Casas should receive the assent of all geographers. The pupils ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... ball of yarn refused to follow her. She jerked at it in vain. She dared not let her clew break, because if she should lose the lover supposed to be holding its other end, she would die unmarried. "Let me see you! let me see you!" she cried, eagerly, and a figure drew near her in the darkness. An arm covered with dark cloth was almost round her. She drew ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... coast where some ship had not put in, with piteous entreaties for water and aid—and scarcely a bay or a cape that was not blood-guilty. Along the straight coast from Sligo Bay westwards, down the west coast, Clew Bay, Connemara, and haunted Dingle itself, where the Catholic religion under arms had been so grievously chastened eight years ago—everywhere half-drowned or half-starved Spaniards, piteously entreating, were stripped and put to the sword either by the Irish savages or the English ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... afraid of here," the girl replied. "But it will be awfully lonesome without you. But if you think you've got a real clew, I ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... expedition had proved to be a total failure. It was best, we thought, not to mince matters with her; and we stated minutely how time after time the anchorage of the schooner had been precisely located, and then in a little while had been unlocated again. She saw, as we did, that as a clew Old Jacob was not much of a success, and also that he was about the only thing in the least like a clew that we possessed. Realizing this latter fact, and knowing that his great age made his death probable at any moment, ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... When I am away from her, I will own that her memory doth not linger over long with me. But when I am with her, she bewitches me. I know not what else to call it. Always I am trying to probe her; always I find myself foiled and baffled when I think that I have found the clew to her mystery. If ever she should waken from this state of hers.... At present she is angry, and I have not seen her for two days. That may be, but she forgets that soon it will not be for her to say whether I shall see her ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... turning to Dyer, after he had eyed the stranger carefully, "let the mariners clew up and furl our topgallants. I believe we can do without them, by the look of yonder ship, which seems to be not nearly so fast as ourselves, and there will be the less tackle for the men to handle when it comes to manoeuvring, and consequently the ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... "Clew up" is the next order, and then "All hands furl fore and main upper topsails," and up we go out on to the yard. Luckily the dawn is just turning the sea grey and the ratlines begin to show up in relief. It is far harder for the first and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... thing that troubled Dave in those days was the question of his identity, and when one of his school rivals spoke of him as a "poor-house nobody" it disturbed him greatly. Receiving something of a clew, he went on a long voyage, as related in "Dave Porter in the South Seas," and located his uncle, Dunston Porter, and learned for the first time that his father, David Breslow Porter, was also living, and ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... walls; pausing at one window sill and again at the threshold; picking his way daintily over heaps of litter on the floor. Yes, the room was full of the scent. But, whence the scent emanated, Lad could not, for the life of him, tell. The room gave him no clew. And, after a few minutes of futile investigation, he turned ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... age of Shakspeare. So that, notwithstanding a gulf of nineteen centuries and upwards separates Shakspeare from Euripides, the last of the surviving Greek tragedians, the one is still the nearest successor of the other, just as Connaught and the islands in Clew Bay are next neighbors to America, although three thousand watery columns, each of a cubic mile in dimensions, divide ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the other side of the Mississippi which could afford the faintest clew, and he began the study of Louisiana, so far as it was open to his vision. His altitude gave him an extended survey toward every point of the compass. As it was impossible that any of his enemies should ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... no measure of the time, no clew to the old dates, nothing whatever, beyond such considerations as I have stated, to warrant even a vague hypothesis. It can be seen clearly that the beginning of this old civilization was much older than the earliest great cities, and, also, that ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... black albatross, the frigate-bird, nor the booby. Though of like colour, there was no bird of such form as that. There was neither beast nor fish belonging to the sea that could show such a shape above its surface. That sable globe, rounded like a sea-hedgehog, or a Turk's-head clew, and black as a tarred tackle-block, could be nothing else than the woolly pate ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... givin' you the answer. I'm just slippin' you the proposition, with the side remark that now and then, when the jumble seems worse than ever, you can get a glimpse of what might be a clew, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... examined into many of the cases of complaint made in this general way, and have felt mortified that our soldiers should do acts which are nothing more or less than stealing, but I was powerless without some clew whereby to reach the rightful party. I know that the great mass of our soldiers would scorn to steal or commit crime, and I will not therefore entertain vague and general complaints, but stand, prepared always to follow up any reasonable complaint ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fair hair suggested weariness—sleep, perhaps. But as the young man hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the quiet figure. He turned noiselessly and went away, sorry and ashamed, because unwittingly he had stumbled upon the clew he ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... there must be some general law which induced the phenomenon; and I put myself to studying it out, as an interesting problem. At last, I came to the conclusion—to which I still adhere—that their so long wearing only one epaulet (for to only one does their rank entitle them) was the infallible clew to this mystery. And when any one reflects upon so well-known a fact, that many sea Lieutenants grow decrepit from age, without attaining a Captaincy and wearing two epaulets, which would strike the balance between their shoulders, the above reason assigned ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... misgivings and fears in which Ferris had lived was suddenly without a clew; he could not look upon the pallid visage of the priest lest he should now at last find there that subtle expression of deceit; the whirl of his thoughts kept him silent; ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... our Philadelphia friend, saying that he was seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. K, a well-known Union lady in Hagerstown. Now this could not be true, for he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of the lady furnished a clew by which we could probably track him. A telegram was at once sent to Mrs. K, asking information. It was transmitted immediately, but when the answer would be received was uncertain, as the Government almost monopolized the line. I was, on the whole, so well satisfied ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... considered this important information. If the twenty dollar bill, thus marked, should ever appear in the village, it might furnish a clew by which to trace out ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... up to it? I had got obstinately persuaded by this time that the letter must be in the room—principally because of the trouble I had had in looking after it. And persuading myself of that, I took it into my head next, just as obstinately, that "5 along" and "4 across" must be the right clew to find the letter by—principally because I hadn't left myself, after all my searching and thinking, even so much as the ghost of another guide to go by. "Five along"—where could I count five along the room, in any ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... an ingenuity and boldness which left no doubt that it had been effected by clever and practiced hands. The detective officers first employed having failed to discover the offenders, the threads of the imperfect and broken clew were placed in my hands, to see if my somewhat renowned dexterity, or luck, as many of my brother officers preferred calling it, would enable me to piece them out to a satisfactory conclusion. By the description obtained of a man who had been seen lurking about the house a few ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... no further clew to guide his search. It was destined that the last he was to know of her should be that she was thrown on the tender mercies of the world—her last friend gone, her last penny expended. She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with its tender associations, but buried alive in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... ancient paths which our fathers in old times have trodden: the two rulers in bliss, Yama and Varuna, shalt thou behold." Varuna judges all. He thrusts the wicked down into darkness; and not a hint or clew further of their doom is furnished. They were supposed either to be annihilated, as Professor Roth thinks the Vedas imply, or else to live as demons, in sin, blackness, and woe. The good go up to heaven and are glorified with a shining spiritual body like that of the gods. Yama, the first man, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... vouchsafed one clew. Her last victim, Jack Coughran, having fruitlessly laid at her feet both his heart and a five- hundred-foot creek claim on Bonanza, celebrated the misfortune by walking all of a night with the gods. In the midwatch of this night he happened to rub shoulders with Pierre Fontaine, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... better than this horror. Hats like these are not worn; this one would be noticeable a verst[2] off; it would be remembered; people would think of it again some time after, and it might furnish a clew. I must attract as little attention as possible just now. Trifles become important, everything ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... take that chair, and I will get on like a house on fire; but if you please, don't put me off my clew, sir.—Concerning that picture and my courtship, the most serious epoch of my life, there is a leetle bit of a story which I would like to be a beacon to others; and if your honour is still a bachelor, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... want it to be done, don't you? Well, it depends only on you. There must be some one among you who knows something about this matter. Let him come forward and tell us what he has seen or heard. Remember that the smallest trifle may be a clew to the crime. You would be as bad as the incendiary himself, if you concealed him. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... someone walking; and, looking up, Maggie saw approaching her the bent figure of the old woman, who seemed unusually excited. Her first impulse was to fly, but knowing how improbable it was that Hagar should seek to do her harm, and thinking she might discover some clew to the mystery if she remained, she sat still, while, kneeling on Hester's grave, old Hagar wept bitterly, talking the while, but so incoherently that Maggie could distinguish nothing save the words, "You, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... the skipper were obeyed. The Languedocian made a third sailor. All bore a hand. Not satisfied with brailing up, they furled the sails, lashed the earrings, secured the clew-lines, bunt-lines, and leech-lines, and clapped preventer-shrouds on the block straps, which thus might serve as back-stays. They fished the mast. They battened down the ports and bulls'-eyes, which is a method of walling up a ship. These ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... school and the town Dr. Fenneben's recovery was the only thing asked for. There was as yet no clew regarding the cause of the assault. Bond Saxon had avoided Burgess since the event, so the young man himself made occasion to get Bond up into Dr. Fenneben's study one June day ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... dice had been found in a tomb, with their six faces marked with words instead of pips. He showed that these words were identical with the first six digits in the Altaic branch of the Turanian family of speech. Guided by this clew, it was easy to prove that the grammar and vocabulary of the 3000 Etruscan inscriptions were also Altaic. The words denoting kindred, the pronouns, the conjugations, and the declensions, corresponded closely to those of the Tartar tribes of Siberia. The Etruscan mythology ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... and the subject of an old ballad. She is said to have been kept by her royal lover in a secret bower at Woodstock, the approaches to which formed a labyrinth so intricate that it could only be discovered by the clew of a silken thread, which the king used for that purpose. Here Queen Eleanor discovered and poisoned her, about 1173.— (Noted names of Fiction, 1175. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of the lake was twinkling with lights borne high in the hands of men who were searching. Two boats were rowing back and forth on the lake, with bright lights at stern and prow; and loud shouts filled the air. No answer; no clew: at last, from the island, came a pistol shot,—the signal agreed on. Every man stood still and listened. Slowly the boats came back to shore, drawing behind them Hetty's boat; bringing one of the oars, and also Hetty's ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... for a closer peep at the mysterious dancers in a hand-organ. From that day to this the whereabouts of the dollships has remained a solemn secret from the knowledge of all but the Midgetts. And it was to them Bunch had gone for a clew ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... as if to show him that even those who guarded him needed guards for themselves, when one day the prefect of police was killed on the steps of his official residence, and no clew of the assassin could be found, although lying near his body was found a paper with the simple name of Batavsky written upon it ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... Leenane is Errig Bridge, from which the best view of Croagh Patrick Mountain may be had. But an ascent of the mountain is best made from Murrisk Abbey, six miles outside Westport. From the mountain side the expansive country from island-set Clew Bay to Nephin and Slievemore, in Achill, spreads out to best advantage. The famous coach road from Clifden cuts into Westport from the south. The Quay and Mall and the Marquis of Sligo's demesne are ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... reply to that letter, the committee say: "The brief and formal reply of the Secretary gave Gould no clew to the purpose ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... a long, low whistle, after his fashion, and he walked away from the females, with the air of a man who wanted room to think in. Half a minute later, he called out—"Stand by to shorten sail, boys. Man fore-clew-garnets, flying jib down haul, topgallant sheets, and gaff-topsail gear. In with 'em all, my lads—in with everything, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... her father has exhausted every known means of finding her, and I thought you might, at least, give him a clew." ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... Note: Variant spellings, particularly bowlder (boulder), clew (clue) and vail (veil), have been retained. Also, the Table of Contents was missing so ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... than this, though,—as appeared after a moment's examination of her travelling sac,—her portfolio in the trunk contained the letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her her address in the city. To this address she had no other clew but that her aunt was Mrs. Mary Mason, had married a few years before a merchant named Mason, whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of whose name and business this was all she knew. They lived in a numbered street, but whether ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... they are. We must take every precaution," he said decisively. And then, with our lanterns lowered, we made an examination of the vicinity, without, however, discovering anything else to furnish us with a clew. While I had been absent the body of the unfortunate Armida had disappeared—a fact which, knowing all that I did, ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... this marble, that is stone no more, Life at wound-pause lifts ear to woundless mind; Backward the ages their slow clew unwind, And step by step, and star by star, lead o'er The trail again, where eyeless passion tore Its red way to a soul. Mist-bound and blind No more, the thinker waits, and God grown kind Flashes a foot-print where He ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... lower part a beast, a man above, The monument of their polluted love. Not far from thence he grav'd the wondrous maze, A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways: Here dwells the monster, hid from human view, Not to be found, but by the faithful clew; Till the kind artist, mov'd with pious grief, Lent to the loving maid this last relief, And all those erring paths describ'd so well That Theseus conquer'd and the monster fell. Here hapless Icarus had found his part, Had ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... conspiracy to subvert the government, and to fix on the throne Arabella Stuart, a near relation of the king's by the family of Lenox, and descended equally from Henry VII. Every thing remains still mysterious in this conspiracy; and history can give us no clew to unravel it. Watson and Clarke, two Catholic priests, were accused of the plot; Lord Grey, a Puritan; Lord Cobham, a thoughtless man, of no fixed principle; and Sir Walter Raleigh, suspected to be of that philosophical sect who were then extremely rare in England, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... The only clew left by the assassin was the "dog." At the inquest, the policeman on the beat swore that when he passed the house on his rounds at half-past four A.M., he tried both front doors, and that they were fastened, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... "Any clew, however vague, which might lead nearer to a true knowledge of the fate of Prince Richard, we shall most gladly receive and give our best attention. Therefore, if thou wilst find it convenient, we shall visit thee, good father, on the fifth ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... subject, the earnest contents, convinced me that I now held the clew of that mystery which had baffled me so long, and that the missing letter said to have been lost at Le Noir's Landing was at last in my possession. It needed not this additional proof of treachery to convince ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone—a large black slab of stone—with an identical inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished to Champollion (1810) and to Young the clew to the deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by side horizontally, with another layer of strips across ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of Cicero de Natura Deorum is the best clew we have to guide us through the dark and profound abyss. He represents with candor, and confutes with subtlety, the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... force—the poor girl was crazy! Her father, a wealthy Burlington real estate broker, had mysteriously disappeared some months before, and it was supposed that he had met with foul play. Despite the efforts of Dyke Darrel and other detectives, no clew had yet been found of the missing man. The detective had met Sibyl at her father's house, and had regarded her as one both beautiful and accomplished. To meet her as now was a terrible ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... locality of that little domicile where his plainly clad mate is evidently sitting, it is all we will ask of him. But this he seems in no wise disposed to do. Here and there, and up and down; we follow him, often losing him, and as often refinding him by his song; but the clew to his nest, how shall we get it? Does he never go home to see how things are getting on, or to see if his presence is not needed, or to take madam a morsel of food? No doubt he keeps within earshot, and a cry of distress or alarm from ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... But he did some thinking. Experience had sharpened his wits, and by this time he knew a clew when he met it. A while later, when Bates had gone and his brother had come in with Alice, he got Oliver off in a corner and demanded, "How much are you to get out of ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... a measure from the astonishment produced by this discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. "Yes," said Swimmer, "we all have them." Here then was a clew to follow up. A bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of the time until ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... down Carefully my address, and gave me his. Then to my lodgings driving with me back, He left me with a Benedicite! He's rich: has he been sending money, then? What means it all? Conjecture finds no clew. ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... rouleau^, column, rolling-pin, rundle. cone, conoid^; pear shape, egg shape, bell shape. sphere, globe, ball, boulder, bowlder^; spheroid, ellipsoid; oblong spheroid; oblate spheroid, prolate spheroid; drop, spherule, globule, vesicle, bulb, bullet, pellet, pelote^, clew, pill, marble, pea, knob, pommel, horn; knot (convolution) 248. curved surface, hypersphere; hyperdimensional surface. V. render spherical &c adj.; form into a sphere, sphere, roll into a ball; give rotundity &c n.; round. Adj. rotund; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... have read "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" will remember the mysterious disappearance of the bazaar money and the untiring zeal with which Grace worked until she found a clew to the robbery, which led to the astonishing discovery that she made in an isolated house on the outskirts ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... but Mad Jack's were obeyed. His object was to throw the ship into the wind, so as the better to admit of close-reefing the top-sails. But though the halyards were let go, it was impossible to clew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal strain on the canvas. It now blew a hurricane. The spray flew over the ship in floods. The gigantic masts seemed about to snap under the world-wide strain of the three ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... desire to please him we refer to him as "the authorities." If the Palace Grocery has been invaded through the back window and a box of plug tobacco stolen, Marshal Furgeson is delighted to read in the paper that "the authorities have an important clew and the arrest may be expected at any time." He is "the authorities." If "the authorities have their eyes on a certain barber-shop on South Main Street, which is supposed to be doing a back-door beer business," he again is "the authorities," and contends that the word strikes more terror ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... prisoner, Ferguson," the captain said, as he and the first lieutenant paced up and down the quarterdeck; "we must catch the two prahus if we can. At present we don't know whether they have gone up or down the river, and it would be absolutely useless for us to wait until we get some clew to their whereabouts. After we have finished with them, we will go up the other branch, and try to find the two we know to be up there. I should not like to ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... assurance that he was awake to the suppositious landlord who had called, for the sense of some sound but stilled on the second of his waking was strong within him. He fastened upon the vague starlit space of the little window to give him a clew to his situation. Then he remembered Doom, and, with the window for his key, built up the puzzle of his room, wondering at the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... it. It is a great source of strength to know our weakness, to make ourselves, if not the masters, the pilots of the soul of the race to which we are bound, which bears us like a vessel upon its waters,—to make fate our instrument, to use it as a sail which we furl or clew up according to the wind. When Grazia closed her eyes, she could hear within herself more than one disturbing voice, of a tone familiar to her. But in her healthy soul even the dissonances were blended ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... clew coif'fure con fec'tion er y clinch fledge'ling klep to ma'ni a sleuth af'ghan cor nu co'pi a blonde che nille' cot y led'o nous glebe che mise' di u tur'ni ty gyves chas'seur terp sich o re'an guy chev'ron me temp sy cho'sis crutch cor'ymb me te or'o lite touch e leve' ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... day wandering through the narrow, crooked alleys of the Arab quarter enjoying the strange, new sights. The next day found him at Sidi-bel-Abbes, where he presented his letters of introduction to both civil and military authorities—letters which gave no clew to the real ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... because through him I could make connections between the town and the citadel. Kimsky, at my wish, made some of his town friends acquainted with the officers of the citadel. It was then necessary to give these new friends some clew, some aim that would appear innocent to them, and conceal the real plan. I chose Trenck as the protecting shield for my undertaking. To inspire him with confidence in my agents, I obtained a sort of credential letter from Princess Amelia, and interested ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... multimillionaire of New York City who was kidnapped on Saturday night on his way from New York to a week-end house party at Beechwood, N. J., not yet heard from. No clew to his whereabouts. Detectives out with bloodhounds searching country. Mother in a state of collapse. It is feared the bandits have fulfilled their threats and killed him. Father frantically offering any reward for news ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... arrived in America at the same time as had the insignia, but Hines and Stetson would not let him show himself in Stillwater. They were afraid if all three conspirators foregathered they might inadvertently drop some clew that would ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... master's letter, but wished particularly to see its writer. On inquiring, to their mutual surprise they were told, that the gentleman had left there early in the morning, having discharged his lodgings, and that they were unable to say whither he had gone. To hunt for a man without a clew, in the city of London, is usually time misspent Of this Moseley was perfectly sensible, and disregarding a proposition of Peter's, he returned to his own lodgings. The proposal of the steward, if it did not do much credit to his sagacity, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... very mysterious," answered Billie, turning the envelope around and around in her hand and finally holding it up to the light to see if she could get any clew to its contents that way. "But I surely never did see that handwriting ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... called aloud, "to in all studding sails! Down with them!" he added, scarcely giving his former words time to reach the ears of his subordinates. "Down with every rag of them, fore and aft the ship! Man the top-gallant clew-lines, Mr Earing. Clew up, and clew down! In with ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... clew, we run back along the line of what may be called "our spiritual ancestry." Turning naturally to our own next of kin, a child of New England, going back from the teaching of his youth to his fathers and to their fathers, soon finds before ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... was only his wallet left. His identification card was there, unchanged. Behind it, where his wife's picture had always been, there was only a folded clipping. He drew it out, hoping for a clew. It was only an announcement of people killed in an airplane crash—and among those found dead was Mrs. Wilbur Hawkes, of New York. It seemed that Irma had never reached ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... in question are simple enough, and in no way transcend our powers of comprehension if only we could find the clew; but for my part I prefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than from knowledge. It was commonly remarked of me when I was a child that my big blue eyes appeared to ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the low flat limestone plain of the middle of Ireland. But the same coral-reefs once stretched out far to the westward into the Atlantic Ocean; and you may see the proof upon that map. For in the western bays, in Clew Bay with its hundred islands, and Galway Bay with its Isles of Arran, and beautiful Kenmare, and beautiful Bantry, you see little blue spots, which are low limestone islands, standing in the sea, overhung by mountains far aloft. ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... for the first time in a congenial atmosphere, and among companions animated by a common cause. His consequent sense of freedom and exaltation knew no bounds. Henceforth Napoleon was to be his hero, and Italy the land of his election; two lifelong passions which furnish the clew to much that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and it gave me a clew, somehow, to what Melford's nightmare was about. She was calling out, 'Help! help! help! Burglars!' till I thought she would raise the ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... this story, to which the reader already possesses the clew, only by way of showing that Sir Archibald was making use, at that time, of the secret which he had discovered, and was taking the surest means of keeping it to himself. He had occupations in the inner chamber at which ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... bedroom fire, will see the apparition of his or her object of affection turn the sleeve to dry the other side. To find the name of one's future spouse, one has nothing more to do than to go on Hallow-e'en to a barn or kiln, throw into it a clew of blue thread, which the person begins to wind up into another clew, having of course kept hold of one end of the thread. Before the winding operation is completed, some one will take hold of the thread, and on the question being asked, "Who holds?" an answer will be returned, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... like an insulated telephone wire at the bottom of a crater in the earth made by the explosion of a heavy shell. The instructions to all subordinates from the chief of intelligence to look for the source of the leak in information to the Browns made him quick to see a clew in anything unusual. He jumped down into the crater and not only found his pains rewarded, but that the wire was intact and ran underground in either direction. Who had laid it? Not the Grays. Why was it there? He called for one of his men to bring a buzzer, and it was ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... "Ah ha! There's your clew," said Stella, turning to Ted. "The fellow who posted this notice was disguised in a wolfskin so that he could sneak up to the house unnoticed by the Chinaman, or, if seen, he would make ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... bower, As never yet was seen. Most curiously that bower was built, Of stone and timber strong; An hundred and fifty doors Did to this bower belong; And they so cunningly contrived, With turnings round about, That none but with a clew of thread Could enter in or ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... inspector, "we have made no progress toward the recovery of the ring. It has neither put in its appearance at any of the pawnshops nor have we been able to trace the stones. We do not, however, despair of getting some clew and shall ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... coal and lumber yards—an unpromising region, surely, in which to look for Master Quinton Edge's particular retreat. And yet it would have marked the subtlety of the man to have set his secret here, where it would have been at once so easily seen and overlooked. Every labyrinth has its clew, but the fugitive ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... was a mystery; no one knew what had become of the gentle, young half brother, more than thirty years his junior, whom once he seemed so fondly to love, but who, seven years ago, had disappeared suddenly, once for all, and left no clew of ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... down with a whack at each measure. In my hands was the mission album, a motley collection of faces, as devoid of Nature or any clew to the real characteristics of the owners as the average photograph usually is, but here and there one with a suggestion of interest and, in this special case, of beauty—a delicate, pensive face, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... be gained from Edwards at this time, and it must be confessed was most important. Pearson's guilt was fully proven, and we had a strong clew as to the identity of the third man in the robbery. It is true that he had more than a month the start of us, but we did not despair of finding him at last. In the meantime, much was to be speedily done. Edwards must be conveyed to Geneva at once, Johnson must be arrested at St. Louis, ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... abstracted all day, but it was not till after dinner, when we were taking our coffee on the verandah, that she gave me any clew to her thoughts. Then she ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... music-hall keeper who hears him play, and knows a good thing when he hears it, and who engages the old fiddler to play for an evening or two. He goes readily enough; for there is no knowing where the dark stranger may have taken the child, and where no clew is, one may follow any track that presents itself. So the old man goes, and sits patiently in the hot, noisy place. At first the merry-makers, who are not of a high degree of refinement, make fun of him, and cut many a joke at the expense of his blue ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... harness, and the mountain green; Upon his breast and forehead gently blew The air, that balm and nardus breathed unseen, And o'er his head let down from clearest skies A cloud of pure and precious clew there flies. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... it; for that he only knew of one captain from the port in the Slave Trade, who did not deserve long ago to be hanged. Hence I should get into a labyrinth of expense, and difficulty, and uneasiness of mind, from whence I should not easily find a clew ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... to grotesque dimensions; Compress'd like wedges, radiated like stars, Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings; Subtle and variable as flickering flames, Sight could not trace their evanescent changes, Nor comprehend their motions, till minute And curious observation caught the clew To this live labyrinth,—where every one, By instinct taught, perform'd its little task; —To build its dwelling and its sepulchre, From its own essence exquisitely modell'd; There breed, and die, and leave a progeny, Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers. To ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... by and we never got a clew. It couldn't have been burglars, for the safe had been opened by the combination in the proper way. People must have begun to talk, for one afternoon in comes Alice—that's my wife—and the boy and girl, and Alice stamps her foot, and her eyes flash, and she cries out, 'The lying wretches—Tom, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... at Alnwick, aged twenty-two.' There could be no mistake, and with a tear to the memory of the dead whom I had loved and injured, I burned the paper, feeling that now there was no clew to the secret I was as anxious to preserve as ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... identification, and a stranger's grave had to be provided. In the meantime the friends and relatives of the missing girl had been making every effort to locate her, no idea having occurred to them that she was going South. A loving brother finally got hold of a clew, which he followed up so successfully that he at last solved the mystery. He arrived in New Orleans on November 1st, and when taken out to the grave that had been provided for the stranger who had died just outside the gates, he was astounded to find several handsome bouquets of flowers, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the postmaster with delight. And he himself harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. The master, having got the carriage ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... chart with coloured pictures that was propped up against the wood box, father found the clew, and comprehended that Richard was giving himself a practical lesson in anatomy by trying to carve these organs from a huge mangel wurzel beet that he had rolled in from the root cellar. Did father scold him for mess-making, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... possibility of puzzling us by letting us only dimly surmise what had past behind the closed doors that shut in the ill-fated lovers, and of leaving us in a maze of uncertainty and a mist of doubt, peering pitifully, and groping blindly for a clew to tangled and ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be inferred: a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, like thousands of others. On the Name I have many times meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay there any clew. That it was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate to believe. To no purpose have I searched through all the Herald's Books, in and without the German Empire, and through all manner of Subscriber-Lists ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... as a relatively fixed or stable organism. Even though it may presently be torn down, it is for the time being a completed structure; and a consideration of the valency of its atoms gives the best clew that has hitherto been obtainable as to the character of its architecture. How important this matter of architecture of the molecule—of space relations of the atoms—may be—was demonstrated as long ago as 1823, when Liebig and Wohler proved, to the utter bewilderment of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... my brave boys, comes the best of the fun, It's hands about ship and reef topsails in one; So it's lay aloft, topman, as the hellum goes down, And clew down your topsails as the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... and Josephus how Caligula used sometimes to interrupt his aerial promenade midway, and throw handfuls of gold from the roof of the basilica to the crowd assembled below. I have mentioned this bridge because the words of Suetonius, supra templum divi Augusti ponte transmisso, gave me the first clew towards the identification of the splendid ruins which tower just behind the church of S. Maria Liberatrice, between it and ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... characteristic of his touch, when he called his lyrics and romances dramatic. He became consciously sensitive later to slight variations effected by his manipulation in shape and shade which it yet takes a little thought to discern, even after his own redivision of his work has given the clew ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... that time there came on a squall with rain, which almost blinded us; the sail was taken in very neatly, the clew-lines, chock-a-block, bunt-lines and leech-lines well up, reef-tackles overhauled, rolling-tackles taut, and all as it should be. The men lied out on the yard, the squall wore worse and worse, but they were handing in the leech of the sail, when ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... written with lead pencil was illegible. Besides this, was a prayer-meeting topic-card, soiled and worn, and a small testament, dog-eared, with much fingering, but no money. A cheap Christian Endeavor pin was fastened to the ragged vest. There was nothing to identify him, or furnish a clew as to where he was from. The face and form was that of a young man, and though thin and careworn, showed no mark of dissipation. The right hand was marked by a long scar across the back and the loss of the little finger. The clothing was ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... established in regard to our self-development and our families, so they have been in regard to limited circles of friends. If the fulfilment of these claims were all that a righteous life required, the hunger and thirst would be stilled for many good men and women, and the clew of right living would lie ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... have arrived in Goldfield with a burro train in less than six weeks. You say this man uses double negatives. There's a clew. Who, among your acquaintances, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... calculations more doubtful than those of the geologist."[365] In fact, no truly scientific geologist pretends that it stands on the same level with any authentic history, much less with the Bible record; inasmuch as the discovery of a single new fact may overturn the whole theory. "It furnishes us with no clew by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation. These mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to him only. We attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up against us in our presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter of cone bearing wood—a ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... principal quality sought was beef. Being embryo sailors we had to have nautical terms for our signals, and they made our opponents sit up and take notice. When I played halfback I remember my signals were my order relating to the foremast. For instance, 'Fore-top-gallant clew lines and hands-by-the-halyards' meant that I was the victim. On the conclusion of the order, if the captain could not launch a play made at once, he had to lengthen his signal, and sometimes there would be a string of jargon, intelligible only to a sailor, which would take the light yard men ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... diffidence. The Mundurucu, although repeatedly appealed to, had taken small part in the discussion, remaining silent, his eyes moodily wandering over the water, seeking through the fog for some clew to ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... worthy lords. The discovery which I have made is great; for though I have not found the maiden yet, I have found the way in which I must seek her. Ye have sent freedmen and slaves throughout the city and into the country; has any one given you a clew? No! I alone have given one. I tell you more. Among your slaves there may be Christians, of whom ye have no knowledge, for this superstition has spread everywhere; and they, instead of aiding, will ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... innocence and honour)? Your tender age, the difference of rank, forbade your union. Her father, discovering your clandestine correspondence, suddenly removed her from the country, and destroyed all clew for your inquiries. You lost sight of each other,—each was taught to believe the other dead. Alice was compelled by her father to marry Mr. Cameron; and after his death, her poverty and her love for her ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "What you said, just now, about the Caesars, gave me the clew. The rest was simple enough to any one who knew of the treasure's existence. There's one thing, though, that puzzles me—a thing that's none of my business, of course. I can understand how Standish could have told you he and Hade had stumbled onto a hatful of treasure, down there, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... they told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure! those groves, those all'ees, where I have passed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or over-grown—many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... almost portentous light shone in her brilliant black eyes; and though that wild gleaming denoted powerful emotions, yet it shed no luster upon the depths of her soul—afforded no clew to the real nature of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... this end, he knelt down, and felt the smooth surface of the snow with bare fingers for some trace of his footsteps. There was none. The firm crust had carried him without strain. There was no least abrasion of the frozen surface to afford him a clew to his own trail. He strove to reason concerning the direction of his movements, but quickly abandoned the attempt as altogether baffling. In his circling about the tree from which he had garnered fuel, he had neglected to hold his bearings in relation to the camp. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... a manoeuvre which was followed in succession by the other vessels of the squadron, which had been previously directed to keep, though still within signal, at long distances from each other during the day, closing up at night, in order to spread a broad clew and give greater chance ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the packet inclosed, D'Avencourt continued—"The accompanying letters were found in Ferrari's breast-pocket, and on opening the first one, in the expectation of finding some clew as to his last wishes, we came to the conclusion that you, as the future husband of the lady whose signature and handwriting you will here recognize, should be made aware of the contents, not only for your own sake, but in justice to the deceased. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... signs not wanting that another heavy thunderstorm was brewing, which would probably bring us the desired breeze. There was not much swell running, but sufficient, nevertheless, to tumble the schooner about a good deal; and I had accordingly taken it upon myself to clew up, haul down, and furl every stitch of canvas, in order to save the sails from battering themselves to rags. The thunder had been gradually working up ever since sunset, and in fact even before that, and when eight bells struck at midnight, and my watch below came round, the weather had such ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... "We found no clew to his eastern friends, and when the last will and testament of Ralph Montresor was filed at Oak Creek, every one laughed at us for believing the fairy-tale of a crazy man. But I never believed he was crazy, and I do believe he ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... last order was given, it was the duty of the cook to execute it; and, ordinarily, this is about the only seaman's duty which the "doctor" is called upon to perform. Harvey promptly cast off the sheet, and the hands at the clew-garnets hauled up the foresail. The flying-gib and top-gallant sails had already been furled, and the canvas on the brig was soon reduced to the fore-topsail, fore-topmast staysail, and spanker; and these sails hung like wet rags, the ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... could sail a ship with two-thirds the crew of a Britisher with her clumsy yellow hemp sails and belly you could lose a dinghy in. Mind, I don't say the English aren't handy in a ship and that they wouldn't clew up a topsail clean at the edge of hell. What we are on the seas came over from them. But we bettered it, William, and they knew it; and, naturally enough, laid out to sail around us. I don't blame England, but I ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the whole of her jewelry, except what she was wearing, had been stolen. As no arrest had yet been made the references to the affair were naturally guarded. The paragraph even concluded without the usual formula as to the police having a clew. On the whole, I put the paper down with a slight feeling of relief. I felt that it might have ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had been seen four weeks before from the coast of Candia, and were then steering southeast. This intelligence was corroborated by a vessel spoken the same day. Southeast, being nearly dead before the prevailing wind, was an almost certain clew to the destination of an unwieldy body which could never regain ground lost to leeward; so, although Nelson now learned that some of his missing frigates had also been seen recently off Candia, he would waste no time looking ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... all about, anyhow?" asked Jim Cranby. "I ain't heard nothing about it." He had stood in open-mouthed perplexity trying to catch a clew. Coming late, he ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... going," said that young woman self-consciously. "I've quite a circle to ride yet. I hope you locate the rustlers, and if there's anything I can do—if I see or hear anything that seems to be a clew—I'll let you know right away. I've been keeping my eyes open for some trace of them, and—so has Char—Mr. Fox." Then she blushed and told them good-by very hastily and loped ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... interrupted Miss Robinson, handing the sheet to her assistant. "What a pity that it gives no clew to ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... ever changing and continuously being improved and adapted to the requirements of the life-conditions. The followers of the theory of descent believed that this conclusion was unavoidable, and were induced to deny the manifest fact that species are constant entities. The mutation theory gives a clew to the final combination of the two contending ideas. Reducing the changeability of the species to distinct and probably short periods, it at once explains how the stability of species perfectly agrees with the principle of ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... but we're on a clew. This is Marshal Haines, of Dallas, Mr. Cavanagh," pursued the deputy. The two men nodded in token of the introduction, and the deputy went on: "You remember that old cuss that used ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... parted, and up flew the sail with a thundering flap, loud as the report of a cannon—shot, through which, however, I could distinctly hear a heavy smash, as the large and ponderous blocks at the clew of the sail struck the doomed sailor under the ear, and whirled him off the booms over the fore—yard—arm into the sea, where he perished, as heaving—to was impossible, and useless if practicable, as his head must have ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... composite as the man. It is all things to all men; it lends itself to a multitude of interpretations. Every earnest reader of it will find some clew or suggestion by the aid of which he fancies he can unlock the whole book, but in the end he will be pretty sure to discover that one key is not enough. To one critic, his book is the "hoarse song of a man," its manly and ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... access to the room in Mr. Bud's absence? Larcher had knocked at that room two days after the Wednesday, and had got no answer, but this was no evidence that Davenport might not have made some use of the room in the meanwhile. If he had made use of it, he might have left some trace, some possible clew to his subsequent movements. Larcher, thinking thus on his way from Bagley's apartment-house, resolved to pay another visit to Mr. Bud's quarters before saying anything about Bagley's theory ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Her captors had not seen fit to bind her and she now stood absolutely untouched by anyone. The shooting, the fighting, had confused her. She had only seen Marteau as an accomplice and friend of her assailants, she had no clew to his apparent change of heart. She did not know whether she had merely exchanged masters or what had happened. Smiling ironically at her bewilderment, which he somehow resented in his heart, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of overtaking the marauding band that had ruined Bennett's ranch, murdered its owner, and borne away into the wilds two helpless little settlers for whom a half-crazed, heart-broken woman at Almy was wailing night and day. Turner, following another route and clew, was exploring the Sierra Ancha south of Tonto Creek, and Lieutenant Harris, in fever and torment, was occupying an airy room in the post surgeon's quarters, the object of Bentley's ceaseless care, and of deep solicitude on part of ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... spent by Thaddeus in the "noble pastime of snooping," as he called it. The house was searched by him in a casual sort of way from top to bottom for a clew to the mystery, but without avail. Several times he went below to the cellar, ostensibly to inspect his coal supply, really to observe the demeanor of Margaret, the cook. Barring an unusual pallor upon her cheek, she appeared ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... swirling water would upset a man walking in daylight on a level quayside. He would have nothing but a sunken, bellying piece of canvas to support him—a piece only, for the little leach rope leading from the clew to the peak marked a sharp edge which would spell the dividing line between life ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... bench faced his problem. Except himself, of the hidden place of the will no one could possibly know. So, if even by an anonymous letter, or by telephone, he gave the information to his late lawyer or to the detectives, they at once would guess from where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive. So that plan was abandoned. Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, as though by accident, might stumble ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... address. The baggage train had been destroyed by fire at the time of the accident, so there were no trunks to give evidence. The small traveling bag she had carried with her bore neither initial nor geographical designation, and contained nothing which gave any clew as to its owner's identity save that she was presumably a person of wealth, for her possessions were exquisite and obviously costly. A small jewel box contained various valuable rings, one or two pendants and a string of matched pearls which even to uninitiated eyes spelled a fortune. Also, oddly ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... speak of the poet of the Sonnets and of the greater plays as unknown, I can but believe that the Sonnets, when carefully studied in connection with contemporaneous history and chronicles, will yet afford an adequate clew to his identification. It occurs to me that a promising line of inquiry might be made on this assumption,—that the poet was born about twenty years before Shakespeare and died soon after the production of the plays ceased, or when about sixty-five or seventy years of age; that ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... that designation, (I cannot conjecture how they can ever have got upon the scent,) I really fear (it is no use disguising matters) we must prepare for a very serious struggle. I have been quietly pushing my inquiries in all directions, with a view to obtaining a clew to the case intended to be set up against us, and which you will find very shrewdly guessed at by the Attorney-General. Nor am I the only party, I find, in the field, who has been making pointed inquiries in your neighborhood; but of this more ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... mystery," the newspaper said in conclusion. "The hack driver caught but a glimpse of her, and in the excitement of the moment failed to take the number of the car. But that the latter was a Maillard he is positive. There are several headquarter's men following up the clew as this goes to press; and startling developments are ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... payments so that they covered the three banking houses at which his money was deposited. The check for seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds fourteen shillings was drawn upon the London and Western Counties Bank, and that would have afforded the manager some clew even if he had not been well acquainted with ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... a positive fact: rightly or wrongly I had conceived the possibility of a plot in which Edmond Termonde had served as the instrument of murder in his brother's hand. Were there only one single chance, one against a thousand, that my father had been killed in this way, I was bound to follow up the clew to the end, on pain of having to despise myself as the veriest coward that lived. The time of sorrowful dreaming was over; it was now necessary to act, and to act was ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... when two or three men with more presence of mind than the rest rushed down to the landing, jumped into the boat, untied it, and pushed off from the shore. And now, to her unspeakable horror, she saw that Wilhelm had disappeared, and the thick muddy waters gave no clew to the spot where he had gone down. This was too much, and she altogether lost consciousness. When she came to herself she was lying on the sofa in her husband's smoking room, her dress in disorder, and the maids busy about her. She first looked round her startled, then ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... from the earth, the power of life and action. She had already so conquered herself as to be able to leave her own quiet room, and descend to that of her parents. There she would sit calmly for hours, listening attentively to the conversation, hoping to catch some word that might give her a clew. ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach |
