"Detective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with an air of studied aloofness by a wooden-jointed detective, clad in garments of such festal splendour as to delude several short-sighted old gentlemen into an impression that he was the bridegroom—played their usual invaluable part in promoting circulation among the guests, and supplying ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... by science are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes, other than those which are practised by every one of us in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones. Nor does that process ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... distinguished Conservative; of the more than questionable escapades of the popular, yet sedate divine, whose works are the supreme model of decorous piety. In this wise, indeed, the function of the bibliographer of the anonymous much resembles the detective's. Like that functionary, he must not let feelings of delicacy or humanity interfere with the relentless execution of his duty, for of those who have achieved eminence as public teachers, all that they have ever ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... said he was a bookbinder out of work; Whyte described himself as a hatter, living on the means brought with him from America. The magistrate was about disposing summarily of the case, by sentencing the men to a few days' imprisonment, when a detective officer applied for a remand, on the ground that he had reason to believe the prisoners were connected with the Fenian conspiracy. The application was granted, and before many hours had elapsed it was ascertained that Martin Williams was no other than Colonel ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... delinquent, albeit petty and pathetic, creditors to pay their dues or then and there, before all their fellow-workers, be screamed at for their delinquency about the shop in which they worked! Later she became a private detective! an insurance agent—God knows what—a kind of rough man-woman, as she turned out to be, but all the while clinging to this boy, her pet, no doubt her dream of perfection. She had by turns sent him to common and high school and to college, remitting him such sums ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... a revenue detective; you are in the employ of the Government; you have been betrayed, and to-night you are to be silenced if you ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... asked the clerk if I could exchange barbers. He asked for my card and after a deal of clerical activities wrote thereon the name of a new barber. With this official sanction I finally got my hair cut and my card punched, thinking meanwhile that the soundness of my teeth would obviate any amateur detective work on the part of ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... Down; The Detective Police, and other Nouvellettes. By Charles Dickens. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... One—he's raising hell with all the police in Delhi. Two—he's at the scene of the murder, doing detective work on his own. I heard he'd driven away—and, anyhow, it's his squadron. Man's probably his second cousin, twenty ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... would have hardly applied either adjective to Detective John Gibbs, who, bull-necked and blustering, had pushed and bullied his way through Egypt's principal cities in search ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... sons of a celebrated American detective, and during vacations and their off time from school they help their father by hunting down ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... constabulary—are assuaged by the brilliant narrative manner in which The Wisdom of Father Brown (CASSELL) is set forth. Here is the paradoxical world of Mr. CHESTERTON'S imagination described in his own verbiage and proved by actual and grisly events. In that starry dream of a detective story which I sometimes have, where sleuth-hounds are pattering along the Milky Way and pursue at last the Great Bear to his den, Father Brown and Sherlock Holmes, the one spectacled, the other lynx-eyed, are following the prey ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... great detective," he said. "You know, Harley, how Hobart is always arguing from the effect back ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... just come back from an interview with my lawyer,' said Captain Knowlton. 'Of course, I was very anxious to discover what had become of this youngster, and, in fact,' he added, 'a private detective is already looking for him, and to-morrow morning he will see himself advertised for ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... burrowing into a passage to the opium den, and this was a most wonderful and terrible sight; a room with a stove in it, not more than ten feet square and about eight feet high, no perceptible ventilation but the door, which the detective put his foot in to keep a little open; a raised platform along one side of the place, and on it four Chinamen lying in different stages of the effects of opium. The first one's eyes were beginning to glaze, the pipe had fallen from his hand, and he was staring in front ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... New Grub Street afforded her the maximum of melancholy satisfaction—and then she fell to work on a new book. And what the character of the new book was the latest popular success decided. Among the seven novels the trunk secreted was a historical romance, a religious novel, a detective tale, some "bush studies," and a book ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... end 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 turned out that the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... been ugly. She endued it with grace and beauty. She invented a mystery of crime surrounded by everyday circumstances, yet avoiding the "detective novel" mechanism. A new story, 'Aurora Floyd,' repeated the immense success of 'Lady Audley.' Novel after novel followed, full of momentous incidents, of surprises leading to new surprises. All ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... of the conversation. Thereafter they went into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim Sloper, the Sunshine finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part of the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Place at once for me, Sir Mark," he said at parting. "It will be all right. Comfort Myra, and tell her it's an absurd mistake," he continued as Guest was looking at a letter the detective officer held for his perusal; and then he turned indignantly as Barron held ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... was found dead two days later three miles from the village, in a lonely spot where he had perished from hunger and exposure.... The body was discovered by James Dodge, with the aid of his dog. With him on that occasion was a detective from Boston, employed by Miss Bolton, and myself. There was a sum of money found on the body amounting to something over five thousand dollars. It had been secreted beneath the floor of Andrew Bolton's chamber, before his arrest and imprisonment. It is probable that he intended to make good his escape, ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... of anger, curiosity and jealousy, Gard's first act on entering his library was to telephone to a well known detective agency—no surprising thing on his part, for not infrequently he made use of their services to obtain sundry details as to the movements of his opponents, and when, as often happened, cranks threatened the thorny path of wealth and prominence, he had found ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... An experienced detective officer was sent upon the track of the mysterious, vailed woman, with the heavy black bag, who on the night of the murder had taken the midnight train from ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a priest and a bit of sailor, Bit of a doctor and bit of a tailor, Bit of a lawyer, and bit of detective, Bit of a judge, for his work is corrective; Cheering the living and soothing the dying, Risking all things, even dare-devil flying; True to his paper and true to his clan— Just look him ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... with every thought in his head, every plan, every purpose, hurtling around and around in absolute chaos, his roving eyes lit casually upon the huge sign of a detective bureau that loomed across the street. White as a sheet with the sudden new determination that came to him, and trembling miserably with the very strength of the determination warring against the weakness and fatigue of his body, ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... It was my seeing him enter the room alone where the coins were, the night of the party, that first led to the idea that he might have taken them. Then, as you see, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Maurice appeared—sold the Hermes coin—was traced to his lodgings and identified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for the dealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accustomed to detective work would have obtained my little stock of facts with much less trouble, and would, almost instinctively, have filled the blanks as he went along. Being an apprentice in such matters, I had handled the materials awkwardly. I will not ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... 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 ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... most decidedly replied Mr. Slag "I am a trained detective my lord and am not likely to make a mistake, Mr. Rennet is ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... was that year the president of the association of rogues, he having been elected to that position at M. in the State of Indiana in the month of August. He also learned that her father resided about fifty miles from Baltimore. The detective was aware that this close corporation of rascals had nine directors, and, knowing the position of C. B. in the association and his connection with the proprietor of the saloon, and understanding also the method of distribution, he concluded ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... experienced Detective has charge of the case, and is actively engaged in investigating all matters concerning it;" i.e., "A promoted constable in plain clothes is loafing about the neighbouring public-houses, and standing drinks, generally without the exercise of much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... "A mechanical detective," said Russ. "A sort of mechanical shadow. While you were busy with the stock market stunt, I made several of them. One for Wilson and another for Chambers and still another for Craven." He hoisted and lowered the one in his hand. ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut and locked that door also, and sealed ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... the colonel's Monsieur Maranjevol stared with astonished eyes, first at the soldier and then at the detective. The good-natured and peaceable Under-Secretary was surprised at the colonel's violent attack, and asked himself how Juve was going ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... said Barnes, after a moment. He grasped the situation and he admitted to himself that Jones had cause for his suspicions. "It has occurred to you that I may be a detective or a secret service man, isn't that the case? Well, I am neither. Moreover, this man and his companion evidently had their doubts about me, if I am to judge by your remark and your actions on the porch ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... Nurses, Miss Ross; anatomical and pathological exhibit, Mrs. Corrine B. Eckley. Class 788: Seguin School for Backward Children, Mrs. Seguin; Compton School for Nervous Children, Fanny A. Compton; Chicago Hospital School, Mary R. Campbell. Class 789: Police supplies and detective exhibit, Mrs. M.E. Holland. Class 790: Missouri State board of charities, Miss Mary E. Perry; New Hampshire State board of charities, Mrs. Lilian Streator; Massachusetts charity and correctional exhibit; Jewish Charitable and Educational Union, by committee ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... upon his mind, that he resolved to make his holiday excursion to that neighbourhood, and there endeavour to gain what assurance of any sort might be to be had. What end beyond his own possible satisfaction the inquiry was to answer he did not ask himself. The restless spirit of the detective, so often conjoined with indifference to what is in its own nature true, was at work in him—but that was not all: he must know the very facts, if possible, of whatever concerned Helen. I shall not follow his proceedings closely: it is with their reaction upon Leopold that I ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... that the first story was an ingenious piece of deception got up by the subject with the purpose of making capital out of the credulity of the public. There are no better detectives in the world than newspaper men. They work for the love of it. An expose is dearer to the detective-instinct in them than a laudatory article, and they leave no stone unturned to get at the facts. When, therefore, after the lapse of months, the newspapers of the United States repeat and confirm their first stories about Dr. ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower
... port on its last voyage and who disappeared immediately after the affidavit was made public, was produced by Secret Service men before the Federal Grand Jury yesterday afternoon at a proceeding to determine whether Paul Koenig, alias Stemler, who is the head of the detective bureau of the Hamburg-American Line, and others unnamed, had entered into a conspiracy to defraud the United States Government. The fraud is not stated specifically, and the charge is a technical one that may cover a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... her whimsical lead, "the chief detective and I were the star performers. I found the ring wasn't there, and he found ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... Cap'n say 'murder' when he 'phoned in town for some specials. They're for detective work on this case, I reckon. Hello! That sounds ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... figured in these narratives, the Wicked Witch, the Cruel King, the Handsome Prince; there were other characters, too, such as the Wise Guy, the Farmer's Son, the Boob Detective, the Tough Mary Ann and the ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... murder!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Notify the detective bureau. And don't permit anyone ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... 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 as soon as a sale of his establishment ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... danger on the part of the clan to accomplish these things, but one could depend upon finding these qualities in any Campbell or McGregor, and Sandy, having been made a blood brother, faithfully lived up to the duties it entailed. He became an expert detective and sleuth-hound, discovering and reporting Angus's movements each day to the enterprising Clan and its ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... a certain age; his youth should have been innocent, and he should have acquired insight into evil not by the practice of it, but by the observation of it in others. This is the ideal of a judge; the criminal turned detective is wonderfully suspicious, but when in company with good men who have experience, he is at fault, for he foolishly imagines that every one is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of virtue, but cannot know virtue. This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of law which will prevail in our ...
— The Republic • Plato
... again and well rammed into its crevice until the hungry moment should arrive. After a few months Zoee became tame enough to be let out of her cage, and would hop quietly about the room, and, like a small, grey-coated detective, would peer about stealthily under tables and chairs in search of live dainties; and extremely pretty she looked as she crept up the curtains with jerky motions, evidently thinking they were tree-stems where, by careful search, ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... meeting a plain clothes man from detective headquarters around the next bend of a peaceful Missouri road was so preposterous and incongruous that Billy had found it impossible to give the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it?" he ejaculated. "Why, it's a detective come for Allen. I knew sure as hell if they got as far as Asquith they wouldn't stop there. And that's the fastest sail-boat he could hire ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... present myself. If Sir Nigel meets me at the park gates and orders his gamekeepers to drive me off the premises, we shall at least know that he has some reason for not wishing to regard the usual social and domestic amenities. I feel rather like a detective. It entertains me and excites me ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reward for his late services, was made head of the detective department and Chief of Police. His first official act was to promote two bare-footed policemen who on his last visit to the Capital had ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... was suddenly struck with the element of humor in the situation. He had been playing detective; apparently he ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... The detective, having thus surrounded him, threw off his disguise. "My man," said he, "I ought to have done this job in your house. But I looked at the worthy old gentleman and his gray hairs. I thought I'd spare him all I could. I have a warrant to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... then, and glutted with life. I had no relation living that I knew of; no friend who was not also a plain acquaintance. By what chance it was I cannot tell, but I drifted like a living log into the detective force of my city, and after working up for a few years through the grades, they put me on the landing stage at Liverpool to watch the men who wished to emigrate because they had no opinion of the police force here. It was miserable employment, but educating, for it taught ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... A detective system of espionage had been organized by Mr. Seward for the protection of the United States Government against the adherents of the Confederate cause. The reports made by this corps of detectives to the Department of State showed the daring ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the visible and the invisible worlds. Has he not told secrets of the lives of his wondering clients which could not have been known by natural means? And Sludge chuckles "could not?"—could not be known by him who in his seeming passivity is alive at every nerve with the instinct of the detective, by him whose ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... them there. I was not supposed to come home until to-morrow night. I found Mrs. Carter's message at five, twenty-four hours earlier than she expected me to. Williams may be mistaken, of course," he finished, with a glance at the detective. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... are several which seem to have had no exact prototypes in preceding fiction. Such are Doctor Graham, "The Man with a Scar," the Mosk family—father, mother, and daughter—Gabriel Pendle, Miss Winchello, and, last but not least, Mr. Baltic—a detective so unique in character and methods as to make Conan Doyle turn green ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... think, either, nor did he understand Hawthwaite's reserve. But he wasted no time in speculation: he had already made up his mind that unless something definite arose at the resumed inquiry he would employ professional detective assistance and get to work on lines of his own. He had already seen enough of Hathelsborough ways and Hathelsborough folk to feel convinced that if this affair of his cousin's murder could be hushed up it would be hushed ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Hathaway, too, became nervous. He telephoned the central police station to inquire if a young girl of Alora's description had met with an accident. There was no record of such an accident, but in half an hour a detective came to the hotel and ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... than a week, he went to bed directly after supper and slept like a log until breakfast. Rising, refreshed and fit, he decided that the time had come to abandon his former haphazard methods of getting information, and to launch a campaign of active detective work ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... complaint on the part of German exporters. In this inquiry I became satisfied that certain vicious and unjustifiable practices had grown up in our customs administration, notably the practice of determining values of imports upon detective reports never disclosed to the persons whose interests were affected. The use of detectives, though often necessary, tends towards abuse, and should be carefully guarded. Under our practice as I found it to exist in this case, the abuse had become gross and discreditable. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... address of a detective who lived in the East End, and took my way to the American consul-general. And here, at last, I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was no hemming and hawing, no lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank amazement. In one minute I explained ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... of deception, that though dead, he still deceived; his works did follow him, as he desired, out of sight. He seems to have anticipated that the records of his detective department might remain as a witness against him, and to have cast over the 'Thurloe Papers' a spell, that has hitherto rendered them invisible. For nearly 150 years these evidences of his 'hidden works of darkness' have been before the world; ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... things. Just as he tried the queerest metres and attempted to manage them, so he tried the queerest human souls and attempted to stand in their place. Charity was his basic philosophy; but it was, as it were, a fierce charity, a charity that went man-hunting. He was a kind of cosmic detective who walked into the foulest of thieves' kitchens and accused men publicly of virtue. The character of Djabal in The Return of the Druses is the first of this long series of forlorn hopes for the relief of long surrendered castles of misconduct. As we shall see, even realising ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... put it in a paper cover and sell it for fifty cents," cried Dolly. "It's the best detective story I ever read, and people have got to know it is the best. So we'll advertise it ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... the detective, whose services had been engaged in the affair, exerted all his powers of entreaty on the dog, but the animal clung to Margie, and would not even look in the direction of the ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... and went upstairs, unlocking the door of a room at the rear. Everything was just as he had left it. There on the floor was still Ben Price's collar-button that had been torn from that eminent detective's shirt-band when they had ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... a detective with them—not a tin badge detective, but a real one. Don't try to go out today. Get your dinner and rest up for the afternoon performance. I think you had better go to the train in my carriage tonight. I'm not going to take any ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... perhaps, this trick of giving one direction in the hearing of the hotel servants, and then another when the hotel was out of sight. But, as the reader must know, this kind of thing is always done in novels—particularly in detective stories. ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... blooming detective, you know, old man. Much police work has made thee mad," laughed the Company Commander. "What ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... the tenderfoot detective decided that he could not do better than trust Solomon, and the revolver was ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... not going to try any detective work; to find out if she is a woman with a past, with a husband living? You are not going to put a live adder among the eels? I daresay drysalters eat eels. It is the reading of sensational novels that ruins ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... protection—we could have lighted one and stuck it in the crotch of a tree, as if a man was mounting guard over the camp. This idea, of course, was not original. It was done first by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the detective. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... apt to hold detective stories in the same regard that the Scotchman is supposed to entertain towards whisky—some are better than others, but there are no really bad ones. The Pointing Man (HUTCHINSON) is better than most, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... tell you," and she seemed to be in better control of herself than at any time that day. "This must be gone into systematically, and we can best do it through a detective." ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... so fond o' th' new style," he said; "the detective stoory is verra guid in its way for hame consumption, but A' prefair the mair preemative discreeptions, of how that grand mon, Deadwood Dick, foiled the machinations of Black Peter, the Scoorge of Hell Canyon. A've no soort o' use for the new kind o' stoory—the love-stoories aboot ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... is only—cunning before the crime. After it, if he have conscience, or be deficient in coolness, he loses self-possession, and is pretty sure to leave behind something which will furnish a clue for the detective. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... have not—more 's the pity!" returned the marquis. "My detective was not clever enough to perceive the difference between the eight-year-old girl who was carried to your apartments at ten o'clock, and the twelve-year-old little maid whom your friend brought downstairs ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... space of time he sat there, his head low on his breast, and his eyes half closed as his brain went over scheme after scheme. The detective that Nat had brought from St. Andrew's stuck his head down ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... to offer excuses. From the advantage of retrospection, you can say what you want about slipshod detective work. The point remains that I'd covered the area more than cursorily and had ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... with many of the qualities which make up the equipment of a good detective. In addition, he had the education and training of an engineer. That the underground room existed, he knew by certain structural evidence, and waited about in the street until he saw three men come out and the door close behind them. ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... padre. I've got a whole history for you. It will make your eyes open. I want you to talk to the detective." ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... startling, are concealed in every chapter of this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it runs the thread ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... yet she herself had been equally dense. Neuralgia covers various infirmities, just as the cloak of charity covers a multitude of sins. She had become excessively sensitive and suspicious, a sort of domestic detective—a post that was by no means to her taste. She had thought long and earnestly over the situation, and from her reflections emerged the solid word "Duty." It was her duty to fight for her aunt, to contend against the demon drug—and fight she ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... sister and your mother Commissioned me detective, sleuth, and spy, To find the disappearing son and brother; And tell him that the time is slipping by. Our boat will sail in just two hours, you know. Dear Honolulu, how I hate ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... The detective nodded. "It takes a good while, sometimes, but I don't fall down very often when there's enough money in it to make the game worth the candle. I've been two years, off and on, trying to locate Mortsen: and now that ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... extremely frank with his physician or his lawyer," volunteered the newcomer. "It's even truer in the case of a detective." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... pitiful appearance made no impression upon her. "But that don't matter. I guess they've got your record at Hoskin & Marl's. You worked there all right; sure you worked there, in the jewelry section. You stole something. I saw the store detective, Miss Hopwell, take you up to the manager's office. I never heard what they did to you, but they did a plenty, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... to do that. Of course he's found out somehow, perhaps through employing a detective, that Chris Trevenna and Casa Triana are one man. He can't make much use of the knowledge to bother me on this ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... case. Hundreds of complaints had been made. Dozens of suspects had been shadowed, until a quick-witted detective intuitively fastened the responsibility on the court interpreter, who, on the instant of arrest, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... answer; and in that case, so sternly conscientious was she, that, under the notion of saving me from ruin, my address would have been immediately communicated to my guardians, and by them would have been confided to the unrivalled detective talents, in those days, of Townsend, or ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... advance from Euston," said Lord Torrington, "under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel went in for—well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church, ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... 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 friend ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... wish to imply, sir, that you suspect us of having any hand in the matter? I presume you want our help in unravelling the mystery? My own detective powers are not of a high order; but if you will ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Government will not think just now about appointing a Poet Laureate. I hardly think they can be altogether in the right mood. The business just now before the country makes a very good detective story; but as a national epic it is a little depressing. Jingo literature always weakens a nation; but even healthy patriotic literature has its proper time and occasion. For instance, Mr. Newbolt (who ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... |Ewart, 31 years old, and his wife Emily, living at | |646 St. Nicholas Avenue, were arrested yesterday in | |the grocery store of Jacob Bosch, 336 St. Nicholas | |Avenue, charged with shoplifting. When arrested by | |Detective Taczhowski, who had trailed them all the | |way from a downtown department store, seven eggs and| |a box of figs were found in Mrs. Ewart's handsome | |blue ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... been arrested and it was a day or two after the escape of Wu himself who had come just in time to prevent the confession by one of his emissaries of the whereabouts of his secret den. Kennedy had Chase and another detective whom he frequently employed on routine matters at work over the clues developed by his use of the sphygmograph. Elaine, anxious for news, had dropped in on us at the laboratory just as Kennedy ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the gentleman, who, it had dawned on me, was not a bank official, but a detective, returned with Doubleday, who carried in his hands a few books ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... thought, grannie. But I have made inquiries—through a detective agency—and I have discovered that he is one person; in fact, a man, just like you ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... grieved at parting. I have great hope that he will live long enough to be honest; but I have reasonable doubts of the scheme, and it would not surprise me any day to hear that he had taken to the bush. Still, I must say that I find him useful in a number of ways; and a better detective cannot be found in the country, for no matter what I have placed him on, he has followed it up until the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Goethe was so apt to discover something good in poems which others dismissed as wholly worthless, that it was said of him, "his commendation is a brevet of mediocrity." Perhaps it was his "many-sidedness" that made him so accurate a "detective" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... French name, and the owner of it is a Frenchman who has been a detective in Paris. He has accomplished more in this matter than all the others put together, and he will go with you, for you will find in the commander's instructions that you have more than one thing to do on your way to the Gulf. I gave him a ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... in so frequent on business these days. Funny how fond they're getting of the Lazy D. There was that stock detective happened in yesterday to show how anxious he was about your cows. Then the two Willow Creek riders that wanted a job punching for y'u, not to mention mention the Shoshone miner and the storekeeper from Gimlet Butte ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... special detective traveling with Lord Peckham's party," explained the doorman. "He told us a lot about himself last night after you boys went to bed. He came back to inquire how early ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... look like the best detective in the world could help you to find a girl when you don't know her name." He added gently: "But maybe she don't want you to ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... of it, I heard the hall-men laughing about the string they had given him. Next he held a serious conference with me, in which he told me of his millions and the plot to deprive him of them, and in which he appointed me his detective. I did my best to let him down gently, speaking vaguely of a mistake, and that it was another man with a similar name who was the rightful heir. I left him quite cooled down; but I couldn't keep the hall-men away from him, and they continued to string him worse than ...
— The Road • Jack London
... did you?" she asked, flashing a mischievous glance at him. "Really, you took in a lot at a single look. You ought to be a detective." ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... really seem to Mr. Wells an arid and damnable "atheism" that finds in the very mystery of existence a subject of contemplation so inexhaustibly marvellous as to give life the fascination of a detective story? When Mr. Wells tells us that "the first purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a means to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power," he states what is, to many of us, the ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... the windows: that was not for nothing. Here were two men standing still and silent near the house. Why were they silent? And agonizing days and nights followed for Ivan Dmitritch. Everyone who passed by the windows or came into the yard seemed to him a spy or a detective. At midday the chief of the police usually drove down the street with a pair of horses; he was going from his estate near the town to the police department; but Ivan Dmitritch fancied every time that he was driving especially quickly, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "I found the window open," he moaned. "Night by night, year in year out, I have shut it. Impossible that I forgot. If I forgot, the Rose is in the garden or in the vicinity. If I did not forget, the window was forced—the Rose was stolen. A detective shall decide." ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... well as Ashby, had the detective instinct fully developed; moreover, both men knew a few words of that language and had an extreme curiosity to hear the conversation going on between a man and a woman, who were standing just outside ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... end of an hour he told her to go and type as many of the letters as she could while he went over the bunch of stuff he had torn from the Englishman. He was with the Hindu detective in an opium den in Shanghai when Becky returned and placed a pile of ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the sort, for he turned his unholy eyes on mine and so disconcerted me that I swung my face back upon the cricket field and affected complete indifference. I even hummed a little ditty to show that if any mind was free from the designs of the private detective, mine was. But my acting was not made easier by the certainty that Freedham's eyes were steadily examining my burning cheek. And, if it be possible to see a question in eyes which you are only imagining, I saw in Freedham's: ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... unwelcome one. 'I remembered God, and was troubled' says one Psalmist. What an awful confession—that the thought of God disturbed him! The thought of God to some of us is a very unwelcome one, as unwelcome as the thought of a detective to a company of thieves. Is not that dreadful? Music is a torture to some ears: and there are people who have so alienated their hearts and wills from God that the Name which should be 'their dearest faith' is not only their 'ghastliest doubt,' but their greatest pain. O brethren, the thought ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... down the street he had the air of a successful man, of a capitalist, in short, and the Managing Director of a highly lucrative concern. Andre had no difficulty in following his man, though detective's business was quite new to him, which is no such easy matter, although every one thinks that he can become one. Andre kept his man in sight, and was astonished at the numerous acquaintances that Verminet seemed to have. Occasionally he said to himself, "Perhaps I am ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... school-mastering, then the strain begins, and then the reign of complexities is renewed. When I am fully garbed in my town clothing I find myself the possessor of nineteen pockets. What they are all for is more than I can make out. If I had them all in use I'd have to have a detective along with me to help me find things. Out there on the farm two pockets quite suffice, but in the town I must have seventeen more. The difference between town and country seems to be about the difference between ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... murder of Fraser is told very differently in Bosworth-Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, where all the detective credit is given to Lord L., apparently on his own authority. See also an article in the Quarterly Review for April 1883, by Sir H. Yule, and another in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... 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 payment ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... fear of exceeding his instructions from the head of the detective service, the chief-inspector was powerless to throw off the ascendancy which Rnine had acquired over him. He left ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... mousing among church registers, and interviewing family physicians. Well, let them. Since I learned to write, some figures have been changed in the old Family Bible, and, thank goodness! old Doctor Perry is dead. The keenest detective won't find much difference between 1830 and 1850. It only requires that the curve of the three should be rubbed out, and a dash sharpened to a point added. If they look for eighteen hundred and thirty there, I can tell them it isn't to be found. Let ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... not told whether or not he was captured as the advertisement is continued to the end of the year, but if he did not change his dress he could not have succeeded in baffling very long the keen eye of a detective, for "he had on, when he made his escape, a brown coat, red plush waistcoat, white stockings and cock'd hat.' If such a gentleman made his appearance in the streets of any Canadian city to-day, he would certainly be requested to 'move on,' ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine |
