"Detective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... evidently the new tenant. Sometimes she comes alone; sometimes with a dark-eyed, handsome lad, probably her son. Who can she be? what is she? what is her name? her history? has she a right to settle in Gloucester Place, Portman Square? The detective police of London is not peculiarly vigilant; but its defects are supplied by the voluntary efforts of unmarried ladies. The new comer was a widow; her husband had been in the army; of good family; but a mauvais sujet; she had been left in straitened ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... known that Tictocq, the famous French detective, was in Austin last week. He registered at the Avenue Hotel under an assumed name, and his quiet and reserved manners singled him out at once for one not to be ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... in detective stories, Hawkshaw can take the ashes right out of the grate and piece them together and pour chemicals on them and decipher the mystery of the lost rubies, and all that. But this isn't a story, you see; and what's more, Hawkshaw doesn't have to work with ashes nearly ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... she said, "that Elizabeth will care to employ a private detective. Tell me, have you to see her upon ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... received the letter I took the train for the east, wiring the Gibsons to meet me, and aided by them engaged the best detective service upon the case. There was little or nothing to furnish us with a clue, for the nurse's lying statement had misled us; we were out at sea before we knew positively that Mabel had disappeared, and my long illness in Europe, followed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... There was no one he could ask to introduce him; there was no one he could apply to for information concerning her. He could n't very well follow her carriage through the streets—dog her to her lair, like a detective. Well—what then?" ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... a paltry device, 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
... this letter, but sent a representative to Colorow to investigate the writer's claims. The detective returned to say that "the parties" had gone to Boston, but that they had a fine reputation in the region, and that the father was a rich and well-considered citizen. "No one knows anything out o' the way with ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... had reason to believe that the Confederate army at Manassas was more than double its actual strength. His intelligence department, controlled, not by a trained staff officer, but by a well-known detective, estimated Johnston's force at 115,000 men. In reality, including the detachment on the Shenandoah, it at no time exceeded 50,000. But for all this there was no reason whatever for absolute inactivity. The capture of the batteries which barred the entrance to the Potomac, the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the cool command. The knocking continued, with more voices joining in the exhortations. The girl pointed to the door, and the silent command was obeyed. Trembling like an aspen, the little maid opened it, and the burly form of a house detective ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... experience; understands vawses.' And in houses such as these the cinerarias would never wither or die. Every what-not would be a riotous profusion of et-ceteras from week's-end to week's-end. But with Jane it is different. Jane has her limitations. She comprehends match-boxes and detective fiction, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... he could not but reflect, 'I was a careless young dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothing but boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned country-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would have made no enquiry as to the drains. How a ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... condemnation that Mary and Humpy would visit upon him. It was possible, it was even quite likely, that the short, stocky gentleman he had seen on the New Haven local was not a "bull"—not really a detective who had observed the little transaction in the subway; but the very uncertainty annoyed The Hopper. In his happy and profitable year at Happy Hill Farm he had learned to prize his personal comfort, and he was humiliated to find that he had been ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... of John Fordham' is a new story by B. L. Farjeon. It is of the detective order, full of murder and innumerable wrongs that become, at length, righted, and the much abused hero comes to happiness as the curtain falls. The working out of the plot, combined with peculiar incidents makes the story worth reading, especially if one likes a detective story. Almost ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... England. Their names were known to no one there, and even should some of these afterwards peach they would at least be safe. Mark had been asked whether he could deny that he was a member of the detective force, and had shaken his head. Even if he had told a lie, which he would not do, the lie would have been a useless one. No one would have believed it, for the two gamblers would have been ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... optimists, people who always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.—I do not say that Phrenology was one of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sitting haggard in that hat and cape which nowhere at any season had I seen him doff, and this other, this keenly vital man, at sight of whom I more than ever wondered whether he were a diamond merchant, a conjurer, or the head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames didn't want my company; but I asked, as it would have seemed brutal not to, whether I might join him, and took the chair opposite to his. He was smoking a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of something on his plate and a half-empty ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... in their hands. We marched on through the woods, with no sound but the peeping of the frogs in a neighboring marsh, and the occasional yelping of a dog, as we passed the hut of some "cracker." This yelping always made Corporal Sutton uneasy; dogs are the detective ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... 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
... 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 ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... pumped very easily. And yet, if Rainham's friends are out of the question, what's to be done? He hasn't got any enemies—that sort of man never has, except himself. How can I get hold of the girl? I suppose some people would set a detective to watch Rainham, and so on; but that's not to be thought of, in this case." He stopped close to Cleopatra's Needle, and frowned abstractedly over the stone parapet, absently following the struggles of a boy who was laboriously working a great, empty lighter across the wide, smoke-coloured river ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... it sailed from this port on its last voyage and who disappeared immediately after the affidavit was made public, was produced by Secret Service men before the Federal Grand Jury yesterday afternoon at a proceeding to determine whether Paul Koenig, alias Stemler, who is the head of the detective bureau of the Hamburg-American Line, and others unnamed, had entered into a conspiracy to defraud the United States Government. The fraud is not stated specifically, and the charge is a technical one that may cover ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Detective-Inspector Fay was an able and successful officer, of international reputation, whose achievements had placed a substantial price on his head in most countries sufficiently civilized to possess their criminal organizations. His bag had included many famous ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... 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 some other ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... elapsed since any inquiries had been made for letters for Mrs. Smedley, and that they had altogether lost sight of her. Now that the Captain had once made up his mind to forgive his daughter, he was burning with impatience to see her again, and he at once employed a detective to find out what had ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... are Chief Inspector Winter and Detective Inspector Furneaux of Scotland Yard," said the ex-sergeant, in the awed tone which some people cannot help using when speaking of members of the ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... of a long study of detective fiction I have never met any sleuths with a gift of loquacity like that of Messrs. Corson and Gibbs, who during the first part of In the Onyx Lobby (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) make futile efforts to trace the murderer of Sir Herbert Binney, proprietor of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... An absorbing detective story woven around the mysterious death of the "Man in Lower Ten." The strongest elements of Mrs. Rinehart's success are ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... borrowed clothes of a boatman—pantaloons of coarse stuff, dyed in copperas, a drab-colored roundabout, a broad-brimmed slouch hat much the worse for hard usage in rain and sun—Aaron Burr fled. He deemed it impossible that any detective could recognize him. One precaution, however, he neglected to take; his genteel feet disdained the boatman's cowhide shoes, nor would he put on the pair of big Suarrow boots proffered by one of his followers. He insisted on wearing, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... feet high.' We are 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,' or asked to 'explain his motives.' One thing ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... notice the New York Sun says: "To readers who care for a really good detective story 'The Circular Staircase' can be recommended without reservation." The Philadelphia Record declares that "The Circular Staircase" deserves the laurels for thrills, for weirdness and ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... Story; Hunted Down; The Detective Police, and other Nouvellettes. By Charles Dickens. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... husband. The poor dear is nearly balmy in the crumpet from worry. You see, they have been married but four long weeks, and the last three nights he has been coming home sober, and she believes he is deceiving her, so she is trying to get enough money from him so that she can hire a private detective ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... golden opportunity for the telling of stories—good stories told well. Indian legends, war stories, ghost stories, detective stories, stories of heroism, the history of fire, a talk about the stars. Don't drag out the telling of a story. Talk it in boy language. Avoid technical terms. ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... the rest very well. Mr. Van Torp had not been seen at his own house, nor in any club, nor down town, after he had gone out on Wednesday afternoon, until the following Friday, when he had returned to make his final arrangements for sailing the next morning. Bamberger had employed a first-rate detective, but only one, to find out all that could be discovered about Van Torp's movements. The millionaire had been at the house on Riverside Drive early in the afternoon to see Miss Bamberger, as he had told ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... so much require a detective police force nor medical men as we do. If thefts were committed, or persons became sick, cunning men or uncanny women were sent for. As rule, the offences or diseases were traced to witches or other missionaries of Satan. A suspected person received neither justice nor ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... 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 ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... highly original tale called the 'Murders in the Rue Morgue,' the earliest of all detective-stories, Poe displayed his remarkable gift of invention; but he revealed his share of penetrative imagination far more richly in the simpler story of the 'Fall of the House of Usher.' Wilkie Collins had more invention than Dickens, as Dickens had more than ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... the regulation cobwebs, that hung in attractive festoons from the rafters. These, with the quantities of discarded but beautiful old furniture, scattered about in picturesque confusion, formed an effective background for Lucile's detective work. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... and I must leave you. The men of whom I speak are the Duke Laselli and a detective called Courant. I know they are sent to watch you, and they mean you no good. Be careful, for God's sake, Monsieur, for I—I—want you to win!" She was standing now, and with trembling fingers was adjusting a thick veil over ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... clinched nervously as these thoughts ran through his mind, and he tried to banish them. No, that must not be done to him. The rescue must come—he had not committed the fatal act for nothing. At last, the heavy iron door swung open, and Vidocq, the great detective, entered his cell. Robeckal knew him, and breathed more freely. Vidocq, no doubt, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... some accident which had involved her in the toils prepared for another? If so, were those unexpected orders for Major McDonald a part of the conspiracy, or had their receipt complicated the affair? The Sergeant was a soldier, not a detective, and could only follow a straight road in his investigation. He must circle widely until he found some trail to follow as patiently as an Indian. There would be tracks left somewhere, if he could only discover them. If this was a hasty occurrence, in any way an accident, something ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... The science of the detective officer had not, at that time, reached its present state of perfection; but even then there were men who devoted their lives to the work of private investigations, and the elucidation of the strange secrets and mysteries ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-by to my friends, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and, smiling through her tears, bade him go and sin no more? She stole upon him like a shadow in the night, and, her labor of love ended, faded away. No entreaty of the generous diamond-dealer dissuaded her; no apology of the detective turned her from the one fixed purpose. The star of the Alcasar rose, culminated, and disappeared in ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... little more time," remarked Ned. "But I think we can at least bluff them into playing into our hands. I have a report to hear from a private detective I have hired." ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... thin lips and small whitish teeth; and she had a chin equal in contour to the rest of her face, but on which Venus had not deigned to set a dimple. Nature might have defied a French passport officer to give a description of her, by which even her own mother or a detective policeman might ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... morning the representative of the express company left the posse to report progress. He was enabled to give such an exact description of the robbers that the company, through their detective system, were not long in locating the leader. The marshal and posse pushed on with the same unremitting energy. The trail was now almost due east. The population of the country was principally Mexican, and even Mexicans ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... forest, but the wronger and the wronged meet somewhere amid its shadowy glades. Surely life's wooded maze might afford a hiding place to those who fly from armed memories—but God's rangers tread its every glen with stealthy step and the foliage of every thicket gleams with the armour of His detective host. A chance meeting, a foundling acquaintance, a stray newspaper, an undestroyed letter, a resurgent memory, a neglected photograph, or, as here, a tell-tale tide of blood—all these have accepted God's retainer and bear the invisible badge that denotes ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Professor ARTHUR KEITH said that there was no difference between detectives and scientists, and some of the older boys are still wondering whether he was trying to popularise science or to discredit detective stories. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... still knelt with the roll of money in his hands,—"Andy, she's waitin' fer you—she's true as steel! She's ready to go with you. Yes, an' Dan Kerry's the boy to git ye out o' this under the very noses o' that police an' detective gang at Asheville. 'Tis you an' me that'll go ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... Mary," he said. "No, you must hear what I have to say. If you insist on disbelieving me, you must. But I don't want you to help me. I don't want you to shield me. I shall make it my business to see that Bude's evidence is brought before the detective inspector from Scotland Yard who is being brought down here to handle the ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... detective on his track; too late to arrest the rascal, but the identity of a sailor man who penetrated into the house by the coal-hole is established by the discovery of the clothing he exchanged for that disguise—it was Andrew ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... This Meeting wishes to express its appreciation of the efforts made to suppress the Illicit Liquor Trade by the Detective Department of this Republic since it has been placed under the administration of the State Attorney, and is of opinion that the success which has crowned these efforts fully disproves the contention that the Liquor Law ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... detective of the Imperial Austrian police, is one of the great experts in his profession. In personality he differs greatly from other famous detectives. He has neither the impressive authority of Sherlock Holmes, ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... which I will bring the array of facts will be police, detective, and alms-house reports; city missionaries' explorations, and the testimony of the abandoned and sin-blasted, who, about to take the final plunge, have staggered back just for a moment, to utter the wild shriek of their warning, and the agonizing ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... America grew big and round with astonishment, then lit with ecstatic delight. He was going to be a real detective. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... no redeeming of yourself to do, my dear boy; all you have to do is to mature yourself. We 'll have a detective down and see what we can ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... never asked any one who he was,—I didn't want to know, as that would have put an end to my amusement. That man had the same indefinable characteristics as you; sometimes I would make him out an undergraduate teacher, an under officer, a druggist, a government clerk, or a detective, and like you, he seemed to be made up of two different pieces and the front didn't fit the back. One day I happened to read in the paper about a big forgery by a well-known civil official. After that I found out that my indefinable acquaintance had been ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... mystery? Of what was it that he was afraid? Who was this young man who, after his departure, had taken so much interest in his niece and myself at Charing Cross? Was it some one whom he had desired to evade?—a detective, perhaps, or an informer? The riddle was not easy to solve. Common-sense told me that my wisest course was to fulfil my original intention, and take the first train on the morrow to my brother's house in Norfolk. On the other hand, inclination strongly prompted me to stay where I was, to ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... man is Anisty—Handsome Dan Anisty, the notorious jewel thief, wanted badly by the police of a dozen cities. You understand?... I'm going now to motor to the village and get the constables; I may," he invented desperately, "be delayed—may have to get a detective from Brooklyn. If this scoundrel stirs, don't touch him. Let him alone—he can't escape if you do. Above all things, don't you dare to remove ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... no great call for haste. He wished to get to Praeneste about dark, and there make a few inquiries as to the whereabouts and recent doings of Drusus. Pratinas had had considerable espionage kept up over his intended victim, and the last results of this detective work were to be reported to Phaon by the slaves of Ahenobarbus performing it. Perhaps there would be no real harm in driving straight through to Praeneste in the open daylight, but it was better not to show himself until the right time. So it was that, halfway on the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... and your friend," remarked the detective, still grimly, though he had caught and been slightly impressed by the name of Rolls, as the speaker had, perhaps, intended. Logan as a name also carried some weight in New York. One was not rude to a Logan until sure ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... imagination, as in The House of Usher, while The Gold Beetle or Golden Bug is one of the first examples of the cryptogram story; and in The Purloined Letters, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue he is the pioneer of the modern detective story. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... do not know what your procedure is in England. But in France a detective does not take up a case or leave it alone according to his pleasure. We are only servants. This affair is in the hands of M. Fleuriot, the Juge ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... be a detective, madam. Not even a great one could be farther from the truth," he replied dryly, and rising, passed into the smoking compartment of his Pullman where he consumed innumerable cigarettes as he stared out into the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... of the World's Greatest Detectives. The most famous cases of the great Sleuths of England, America, France, Russia, realistically told, with biographical sketches of each detective. Fully illustrated. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... so many mysteries, is himself something of a problem even to those who know him best. Although young, wealthy, and of high social position, he is nevertheless an indefatigable worker in his chosen field. He smiles when men call him a detective. "No; only an ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... who enjoy a good detective story will revel in Mr. J. S. Fletcher's 'The Secret Cargo.' The plot is clever and novel and it ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... America has a-plenty. An astonishing number of Americans with the literary itch do contrive to make a living out of that affliction. They write motion-picture scenarios and fiction for the magazines that still regard detective stories as the zenith of original art. They gather in woman-scented flats to discuss sex, or in hard-voiced groups to play poker. They seem to find in the creation of literature very little besides a way of evading regular office hours. Below this stratum of people so successful ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... with the element of humor in the situation. He had been playing detective; apparently he was ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... 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 go out ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... all traveling jewelry salesmen belong to a league, and if thieves get away with anything belonging to any member, we have the services of a good detective agency to run the criminals down. The professional thieves know this, and, as capture is almost certain in the end, we have little fear of being robbed. These swindlers took my personal property, and nothing belonging to the ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... the river, the safer it would be for her and Carl. She followed the direction which Richard had given her, until she reached Switzerland. But her delay there came near costing her her life, for she learned that a detective officer was in search of them. With all the haste possible, she got across the Swiss boundary into the Tyrol, which was Austrian territory. There she was safe. They passed over high mountains, and through deep valleys, seeking a place where they could settle. At last they ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... got in jail. It was that old coal-stealing ruse of his practised once too often. He got up on a car one evening while Jennie and the children waited for him, and a railroad detective arrested him. There had been a good deal of coal stealing during the past two years, but so long as it was confined to moderate quantities the railroad took no notice. When, however, customers of shippers ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... 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 ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... footsteps coming down the path, and turned to meet a man who had "detective" written largely all over him. Jack turned and looked down again at the body as the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... fill a vacancy and became a deacon, thinking it might be good for trade, as it was, for some years. He was very active at the time of the "Cochrane craze," since any defence of the creed that included lively detective work and incessant spying on his neighbors was particularly in his line; but for many years now, though he had been regular in attendance at church, he had never officiated at communion, and his diaconal services had gradually lapsed into the passing of the contribution-box, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... more or less aimlessly, and the chilly hand of King Fear had touched one and all, for, as they came and went, they glanced ever over their shoulders, as if each shadow cloaked a menace, and listened, as it seemed, for some sound which they dreaded to hear. Smith strode up to the detective and showed him a card, upon glancing at which the Scotland Yard man said something in a low voice, and, nodding, touched his hat to ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... 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, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... 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 at eleven, pretending that he was going in search of the lost child's ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... have done a clever bit of detective work, and with reasonable luck it ought to be possible to bag the whole gang to-night," said Brandon. "I know where Hicks Bridge is. It's about five miles this side of Barberton, and an ideal place ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... we could get hold of that would take our minds," was the answer, rather grimly. Then, more lightly, "When I wasn't reading detective stories I was studying books on forestry. Did you know you had ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... that Bixby, here, is an operator from a detective agency, in case you don't know it," explained ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... The detective at the boarding house table having satisfied himself that nobody had observed him, folded up his magnifying glass and put it ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... he said, genially, patting her hand where it rested on the railing, "and I really believe I am in as fine fettle now as I ever have been. Do you know, I believe I 'm perfectly fit to undertake that little detective operation casually mentioned to you a few days ago. It 's got to be done, and the sooner I get at it the easier I'll feel. Fact is, I put in a large portion of the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... thieves and the like, much more than the detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. It was a very slack institution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow Street, a public-house ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... Europe, where we found the American Minister, Dr. Henry van Dyke, and his first secretary, Marshall Langhorne, shouldering the work of the American Legation in its chameleonesque capacity as bank, post-office, detective bureau, bureau of information, charity organization, and one might even say temporary home for the stranded travelers ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... me to speak when your husband came in," she said to Beverley, "so I hedged, and did the best I could without lying. I realized that you would want to be the one to break the news. But I suppose you have told him now? He'll send the police, or some private detective, won't he, to ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... which followed, the man of the cheery voice seemed to the youth to possess a wand of a magic kind. He threaded the mazes of the tangled forest with a strange fortune. In encounters with guards and patrols he displayed the keenness of a detective and the valor of a gamin. Obstacles fell before him and became of assistance. The youth, with his chin still on his breast, stood woodenly by while his companion beat ways and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... A detective had been employed to find Mr. Barkington, a little man in Julia's district, whom the lawyers suspected might be useful; and when the trial was half over, he led them all in great excitement to the back slums of Westminster. Mr. Barkington, alias ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... luxuries irritated him. He liked meals such as the one he had ordered, the plebeian joy of taking off tight shoes and putting on disreputable slippers, sitting in an easy-chair with his feet on another, while he read detective stories or adventurous romances with neither sense nor moral. He liked to relive in dream fashion the years of early endeavour—of his married life with Hannah. After he finished the reverie he would ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... wishes Isabelle to marry Comminges, a favourite of his own. The young couple gain their point, and are married secretly in the chapel of the Pre aux Clercs, but only at the expense of as much plotting and as many disguises as would furnish the stock-in-trade of half-a-dozen detective romances. ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... years ago, soon after the coup d'etat of December, I happened to be calling in Paris on an extremely influential personage in the Government, and I met a very interesting man in his house. This individual was not precisely a detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment of political detectives—a rather powerful position in its own way. I was prompted by curiosity to seize the opportunity of conversation with him. And as he had not come as a visitor but as a subordinate ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... paper of our maitre d'hotel, saying you, Senor, were a pig of a detective—and as we admire the detective not at all, everyone searched for it. But I had seen other things, Senor," ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... police service is distinctly apart from the detective service. The female police agent in all countries works independently, at the orders of the Director of Criminal Investigation, and is known to ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Patriots' League," said the younger detective to Hilary as Greenleaf moved off. "They've got your friend down in their Send-'em-to-hell book and are after him now. That's how come we ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... look after and Captain Kidd, the parrot—he's our mascot. Our patrol color is green and he's green with a yellow neck. He's got one merit badge-for music. Good night! Then comes Westy Martin, and Dorry Benton and Huntley Manners and Sleuth Seabury, because he's a good detective, and Will Dawson and Brick Warner and ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... his eagerness to be away, Mr. Newcombe was making a great mistake in thus pleading with those over whom he could have no control until after their work was done, and Dick's face lightened wonderfully as he began to hope the "torpedo detective," as Newcombe was called, might tire of ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... want to; no one forces you to be a capitalist, but you are a capitalist because you want to be. No one forces Hillquit to be a lawyer; he could get a job in a lumber yard. There is no more excuse for a man being a capitalist or a lawyer than there is for him being a Pinkerton detective. He is either by his own free will and accord. The system,—they acclaim in one breath,—the system makes us do what we do not wish to do. The system does nothing of the kind; the system gives a man the choice between honest labor and dishonest ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... gently drew the easy chair, in which the body was huddled, nearer the door by its back. Mr. Manley bade Holloway fetch Wilkins and two of the grooms, and then, eager for hints of the actions of a detective, so useful to a dramatist, gave all his attention again to the proceedings of Mr. Flexen, who was down on one knee on the spot in which the chair had stood, studying the carpet round it. He rose and walked ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... personal significance—"egocentric responses", these are called—while other persons run to connections that are {381} impersonal and objective. Thus the test throws some light on the individual's habits of attention. The test has also a "detective" use, based upon the great efficacy of the factor of recency; you may be able by it to tell whether an individual has recently had a certain matter in mind. If he happens to be an individual who has recently committed some crime, properly selected stimulus words ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... go to bed, and try and sleep, with this dread of being found out on their consciences! Bardolph, who has robbed a church, and Nym, who has taken a purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke their pipes with their companions. Mr. Detective Bullseye appears, and says, "Oh, Bardolph! I want you about that there pyx business!" Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks away quite meekly. He is found out. He must go. "Good-by, 'Doll Tearsheet! ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the nearly deserted lobby she looked around for him. He stood near the door, talking to the hotel detective. ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... who had just arrived from Canada; he having been obliged to turn over his establishment hastily to his trusty friend, Burk, and fly the Province; as through some successful espionage, his connection with the Brotherhood had been discovered. From a friendly detective who had learned the true state of the case and the danger that threatened him, he received the hint that urged him to make his escape, and which doubtless saved him from the horrors of a dungeon if not from death. His sister was to follow him as soon as a sale of ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... me say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... continued. "You see, you are about as fit to be a spy as Philippa, my wife here, is to be a detective. You possess the one insuperable obstacle of having the instincts of a gentleman.—Come, come," he went on, "we have nothing more to say to one another. Open that window and take the narrow path down ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... habit of seeing the Household Words regularly; but a friend, who lately sent me some of the back numbers, recommended me to read "all the papers relating to the Detective and Protective Police," which I accordingly did—not as the generality of readers have done, as they appeared week by week, or with pauses between, but consecutively, as a popular history of the Metropolitan Police; and, as I suppose it may also be considered, a history of the police ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... did it for love of excitement: there was always a risk of being caught, and nothing else ever amused her half so much. Another declared she did it because she could not afford to employ a private detective, and she wanted to have evidence always ready in case it should suit her to part from her husband at any time. Another said she loved her husband, and it hurt her less to know than to suspect. But I could not ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... flashed upon my eyes from the bulletin boards, I looked on the matter as one of too great magnitude to be dealt with by any but the metropolitan police; but as time passed and further details of the strange and seemingly inexplicable affair came to light, I began to feel the stirring of the detective instinct within me (did I say that I was connected with a private detective agency of some note in the metropolis?) and a desire, quite apart from any mere humane interest in the event itself, to locate the intelligence back of such ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... the wit and humourist of thirty-nine; a desire, moreover, undulled by twenty years of vivacious living. Surely not the least amazing feature of Fielding's genius is this dual capacity for exuberant enjoyment, and incisive judgement. "His wit," said Thackeray, "is wonderfully wise and detective; it flashes upon a rogue and brightens up a rascal like a ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... The detective looked thoughtful. Long experience had taught him not to argue with Brett when the latter ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... secret dens and the secluded places of rendezvous where they met, drank vile liquors, and, under the maddening influence of absinthe and alcohol, plotted their crimes and atrocities of every description. This man, another Quasimodo in point of hideous aspect, had been dismissed from the detective service because of his inability to keep sober, but he had not forgotten the resources of his profession, and money lavishly bestowed upon him made him Captain de Morcerf's most obedient and faithful slave. Cash in hand rendered him indefatigable and the prospect ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... chauffeur once for a private detective agency, and I know them and their ways, though these fellows seem to have a new wrinkle or two. It started a couple of nights ago when I was waiting in the garage for a call from you, Miss. A fine big, new ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... subject at the moment, for I have happened to be orderly officer once or twice lately; in other words I have been a sort of detective housekeeper. The first thing I have to do is to see that everybody gets up at reveille—a charity, Charles, which has to begin at home. But it is at the cookhouse that I am supposed to have my most deadly effect. You can see me paying visits en surprise, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... recriminations, and scurrilities which often form the charm, if not the chief use, of our contemporaneous journals. Apparently, however, notarially authenticated boasts of circulation had not yet been made the delight of their readers, and the press had not become the detective agency that it now is, nor the organizer and distributer ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... it began. "Two men from a private detective concern have been employed since yesterday in watching the movements of your companion, for the purpose of safe-guarding her against good- looking young men, I suspect. I have it from the most reliable of sources that her father ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... boss's mouth. There are also strict rules of honesty observed among these men, and if one swagger were to purloin the smallest article from a station which had fed and sheltered him, every other swagger in all the country side would immediately become an amateur detective to make the thief give up his spoil. A pair of old boots was once missing from a neighbouring station, and suspicion fell upon a swagger. Justice was perhaps somewhat tardy in this instance, as it rested entirely in the hands of every tramp who passed ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... out what it could do. One of the men with Swope was a deputy sheriff, Creede could tell that by his star; but the other man might be almost anything—a little fat man with a pointed beard and congress shoes; a lawyer, perhaps, or maybe some town detective. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... Alphonse Prefontaine had a friend named Lalonde, a very clever man and a member of that useful profession which lives upon the lives and secrets and follies and crimes of others—in fine, a detective, and having quite recently lost his wife (a cousin of Mme. Prefontaine) he had given up his house and come to live at the Hotel Champlain. He had been present when Ringfield first appeared in the rotunda with his countrified carpet-bag, had heard him ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... are, for the most part, "signaled," as the French official word has it, marked and denoted by the minutest traits of character, gesture, gait, clothing, abode, what not; the transactions recorded are very often given with a scrupulous and microscopic accuracy of reporting which no detective could outdo. Defoe is not more circumstantial in detail of fact than Balzac; Richardson is hardly more prodigal of character-stroke. Yet a very large proportion of these characters, of these circumstances, are evidently things invented or imagined, not observed. And in addition ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... story of the season and, therefore, one which no lover of detective fiction should ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... branch is not so thick as the other by any means, but it is a sturdy bough for all that. Stevenson and Kipling have proved its immense popularity, with the whole brood of detective stories and the tales of successful rascality we call "picaresque" Our most popular weekly shows the broad appeal ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... excitement then, you may be sure. One man hurried to notify the door-keeper and the private detective employed oh all such occasions, while others hastily searched the booth—of course in vain. Diana seemed distracted and the news spread quickly through ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... make no charge. [To the note taker] Really, sir, if you are a detective, you need not begin protecting me against molestation by young women until I ask you. Anybody could see that the ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... same name, there was no relationship between them, for Harry was merely an apt pupil the old detective had chanced to meet, and was ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... I, Rachel?" her husband asked quietly, indeed gently, yet with little promise of acquiescence in his tone. "I am not a detective, after all." ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... called on her since,' continued she, looking at the culprit with the stern look of a detective policeman in ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Detective taking prisoner to Central Office. Chinaman. Messenger boy. Two house-painters. Two priests. Boy with basket. Jewish sweater, Boy with tin with coats on beer-pails on a his shoulder. stick. Carpenter. Another Chinaman. Drunken ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers, he suddenly disappeared ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... plans so that a portion of his party might pass through Baltimore by a night train without previous notice. The seriousness of the warning was doubled by the fact that Mr. Lincoln had just been told of a similar, if not exactly the same, danger, by a Chicago detective employed in Baltimore by one of the great railroad companies. Two such warnings, coming from entirely different sources, could not be disregarded; for however much Mr. Lincoln might dislike to change his plans for so shadowy a danger, his duty to the people who had elected him forbade ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... undertaken to weave a web of iron wire about the two musicians, and to watch them as a spider watches a fly caught in the toils; and her reward was to be a tobacconist's license. Fraisier had found a convenient opportunity of getting rid of his so-called foster-mother, while he posted her as a detective and policeman to supervise Mme. Cantinet. As there was a servant's bedroom and a little kitchen included in the apartment, La Sauvage could sleep on a truckle-bed and cook for the German. Dr. Poulain came with the two women just as Pons drew ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... displayed in hunting for them, one might well imagine the old lady was desirous of making a collection of burglars, although so far no success had attended her efforts. She was an ardent admirer of Sherlock Holmes; to her, as to the famous detective, every unfamiliar sign or unusual incident meant a clue to some crime or burglary. Remembering this trait of Miss Aleyn's, Britt suddenly realised how full of meaning must have appeared the hasty scrawl he had left on Miss Aleyn s gate-post for the hounds' ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... has no turning. Don't look a gift-book in the binding. A gilt-edged volume needs no accuser. In a multitude of characters there is safety. Incidents will happen even in the best regulated novels. One touch of Nature makes the whole book sell. Where there's a will there's a detective story. A book in the hand is worth two in the library. An ounce of invention is worth a pound of style. A good name is rather to be chosen than great characters. Where there's so much puff, there must ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... recent books that deal with a theme familiar enough to novel readers, but always stimulating. "The Garden of Allah," by Robert Hichens, and "The Apple of Eden," by E. Temple Thurston. Charles Carey's "The Van Suyden Sapphires" a good detective story. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... in reality a jovial little man with a round, ruddy face and twinkling blue eyes he would have laughed as heartily as it was in his power to laugh. Yet such was the fact. A little man who looked less like a detective than a commercial traveler selling St. Peter's Oil or some other cheerful concoction, with manners as gentle and a voice as soft as a spring zephyr, who always took off his hat when he came into a business ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... a sheriff named Breen, a slow, temperate man, and the other a detective named Jessamine, a yellow-bearded one with light open eyes, who seemed a pleasant talker, but to the best of my recollection was one you might call obstinate. They showed me their papers, and these appeared to be correct. Jessamine's papers stated that he represented ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... steps. She had met him at the house of a cousin who was married to a waiter chez Bouquin. Ver' beautiful fella, he was, and had invited her to a chop suey dinner that evening, with the dance at the Lantern to wind up with. Most ver' beautiful fella, single, and a detective. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... went at once to Scotland Yard and asked for a detective. He showed him the portrait of his wife, told him she had left home under a false impression, and that he would give him fifty pounds if he ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... after this that Detective Hefflefinger, of Inspector Byrnes's staff, came over to Philadelphia after a burglar, of whose whereabouts he had been misinformed by telegraph. He brought the warrant, requisition, and other necessary papers with him, but the burglar had flown. One of our reporters had worked on a New York paper, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... said the Man in the Big Fur Coat; 'my theory of the Simple Human Sense of Authority still holds. I am a detective officer, and you will both be good enough to follow ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... cry for Cyril Pomeroy began at once, and though Mark maintained at first that the discovery of Cyril's hiding-place was due to nothing else except the cowardice of Hacking, who when confronted by a detective burst into tears and revealed all he knew, he was bound to admit afterward that, if Mr. Ogilvie had been questioned much more, he would have had to reveal the secret himself. Mark was hurt that his efforts to help a son of Holy ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... behind the other, but on the opposite side of the street, Jimmie Dale followed the detective. There was hardly any use now in going to Kenleigh's, for, if the detective was really bound for there, it made his, Jimmie Dale's, errand useless—the summoning of the Headquarters' man was prima facie evidence that the robbery had already been committed. ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... met him socially at an entertainment—at Mrs. de Graffenried's! He had met him as one gentleman meets another, had shaken hands with him, had gone and talked with him freely and frankly! And then Hegan had sent a detective to worm his secrets from him, and had even tried to get at the contents ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... looked like an amateur detective gotten up as an impossible English earl, had been watching the evening's proceedings with manifest interest, and with a contented expression in his face; and he had been privately commenting to himself. He was now soliloquising somewhat like this: 'None of the Eighteen are bidding; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... scenes of "Daughters of the Rich"[31] are laid in Paris. The plot hinges on mistaken identity and the whole is a very ingenious detective story. The book begins rather than ends with a murder, but that is because the tale is told backward. Through lies, deceit, and treachery the woman in the case, one Sallie Malakoff, betrays the hero into marriage with her. When he discovers her perfidy he cheerfully ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... our midst! the irresponsible burglar whose exploits had been narrated in all the newspapers during the past few months! the mysterious individual with whom Ganimard, our shrewdest detective, had been engaged in an implacable conflict amidst interesting and picturesque surroundings. Arsene Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... real detective," said the chief enthusiastically. "He reasoned it out that where there were Germans there must be beer. He scouted along the main road until he found a wayside saloon where, as he had shrewdly suspected, they got their liquid ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston |
