"Detective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excited. As a matter of fact, she was saying to herself, "He's found out." It was what she had been expecting. She had long ago begun to see that his almost daily visits were not on her mother's account. He had been coming less as a doctor than as a detective. Very well! If his detecting had been successful, so much the better. Since the battle had to be fought some time, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... were more or less criminal, fled at the collapse; others continued to act, but in a half-hearted way. Sixty new detectives were taken on by the Yugoslav authorities, and fifty-six of them had to be dismissed. After all, if one can judge a person's character from his face, the detective who allowed you to do so would be so incompetent as not to warrant a trial. And after six or seven months of Yugoslav administration only thirty-three out of fifty-two detective appointments in Sarajevo had been definitely filled. So there was not much ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... 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
... matters of public concern, i. e., to outrival the most noted expert in the line of that particular phase of public endeavor uppermost at the time. Theories were advanced in the daily papers that made Sherlock Holmes seem like a novice in detective work and Lucretia Borgia a mere infant in the skillful administration of poisons. The regular detectives, both public and private, were aroused by the mystery that shrouded the case. It remained, however, for the ubiquitous reporter, to whom society really ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... if weary of the discussion, "have it your own way, then. You know best. The private detective game is hard work. I, myself, have gone on a wild-goose chase before now. There's a mystery about a certain ship-builder's son which took me four months to unravel, and then I ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... in your ante-room which I feel it my duty to examine. I am Detective Hopkins, of the ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... resumed Manvers, "when the captain got word yesterday afternoon that Iff or Ismay wasn't what he pretended to be, he simply wirelessed back for a detective, and didn't arrest Iff, because—he said—he couldn't get away. I told him he was wrong—and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... "We'll go for a ride up that way to-morrow afternoon. We might find Red Mick killing some of our sheep, and you can go into the box as the lady detective. If you'll only sing him into gaol, the station will pay you at the same rate as ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... 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 grubbing willows and schoolmastering. Among the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... occasion one gentleman left it, and he had scarcely been half a minute gone when a person, very much in the garb and bearing of a modern detective, put in his head, and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... that the train from Wichita Falls was behind time, one morning shortly after Buddy's arrival, he was still abed when Calvin Gray arrived at the hotel. Instead of disturbing the slumbers of youth, Gray went directly to the detective who had telegraphed him, and for half an hour or more ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... 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 ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... hurried his captives away. Now that they were where he could get a glance at them in the dim light of the car, he felt pretty sure they were a couple of "birds" he had been looking for for quite a while. If that was so he must reward Billy somehow. That boy was a little wonder. He would make a detective some day. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take him on in a quiet sort of way and train him. He might be a great help. He mustn't forget this night's work. And what was that the kid had said about a secret underground wire? He must ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... I'm not sure I shouldn't become enamoured of her on the spot. Well, I shall know to-morrow. By this time to-morrow I shall possess her entire dossier. It may interest you to learn that I am employing a detective ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... brought up in the simple faith that one should pay one's pennies first and read next, said a few things under his breath about Germans—crude short things not worth repeating—and jerking his thumb towards the intent Fritzing, winked at a detective who was standing near. The detective did not need the wink. His bland, abstracted eyes were already on Fritzing, and he was making rapid mental notes of the goggles, the muffler, the cap pulled down over the ears. Truly it is a great art, that of running ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... if I live a hundred years (which would be pretty lucky for a man who thinks less than nothing of speed limits and is known to all the justices in Sussex), I shall never forget the way that valet turned on poor Kennaway (for that was the detective's name) and laid him flat on the grass. Such a snarl of rage I never heard. The man seemed transformed in an instant from a silent, reserved, taciturn servant to a very maniac, fighting with teeth and claw, cursing and swearing horribly, and ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... The detective-inspector had told me so. From the flat in Harrington Gardens the men of the Criminal Investigation Department had rung up New Scotland Yard to make their report, and about noon, while I was resting at home in ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... named Frank Hunter, born in Massachusetts, migrated to the Indian country, and was very successfully employed as a government detective in "Camp Carling," between Cheyenne and Fort Russell. In the winter of 1868, a bold robbery was committed by a man employed in taking care of horses by Major J. D. Woolley, ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... But scandal is the sewer-system of society: the dirty work must be done somehow. Mrs. Grundy is your scavenger. Americans don't talk scandal, but I fail to see how they will keep their homes clean without it. The scandal-mongers may be inspired by no lofty motives, but they make a wonderful unpaid detective force. Sheridan was not a philosopher. Ubiquitous and omniscient, Mrs. Grundy is always with you. Once you might have escaped her by making the grand tour, but now she has a Cook's circular ticket and watches you from the Pyramids or the temples of Japan,—especially if, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... street, there stands a man with a light cane in his hand, which he lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth marked by him in the crowd. The objectionable youth is a pickpocket, or a "sneak-thief," or both, and the man with the cane is the private detective attached to the place. He is well acquainted with the regular thieves of these localities, and his business is to "spot" them, and keep them from edging in among the loose articles lying about the store. He says that there area great many notorious pickpockets ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... one know to this day, you blamed fool, who shot that government detective that was snooping into that clearing you and me made—five years back? Gaston'll pay or you'll take one of them never-failing ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... this time I was so full of the subject that it fairly clamoured for expression, and as I wrote the hours flew. Once in a while I paused to ask him a question as he sat with his chair tilted back and his feet on the table, reading a detective story. I sketched in the scene with bold strokes; the desolate bois brule on the mountain side, the polished crystal surface of the pool broken here and there with the circles left by rising fish; I pictured Armand, the guide, his pipe between his teeth, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... rubbed his soft, flabby hands together, and tiptoed to where Gregg stood as noiseless as a detective approaching a burglar. ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... popularity he led a lonely life—many acquaintances, but few close friends. The great exception was Juve, the celebrated detective. ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... 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, had ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... community a stranger wearing black whiskers was under suspicion. A detective shrewdly suggested that the murderer might have shaved, and he claimed great credit for this timely hint; but no matter, the search for the black-whiskered man was continued. Dave Kittymunks was arrested in all parts of the country, and the head-line writer, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... fully known, though it was surmised that Squire Hawkins had given away the secret. Many were the stories in circulation, and the slightest incident was greatly enlarged according to the imagination of the narrator. It was believed that Jake Jukes' hired man had been a detective in disguise, or anyway, a man who had considerable influence. People recalled everything he had said and done since coming to the place. His wrestling powers were freely commented upon, as well as his ability to play the violin. They remembered, too, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... schemes; among them one springing from a moral peculiarity. He is of a strangely-constituted nature, secretive to the last degree—a quality or habit in which he prides himself. It is his delight to practice it whenever the opportunity offers; just as the thief and detective officer take pleasure in their respective callings beyond the mere prize to be ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... ensemble, however, was not misleading to Raikes, who had looked up quickly at the first appearance of the detective, and had seen the sharp, penetrating glance with which Gratz had for ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... 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 Lone ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... "But it won't do any harm to tell the hotel detective that suspicious characters are around, no matter if the has been committed. Then he can be on the lookout. But I don't think we have anything to worry about, dad. Still, if you like, I'll take a run down to the house to see that everything is all right, though ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... has read as far as this will know that if ever a plain, stupid fool walked this world, it was I,—Nicholas Dane Stretton. Put me in the bush, or with horses, and I'm useful enough,—but with men and women I seem to go blind and dumb. I know I never could read a detective story; the clues and complications always made me feel dizzy. I was pretty well dazed where I sat beside that girl I knew I ought to find out about, and her nearness did not help me to ask her ugly questions. If she had not been Dudley's,—but I broke the thought short ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... what?" said the young man to himself, drawing back to lean against a wooden railing on the other side of the street. He gazed, unhappy man, at the different storeys of the house, with the keen attention of a detective searching ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... "I know what the clodhopper is after; and even if I must suffer in consequence, I shall take good care that he cannot shake off his bonds. Wait a bit! I can play the detective too, and be down on him without letting him see the hand that deals the blows. It'll be a wonder if I can't find a naked sword to suspend ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... will search there, and we may be able to trace her footprints. Please do not any of you walk under the window, nor in a line from it until we have made some observations. We will play a little detective game," and he smiled frankly ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... a tall and thin person, with deep-set and brilliant eyes hidden more or less by a pair of rimless eyeglasses; and Anstice was suddenly and humorously reminded of the popular idea of a detective as exemplified in Sherlock Holmes and ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... to her room, and Thaddeus, for an hour, was closeted with the detective, to which ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... is the cigar-case. That is a stubborn fact. Well, it's a mysterious affair, and it will need a better detective than myself, I fancy, to clear it up. I suppose we may as ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... much. She had been wondering who he was. The Family's friends and relations were always much talked of in the Family, and much invited, and much met. Mr. Russell had not been among them when Jay had last known the Family. An idea was in her mind that he might be a private detective, engaged by the Family to seek out their fugitive young relation. Mr. Russell had plainly alluded to a search. Jay had no experience of private detectives, but she thought it quite possible that they might disguise themselves with rather low foreheads, and rather frowning eyes, and shut ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... man. "Well, I ain't a-goin' to fool with you no longer, Mrs. Gratz. I'm a-goin' to tell you right out what I am and who I am. I'm a detective of the police, and I'm looking up a mighty ...
— The Thin Santa Claus - The Chicken Yard That Was a Christmas Stocking • Ellis Parker Butler
... that a person so highly placed would dare risk his future by kidnapping a European girl, and Jeanne Soubise advised Stephen to turn his suspicions in another direction. Still he would not be satisfied, until he had found and engaged a private detective, said to be clever, who had lately seceded from a Paris agency and set up for himself in Algiers. Through him, Stephen hoped to learn how Sidi Maieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud had occupied himself after landing from the Charles Quex; but all he did ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... year, from the fourth year after we removed to Hannibal till I was eleven or twelve years old. I have never consciously used him or his wife in a book, but his farm has come very handy to me in literature, once or twice. In "Huck Finn" and in "Tom Sawyer Detective" I moved it down to Arkansas. It was all of six hundred miles, but it was no trouble, it was not a very large farm; five hundred acres, perhaps, but I could have done it if it had been twice as large. And as for the morality of it, I cared nothing for that; I would move a State if the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... be? Could it really mean anything in connection with that lost child? Was it possible that while Detective Something-or-other, and Lieutenant Thing-um-bob, and Sheriff Bullhead and Captain Fuss-and-feathers were all giving interviews to newspaper men, this sturdy little messenger was coming down to camp with a clew, straight ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... peace, one baffled wish filled her with a longing which became a mania, and kept her as restless and watchful as a detective with a case to 'work up'. Miss Cameron, the great actress, had hired one of the villas and retired thither to rest and 'create' a new part for next season. She saw no one but a friend or two, had a private beach, and was invisible except ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... name, and then my interest languished again. The two officers looked over the room together, tried the museum door and noted that it had not been tampered with; turned over the plate and admonished me on the folly of leaving it so accessible; and finally departed with the promise to bring a detective-inspector in the morning, and meanwhile to leave a constable ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... is fierce," was Dick's remark, at last. "That conductor is either asleep or has given up the search. I wish I knew of some first-class detective on the other end of the line who could take up the ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... was elderly and wizened and the other was a detective. Pike knew it as soon as he glanced at the heavy jowls and the broad face and heard the authoritative footfall. He knew, also, that he was not a bona fide detective, but a municipal detective, who is paid a monthly salary and walks stealthily ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... reiterated my assurance that such routine matters had been promptly and thoroughly attended to. My nerves were getting raw. I'm not so young as I was. This promised to be one of those grinding cases where the detective agency is run through the rollers so many times that it comes out pretty slim in the end, whether that end is ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... first-class carriage, the porter who carries his luggage, or the sailor who looks at him scrutinizingly as he breathes the fresh sea-air upon the deck of that ship which is to carry him to a secure hiding-place—any one of these may be a disguised detective, and at any moment the bolt may fall; he may feel the light hand upon his shoulder, and know that he is a doomed man. Who can wonder, then, that a criminal is generally a coward, and that he betrays himself by some blind folly of ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 appeared at ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... sincerity, that Carlyle was his master and teacher. He had not merely a smiling contempt, but a deadly hatred, of all manner of shams, an equally intense love for every kind of manliness, and for gentlemanliness as its highest type. He had an eye for pretension as fatally detective as an acid for an alkali; wherever it fell, so clear and seemingly harmless, the weak spot was sure to betray itself. He called himself a disciple of Carlyle, but would have been the first to laugh ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... the rancorous rivalries, 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... him to say any more. I just went right up to that detective and I said, "Mister, those men are worse than tramps; they're not tramps at all; they're thieves; they stole an automobile; hurry up, you'd better ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... meaning of a symptom is hidden, there is fortunately a clue by which it can be traced. Sometimes it takes the art of a psychic detective to follow the clues down, down through the different layers of the subconscious mind, until the troublesome impulses and complexes are found and dragged forth,—not to be punished for breaking the peace but to be led toward reconciliation. But "that is ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... you're awfully detective, don't you know! just like that fellow—what's his name?" said the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... gathered during these proceedings; and I was confused to find that I was being generally pointed out as Mr. Onslow, that gentleman having retired to the privacy of Mr. Warren's neighbouring abode. Later on I was taken for a detective, because, in my innocence, I withdrew ever and anon from the crowd, and, sitting on a verdurous bank, jotted down a note in my pocket-book; but this got me into such bad odour by-and-by that I felt it better to desist, and trust to memory. Some of the smaller boys also averred that I ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... British Government, in reviewing the case and the proceedings, wrote (August 9th): "It seems abundantly clear, from all the facts which have come to light, that the whole of this disgraceful prosecution found its inception in the minds of Mr. Schutte, the Commissioner of Police, and Acting Chief Detective Beatty.... I must direct your attention to the very grave accusation contained in Thomas Dashwood Bundy's affidavit against Mr. Tjaart Krueger. This gentleman is the son of President Krueger, and is the Chief of the Secret Service department of this State." ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... 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 ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Bldg., Chicago, Ill., a camera with rising front, swing back, 3 double holders, tripod and carrying case, and a scroll saw, with nickel-plated tilting table and emery wheel for a Detective camera. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... police!" exclaimed Mr. Troy in amazement. "Surely, I have not made myself understood? I am going to the Head Office; and I have got a letter of introduction to the chief inspector in the detective department. I am afraid I ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... about a quarter to seven, keeping a sharp lookout along the embankment as I approached for any sign of a loitering detective. Except for one aged gentleman, however, who seemed to be wholly occupied in spitting in the Thames, the stretch in front of the studios was absolutely deserted. Glancing at the board in the hall as I entered, I saw that "Mr. Morrison" and "Miss Vivien" ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... something about them," she said, still watching him intently. "One is the constable from Mallory, and the other is a detective." ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... indeed!—what business has any woman to watch a house in this marked manner?" retorted Eliza. "The neighbourhood will be taking her for a female detective." ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... recommends itself to men who have exhausted the so-called pleasures of life. I was living in honesty and seclusion in Richmond, when Boone, who had never lost sight of me, came with a mission for me to perform. I was engaged as an agent of the detective force of the United States, with the special duty of rescuing Wesley Boone ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... has already been introduced to the famous female detective Judith Lee in the pages of the Strand Magazine, where her popularity was very great. The child of parents who were teachers of the oral system to the deaf and dumb, as soon almost as she learnt to speak ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... know what every kind of fellow really does. I want to have a long talk with a Parisian dressmaker, one of the men who settles what shape women are to be for the next six months. I want to get at the mind of a railway manager. I want to know how a detective goes about the job of catching criminals. Of course I want to understand ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Harley. He took up the telephone. "City 400," he said.... "Is that the Commissioner's Office, New Scotland Yard? ... Paul Harley speaking. Would you please inquire if Detective ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... 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 ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... the Man in the Big Fur Coat; 'my theory of the Simple Human Sense of Authority still holds. I am a detective officer, and you will both be good enough to follow me to the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... complicated labyrinth of more than diplomatic trickery which those researches have revealed, though I hope to render the main facts sufficiently intelligible. It is painful to track the strange deceptions of a man of genius as a detective unravels the misdeeds of an accomplished swindler; but without telling the story at some length, it is impossible to give a faithful exhibition ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... Henry, says Dr. Gairdner, examined "the evidence sent up to him in the spirit of a detective policeman" (XII., i., ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... 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
... indictments against persons in cases where no formal complaint had been laid, and he utterly repudiated the idea that his office imposed upon him the role of a thief-catcher. "It is not my business," said he, "to play the part of a detective, or to hunt about the country for evidence in support of voluntary prosecutions. I have now discharged the duties of a Crown officer for nearly thirteen years, and this is the first time that a failure in my duty has been imputed to me. I have always conceived it to be my duty to take official ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... a forgery of a more serious kind had been committed by one of the people connected with St. George's Guild, who had put Mr. Ruskin's name to cheques. The bank authorities were long in tracing the crime. They even sent a detective to Brantwood to watch one of the assistants, who never knew—nor will ever know—that he was honoured with such attentions; and none of his friends for a moment believed him guilty. He had sometimes imitated Mr. Ruskin's hand; a dangerous jest. The real culprit was discovered ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... to use his powers of observation. There was not a criminal in the length and breadth of the country who did not wonder uneasily whether he had really left the scene of his crime as devoid of clues as he imagined, when he heard that the celebrated detective, Gimblet, had visited the spot ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... quietly destroyed; the steam- engines were regarded by them as deadly enemies. But the first great efficient reform in the Philadelphia fire department, and the most radical of all, was the establishment of a fire-detective department under a fire-marshal, whose business it was to investigate and punish all cases of incendiarism. For it was simply incendiarism, encouraged and supported by the firemen themselves, which caused nineteen-twentieths of all these disasters; ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... which a shot had been fired, an innocent Englishman, who, being elderly and deaf, knew nothing of what had happened, came downstairs unsuspectingly on to the pavement into the middle of the crowd, and had a very narrow escape for his life. Some ingenious self-constituted detective called out "That's the man," and the crowd, having long waited in vain for somebody, were only too glad to have a victim thus extemporized to their hands, and if a few of the cooler and more humane bystanders had not interfered, the Englishman might have ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... gone fifteen minutes, during which the girl sat quietly in her chair, yet alert, every nerve strained. At any moment the mass of faces she was watching might reveal one whom she dreaded to see, or a detective might place his hand upon her shoulder with a quiet ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... detective captain, an encyclopedia of the unwritten history of San Francisco, regards Woods with a twinkle in his gray eye. The hunted, despairing criminal knows how steady that eye can be. It has made ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the calamity which had befallen. He deposed further, that having received this information, he dispatched his uncrushed eye with arms from the police-office, and accompanied with several members of the detective force to capture the offender, and to procure the full proofs of my crime. A sub-inspector of Skitzton police then deposed that he sent three of his faculties, with his mouth, eye, and ear, to meet the coach. That the driver, consisting ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... is a piece of astounding ingenuity, in which the manner is taken from Robinson Crusoe, and the plot belongs to the era of the detective story. The Treasure of Franchard is a French farce or light comedy of bourgeois life, of a type already a little old-fashioned, but perfectly authentic. The tone, the mise-en-scene, the wit, the character-drawing, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... bad between its formidable wheels with the iron stolidity of all machinery, human or divine. This terror incarnates itself sometimes and leaps horribly out upon us; as when the crouching mendicant looks up, and Jean Valjean, in the light of the street lamp, recognises the face of the detective; as when the lantern of the patrol flashes suddenly through the darkness of the sewer; or as when the fugitive comes forth at last at evening, by the quiet riverside, and finds the police there also, waiting stolidly for vice and stolidly satisfied to take virtue instead. The whole book ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suppose there's a child in America,' she said, 'who has had to be so carefully guarded. Why, the kidnappers had a special name for him—they called him "The Little Nugget". For years we never allowed him out of our sight without a detective to ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... criminal was so atrocious, but what Charles Dickens could feel for him some ray of sympathy, or extract some pathetic mirth out of his abject state. And Dickens does not look on the mean and the vile as do Balzac and Zola, that is, from without, like the detective or the surgeon. He sees things more or less from their point of view: he feels with the Marchioness: he himself as a child was once a Smike: he cannot help liking the fun of the Artful Dodger: he has been a good friend to Barkis: he likes Traddles: he loves Joe: poor Nancy ends her vile life in ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Reached the grandfather stage of life without grandchildren Recognize myself Ruling public and political aristocracy Sad tolerance of age Saint-Saens Shem's diary Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither? Simon wheeler, detective Slave that is proud that he is a slave Suetonius, Suetonius and Carlyle lay on the bed beside him Tarkington Telling the truth's the funniest joke in the world Temperament is the man The Derelict The Great Law The international lightning ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... the same hour on the same day in which the Englishman held the conference with the Parisian detective just related, the Marquis de Rochebriant found himself by appointment in the cabinet d'affaires of his avoue M. Gandrin that gentleman had hitherto not found time to give him a definite opinion as to the case submitted to his judgment. The avoue received Alain with a kind of forced ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... just what I do think, Ad; but I'm going to do a little detective work and I want to give the impression that we are all out. When you fellows go out, don't say anything that would cause any one in hiding to think we are not all going out ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... towns are very difficult to recognise as such; only the trained detective can do it. A certain Irish Regiment was presented with the job of capturing one. The scheme was roughly this. They were to climb the parapet at 5.25 A.M. and rush a quarry some one hundred yards distant. After half-an-hour's breather they were to go on to some machine-gun emplacements, dispose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... The detective agency to which she finally applied, after weeks of soul-racking suspense, was one of those disturbingly human implements which many are not opposed to using on occasion, when it is the only means of solving a troublous problem of wounded feelings or jeopardized ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... White Rock at night, meet him there, and get back here before morning. The letter tells him, too, that I am dead certain that Sledge Hume is the man the law wants; it explains why, and authorises him to hire a detective agency to run Hume down. Dear heart of mine, you are too brave to be afraid for me now. You will get this letter out somehow? You will get it to Brisbane for me? Once he is at work things are going to right themselves. A man can't kill another and rob him of twenty-five thousand ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... 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
... revolution has brought out of the darkness into the light, so many rascals and cowards, just as the sediment rises to the top when the wine is shaken, we must hope, that there will be found in Paris, nobody to undertake the mean office of spy and detective; and that the decree of M. Cluseret will remain a dead-letter, like so many other decrees of the Commune. I will not believe all I am told; I will not believe that last night several men, without any precise orders, without any legal character whatever, merely National Guards, introduced ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... 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
... and Dale began to hunt London for the Frenchman. But they had to deal with a wary bird, who would not break covert till it suited his own convenience. And then, the sublime cheek of the man! On the Friday morning, when Medenham rose with a fixed resolve to obtain the services of a private detective, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... and we were all enjoying ourselves very much, when Sarah came to say Master Oswald was to go in to master's study at once. So he went, wondering what on earth he could have been up to now. But he could not think of anything in particular. But when his father said, 'Oswald, this gentleman is a detective from Scotland Yard,' he was glad he had told about the fives ball and the ladder, because he knew his father would now stand by him. But he did wonder whether you could be sent to prison for leaving a ladder ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... don't want me to employ a detective, or to advertise, or—or to make an appeal to the editor of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... could become almost embarrassing. One day she announced she wanted me to marry one of her brothers-in-law. "I got two nice ones and we'll go out some Sunday afternoon and you can have your pick. One's a piano tuner; the other's a detective." I thought offhand the piano tuner sounded a bit more domestic. He ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... to prevent mental vacuity so that the seven devils of worry could not rush into, and take possession of, my empty mind; but I was indifferent, somewhat, to the kind of thought or mental occupation that was to keep out the thoughts of worry. A Nick Carter detective story was as good as a Browning poem, and sometimes better; a cheap and absurd show than an uplifting lecture or concert. How much better it would have been could I have had my mind so thoroughly under control—and this control can surely be gained ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... finding out whether letters have been posted," said Mr. Carter. "I might put a detective ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... of distrust of this unhappy young man allayed when the party learned, through a boarder of detective instincts, that Mr. Dsol Arcubus was an enthusiast in scientific pursuits, and that the "romance of a poor young man," as shadowed out by him, was no romance at all, but an unpleasant reality. Toxicology was the branch of science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past been devoting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... mysterious," I answered, "especially as regards the dry bread; but that of itself suggests a theory, which, as the detective says in the story, 'I will not divulge just yet;' only don't worry, Lisbeth, the ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... courses are written by some charlatan who is in business as a mail-order-man selling trinkets and stammering cures or running a general correspondence school, teaching not only how to cure stammering by correspondence but giving courses in "Hair-Waving" and "How to Become a Detective." It is needless for me to say that such as these are in the business, not for the good of the stammerer nor even for the purpose of helping him, but simply for the money that can be extracted from the ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... confidence, but he, poor fellow, had occupation enough for his leisure at home, since Bessie was at Eastbourne. Little Nelly Bunce often fretted in vain for the attentions of 'Miss Nanco,' upon whom she had begun to feel a claim. 'Miss Nanco,' for the nonce a female detective, had little time ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... education, came into London with "Venus and Adonis" in manuscript in his pocket? It is quite evident that the critic fraternity have no Sherlock Holmes in their midst. It would not take much of an eye, a true detective's eye, to see the milk in that cocoanut, for it is but a simple tale after all. The way of it was this: On my way from Stratford to London I walked through Coventry, and I remained in Coventry overnight. I was ill-clad and hungry, and, ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... He went back and was kind to his wife about nothing in particular; he admired his own purity, and decided, "Absolutely simple. Just a matter of will-power." He started a magazine serial about a scientific detective. Ten miles on, he was conscious that he desired to smoke. He ducked his head, like a turtle going into its shell; he appeared uneasy; he skipped two pages in his story and didn't know it. Five miles later, he leaped up and sought the porter. "Say, uh, George, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... cheek-bones and a heavy chin, . . . a pale face, lustreless gray eyes, a metallic voice, and a languid manner." He was born of humble parents, and began his career as a bartender. He next became a private detective for a street railway corporation, and by successive steps developed into a professional strikebreaker. Pocock V., the last of the line, was blown up in a pump-house by a bomb during a petty revolt of the miners in the Indian Territory. This ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... had the genius of which Arline prattles, I'd be at the head of the New York Detective Bureau," finished Grace. And Anne alone knew that Grace had purposely substituted this flippant answer to conceal ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Luck managed to accomplish a good deal, which was one of the reasons why he was manager and director of the Flying U Feature Films. Just for example, he went to a friend who was also something of a detective, and put him on the job of find Annie-Many-Ponies—a bigger task than it looked to Luck, as we have occasion to know. He sent some of the boys back to the ranch in a machine, and told them just what to bring back with them in the way of rifles, ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Englishman (accompanied by a little man disguised in very plain clothes as a private Detective) also scanned every passenger closely as he stepped on French soil, and we turned away disgustedly as each was able to furnish the necessary proof that he was on lawful business. "Come, Struttie, we must fly," and back we hurried over ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... lies upon the surface all the time, and everything is made subservient to the purpose of holding interest, keeping up excitement and mystifying the reader until the climax is reached. Thrilling detective stories of the poorer class, exciting love stories and the cheap juvenile tales of Indian fighting, with heroines in dire distress and heroes struggling to rescue them, are illustrations of this type. No effort is made ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... other things—or had already smuggled them—into the house, contrary to the provisions of the tariff. He felt that the more he saw of girls the less he liked them, and that the more he saw of Kitty, particularly, the less he fancied her, but if he was going to do this amateur detective business he wanted to begin it as soon as possible, and he watched the door closely. He wanted to see whether Kitty would still wear the pink shirt-waist she had worn at breakfast, or the white ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... The detective was at that period of his story where the emperor parted from old Conrad and his daughters. He now paused to see the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Monsieur Lecoq," he replied, with a gracious smile. "Monsieur Lecoq of the detective force, sent by the prefect of police in reply to a ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... find her was to employ a detective to track her down. He clenched his hands in impotent revolt. Not only had it been laid upon him to betray her confidence, but he must follow this up by dragging her from her hiding-place, and returning her to the bitter bondage from which he had ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... 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
... Italian frontiers without difficulty; but at the station at Modena a too-zealous detective of the French police, struck with the Alsatian accent of the orderly, immediately decided that they were two Prussian spies, and refused to allow them to proceed, since they could ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... centers in London and Italy. The book is skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying, exciting detective stories ever written—cleverly keeping the suspense and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... been done, or is doing. The coroner has been summoned; the inspector has been sent for; a telegram has been dispatched to Scotland Yard in London for an experienced detective. Rest easy, Lady Vincent. Here, Mistress Gorilla! Attend ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... any information to the police; that would have been too dangerous to himself. Besides, if the police had heard of such a story, they would have given some sign. In England every thing is known, and the police are forced to work openly. Their detective system is a clumsy one compared with the vast system of secrecy carried on on the Continent. Had they found out any thing whatever about so important a case as this, some kind of notice or other would ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... was now complete. If no information were forthcoming at the studio, she would endeavour to find out where Kirk had hired the car in which he had taken Mamie away. He would probably have secured it from some garage near by. But this detective work would be a last resource. Like a good general, she did not admit of the possibility of failing in her ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... this evening of a lively discussion. Some thought the old gentleman, arrived that day from London, to be a new kind of commercial traveler, with designs upon the gardens of the gentry; others that he was a sort of scientific collector; others, again, that he was a private detective; and since there was no evidence at all, good or bad, in support of any one of these suggestions, a very pretty ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... against his account in the bank of Lebarge. The money, or at least a great part of it, went to a detective agency in Vancouver, another in Victoria, another even as far east as Quebec. Money went also to New Orleans and brought him no little information of the earlier lives of Ygerne Bellaire and Marc Lemarc, together with the assurance ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... his finger to see the trunk on the marble floor. Rowdy Rob had deserted it, having seen, perhaps, a detective when he reached Piermont. The trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and had returned by the day ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... 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 side the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... novel-reader is 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 the first place because it takes us "east of Suez"—a pleasant change from the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... realized the necessity of prompt action, and was in closest touch with the police. Detectives were in and out of the bank all day long, and a famous private detective had promised him that the fugitive would ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... her eye also, like an amateur detective, upon Arthur. He came frequently, and generally managed to get a walk with Lucrece in the garden. On two occasions the detective, seated at her own window, which overlooked the garden, saw that Arthur was entreating or urging something, to ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... some of our adventures together, and his help has been of infinite benefit to me. Without it, not only should I have failed to elucidate some of those mysteries the solving of which have made me a power in the detective force, but I should never have seen his granddaughter, Zena, who is shortly to ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner |
