"Clews" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the drowsiness of the drug and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clews, and clearing up those mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings; of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... colour and texture to have come to her at second hand, and to have originally belonged to a much larger person, for it bagged and hung in flaps about her jowls and bosom, like an ill—cut maintopsail, which sits clumsily about the clews. I think I could have reefed her ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... old fisher, "I'm almost sure it's them. A red rail and a topsail that clews up,—it's very like them, anyhow. What do ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... searching for bodies along the coast, discovered on the beach of a low islet famed as a haunt of pelicans, the corpse of a child. Some locks of bright hair still adhering to the skull, a string of red beads, a white muslin dress, a handkerchief broidered with the initials "A.L.B.,"—were secured as clews; and the little body was interred ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... thing, but all clews are small things. Now there are many ways in which such a weapon might find its way into the country; but I took the most likely of these as a beginning. Before I dressed for dinner, I ran over a rather complete card-index system which I maintain; and within a few ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... special work but it also is a very indefinite work. There is a movement afoot, but of its nature, and purpose, I at this moment am entirely ignorant. I am here to discover clews." ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... inspected the stable and its vicinity, looking for clews, not a blanket was in sight, though a dozen eyes watched every movement suspiciously. When at the inquest that afternoon, he laid upon the table a battered old revolver of cheap workmanship and long past its prime, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... was quite too much for us. An order was given immediately, to take in the top-sail. Notwithstanding the diminutive surface that was exposed, the surges given by this bit of canvass, as soon as the clews were eased off sufficiently to allow the cloth to jerk, shook the vessel's hull. It was a miracle that we saved the mast, or that we got the cloth rolled up at all. At one time, I thought it would be necessary to cut it from the yard. Fortunately the gale was steady, this day proving bright ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... it had been recently made; within twelve hours, certainly. But the horses had traveled far in the time given them. One of Wallace's riders had ridden back up the canyon to search for possible clews and would, perhaps, have something to say ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... of depression was slowly weighing me down. It was as if the silent house were haunted. At the time, I was convinced that I was merely making a hodge-podge of the hundred and one clews that had come to my hands, though now I know that the whole vast scheme was gradually taking shape in my mind. I was bewildered by the wide diversity of the opposed interests, left powerless by failure to light upon a sure point of common ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... and made of the strongest canvas) to be got up and bent; leaving the main-topsail to blow away, with a blessing on it, if it would only last until we could set the spencers. These we bent on very carefully, with strong robands and seizings, and making tackles fast to the clews, bowsed them down to the water-ways. By this time the main-topsail was among the things that have been, and we went aloft to stow away the remnant of the last sail of all those which were on the ship twenty-four hours before. The spencers were now the only whole sails ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the description line by line. He learned that the police were in possession of important clews, and that they were on the track of the man who had been seen in the company of the chauffeur. Moreover, said a most indiscreet newspaper writer, the police had a photograph showing the chauffeur standing by the side of his car, and reproductions of this ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... has fallen upon clews which will lead to that. The strange things I alluded to are things which Richard ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to the companionway and went below, while the mate continued, "Stand by to let go your topsail halliards and man the gear. Sharper with the mizzen sheets and unbend those clew lines and garnets... stow the clews in a harbor furl." At a rhythmic shout the bunts of the ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... further explanation that the Phoenicians had in turn acquired the art of writing from the Egyptians or Babylonians. Knowledge as to the true origin and development of the art of writing did not extend in antiquity beyond such vagaries as these. Nineteenth-century studies gave the first real clews to an understanding of the subject. These studies tended to authenticate the essential fact on which the legend of Kadmus was founded; to the extent, at least, of making it probable that the later Grecian alphabet was introduced ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams |
