Things that go bump in the night

    Here the girl was left alone for a few minutes, while Lanyard darted above-stairs for a review of the state bedchambers and servants' quarters.

    With a sensation of being crushed and suffocated by the encompassing dark mystery, she nerved herself against a protracted vigil. The obscurity on every hand seemed alive with stealthy footfalls, whisperings, murmurings, the passage of shrouded shapes of silence and of menace. Her eyes ached, her throat and temples throbbed, her skin crept, her scalp tingled. She seemed to hear a thousand different noises of alarm. The only sounds she did not hear were tehose - if any - that accompanied Lanyard's departure and return. Had he not been thoughtful enough, when a few feet distant, to give warning with the light, she might well have greeted with a cry of fright the consciousness of a presence near her: so silently he moved about. As it was, she was startled, apprehensive of some misadventure, to find him back so soon; for he hadn't been gone three minutes.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

 

Very descriptive

 They stood upon a weed-grown gravel path, hedged about with thick masses of shrubbery; but the park was as black as a pocket; and the heavy effluvia of wet mould, decaying weeds and rotting leaves that choked the air, seemed only to render the murk still more opaque.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

I cannot honestly say that I have ever seen "effluvia" used in a sentence - but it is indeed a word.

Mansard roof

In The Lone Wolf, we find a reference to the "mansard roofs" that evidently were common in old Paris. We learn that this is a "multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer windows" (Wikipedia). It is sometimes known as a "French roof" or "curb roof."

We sometimes see this style today in barns in the midwestern region of the United States.

Burglar ethics

    Though it had been nearly eight when they entered the restaurant, it was something after cleven before Lanyard called for his bill.

    "We've plenty of time," he had explained. "It'll be midnight before we can move. The gentle art of house-breaking has its technique, you know, its professional ethics: we can't well violate the privacy of Madame Omber's strong-box before the caretakers on the premises are sound asleep. It isn't done, you know, it isn't class, to go burglarizing when decent, law-abiding folk are wide-awake. Meantime we're better off here than trapezing the streets.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Escape into darkness

    With a word of caution, flash-lamp in his left hand, pistol in right, Lanyard stepped out into the darkness. In two minutes he was back, with a look of relief.

    "All clear," he reported; "I felt pretty sure Popinot knew nothing of this way out - else we'd have entertained uninvited guests long since. Now, half a minute - "

    The electric meter occupied a place on the wall of the scullery not far from the door. Prying open its cover, he unscrewed and removed the fuse plug, plunging the entire house into darkness.

    "That'll keep 'em guessing a while!" he explained with a chuckle. "They'll hesitate a long time before rushing a dark house infested by a desperate armed man - if I know anything about that mongrel lot! Besides, when they do get their courage up, the lack of light will stave off discovery of this way of escape."

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

The stupidity of criminals

 "I don't suppose you've ever stopped to consider what an essentially stupid animal a crook must be. Most of them are stupid because they practice clumsily one of the most difficult professions imaginable, and inevitably fail at it, yet persist. They wouldn't think of undertaking a job of civil engineering with no sort of preparation, but they'll tackle a dangerous proposition in burglary without a thought, and pay for failure with years of imprisonment, and once out try it again.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

The face of a happy child

     Her brows contracted. "I don't understand. You want a fighting chance - to surrender - to give in to their demands?"

    "In a way - yes. I want a fighting chance to do what I'd never in the world get them to credit - give it all up and leave them a free field."

    And when still she searched his face with puzzled eyes, he insisted: "I mean it; I want to get away - clear out - chuck the game for good and all!"

    A little silence greeted this announcement. Lanyard, at pause near the table, resting a hand on it, bent to the girl's upturned face a grave but candid regard. And the deeps of her eyes that never swerved from his were troubled strangely in his vision. He could by no means account for the light he seemed to see therein, a light that kindled while he watched like a tiny flame, feeble, fearful, vacillant, then as the moments passed steadied and grew stronger but ever leaped and danced; so that he, lost in the wonder of it and forgetful of himself, thought of it as the ardent face of a happy child dancing in the depths of some brown autumnal woodland.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Again?

 Her voice fell: she was trembling with the recrudescent suffering of this year-long servitude. And for a little Lanyard felt too profoundly moved to trust himself to speak; he stood aghast, staring down at this woman, so intrinsically and gently feminine, so strangely strong and courageous, and vaguely envisaging what anguish must have been hers in enforced association with a creature of Bannon's ruthless stamp, he was rent with compassion and swore to himself he's stand by her and see her through and free and happy if he died for it - or ended in the Sante!

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance. I must admit that I could not recall offhand having suffered "recrudescent" suffering, until I looked it up and found that it means "breaking out again" - so I suppose that I have.)

A shadow of premonition

 Yet he wasn't satisfied. He was as little susceptible to psychic admonition as any sane and normal human organism, but he was just then strongly oppressed by intuitive perception that there was something radically amiss in his neighborhood. Whether or not the result of the Count's open intimations and veiled hints working upon a nature sensitized by excitement and fatigue, he felt as though he had stepped from the cab into an atmosphere impregnated to saturation with nameless menace. And he even shivered a bit, perhaps because of the chill in that air of early morning, perhaps because a shadow of premonition had fallen athwart his soul.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Convoluted reasoning for self-justification

     Now the neophyte needs the introduction of a trusted sponsor before he can win admission to the clubhouse of the exclusive Circle of Friends of Humanity; but Lanyard's knock secured him prompt and unquestioned right of way. The unfortunate fact is, he was a member in the best of standing; for this society of pseudo-altruistic aims was nothing more nor less than one of those several private gambling clubs of Paris which the French Government tolerates more or less openly, despite adequate restrictive legislation; and gambling was Lanyard's ruling passion - a legacy from Bourke no less than the rest of his professional equipment.

    To every man his vice (the argument was Bourke's in defense of his failing). And perhaps the least mischievous vice a professional cracksman can indulge is that of gambling, since it can hardly drive him to lengths more desperate than those whereby he gains a livelihood.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

REALLY dark

 Several seconds passed without the least sound disturbing the stillness. Lanyard himself grew a little impatient, finding that his sight failed to grow accustomed to the darkness because that last was too absolute, pressing against his staring eyeballs like a black fluid impenetrably opaque, as unbroken as the hush.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Just a common gambler

 For, logically considered, a break in the run of his luck was due. Thus far he had played, with a success almost too uniform, his dual role, by day the amiable amateur of art, by night the nameless mystery that prowled unseen and prayed unhindered. Could such success be reasonably expected to attend him always? Should he count De Morbihan's yarn a warning? Black must turn up every so often in a run of red: every gambler knows as much. And what was Michael Lanyard but a common gambler, who persistently staked life and liberty against the blindly impartial casts of Chance?

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

How does it feel to be filed away?

 Lanyard murmured some conventional expression of sympathy. Through it all he was conscious of the regard of the girl. Her soft brown eyes met his candidly, with a look cool in its composure, straightforward in its enquiry, neither bold nor mock-demure. And if they were the first to fall, it was with an effect of curiosity sated, without hint of discomfiture. . . . And somehow the adventurer felt himself measured, classified, filed away.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Not the best company

 But there were ugly whispers current with respect to the sources of his fabulous wealth. Lanyard, for one, wouldn't have thought him the properest company or the best Parisian cicerone for an ailing American gentleman blessed with independent means and an attractive daughter.

Paris, on the other hand - Paris who forgives everything to him who contributes to her amusement - adored Comte Remy de Morbihan.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

[In case you do not use the word frequently (and I do not), a cicerone is a guide who gives information about places of interest to sightseers.]

He is following someone

     He was a square-set man with a square jaw, cold blue eyes, a fat nose, a thin-lipped trap of a mouth, a face as red as rare beefsteak. His dinner comprised a cut from the joint, boiled potatoes, brussels sprouts, a bit of cheese, a bottle of Bass. He ate slowly, chewing with the doggedness of a strong character hampered by a weak digestion, and all the while kept eyes fixed to an issue of the Paris edition of the London Daily Mail, with an effect of concentration quite too convincing.

    Now one doesn't read the Paris edition of the London Daily Mail with tense excitement. Humanly speaking, it can't be done.

    Where, then, was the object of this so sedulously dissembled interest?

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Playing a lone hand

 In time you may become a first-chop operator, which I'm not and never will be; but if you do, 'twill be through fighting shy of two things. The first of them's Woman, and the second is Man. To make a friend of a man you mut lower your guard. Ordinarily 'tis fatal. As for Woman, remember this, m'lad: to let love into your life you must open a door no mortal hand can close.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

A miserable existence

 A few days after his arrival the warm, bright bed-chamber was exchanged for a cold, dark closet opening off Madame's boudoir, a cupboard furnished with a rickety cot and a broken chair, lacking any provision for heat or light, and ventilated solely by a transom over the door; and inasmuch as Madame shared the French horror of draughts and so kept her boudoir hermetically sealed nine months of the year, the transom didn't mend matters much. But that closet formed the boy's sole refuge, if a precarious one, through several years; there alone was he ever safe from kicks and cuffs and scoldings for faults beyond his comprehension; but he was never permitted a candle, and the darkness and loneliness made the place one of haunted terror to the sensitive and imaginative nature of a growing child.

(from The Lone Wolf, by Louis Joseph Vance)

Conversation with an airhead

     "How old are you, Archie? Are you frightfully old?"

    "Frightfully. Poor old Charles and I are just hangin' on."

    "How old are you?"

    "Twenty-seven," said Archie. "But Charles was twenty-eight a week ago, so I'm one up on him."

    "It must be simply frightful to be twenty-eight," said Greta with conviction. She snuggled up to Archie and whispered, "Is Margaret awfully old, too?"

    "Ssh! She's twenty-four. Pretty bad - isn't it?"

    Greta considered. "I shall be married years and years before I'm twenty-four. It's rather old, but I do love Margaret all the same."

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

    

Getting old early

 Greta was looking alarmingly pretty. She glowed and shone in the little room. She made Margaret feel dingy and drab and old, with that dreadful sense of age which is only possible when one is under five-and-twenty.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Another Napolean of Crime?

    "I have come across him before," said Miss Silver " - not as Grey Mask of course; but in the last five or six years I have constantly come across small bits of evidence which have led me to suspect that there is one man behind a number of coordinated criminal enterprises. He pulls a great many strings, and every now and then I have come across one of them."

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Better to be an only child

     "What relations have you got?"

    Margot giggled. "Everybody asks me that. I haven't any relations except Egbert."

    "What? None at all?"

    "Isn't it funny not to have any? Papa only had one brother, and he only had Egbert. Papa hated Egbert. And if my relations were going to be like him, I'm frightfully glad they never got born."

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

She couldn't say

     "Tell me what you heard."

    "Tell me what you are doing here."

    "I can't."

    "Tell me whom you were meeting."

    "I can't."

    "Margaret, for heaven's sake! What sort of mess is this you've got into? Can't you tell me about it? Can't you trust me?"

    "I - can't!"

    His manner changed. He said lightly, "Then I'm afraid I can't tell you what I heard."

    There was silence. Margaret stood looking at him. Her expression changed rapidly. He thought she was going to speak; but instead she pressed her hand over her eyes. The gesture shut him out, and shut her in. He wondered what company she had in the darkness which she was making for herself.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Nothing romantic about it

     She couldn't go home. Oh, it wasn't home anymore; it was only a house where people were planning horrible things. It was Egbert's house; it wasn't hers. She hadn't got anywhere to go - she hadn't got a home - she hadn't got anything.

    These things kept coming into her mind like a lot of aimless people struggling into a room and drifting out again; they didn't do anything, they just came in and drifted out, and went away.

    Margot went on walking, and the aimless thoughts kept on coming and going. The thick moisture that filled the air with fog began to condense and come down in rain. Soon she was very wet. The rain became heavier; it soaked through her blue serge coat and began to drip from the brim of her hat. The coat had a collar of grey fur. The rain collected on it and trickled down the back of her neck.

    Only that afternoon Margot had written to Stephanie that there was something frightfully romantic about being a penniless orphan. It didn't feel a bit romantic now; it felt cold, and frightening, and desperately miserable.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Miss Silver

     "But how am I going to find out the things I want to know about Forty?"

    "Get a trained sleuth to do it," said Archie firmly. "That's what they're for. I can put you on one if you like."

    "A good man?"

    "A sleuthess," said Archie impressively. "A perfect wonder - has old Sherlock boiled." 

    Charles frowned. "A woman?"

    "Well, a sleuthess. She's not exactly what you'd call a little bit of fluff, you know."

    "What's her name?"

    "Maud Silver."

    "Mrs. or Miss?"

    "My dear old bean!"

    "Well - which is she?"

    "Single as a Michaelmas daisy," said Archie.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

    

No, I do not want to be married to you!

 Jerry was pacing to and fro near the gate. He was feeling shaken but happy to have his relations with Vera Upshaw on a satisfactory basis. It had not been easy to detach her from his person and explain to her without being abrupt that his affections were engaged elsewhere and that her suggestion that everything between them should be just as it was before, Gerald dear, was not to be considered for an instant, but he had managed it. The thought of Jane had lent him eloquence, and even without telling her that he would greatly prefer to be dead in a ditch than married to her had had been able to make himself clear.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A tad the worse for wear

 He came out of the house and started to walk in the direction of the lake. She hailed him and he turned, and as he drew near the look on his face brought all the maternal instinct in her to life. It was the face of a man so weighed down with weight of woe that one wondered how he could navigate. His aspect reminded her of her husband on mornings of bygone January the firsts, when the late Mr. Clayborne, owing to his habit of seeing the new year in, had never been at his most robust.

(From The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Who was that Indian chief?

     "Did you ever read those stories about a red Indian chief called Ching something?" said Chippendale. "I forget his name, but the thing I remember about him is that he never let a twig snap beneath his feet, and that's what I strongly advise you to do. Don't go saying to yourself that anyone as fatheaded as Simms is bound to be hard of hearing, because I happen to know he's not. Only the other day when he was throwing his weight about at the Goose and Gander I alluded to him, speaking to a friend in a quiet undertone, as an overbearing piece of cheese, and he overheard and made quite a thing of it. He'll be right on the key veeve if you start snapping twigs, so watch your step. Chingachgook, that was the name of that Indian chief, though I admit it doesn't seem likely. Well, I ask you. Imagine if you were having your baby christened at the church here and when the vicar said, 'Name this child' you said 'Chingachgook.' He'd send for Constable Simms and have you run in for drunk and disorderly. And now we've got back to the subject of Simms, bear in mind that he tips the scale at about sixteen stone, so you'll have to give him a good hard push. Get every ounce of weight and muscle into it."

    And with a cheery "Chingachgook" Chippendale went on his way, leaving Crispin to his thoughts.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Watch your words

     "Admirable," said Crispin, correcting his choice of adjectives. "I cannot praise your ingenuity too highly."

    "Nor me," said Jerry. "It just shows . . ." He paused and Chippendale asked what it just showed.

    "How right you were about the sun coming smiling through," said Jerry. He had been about to say that it just showed that you can't judge a man's brainpower by his looks, because even one who closely resembles the more unpleasant type of barnyard fowl in appearance can nevertheless possess the mental qualities of a great general, but he reflected in time that this might give offense.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

"Honey, things didn't go well"

     "How did you get on?"

    "Not too well."

    "I thought as much."

    It had taken great perception to bring her to this conclusion. Even at a distance he would have struck her as being on the somber side. To be obliged to retreat in disorder from a stricken battlefield always tends to lower the spirits. Napoleon, who had this experience at Moscow, made no secret of the fact that he did not enjoy it, and Jerry, going through the same sort of thing at Mellingham Hall, Mellingham-in-the-Vale, was definitely not at his perkiest. One glance had been enough to tell Jane that it was no tale of triumph that he had come to relate. Just so might a knight of old have looked when about to confess to his damsel that he had been unhorsed in the opening round of the big tournament.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Keep reading

     It was perhaps an hour later, getting on for half past four, that Crispin, returning to the library to avoid R. B. Chisholm, who wanted to talk to him about the situation in the Middle East, found Chippendale in a chair with his feet on a table, reading a book of sermons.

    He seemed to be glad to be interrupted, though he was a man who sorely needed all the sermons he could get his hands on.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

No problem at all!

     "I don't know how to search a room."

    "You'll pick it up as you go along. For heaven's sake, stop making all this heavy weather over and absurdly simple task well within the scope of a mentally retarded child of six. You'd think I was asking you to climb Moun Everest. You ought to be able to go through Barney Clayborne's effects in twenty minutes."

    A strong suspicion presented itself to Jerry that this was an underestimate, and his flesh crept briskly at the thought of what awaited him at Mellingham Hall, Mellingham-in-the-vale, telephone number Mellingham 631, but he could see that it was useless to oppose his uncle's wishes.

    "All right," he said tonelessly.

    "Splendid," said Willoughby. "There's an excellent train at about seven. I'll tell Crispin to expect you."

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Loud, was he?

     "Have you looked everywhere?" This query, like the previous one, seemed to give offense.

    "Did you say you had mislaid your spectacles?"

    "No, I did not say I had mislaid my spectacles."

    "I'm always mislaying my spectacles.

    "Curse your spectacles!"

    "Yes, Bill."

    This short digression on the subject of aids to vision seemed for some reason to have had a good effect on Willoughby, slightly restoring his calm. When he resumed the conversation, his voice, though still retaining something of the robustness of that of an annoyed mate of a tramp steamer, was quieter.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Too many sweethearts

 It was a problem that needed all the thought he could give it. The recent encounter had deepened his conviction that there was only one girl in the world he could possibly marry, and as of even date he could see no way to avoid marrying another. An impasse, if ever there was one. King Solomon and Brigham Young would have taken it in their stride, but he could see no solution.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A good review

     "You said you only read law books."

    "Except when I find a Morning's at Seven," said Homer, coming within an ace of adding, dear lady. "I make an exception in the case of delightful, dainty works that make me feel as if I were sitting beside a rippling brook, listening to its silver music. It had what so few books have nowadays - charm."

    Well put, thought Homer, and Vera thought so, too. There had been a few reviews of Morning's at Seven, but only in obscure provincial papers and only things like "will help to pass an idle hour" and "not unreadable." This was the real stuff.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Concerning flights to the moon

 Mr. Scrope took a seat and settled himself to wait until Mr. Scrope should find himself at liberty. He was an elderly man with thinning hair, watery blue eyes and a drooping mustache, and he was wearing the anxious look so often seen on the faces of elderly men with thinning hair when they are about to try to borrow money from their younger brothers. From time to time a twitching shudder ran through his gaunt frame. The recent exchanges on the subject of Scropes had robbed him of the little confidence he had possessed when starting out on this mission, and the longer he sat, the less did it seem to him probable that his brother Willoughby, good fellow though he was and kindly disposed though he had shown himself in the past to applications for loans on a smaller scale, could be relied on for the stupendous one of two hundred and three pounds, six shillings and fourpence - a sum roughly equivalent, or so it appeared to Crispin's fevered mind, to what it costs to put a man on the moon.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Buyer's remorse

     "Then he must want to discuss the trust."

    "I doubt it. He'll probably talk golf all the time."

    "You mustn't let him. This is your big chance. You just get that money out of him. You ought to have done it long ago."

    She spoke with the imperious curtness of a princess of the Middle Ages giving instructions to one of the scullions or scurvy knaves on her payroll, and Jerry found himself regarding her with disfavor. Even before his soul mate had come into his life he had begun to entertain doubts as to whether in contracting to link his lot with that of Vera Upshaw he might not have been a little precipitate. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but after a while something uncomfortably like regret had begun to creep in. Had it, he asked himself, been altogether wise to sign on the dotted line with one in whom the bossiness which too often goes with extreme beauty was so marked?

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Oops, I forgot about her

He now saw her in the office of a registrar licensed to perform marriages, for he was sure that a girl like that would not want one of those ghastly choral weddings with bishops and assistant clergy horsing around all over the place. They would get it all fixed up in a couple of minutes, and later on they would sit together in their cozy little nest like two lovebirds on a perch. In the long winter evenings that would be, of course. In the summer they would be playing golf or enjoying a refreshing swim.

It was as his mind's eye was probing even more deeply into their domestic life that there came to him the realization that there was an obstacle, and a rather serious one, in the way of the bliss he was contemplating. He suddenly remembered what for the moment had slipped his mind, that he waws engaged to be married to someone else.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

They have ways of making it uncomfortable

 "Oh, hullo. You were on the jury, weren't you?" she said, and it surprised and pleased Jerry that she should have remembered him. Yes, he said, he had been on the jury, adding that he had had no alternative.

"The summons told me not to hereof fail, and I wasn't taking any chances. I wonder what they do to you if you hereof fail."

"I believe they get awfully annoyed."

"Something lingering with boiling oil in it?"

"I shouldn't wonder."

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse) 

It would make anyone nervous

 The afternoon sun poured brightly into the office of the manager of Guildenstern's Stores, Madison Avenue, New York, but there was no corresponding sunshine in the heart of Homer Pyle, the eminent corporation lawyer, as he sat there. He had in the opinion of his companion in the room something of the uneasy air of cat on hot bricks. It was not difficult to probe the reason for his loss of aplomb. A good corporation lawyer can generally take it as well as dish it out, but it is trying him too high when you telephone him in the middle of the day's work to inform him that his sister has just been arrested for shoplifting. In similar circumstances a justice of the Supreme Court would wriggle and perspire.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Hard to search in a crowd

 He fetched up on the island in the middle of the road with feelings of relief. The island was crowded. Under the powerful light it was possible to see one's next door neighbor. Charles annoyed all the rest of the people on the island by being neighbour to each of them in turn. He trod on several toes, was prodded in the ribs by a very powerful umbrella, and a number of people asked him what he thought he was doing. As it was impossible to explain that he was looking for Margaret, he had to say he was sorry a good many times.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

No one seems to like him

 Mr. Hale returned to his office, where he presently interviewed Mr. Egbert Standing. He had not met him before, and he looked at him now with some disfavour. Mr. Hale did not like fat young men; he did not like young men who lolled. He disapproved of bow ties with loose ends, and of scented cigarettes. He regarded the curl in Egbert's hair with well-founded suspicion. For a short moment he shared a sentiment with Miss Margot Standing - he did not like Egbert. The young clerk who took notes in the corner did not like him either.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Not how these things are done

 He looked up to find a box of chocolates under his nose. "Do have one. The long ones are hard, but the round ones are a dream."

"No thank you," said Mr. Hale.

Margot took one of the round ones herself. She had eaten so many chocolates already that it was necessary to crunch it quickly in order to get the flavour. She crunched it, and Mr. Hale waiting disapprovingly until she had finished. He wished to offer her his condolences upon her father's death, and it appeared to him in the highest degree unseemly that he should do so whilst she was eating chocolates.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Where Margaret had stood

     Charles continued to look into the room. The place where Margaret had stood was just at the edge of where the thick double wreath of fat blue flowers began to twine itself about a central medallion. There was a little worn place just to the right of where she had stood. He stared at the worn place. Margaret had been here and was gone again - Margaret. Well, that put the lid on telephoning to the police. Yes, by gum it did!

    A quick spasm of laughter shook him. He had said that it would be interesting to meet Margaret again - interesting.

    "Oh, my hat!" said Charles to himself.

    Interesting enough - yes, and a bit to spare if he and Margaret were to meet in a crowded police court. A very pretty romantic scene "Do you recognize this woman?" "Oh, yes, I almost married her once." Headlines from the evening paper rose luridly: "Parted Lovers meet in Police Court." "Jilted Explorer and Lost Bride." "Should Women become Criminals?" No, the police were off.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

Alone with his house

 Charles ate his dinner alone. During the soup he regretted Archie Millar, but with the fish the regret passed. He did not want Archie or Archie's company; he did not want to go to a theatre or do a show; he wanted vehemently and insistently to go to the house which was now his own house, and to go to it whilst it stood empty of everything except his memories.

(from Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth)

They need to examine themselves

 "That's what I thought, and that's what I wrote!" Dean said firmly. He crawled to his feet and clutched the desk for support. "What good is a newspaper unless it tells the truth and fights for the rights of the people?"

Mahone shrugged. "A lot of them should ask that question of themselves," he said dryly.

(from "Rustler Roundup," by Louis L'Amour)

The smile of a woman

 She looked grave and straight and honestly at me, and it seemed no other girl had ever looked so far into my heart. At twenty-four the smile of a woman is a glory to the blood and a spark to the spirit, and carries a richer wine than any sold over a bar in any frontier saloon.

(from "End of the Drive," by Louis L'Amour)

Money's attitude

 It sure does beat all how prosperity makes a man critical of all who are less prosperous. Seems like some folks no sooner get two dollars they can rattle together than they start looking down their noses at folks who only have two bits.

(from "The Courting of Griselda," by Louis L'Amour)

Weigh the risk and reward

 Sweat was all over Bob Heseltine's face, and it was a cool evening. He wanted to go for his gun the worst way, but he had another want that beat that one all hollow. H wanted to live.

(from "Caprock Rancher," by Louis L'Amour)

What money looks like

Seemed like a long time I sat there, looking at the firelight on that money. I'd never seen that much money before but it didn't look like money to me; it looked like Pa sweating over his fields back in Missouri, and like all the word we'd done, by day and night, rounding up those cattle and putting brands on them. It looked like all those folks around us who shared the drive with us . . . that money was there for them.

(from "Caprock Rancher," by Louis L'Amour)

Think!

 One great fear that I have in this computer age is that people will begin to lose the ability to think for themselves. Even the absence of a necessity of memorizing things will affect that.

Quixotic

 "Mannix will bear looking into."

Markham put down his knife and fork and leaned back. I'm overcome! Such Himalayan sagacity! With that evidence against him, he should be arrested at once. Vance, my dear old friend, are you feeling quite normal? No dizzy spells lately? No shooting pains in the head? Knee jerks all right?"

"Furthermore, Dr. Lindquist was wildly infatuated with the Canary, and insanely jealous. Recently threatened to take a pistol and hold a little pogrom of his own."

"That's better." Markham sat up. Where did you get this information?"

"Ah! That's my secret."

Markham was annoyed. "Why so mysterious?"

"Needs must, old chap. Gave my word and all that sort of thing. And I'm a bit quixotic, don't y' know - too much Cervantes in my youth." He spoke lightly, but Markham knew him too well to push the question.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Typical feminine wiles

Nature had endowed Miss La Fosse with many of its arts, and those that Nature had omitted, Miss La Fosse herself had supplied.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Unsolved problem

 "Heath is committed, body and soul, to a belief in Skeel's guilt; and Markham is as effectively strangled with legal red tape as the poor Canary was strangled with powerful hands. Eheu, Van! There's nothing left for me but to set forth tomorrow a cappella, like Gaborian's Monsieur Lecoq, and see what can be done in the noble cause of justice. I shall ignore both Heath and Markham, and become as a pelican of the wilderness, an owl of the desert, a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Really, y' know, I am no avenger of society, but I do detest an unsolved problem."

(from The "Canary" Murder Mystery, by S. S. Van Dine)

He would do anything

 "But what does he do? Whence cometh his lucre?"

"His father manufactured automobile accessories, made a fortune at it, and left the business to him. He tinkers at it, but not seriously, though I believe he has designed a few appurtenances."

"I do hope the hideous cut-glass olla for holding paper bouquets is not one of them. The man who invented that tonneau decoration is capable of any fiendish crime."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Lesser of two evils

 "Any man capable of so ingenious and clever a piece of deception is obviously a person of education and imagination; and he most certainly would not have run the stupendous risk of killing a woman unless he had feared some overwhelming disaster - unless, indeed, her continuing to live would have caused him greater mental anguish, and would have put him in greater jeopardy, even than the crime itself. Between two colossal dangers, he chose the murder as the lesser."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

The perfect crime

 "But regard this particular crime: look at it closely. What do you find? You will perceive that its mise en scene has been staged, and its drama enacted, down to every minute detail - like a Zola novel. It is almost mathematically perfect. And therein, d' ye see, lies the irresistible inference of its having been carefully premeditated and planned. To use an art term, it is a tickled-up crime. Therefore, its conception was not spontaneous. And yet, don't y' know, I can't point out any specific flaw; for its great flaw lies in its being flawless. And nothing flawless, my dear fellow, is natural or genuine."  (from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

I will provide a little help on this quote for the uninitiated (of which I am one). 

"Mise en scene" means the arrangement of furniture and stage properties in a play. 

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was the best-known practitioner of the literary school of theatrical naturalism, According to Wikipedia "the presentation of a naturalistic play, in terms of the setting and performances, should be realistic and not flamboyant or theatrical. The single setting of Miss Julie, for example, is a kitchen. Second, the conflicts in the play should be issues of meaningful, life-altering significance — not small or petty. And third, the play should be simple — not cluttered with complicated sub-plots or lengthy expositions."

The definition that I found for "tickled-up" is "something that is so hilarious that you feel like you are going to fall over from laughing so hard." However, that doesn't quite seem to fit here.

They don't go according to form

 "Now, Markham, just what are the universally recognized features of a sordid crime of robbery and murder? Brutality, disorder, haste, ransacked drawers, cluttered desks, broken jewel cases, rings stripped from the victim's fingers, severed pendant chains, torn clothing, tripped-over chairs, upset lamps, broken vases, twisted draperies, strewn floors, and so forth. Such are the accepted immemorial indications - eh, what? But, consider a moment, old chap. Outside of fiction and the drama, in how many crimes do they all appear - all in perfect ordination, and without a single element to contradict the general effect? That is to say, how many actual crimes are technically perfect in their setting? None! And why? Simply because nothing actual in this life - nothing that is spontaneous and genuine - runs to accept form in every detail. The law of chance and fallibility invariably steps in."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Even murders can be copied

 "Now, let us consider the Odell murder. You and Heath are agreed that it is a commonplace, brutal, sordid, unimaginative crime. But, unlike you two bloodhounds on the trail, I have ignored its mere appearances and have analyzed its various factors - I have looked at it psychologically, so to speak. And I have discovered that it is not a genuine and sincere crime - that is to say, an original - but only a sophisticated, self-conscious and clever imitation, done by a skillful copyist. I grant you it is correct and typical in every detail. But just there is where it fails, don't y' know. Its technic is too good, is not convincing - it lacks elan. Aesthetically speaking, it has all the earmarks of a tour de force. Vulgarly speaking, it's a fake."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

After the press gets through with it

 "Have you seen the afternoon papers? They're all clamoring for the murderer. You'd think I had him up my sleeve."

"You forget, my dear chap," grinned Vance, "that we are living under the benign and upliftin' reign of Democritus, which confers upon every ignoramus the privilege of promiscuously criticising his betters."

Markham snorted, "I don't complain about criticism; it's the lurid imagination of these bright young reporters that galls me. They're trying to turn this sordid crime into a spectacular Borgia melodrama, with passion running rampant, and mysterious influences at work, and all the pomp and trappings of a medieval romance."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Nothing that food won't cure

 "So - voila l'affaire. plenty of information, but - my word! - what to do with it?"

"I give it up," acknowledged Markham hopelessly.

"I know; it's a sad, sad world," Vance commiserated him. "But you must face the olla podrida with a bright eye. It's time for lunch, and a filet of sole Marguery will cheer you no end."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

+++

Reading a Philo Vance mystery increases one's vocabulary. Olla podrida is a traditional latino stew that is made of meat and vegetables and slowly simmered. File of sole Marguery is a dish that originated in the late 1800s and was especially associated with the restaurant Marguery in Paris.

Driving him crazy

 "From what I could gather, you seem to think it possible that Skeel witnessed the murder. That couldn't by any stretch of the imagination, be your precious theory?"

"That's part of it, anyway."

"My dear Vance, you do astonish me!" Markham laughed outright. "Skeel, then, according to you, is innocent; but he keeps his knowledge to himself, invents an alibi, and doesn't even tattle until he's arrested. . . . It won't hold water."

"I know," sighed Vance. It's a veritable sieve. And yet, the notion haunts me - it rides me like a hag - it eats into my vitals."

"Do you realize that this mad theory of yours presupposes that, when Spotswoode and Miss Odell returned from the theater, there were two men hidden in the apartment - two men unknown to each other - namely Skeel and your hypothetical murderer?"

"Of course I realize it; and the thought of it is breaking down my reason."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Boys will be boys

 The case was discussed for another half hour, then Spottswoode excused himself and left us.

"Funny thing," ruminated Markham, "how a man of his upbringing could be so attracted by the empty-headed, butterfly, type."

"I'd say it was quite natural," returned Vance. . . . "You're such an incorrigible moralist, Markham."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Vance to the rescue!

 "What do you mean by forcing yourself in here with your contemptible insinuations?" he shouted. His face, now livid and mottled, was hideously contorted; his hands made spasmodic movements; and his whole body shook as with a tremor. "Get out of here - you and your two myrmidons! Get out, before I have you thrown out!"

Markham, himself enraged now, was about to reply, when Vance took him by the arm. "The doctor is gently hinting that we go," he said. And with amazing swiftness he spun Markham round and led him firmly out of the room.

When we were again in the taxicab on our way back to the club, Vance snig- gered gaily. "A sweet specimen, that! Paranoia. Or, more likely, manic-depressive insanity the jolie circulaire type: recurring periods of maniacal excitement alternating with periods of clearest sanity, don't y' know. Anyway, the doctor's disorder belongs in the category of psychoses - associated with the maturation or waning of the sexual instinct. He's just the right age, too. Neurotic degenerate - that's what this oily Hippocrates is. In another minute he would have attacked you. My word! It's a good thing I came to the rescue. Such chaps are about as safe as rattlesnakes.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Couch sitting

 Now that we are solidly into our reclining years, my wife of 52 years and I enjoy just sitting together on the couch. We rarely do anything together as we sit - other than sitting - but we do sit together. She generally sits so that her left leg is up on the couch so that I can rub her foot and ankle, which activity has contributed largely to keeping me out of trouble over the years - a small price to pay for a large benefit.

Quiet togetherness has tremendous benefits. I highly recommend it.

His eyes don't match his tongue

 "You wangled that viscid old sport rather cleverly, don't y' know," remarked Vance, when Cleaver had gone. "But there's something deuced queer about him. The transition from his gambler's glassy stare to his garrulous confidences was too sudden - suspiciously sudden, in fact. I may be evil-minded, but he didn't impress me as a luminous pillar of truth. Maybe it's because I don't like those odd, boiled eyes of his - somehow they didn't harmonize with his gushing imitation of openhearted frankness."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

When lawyers tangle

"I'm afraid I can't accommodate you," he said at length.

"Your attitude is not quite what might be expected in one whose conscience is entirely clear," returned Markham, with a show of resentment. The man turned a mildly inquisitive gaze upon the district attorney.

"What has my knowing the girl to do with her being murdered? She didn't confide in me who her murderer was to be. She didn't even tell me that she knew anyone who intended to strangle her. If she'd known, she most likely could have avoided being murdered."

Vance was sitting close to me, a little removed from the others, and, leaning over, murmured in my ear sotto voce: "Markham's up against another lawyer - poor dear! A crumplin' situation."

But however inauspiciously this interlocutory skirmish may have begun, it soon developed into a grim combat which ended in Cleaver's complete surrender. Markham, despite his suavity and graciousness, was an unrelenting and resourceful antagonist: and it was not long before he had forced from Cleaver some highly significant information.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

How to convict a spirit

 "It's uncanny," pronounced Markham gloomily.

"It's positively spiritualistic," amended Vance. "It has the caressin' odor of a seance. Really, y' know, I'm beginning to suspect that some medium was hovering in the vicinage last night doing some rather tip-top materializations. I say, Markham, could you get an indictment against an ectoplasmic emanation?"

"That wasn't no spook that made those fingerprints," growled Heath, with surly truculence.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

I think he really did!

 Heath paused and finally lighted the cigar on which he had been chewing at intervals during the past hour. "Now, tell me about that side door," he went on, with undiminished aggressiveness. "You told me you lock it every night before you leave - is that right?"

"Ja - that's right." The man nodded his head affirmatively several times. "Only I don't lock it - I bolt it."

"All right, you bolt it, then." As Heath talked his cigar bobbed up and down between his lips; smoke and words came simultaneously from his mouth. "And last night you bolted it as usual about six o'clock?"

"Maybe a quarter past," the janitor amended, with Germanic precision.

"You're sure you bolted it last night?" The question was almost ferocious.

"Ja, ja. Sure, I am. I do it every night. I never miss."

The man's earnestness left no doubt that the door in question had indeed been bolted on the inside at about six o'clock of the previous evening. Heath, however, belabored the point for several minutes, only to be reassured doggedly that the door had been bolted. At last the janitor was dismissed.

"Really, y' know, Sergeant," remarked Vance with an amused smile, "that honest Rheinlander bolted the door."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Say a lot to say nothing

     "What is it you suspect?" demanded Markham sharply.

    "Not a thing, old dear," blandly declared Vance. "I'm wandering about in a mental murk as empty of signposts as interplanetary space. The jaws of darkness do devour me up; I'm in the dead vast and middle of night. My mental darkness is Egyptian, Stygian, Cimmerian - I'm in a perfect Erebus of tenebrosity."

    Markham's jaw tightened in exasperation; he was familiar with this evasive loquacity of Vance's.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

A specialist

 Deputy Inspector Conrad Brenner was one of that small army of obscure, but highly capable, experts who are connected with the New York Police Department, and who are constantly being consulted on abstruse technical problems, but whose names and achievements rarely get into the public prints. His specialty was locks and burglars' tools; and I doubt if, even among those exhaustively painstaking criminologists of the University of Lausanne, there was a more accurate reader of the evidential signs left by the implements of housebreakers. In appearance and bearing he was like a withered little college professor. (It is an interesting fact that for the nineteen years he had been connected with the New York Police Department, he had been referred to, by his superiors and subordinates alike, as "the Professor.") His black, unpressed suit was old-fashioned in cut; and he wore a very high stiff collar, lie a fin-de-siecle clergyman, with a narrow black string tie. His gold-rimmed spectacles were so thick-lensed that the pupils of his eyes gave the impression of acute belladonna poisoning.

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

A professional job

     Heath had been eyeing Vance with narrowed lids as the latter bent over the dressing table. "What's in your mind, Mr. Vance?" he, in turn, asked.

    "Oh, more than you could ever guess," Vance answered lightly. "But just at the moment I was toying with the idea that this steel case was never torn open by that wholly inadequate iron poker, what?"

    Heath nodded his head approvingly. "So you, too, noticed that, did you? And you're dead right. That poker might've twisted the box a little, but it never snapped that lock."

      He turned to Inspector Moran. "That's the puzzler I've sent for 'Prof' Brenner to clean up - if he can. The jimmying of that jewel case looks to me like a high-class professional job. No Sunday school superintendent did it."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Smart doctor

 "Where's the medical examiner?" asked Markham.

"He's coming," Heath told him. "You can't get Doc Doremus to go anywheres without his breakfast."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Off with their heads!

 "A court of law listens solemnly to the testimony, and renders a decision not on the facts but according to a complicated set of rules. The result d' ye see, is that a court often acquits a prisoner, realizing full well that he is guilty. Many a judge has said, in effect, to a culprit, 'I know, and the jury knows, that you committed the crime, but in view of the legally admissible evidence, I declare you innocent. Go and sin again.'"

Markham grunted. "I'd hardly endear myself to the people of this country if I answered the current strictures against me by recommending law courses for the police department."

"Permit me, then, to suggest the alternative of Shakespeare's butcher: "'Let's kill all the lawyers.'"

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Don't bother us with evidence

 Vance looked up with a slow smile and regarded him quizzically.

"The difficulty would seem to be," he returned, with an indolent drawl, "that the police, being unversed in the exquisite abracadabra of legal procedure, labor under the notion that evidence which would convince a man of ordin'ry intelligence, would also convince a court of law. A silly notion, don't y' know. Lawyers don't really want evidence; they want erudite technicalities. And the average policeman's brain is too forthright to cope with the pedantic demands of jurisprudence."

(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)

Ah, the corruption of accumulated wealth

     An hour after dusk that night a native sought out one of the caballeros with the intelligence that a gentleman wished to speak to him immediately, and that this gentleman was evidently wealthy since he had given the native a coin for carrying the message, when he might just as well have given nothing more than a cuff alongside the head; also that the mysterious gentleman would be waiting along the path that ran toward the San Gabriel trail, and to be sure that the caballero would come he had bade the native say that there was a fox in the neighborhood.

    "A fox, Zorro - fox!" the caballero thought, and then ruined the native forever by giving him another coin.

(from The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley)

Get with it!

     "She is yours, if you play the game!" Don Alejandro said. "You are a Vega, and therefore the best catch in the country. Be but half a lover and the senorita is yours. What sort of blood is in your veins? I have half a mind to slit one of them and see."

    "Cannot we allow this marriage business to drop for the time being?" Don Diego asked.

    "You are twenty-five. I was quite old when you were born. Soon I shall go the way of my fathers. You are the only son, the heir, and you must have a wife and offspring. Is the Vega family to die out because your blood is water? Win you a wife within the quarter year, young sir, and a wife I can accept into the family, or I leave my wealth to the Franciscans when I pass away!"

(from The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley)

A strange way of cursing

 The Johnston McCulley's novel, The Mark of Zorro, one of the main characters is Sergeant Gonzalez (one of the bad guys). One of the Sergeant's favorite expressions is, "Meal mush and goat's milk!" Why that particular phrase should be the essence of a curse I do not understand, but there it is. Evidently McCulley thought that military men of the period said that when they became frustrated.

And kicked him out!

     Captain Ramon said it. And then Senor Zorro grasped him by the nek and lifted him, and propelled him to the door, and hurled him into the darkness. And had his boots not been soft, Captain Ramon would have been injured more deeply, both in feelings and anatomy.

(from The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley)

Lazy Latin lover

"I am weary, and the hacienda is an excellent place to rest," he said. "I knew it to be the siesta hour, also, and thought everyone would be asleep. It were a shame to awaken you, senorita, but I felt that I must speak. Your beauty would hinge a man's tongue in its middle so that both ends might be free to sing your praises."

Senorita Lolita had the grace to blush. "I would that my beauty affected other men so," she said.

"And does it not? Is it possible that the Senorita Lolita lacks suitors? But that cannot be possible?"

"It is, nevertheless, senor. There are few bold enough to seek to ally themselves with the family of Pulido, since it is out of favor with the powers. There is one - suitor," she went on. "But he does not seem to put much life into his wooing."

"Ha! A laggard at love - and in your presence? What ails the man? Is he ill?"

"He is so wealthy that I suppose h thinks he has but to request it and a maiden will agree to wed him."

"What an imbecile! 'Tis the wooing gives the spice to romance!"

(from The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCalley)

Cocking snooks

"Bertie had been very pressing, and Frank had been cocking snooks when he's had one over the odds, and hinting at what he could say if Bertie pushed him too far." (from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

British slang is sometimes difficult for us Americans to understand. Bertie had been pressing Frank to pay the money he owed him, and Frank had been "thumbing his nose" at him, and when he would have too much to drink, he would hint at what he would do if Bertie didn't back off.

Odd names

 "Yes," she said, "I put a small advertisement in the paper. It is so fortunate that Mrs. Mercer should have had an uncommon name like Anketell. One could feel practically sure that there would not be more than one Louisa Kezia Anketell, or at least not more than one in the same generation. These peculiar names generally run in a family. My own second name is Hephzibah - most unsuitable with Maud, but there has been a Hephzibah in our family for at least two hundred years."

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

And stay away!

     "And the other nephew, Francis Everton - what about him?"

    "Bad hat," said Henry. Remittance man. Old Everton paid him to keep away. Glasgow was a safe distance - he could soak quietly in the cheaper brands of alcohol without any danger of getting into the London papers."

(This is from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth. Wikipedia says, "In Victorian British culture, a remittance man was usually the black sheep of an upper- or middle-class family who was sent away (from the United Kingdom to the rest of the British Empire), and paid to stay away. He was generally of dissolute or drunken character and may have been sent overseas after disgraces at home. Harry Grey, 8th Earl of Stamford, is an example; he was sent to South Africa before he inherited the titles and fortune of his third cousin.")

Just trust Miss Silver

     "Will you tell me what Mrs. Grey is afraid of?"

    "I don't see how I can."

    Miss Silver looked at her in a different way. She had the air of a kind aunt - of Aunt Emmeline when she was about to give you five pounds at Christmas. She said in a voice that was nice as well as prim, "I am a great admirer of Lord Tennyson. The mot juste - how often one comes across it in his writings. 'Oh, trust me all in all, or not at all.' I find that I often have to quite that to my clients. The most complete frankness is necessary."

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

    

Do it right

 By this time Hilary was hungry, and today she wasn't lunching on a bun and a glass of milk. You didn't pawn Aunt Arabella's ruby ring every day of the week, and when you did you didn't lunch on buns - you splashed out, had a two-course lunch, and cream in your coffee.

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

On the nail

 In her novel The Case is Closed in the "Miss Silver" series, authoress Patricia Wentworth uses this sentence: "The Mercers would have to eat, and unless they went out and shopped for everything themselves, and paid for it on the nail and carried it home, one or other of these food shops would have their address."

The phrase "on the nail" is not one that is used commonly in American English. It means "immediately or without delay," similar to our common expression "cash on the barrelhead."

Not fresh

 Hilary found her creamery and ate her bun - a peculiarly arid specimen. There were little black things in it which might once have been currants but were now quite definitely fossils. Not a good bun. Hilary's imp chanted mournfully:

   How bitter when your only bun

   Is not at all a recent one.

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

Blame it on Henry

If Henry hadn't been determined to quarrel he would have taken her out to lunch first, and now she would have to go and have a glass of milk and a bun in a creamery with a lot of other women who were having buns and milk, or Bovril, or milk with a dash of coffee, or a nice cup of tea. It was a most frightfully depressing thought, because one bun was going to make very little impression on her hunger, and she certainly couldn't afford any more. Extraordinarily stupid of Henry not to have given her lunch first. They could have quarrelled comfortably over their coffee if he was absolutely set on quarrelling, instead of uncomfortably in the Den with nothing inside you and no prospect of anything except a bun. It was a bad, bleak, bitter and unbearable business. And it was all Henry's fault.

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

Misery

 What she wanted was someone to talk the whole thing over with. How could you think a thing like that out all by yourself? What you wanted was someone to say "Nonsense" in a loud commanding voice and having said it, to take up his stand on the hearth rug and lay down the law with that passionate indifference to argument or contradiction which was one of Henry's most marked characteristics.

But she probably wasn't ever going to see Henry again. She blinked hard and stared out of the window of the bus. There really did seem to be an unnecessary amount of misery in the world. She would never have believed that she could have thought with yearning of Henry laying down the law. What was the good of thinking about Henry when she wasn't going ever to see him again and couldn't possibly ask his advice?

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

Peter Grievous

 "A poorer spirited, more Peter-grievous kind of a creature I never come across nor never want to!" (from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

According to the website "Word Histories, "The humorous name Peter Grievous designates a person who whines or complains. This name is also used as an adjective meaning fretful, miserable, whining."

Tough sell

 She didn't go in - it wasn't any use going in. The house was shut up, and three boards in a row proclaimed Bertie Everton's desire to sell it. Houses which have figured in a murder case do not sell very easily, but it is of course permissible to hope.

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

A terrifying moment

Marion was standing still. At Hilary's question she seemed to become something more than still. Where there is life there is breath, and where there is breath there is always some movement. Marion seemed to have stopped breathing. There was a long, frightening minute when it seemed to Hilary that she had stopped breathing. She stared at her with round, terrified eyes, and it came to her that Marion wasn't sure - wasn't sure about Geoff. She loved Geoff terribly, but she wasn't sure that he hadn't killed James Everton. That seemed so shocking to Hilary that she couldn't think of anything to say or anything to do. She learned back upon her hands and felt them go numb.

(from The Cased is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

Give it a name

 Hilary was clearing the plates, coming and going between the living-room and the little kitchen of the flat. The bright chintz curtains were drawn across the windows. There was a row of china birds on the shelf above the glowing fire - blue, green, yellow, and brown, and the rose-coloured one with the darting beak which Geoff had christened Sophy. They all had names. Geoff always had to find a name for a thing as soon as he bought it. His last car was Samuel, and the birds were Octavius, Leonora, Ermengarde, sophy, and Erasmus.

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

Still beautiful in spite of everything

 She was still in her outdoor things - the brown tweed coat which she had had in her trousseau, and the brown wool beret which Aunt Emmaline had crocheted for her. The coat was getting very shabby now, but anything that Marion wore took the lines of her long, graceful body. She was much, much too thin, but if she walked about in her bones she would still be graceful. With her dark hair damp from the fog, the beret pushed back, the grey eyes fixed in a daze of grief and fatigue, she had still the distinction which heightens beauty and survives it.

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

I can't bear it

 Geoff, who had been so terribly full of life, and Marion, who loved him and had to go on living in a world which believed he was a murderer and had shut him up out of harm's way . . . . What was the good of saying, "I can't bear it," when it was going on, and must go on, and you had to bear it, whether you wanted to or not."

(from The Case is Closed, by Patricia Wentworth)

A small man

 Aaron McDonald just sat there, because he had no place to run to. Had he been any man but the man he was, I'd have been sorry for him, for he had to stand alone before you realized how small he was.

Money and arrogance had brought him, for a time, a certain measure of power and authority. He still had the money, but there wasn't any store, anywhere, that would take it in exchange for what McDonald needed now, nor was there any store that could supply it.

(from Kowa Trail, by Louis L'Amour)

Slaughterhouse tally

 For a man riding a mule who was so well known by chuck-wagon yarns, the Dutchman managed to drop out of sight whenever he wanted. But he was known as a fast and deadly accurate shot with any kind of weapon. Handy with a pistol, though he relied more on a rifle or shotgun, both of which he habitually carried.

Nobody knew how many men he had killed; probably he didn't know himself. Does a butcher keep track of the beeves he slaughters?

(from Kiowa Trail, by Louis L'Amour)

Fight smart

     My attack was too sudden for them, too unexpected. My first shot took an Indian between the shoulders; the second splattered sand; the third caught a leaping, running Indian in full stride, and he fell, throwing his rifle out before him.

    An Indian is not under any compulsion to fight to the last man. When the odds are against him, he simply slips away, if it is possible to do so, and waits to fight another day.

(from Kiowa Trail, by Louis L'Amour)

When you don't want a cop

 Mrs. Waddington considered that in this instance her ally was carrying caution too far. She turned on him with a snort of annoyance: and, having turned, remained staring frozenly at something that had suddenly manifested itself in his lordship's rear.

This something was a long, stringy policeman: and though Mrs. Waddington had met this policeman only once in her life, the circumstances of that meeting had been such that the memory of him had lingered. She recognized him immediately: and, strong woman though she was, wilted like a snail that has just received a handful of salt between the eyes.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

You don't scare me!

     "If I might excuse myself, madam, I am engaged on the concluding passages of the article to which you alluded just now, and I am anxious to complete it before Mr. Biffen's return."

    Mrs. Waddington caused the eye before which Sigsbee H. had so often curled up and crackled like a burnt feather to blaze imperiously upon the butler. He met it with the easy aplomb of one who in his time has looked at dukes and made them feel that their trousers were bagging at the knees.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Of cops and coffee-pots

     In supposing that the person or persons whom he had heard climbing up the fire-escape were in pursuit of himself, George Finch had made a pardonable error. Various circumstances had combined to render his departure from the Purple Chicken unobserved.

    In the first place, just as Officer Garroway was on the point of releasing his head from the folds of the table-cloth, Giuseppe, with a loyalty to his employers which it would be difficult to over-praise, hit him in the eye with a coffee-pot. This had once more confused the policeman's outlook, and by the time he was able to think clearly again the lights went out.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Time would fail me

     "Mother still insists that you had known her before and that the story she told was true and that she only took the necklace as an afterthought. Isn't she funny!"

    "Funny," said George heavily, "is not the word. She is one long scream from the rise of the curtain, and ought to be beaten over the head with a blackjack. If you want my candid and considered opinion of that zymotic scourge who has contrived to hook herself on to your family in the capacity of step-mother to you and general mischief-maker to the rest of the world, let me begin by saying . . . However, there is no time to go into that now."

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

[I like that term "zymotic scourge." That describes a lot of females I know.]

Concerning fire escapes

     Fire-escapes, she knew, led, if followed long enough, to the ground: and she decided to climb to safety down this one. It was only when she had descended as far as the ninth floor that, glancing below her, she discovered that this particular fire-escape terminated not, as she had supposed, in some back-alley, but in the gaily-lighted out-door premises of a restaurant, half the tables of which were already filled.

    This sight gave her pause. In fact, to be accurate, it froze her stiff. Nor was her agitation without reason. Those of the readers of this chronicle who have ever thrown pepper in a policeman's face, and skimmed away down a fire-escape, are aware that fire-escapes, considered as a refuge, have the defect of being uncomfortably exposed to view. At any moment, felt Mrs. Waddington, the policeman might come to the edge of the roof and look down; and to deceive him into supposing that she was merely a dust-bin or a milk-bottle was, she knew, beyond her histrionic powers.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The wife is always right

 "All right, then. Wait for me at the Astor. Though it's kind of a swell place, isn't it?"

"Well, don't you want a swell place to dine at on your wedding night?"

"You're right."

"I'm always right," said Fanny, giving her husband's check a loving pinch. "That's the first thing you've got to get into your head, now you're a married man."

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just get rid of him!

If George had been more in the frame of mind to analyse the looks of his future father-in-law, he might have seen in this one a sort of shuddering loathing. But he was not in the frame of mind. Besides, Sigsbee H. Waddington was not the kind of man whose looks one analysed. He was one of those negligible men one pushes out of sight and forgets about. George proceeded to forget about him almost immediately.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

It should be noted that the "analyse" spelling - with an "s" - used above is as printed in the book. That is the British spelling of the word.

The pessimistic perspective

     "Well, weren't you happy when you got married?"

    "No, sir."

    "Was Mrs. Ferris?"

    "She appeared to take a certain girlish pleasure in the ceremony, sir, but it soon blew over."

    "How do you account for that?"

    "I could not say, sir."

    "I'm sorry weddings depress you, Ferris. Surely when two people love each other and mean to go on loving each other . . . ."

    "Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse."

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Difficulty communicating

     "Nice day, Ferris."

    "Yes, sir."

    "Nice weather."

    "Yes, sir."

    "Nice country around here."

    "No, sir."

    George was somewhat taken aback. "Did y say, No, sir?"

    "Yes, sir."

    "Oh, Yes, Sir? I thought you said No, sir."

    "Yes, sir. No, sir."

    "You mean you don't like the country around here."

    "No, sir."

    "Why, not?"

    "I disapprove of it, sir."

    "Why?"

    "It is not the sort of country to which I have been accustomed, sir. It is not like the country round Little-Seeping-in-the-Wold."

    "Where's that?"

    "In England, sir."

    "I suppose the English country's nice?"

    "I believe it gives uniform satisfaction, sir."

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

See?

 "Listen to me, you," said Hamilton Beamish, "and get me right! See? That'll be about all from you about this girl loving you, unless you want me to step across and bust you on the beezer. I love her, see? and she's going to marry me, see? And nobody else, see? And anyone who says different had better notify his friends where he wants his body sent, see? Love you, indeed? A swell chance! I'm the little guy she's going to marry, see? Me!"

And, folding his arms, the thinker paused for a reply. It did not come immediately. George Finch, unused to primitive emotions from this particular quarter, remained completely dumb. It was left for Madame Eulalie to supply comment.

"Jimmy!" she said faintly.

Hamilton Beamish caught her masterfully about the waist. He kissed her eleven times.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

All by himself

 "Well, the whole difficulty is that at present George is in the position of having broken the engagement. So, when this May Stubbs arrives, I am going to get her to throw him over of her own free-will."

 "And how do you propose to do that?"

"Quite simply. You see, we may take it for granted that she is a prude. I have, therefore, constructed a little drama, by means of which George will appear an abandoned libertine."

"George!"

"She will be shocked and revolted and will at once break off all relations with him."

"I see. Did you think all this out by yourself?"

"Entirely by myself."

"You're too clever for one man. You ought to incorporate."

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Fast track alimony

 "Did you and this girl quarrel before you separated?"

"No. We sort of drifted apart. I took it for granted that the thing was over and done with. And when I saw Molly . . ."

Hamilton Beamish laid a hand upon his arm. "George," he said, "I want you to give me your full attention: for we have arrived now at the very core of the matter. Were there any letters?"

"Dozens. And of course she has kept them. She used to sleep with them under her pillow."

"Bad!" said Hamilton Beamish, shaking his head. "Very bad!"

"And I remember her saying once that she believed in breach of promise suits."

Hamilton Beamish frowned. He seemed to be deploring the get-rich-quick spirit of the modern girl, who is not content to sit down and wait for her alimony.

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Did you get my emotion?

 Hamilton Beamish straightened himself. He was now in a position to see George steadily and see him whole: and the spectacle convinced him at once that something in the message he had just delivered must have got right in among his friend's ganglions. George Finch's agreeable features seemed to be picked out in a delicate Nile-green. His eyes were staring. His lower jaw had fallen. Nobody who had ever seen a motion-picture could have had the least doubt as to what he was registering. It was dismay.

(From The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse. This book was published in 1927, which was the year that the first sound movie was produced. Therefore, Wodehouse no doubt would have been referring to the over-stated facial expressions that were necessary in silent films to convey the emotions.)

One tough chick

     "A tough baby?" inquired George anxiously

    "I dislike the expression. It is the sort of expression Mullett would use: and I know few things more calculated to make a thinking man shudder than Mullett's vocabulary. Nevertheless, in a certain crude, horrible way it does describe Mrs. Waddington.

    "There is an ancient belief in Tibet that mankind is descended from a demoness named Drasrinmo and a monkey. Both Sigsbee H. and Mrs. Waddington do much to bear out this theory. I am loath to speak ill of a woman, but it is no use trying to conceal the fact that Mrs. Waddington is a bounder and a snob and has a soul like the under-side of a flat stone."

(From The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse) 

Synthetic Westerner

     "Sigsbee H. Waddington," he said, "is one of those men who must, I think, during the formative years of their boyhood have been kicked on the head by a mule. It has been well said of Sigsbee H. Waddington that, if men were dominoes, he would be the double-blank. One of the numerous things about him that rule him out of serious consideration by intelligent persons is the fact that he is a synthetic westerner."

    "A synthetic Westerner?"

    "It is a little known, but growing sub-species akin to the synthetic Southerner - with which you are doubtless familiar."

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Amazing coincidence

    "Why shouldn't I goggle?"

     "Why should you?

    "Because," said George Finch, looking like a stuffed frog, "I love her."

    "Nonsense!"

    "It isn't nonsense"

    "Have you ever read my booklet on 'The Marriage Sane'?"

    "No, I haven't."

    "I show there that love is a reasoned emotion that springs from mutual knowledge, increasing over an extended period of time, and a community of tastes. How can you love a girl when you have never spoken to her and don't even know her name?"

    "I do know her name."

    "How?"

    "I looked through the telephone directory till I found out who lived at Number 16 East Seventy-ninth Street. It took me about a week because . . . "

    "Sixteen East Seventy-ninth Street? You don't mean that this girl you've been staring at is little Molly Waddington?"

(from The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

All that work for nothing

 I suppose authors generally have a special affection for those of their books which come out easily. It is not that we mind work - we are always ready to give our all for our Art - but it is nice when we are occasionally spared the blood, sweat, and tears, and there are few things more agonizing than the realization, afer one has written 50,000 words of a novel, that as a theatrical manager I knew used to say of a play which seemed to him to fall short of perfection, "It don't add up right."

(from the Preface to The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

One tough hombre

     He was silent for several minutes. "I don't like it, Kim - that Neerland going after that man."

    "You leave 'em alone," Kim replied calmly. "That Key-Lock man is an old lobo. He's from away back at the forks of the crick. Anybody who gets that man in a corner has bit off a chunk, believe me, and he's better have the jaws to chew it!"

(from The Key-Lock Man, by Louis L'Amour)

A race against time

     Nine men rode out of Freedom, nine men with just one idea, to reach the scene before their community could be branded for murder. They left in the cool of the evening and they rode fast. changing horses twice before they reached Tuba City.

    Neill, hoping and expecting that the men of Freedom would be with him, had arranged for horses to be waiting for them at Tuba. Yet swiftly as they rode, he knew there was hardly once chance in a thousand that they would arrive in time.

    But he was banking on the courage of the man Keelock, and of a woman whom he had never met.

(from The Key-Lock Man, by Louis L'Amour)

Have to have direction

 A man needed a plan, he needed direction. If he did not have that, he had nothing. A man, like a ship at sea, might change course many times in getting to an eventual destination, but he must always be going somewhere, not simply drifting.

(from The Key-Lock Man, by Louis L'Amour)

To make his own way

He wanted a ranch with good grass and water, and he wanted cattle to make money, and horses simply because he loved them. He wsa not waiting around to fall heir to a fortune, nor to marry a rich wife, nor to steal enough to get by. He knew there was no easy way, and he was not looking for one. It was his pride that he walked his own trail, saddled his own broncs, and fought his own battles. And he earned his own money.

(from The Key-Lock Man, by Louis L'Amour)

Accidental death

 But I was worried. Noble Bishop would be wanting that gold, and how much of my story he believed I didn't know. Only thing I was sure of was that he hadn't wanted a shoot-out down there by the creek. There were too many people and too many guns, and it would be a matter of luck, not skill, if a man survived. There were too many chances of a wild bullet doing what you didn't mean an aimed bullet to do.

(from Mustang Man, by Louis L'Amour)