The Mystery of 31, New Inn quotes

The fussy little clock gave a sort of preliminary cough or hiccup, as if it should say: “Ahem! ladies and gentlemen, I am about to strike.” And at that moment, the bottle-boy opened the door and, thrusting in his head, uttered the one word: “Gentleman.”

Extreme economy of words is apt to result in ambiguity.

But I understood. In Kennington Lane, the race of mere men and women appeared to be extinct. They were all gentlemen—unless they were ladies or children—even as the Liberian army was said to consist entirely of generals.

“That’s no good, sir,” interrupted the officer. “

Suspicion isn’t evidence.

We should want you to swear an information and give us enough facts to make out a prima facie case against some definite person. And you couldn’t do it. Your information amounts to this:

“There,” my colleague said with a smile as he put away his pocketbook, “if people would only settle their affairs in that way, a good part of the occupation of lawyers would be gone.

Brevity is the soul of wit; and the fear of simplicity is the beginning of litigation.

”

“

He that drinks beer thinks beer,

” retorted Thorndyke. “But you were saying that it is just a matter of—?”

“I only undertook to think about it,” said Thorndyke. “I never reject a case offhand unless it is obviously fishy.

It is surprising how difficulties, and even impossibilities, dwindle if you look at them attentively.

My experience has taught me that the most unlikely case is, at least, worth thinking over.”

“Don’t be sketchy, Jervis. To be sketchy is to be vague.

Detail, my child, detail is the soul of induction.

Let us have all the facts. We can sort them out afterwards.”

But my tactics of studied prolixity were a complete failure.

The attempt to fatigue Thorndyke’s brain with superabundant detail was like trying to surfeit a pelican with whitebait.

He consumed it all with calm enjoyment and asked for more; and when, at last, I did really begin to think that I had bored him a little, he staggered me by reading over his notes and starting a brisk cross-examination to elicit fresh facts!

But it can’t be the same person. I have only seen her a few times and then only just for a minute or so; but I’m quite certain she had no cast in her eye. So, you see, sir, she can’t be the same person.

You can dye your hair or you can wear a wig or you can paint your face; but a squint is a squint. There’s no faking a swivel eye.

”

It seemed that having finished her frugal meal she was on her way out when she had dropped the little basket that I had noticed hanging from her wrist; which basket had promptly disgorged its entire contents on the floor.

Now everyone must have noticed the demon of agility that seems to enter into an inanimate object when it is dropped, and the apparently intelligent malice with which it discovers, and rolls into, the most inaccessible places.

Here was a case in point. This particular basket had contained materials for Oriental bead-work;

“There seems to be a slight mixture of metaphors in my learned friend’s remarks. But never mind the fog, Jervis.

There is a certain virtue in fog. It serves, like a picture frame, to surround the essential with a neutral zone that separates it from the irrelevant.

”

“You are incorrigible, Jervis,” he exclaimed. “How should I know what I am going to prove? This is an investigation.

If I knew the result beforehand, I shouldn’t want to perform the experiment.

”

Jeffrey Blackmore executed his will in a regular manner, complying with all the necessary formalities and conditions. In the face of that single circumstance you and Marchmont would ‘chuck up the sponge,’ as the old pugilists expressed it. Now that is a great mistake.

You should never allow yourself to be bullied and browbeaten by a single fact.

”