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unearths some literary gems.
From The Murder at Crome House, by G. D. H. and Margaret Cole:
***
"And what I want to say is--" What she wanted to say presented every appearance of being infinite.
***
[Human Hypotheses dept.]
The real murderer? But he was only a hypothesis. Flint ran over in his mind the list he had made of all persons on whom suspicion could possibly rest. Delrio? if he wasn't a hypothesis too?
***
Flint drew perplexed spirals on his blotting-paper.
***
[Bonus: A librarian describes a patron as "very miscellaneous," based on his eclectic borrowing habits.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Bats in the Belfry, by E. C. R. Lorac:
***
"The chap's in Golders Green or Timbuctoo by this time." [I like how, in conveying that the suspect has had plenty of time to get far away from central London, the protagonist escalates directly from a neighborhood a few miles away to good old Timbuktu. There's not even a layover in Halifax or Jericho!]
***
"Keep your wool on, old sermon-face," growled Robert Grenville.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Death of a Busybody, by George Bellairs:
***
[The novel's opening sentence. Quite a good one, eh?]
The September morning which greeted the Rev. Ethelred Claplady, M.A. (Cantab.), incumbent of Hilary Magna (and Parva for that matter), made him want to leap and shout.
***
Mrs. Harriwinckle [!]... stood petrified, holding her husband's nightshirt like one wrestling with a ghost.
***
"Never! screamed Mrs. Prettypenny in a fiery interview between Miss Bose and the three Prettypennies--or Prettypence, whichever you like."
***
Mr. Lorrimer had a habit of crisply finishing off his sentences, as though biting into a stream of verbiage to terminate its flow.
***
"Long Sonaters, List's Hungarian Rapsodaisicals, Chopine's Polonies, and sich like."
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unearths some literary gems.
From Mystery in White, by J. Jefferson Farjeon
***
[With reference to a supposed ghost of Charles the First. And, yes, this novel features a character who is (initially) referred to as "the bore"!]
"Charles the Fiddlesticks!" muttered the bore.
***
[Rhetorical Questions Answered dept.]
"What'd we feel like if we read in to-morrow's papers that he'd been found buried in snow?"
"To-morrow's Christmas, and there won't be any papers."
***
"Yes, one does almost feel as if one almost ought to go after him, doesn't one?" [Isn't that a masterpiece of upper-class British expression?]
"This one doesn't," replied the bore, unconsciously adding a point in favour of departure.
***
"That doesn't explain anything."
"Nothing explains anything!"
***
[Nonsense dept.]
Jessie smiled, as nonsense advanced on apprehension.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Here Today, by George Oppenheimer:
***
MARY: He has a story in The Atlantic Monthly every week.
SPENCER: The Atlantic only comes out once a month.
MARY: Oh, is that so? Then why is it called The Atlantic Monthly?
***
GERTRUDE: How many for lunch?
MARY: There’ll be two of everybody.
***
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unearths some literary gems.
***
“And he accepted your kind offer of cooperation?” I asked.
“‘Cooperation’’s such a nasty word, isn’t it? I prefer to think of it as blackmail.”
***
[From The Case of the Hesitant Hostess, by Erle Stanley Gardner:]
***
[A silly outcome of the convention whereby judges refer to themselves in the third person as "this Court."]
"This Court wasn't born yesterday."
***
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Case of the Glamorous Ghost, by Erle Stanley Gardner:
***
[Hypothetical American travelers who smuggle jewels in from Europe.]
"Suppose Mrs. Rearbumper smuggles in a ten-thousand-dollar diamond."
[and]
"Let's suppose that John K. Bigshot, a big gem importer, has worked out a pretty good system of smuggling in a lot of gems at a clip."
***
[Bonus: A residential building called the Titterington Apartments.]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Good Gracious, Annabelle by Clare Kummer:
***
"And don't get a gardener that looks like Bernard Shaw."
***
ETHEL: Here, let me read it. [...] "I am returning the portrait of my husband--I would not have such a looking thing in the house--"
JENNINGS: But she has him in the house.
***
ANNABELLE: How did it ever get to be ten o'clock?
LOTTIE: Well, it does, you know, just about this time every morning.
***
LOTTIE: Do you believe in zoology? What the stars tell?
***
[Jennings is trying to recite his poetry to Gwendolyn, but Lottie is a distraction.]
JENNINGS
Dawn!
Changing to gold and blue--
Ever changing, like a dancer--
On whom the lights are thrown.
Dawn with wistful shadows---- [That's a double em dash there, I guess to add the dash of interruption to the end-of-line dash.]
LOTTIE
Dawn with whiskers!
***
ANNABELLE: Didn't think you would mind. I thought you were asleep.
WIMBLEDON: I mind things in my sleep.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Suicide Excepted, by Cyril Hare:
***
[Alternatives to Timbuktu dept.]
He had liked the man at the time, but just now, as he smiled and nodded, he could have wished him in Jericho.
***
His round red face shone with unction--if that is the proper word for clerical perspiration.
***
"...your only interest in upsetting this verdict is..." [first ellipsis mine; second ellipsis the author's]
But Anne did not wait for the end of her brother's carefully polished period.
[Later]
He read it to the end, and then cut Martin's periods short with an excited exclamation.
***
He looked rather as an amateur conjuror must look who has successfully produced a rabbit from his hat and is wondering where on earth to put the animal.
***
"This is something like, Mr. Dickinson," he repeated several times, rubbing his beefy hands together. "This is something like!"
He did not specify what it was like....
***
The address was a joke, then. Ha, Ha! Let's have a good laugh, even if we can't see it just yet. Fifteen, very funny. Parbury, an absolute scream. Gardens, we all roared!
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unearths some literary gems.
[The title, cleverly, refers to clarinets in an orchestra.]
***
Debrett had materialized in Mrs. Basset's hand, apparently of its own volition.
***
She had probably been going to bed for the last hour, and she might continue to brush her hair for another ten minutes, merely because it was too much trouble to stop.
***
“We’ll remember, won’t we, girls?” she cried archly—an exclamation that produced a shout of surprised laughter from her fellows, who would as soon have expected to be called “girls” by the jubilee statue of Queen Victoria in the Market Square.
***
"This man Ventry," said the sergeant solemnly, "is no better than a satire, if you ask me."
[Google confirms that this is a novel thing to say! Google proper brings up no hits for "no better than a satire," and even Google Books shows only three results, all of which are false positives along the lines of "[something--NOT someone--was] no better than a satire [[upon/of something]]." And I'm not exactly sure what the sergeant means by it. Ventry is a notorious womanizer, so the implication may be that his real-life behavior corresponds to the popular idea of the "low morals" on display in satirical plays. But I would like to think that the sergeant merely means that Ventry is so flagrant in his behavior that he's practically a parody of his type--and, I note, this interpretation might be supported by the template of those false positives above, if the unuttered remainder of the sergeant's thought is something like "of himself." Oh, but I didn't mean to neglect another interpretation--the first one that crossed my mind, in fact--in which the implication is that satirical plays are of low quality (artistically, not "morally"), and Ventry is as shoddy as a person as a satire is as a play.]
***
"When I was a boy," observed the Chief Constable, "I was given a damned dull book to read.... It was /Madam How and Lady Why/."
[Yes, it's real! http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1697/1697-h/1697-h.htm]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Bridges, by Clare Beecher Kummer:
***
PENFIELD: Did anyone ever do "both"? Doesn't everybody know that doing "both" is responsible for all the failures in the world?
***
PENFIELD: I shall start in on the noisiest sunset I can think of.
***
PENFIELD: But you wouldn't have people stop--writing altogether, would you?
ENID: No--they have to, of course. And it isn't so annoying anyway--books don't stare at you like pictures.
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom, by Erle Stanley Gardner:
***
[Perry Mason Goes Surrealist]
"Now, if you can tell me why a woman should go tearing madly down the highway to fill up her tank with gasoline at Oceanside, then drive off the road and commit suicide, I'll give you a furlined fountain pen."
[He subsequently indicates that "the second prize consist[s] of a twenty-one jewel watch which runs backwards.]
***
[From Knock, Murderer, Knock! by Harriet Rutland:]
***
He secretly felt that knick-knacks and what-nots made a more fitting background for Hydro chit-chat.
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unearths some literary gems.
***
[George] made his will in favour of a second cousin whom he had never seen, but who had a reputation for oddity, principally because he wore a two-foot beard and wrote savage but incomprehensible poems. George liked the sound of him.
***
His hands pouring out tea were soft and smooth, and they were continually lifting a little at the wrists as if to step back and admire their work.
***
"He writes articles about the decline of art, literature and the drama in Ireland, and sighs for the good old days before he was born. So, I imagine, do the editors whom he pesters with this stuff."
***
[This is an amusingly mixed metaphor, imo: the concept of the "best" school turning out the epitome of a gentleman mashed up with the concept of Timbuktu as the epitome of remoteness.]
"Not if he went to school in Timbuctoo, nothing would make a gentleman of him."
***
[Deputy Ghost dept.: A senile woman believes that the friendly ghost of the old squire visits her, and to gain her confidence a police inspector has been given the job of telling her that he is the ghost. But he doesn't want to be a ghost.]
"It will be interesting to be a ghost," said Daly mischievously. "I'd rather like the job myself."
"Do you think she'll allow me to transfer it to you?" asked Mike hopefully.
"Not a chance," said the old man, shaking his head. "She knows me too well."
[A little later]
Mike... was already planning to make [police officer] Colm MacDonagh his deputy ghost.
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Robbery by Clare Beecher Kummer:
***
BOB: I'll stay till the butler gets dressed. I'm sure he's not dead. They always live to be awfully old.
[And this, if I recall correctly, was from Mrs. Bumstead-Leigh by Harry James Smith]:
NINA (Standing away with a shriek of laughter)
Oh, Mr. Anthony! Aren't you an article!
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Black Shrouds, by Constance and Gwenyth Little:
[Another "screwball mystery" from the Little sisters.]
***
Grace and Mary did not mind and said so with such enthusiasm that Papa had to put a series of sneering remarks back onto the stove and let them simmer.
***
[Bonus: The book features a pair of sisters named Imogene and Opal Rostrum.]
***
[From Dragon's Cave, by Clyde B. Clason:]
***
This from Phelan, who was standing beside the living-room door, hitherto as silent as a bust of Socrates.
[I like the specificity of that; and it's fun to misread an implication that a bust of Socrates would be particularly silent, as far as busts go. For a modern-day book, I would suggest "a bust of Marcel Marceau" to really put it over the top.]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Death of a Fellow Traveller, by Delano Ames:
***
He made a half-hearted attempt to tell me about St. Neot, a very small man who was unable to reach as high as the keyhole of the Glastonbury Abbey door. The keyhole therefore slid down until it was within St. Neot's reach.
"It would seem simpler in a way," he said, "had St. Neot stood on something. But no--the obvious solution of the problem was for the keyhole to descend. The man who made up that story had the kind of mentality we need in the present case."
I refrained from pointing out that in that event he, Dagobert, was just the man required.
***
I suppose the opposite of having an ace up your sleeve is having a deuce up your sleeve.
***
"Don't you remember?" he said, "I wasn't going to have any more hunches."
"Have one anyway," I urged.
***
"But you made that up for my benefit, didn't you?" I said breathlessly.
"No, someone really did inquire about Gwink," he said. "I often tell the truth; you want to be on your guard against it."
***
He was one of those terrifying players who know all about arithmetic and mutter before they throw: "treble fifteen, eighteen and double top." This kind of thing impresses me even when the darts go somewhere else.
***
I found a pile of old magazines which kept me busy for the next hour or so. I was absorbed in a scheme for making a "dramatic" handbag out of an old felt hat (or possibly it was the other way round)....
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unearths some literary gems.
From Death of Anton, by Alan Melville:
***
Dodo the clown... is lying on top of his bed and turning over the pages of his Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Not reading, merely turning the pages.... [He] has been looking for a suitable place to begin reading the book ever since he bought it, but up to now has failed to find one.
***
Brother Robert had a perplexing habit of beginning a letter as though he were resuming a conversation which had been interrupted for a moment. He started in the middle, and ended in the same place.
***
"A novelist?"
"I've been talking to you for five minutes, and I haven't yet mentioned one of my masterpieces. Therefore I cannot be a novelist. Try again."
***
"You know that on Monday night the only people who matter are the newspaper critics, and so you play to their level."
"Up to it?" said Mr. Minto.
"Down to it."
***
At a certain chord from the band (or, more likely, at an uncertain chord, for the new trombone player had not yet accustomed himself to fitting in his blowing with the rapid succession of acts in the ring below him)....
***
The bangers arrived, heaped high on two enormous ashets. Claire had not believed there were so many sausages in captivitiy, and said so. Mr. Carey made a bad joke about missing links, and laughed for a long time at it.
***
No one should ever attempt to build a dam, however small, in a pale grey suit with a chalk stripe. Mr. Minto used, apart from bad language, mud and bricks and stones and divots.
***
[Double What-Not dept.]
At a rough guess, two hundred and fifty china ornaments were busily gathering dust on a number of shelves, cupboards, mantelpieces, whatnots, and what not around the room.
***
[Reminiscent of Anthropomorphized Weighing Machines in a Sitting Room dept.?]
There was a great deal of furniture, mainly upholstered in green plush, as well as a bird-cage (empty) which stood in the middle of the room, like a policeman directing traffic on point duty.
***
"The man thinks of nothing but his blooming vacuums. I hope he doesn't dream about them. It would be very awkward if he started giving me demonstrations in bed."
[I'm pretty sure this 1936 novel isn't intentionally referencing special "massage" attachments...]
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, by Gilbert Adair:
***
Even the grandfather clock stopped ticking--or else tick-tocked on tiptoe.
***
It was the sort of sound that, in their stage directions, playwrights tend to convey as "ahem" and you could actually hear the two syllables "a" and "hem" in Chitty's cough.
***
"It was she who solved the identical-twin fratricide in Faber or Faber, am I right?"
[N.B. The real-life book, The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, is published by Faber & Faber. And, for good measure, the owner of the country house is named ffolkes, echoing the lowercase double-f of the F&F logo.]
***
"He said 'Dahling!' all the time, to all of us indiscriminately.... I chanced to catch him brushing away a fly that had settled on the rim of his cocktail glass and I actually heard him say, 'Buzz off, dahling!'"
***
"When he burbled on incessantly about the finest this and the greatest that, you felt you were being sprayed by the spittle of exclamation marks."
***
"To say that he drawled isn't the half of it. His whole body drawled."
***
"Gentry... opined that The Green Hat was 'remembered only for having been forgotten.'"
***
"Certainly," she answered, a tiny smoke-ring drifting over her head like a halo in search of a saint.
***
[Literary Whatstheirnames dept.]
"He was a beast... with his T.S. this and his D.H. that...."
***
"Molnar--the Hungarian playwright, you know, entrancing man, as witty as a barrel of monkeys."
***
"Clem... is someone utterly incapable of losing his temper. Indeed, according to Cynthia, he's so absent-minded his temper is just about the only thing he never does manage to lose."
***
Evelyn Mount, meanwhile, was wearing... shoes so sensible, as they say, you felt like consulting them on whether you should cash in your shares in Amalgamated Copper.
***
"Cora has had no fewer than three husbands. It is three, isn't it, Cora darling?"
"Four, darling, if you count the Count."
"I never count the Count."
***
"One was The Vamp of the Pampas. Ooh, was that hot stuff!"
"Language, Addie, language! This isn't Paris, you know."
***
"It was called No Murder in the Title...."
***
Dolly stuck her forefinger in the dead centre of her brow as though to indicate, for everyone's benefit, the exact location of her hunch.
***
He even, nobody quite knew how, contrived to slam doors open.
***
"Cora could tell her stories to the back of the Clapham omnibus and never know the difference."
***
["Fictitious novel titles that postcurse JC-E titles" dept.]
The Proof of the Pudding
***
It was almost as though she had spoken in italics, almost as though they could feel the hairs stand up on the napes of their necks, almost as though those hairs, too, were in italics.
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unearths some literary gems.
From All Roads to Sospel, by George Bellairs:
[At first I wrote I mistakenly wrote "Sospol." In other words, I mis-spel-led it!]
***
Both of them eagerly said they did, the small man vociferously; the large one by vigorously shaking head up and down as though trying to cast it from him.
***
'He's known locally as "Andy Know-all," not because of his education, but because he terminates almost every sentence with "you know."' [Technically, wouldn't that make everyone else the "know-alls"?]
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