From Hopjoy Was Here, by Colin Watson:
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"You'll have noticed how damnably rhetorical these anonymous letter writers always are?"
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The cat presented its rear, its tail momentarily a quivering exclamation mark, and disappeared into the farther garden.
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Purbright examined the picture. It showed upwards of thirty members of the Flaxborough Amateur Operatic Society transfixed in self-conscious attitudes of Ruritanian abandon. There was a wealth of false mustachios, arms akimbo, flourished steins, peasant blouses... and feet on chairs.
[...]
Disguised as a prince disguised as a student, forty-eight-year-old Jack Bottomley, bachelor proprietor of the Freemasons' Arms, accompanied his singing with a stiff, resolute gesture; he looked like a learner driver about to turn left.
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Neither looked remotely expectant of enjoyment. It was natural for the few people they passed on the way back to the hotel to assume, if they noticed them at all, that they were holiday-makers.
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Purbright carried Warlock's report to the Chief Constable not in confidence that Mr. Chubb possessed a superiority of intellect consonant with his rank but rather as a man with a problem will seek out some simple natural scene, the contemplation of which seems to set free part of his mind to delve more effectually towards a solution.
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"Harton's about as obliging as an empty stamp machine."
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"I need hardly tell you that we are not seeking this information out of idle curiosity."
Mr. Tewkes raised his brow. What better motive, he seemed to ask, could there possibly be?
***
