From Mr. Pinkerton Has the Clue, by David Frome:

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Mr. Pinkerton...settled his brown bowler on his head with a sort of tentative firmness.

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"He's so awfully smooth. Like cold cream after the jar's been near the fire."

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An expression heard in the cinema popped into Mr. Pinkerton's head, but he could not allow himself to use it, not having quite made out just what a sour puss was.

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Many of the things that Major Peyton had called the Chief Constable Mr. Pinkerton had never even heard of.

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The green buses to Wells, Devises and Frome were lined up against the kerb.

[As you may know, there really is a placed called Frome in England--I looked it up--but I still think we can assume that the author made a point of sneaking in her pen surname.]

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He had a head the shape and colour and texture of a large white cheese, punctuated, of course, with eyes, a nose and a smile.

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He held up a small, rather surprised looking toupée. [See attached.]

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If he were somebody in a story....she would just be getting off a bus in Duncannon Street, or coming out of the National Gallery, or be waiting for the green light with "Cross" written on it to show, or she would pop out of the mouth of one of the lions.

[For those keeping score, this is at least the third whimsical reference to the Trafalgar Square lions in the Pinkerton oeuvre. (But they don't appear in every book, so it's not quite a "Hitchcock cameo" thing.)]

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Mr. Pinkerton shook his head gently. This was completely out of his field. He had never been quite sure of just what his field was, but surely this was not it.

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"Made pots of money taking alcohol out of beer or caffeine out of coffee--something out of something--and they can take the fun out of a party the same way."

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"I told him...that I'd not be caught dead drinking water of any sort--hot, cold, mineral or...or animal." [Note: That last ellipsis is part of the text, not my own.]

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[Who Needs Context? dept.]

She was at the very heart of the wig and mustache business.

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[Bonus/Spoiler]toupee copy

I recently mentioned the second-hand information that Picadilly Jim involves the protagonist impersonating himself. Well, it turns out in this Mr. P. novel that someone has impersonated himself--doing it just unconvincingly enough so as to make people decide someone *else* was impersonating him, and thus diverting suspicion. And I realize I've encountered this clever device in some other mystery novel as well.