Detective and mystery stories, English; Police -- Fiction; Short stories
Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do not
undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here mentioned.
Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a
middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye,
a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of
a corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his
eyes or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman--in
appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained
school-master, from the Normal Establishment at Glasgow. Inspector Wield
one might have known, perhaps, for what he is--Inspector Stalker, never.
The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker observe
that they have brought some sergeants with them. The sergeants are
presented--five in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant
Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw. We have the whole Detective
Force from Scotland Yard with one exception. They sit down in a
semicircle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance
from the round table, facing the editorial sofa. Every man of them, in a
glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate
sketch of the editorial presence. The Editor feels that any gentleman in
company could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest
hesitation, twenty years hence.
The whole party are in plain clothes. Sergeant Dornton, about fifty
years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, has the
air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army--he might have sat to
Wilkie for the Soldier in the Reading of the Will. He is famous for
steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings,
working on from clue to clue until he bags his man. Sergeant Witchem,
shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small-pox, has something of
a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep
arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaintance with the
swell mob. Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright
complexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers.
Sergeant Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a
prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature.
Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanor and strong sense, would
knock at a door and ask a series of questions in any mild character you
chose to prescribe to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as
innocent as an infant. They are, one and all, respectable-looking men;
of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing
lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation,
and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their
faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong
mental excitement. They have all good eyes; and they all can, and they
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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