Bernard Capes

“ There was a shout of laughter, in which the Baron joined.
'Bravo, Audrey!' cried her brother. 'What about your average inventive intelligence, Baron?'
'I said, specifically, a man's,' pleaded Le Sage. 'Women, fortunately for us, are not eligible for the detective force.'
Audrey laughed at the compliment, but I think she liked the Baron for his pleasant good-nature. ”

“ My idea, now, of a successful crime is not a crime which baffles its investigators, but a crime which does not appear as a crime at all.'
'Instance, M. le Baron,' I ventured to put in.
'Why,' said Le Sage good-humouredly, 'a dozen may well present themselves to a man of average inventive intelligence. Direct murder, for example—how crude! when a hundred means offer themselves for procuring plausible ends to life. ”

“ Yet she was a really pretty girl, a tall stalk of maidenhood, nineteen, and athletically modern in the taking sense, and had no reason but to value herself and her attractions at the plain truth they represented. The trouble was that she was underestimated, and I think proudly conscious of the fact. With a father like Sir Calvin, it was, and must be, Hugo first and the rest nowhere. He bullied every one, but there was no under-suggestion of jealous proprietorship in his bullying of Audrey as there was in his adoring bullying of his son. ”