Carolyn Wells

“ As they had now all voiced their theories, President Holmes rose to give them the inestimable benefit of his own views.
" 'Marvelous! Holmes, marvelous!' said Watson" "Your ideas are not without some merit," he conceded, "but you have overlooked the eternal-feminine element in the problem. As soon as I tell you the real solution, you will each wonder why it escaped your notice. The lady thought she heard a mouse, so she scrambled out of the window, preferring to risk her life on the perilous clothes-line rather than stay in the dwelling where the mouse was also. It is all very simple. ”

“ He was much saturniner than usual, and the others at once deduced there was something toward.
"And it 's this," said Holmes, perceiving that they had perceived it. "A reward is offered for the solution of a great mystery—so great, my colleagues, that I fear none of you will be able to solve it, or even to help me in the marvelous work I shall do when ferreting it out."
"Humph!" grunted the Thinking-Machine, riveting his steel-blue eyes upon the speaker.
"He voices all our sentiments," said Raffles, with his winning smile. "Fire away. Holmes. What's the prob?" ”

“ Arsène Lupin spoke next.
"It's too easy," he said boredly; "she was a typist or stenographer who had been annoyed by attentions from her employer, and was trying to escape from the brute."
"Again I call your attention to her costume," said Holmes, with a look of intolerance on his finely cold-chiseled face.
"That 's all right," returned Lupin, easily. "Those girls dress every old way! I 've seen 'em. They don't think anything of evening clothes at their work."
"Humph!" said the Thinking-Machine, and the others all agreed with him.
"Next," said Holmes, sternly. ”