Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ Yon expose your imagination to 'third degree' torture of your own invention, and in two days more you will be able to add full details of the crime."
"I knew you would think me crazy," he put in, a little less somberly, "but just try it once: sit in a room by yourself all day and all night, with detectives watching you; sit there and puzzle over a murder of a man you are suspected of killing; you know you felt like killing him, and you have a revolver, and he is shot. ”

“ Wouldn't you begin to think as I do?"
"Wardrop," I asked, trying to fix his wavering eyes with mine, "do you own a thirty-two caliber revolver?"
"Yes."
I was startled beyond any necessity, under the circumstances. Many people have thirty-twos.
"That is, I had," he corrected himself. "It was in the leather bag that was stolen at Bellwood."
"I can relieve your mind of one thing," I said. "If your revolver was stolen with the leather bag, you had nothing to do with the murder. Fleming was shot with a thirty-two." ”

“ He had got up and taken his hat, but I stopped him inside the door.
"You can help this thing in two ways," I told him. "I am going to give you something to do: you will have less time to be morbid. Find out, if you can, all about Fleming's private life in the last dozen years, especially the last three. See if there are any women mixed up in it, and try to find out something about this eleven twenty-two." ”