Quotes About Investigation

Scotland Yard! he cried.

You know,' he said. 'I rather liked Ferguson, and I couldn't stick Campbell at any price. I rather wish—' 'Can't be helped, Wimsey,' said the Chief Constable. 'Murder is murder, you know.' 'Not always,' said Wimsey.

Hitherto, said Lord Peter, as they picked their painful way through the little wood on the trail of Gent's No. 10's, I have always maintained that those obliging criminals who strew their tracks with little articles of personal adornment--here he is, on a squashed fungus--were an invention of detective fiction for the benefit of the author. I see that I have still something to learn about my job.

I say, I don't think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all-fours, or had eyes in one's knees, it would be a lot more practical.

Victim," said the Hon. Freddy, "victim. Me for the corpse in the library.

Riddlesdale Lodge at half-past four. Deceased

Bosh!' said Lord Peter.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Sherlock is my name and Holmes is my nature.

The first thing a principle does is to kill somebody. --Gaudy Night

My idea is that Miss Vane didn't do it, said Wimsey. I dare say that's an idea which has already occurred to you, but with the weight of my great mind behind it, no doubt is strikes the imagination more forcibly.

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth.

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.

No private detective looks like a private detective. That's one of the first rules of private detection. But if no private detective looks like a private detective, how does a private detective know what it is he's supposed not to look like? Seems to me there's a problem there.

DIDLING (participal vb.) The process of trying to work out who did it when reading a whodunnit, and trying to keep your options open so that when you find out you can allow yourself to think that you knew perfectly well who it was all along.

Do you think they came today?' he said. 'I do. There's mud on the floor, cigarettes and whisky on the table, fish on a plate for you and a memory of them in my mind. Hardly conclusive evidence I know, but then all evidence is circumstantial.

The daylight shouldered its way in like a squad of policemen and did a lot of what's-all-thising around the room

While dead men tell no tales, their corpses often speak volumes.

Given the two six-packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon you drank, I'd say that by midshift your blood alcohol concentration must have been around 0.2 percent, leaving you in no condition to notice any disturbance, much less investigate it.

An accident is only a puzzle piece that hasn't yet found its place in the picture. A good detective collects all 'accidents,' no matter how insignificant.

It is scientifically impossible for one offender to leave extensive DNA evidence and for others involved in the same assault to leave none.

I'm afraid so," said Pendergast. "The body, it appears, has been buttered and sugared.

But I also know this anomaly is something you won't let drop until you get to the bottom of it.

Lieutenant D'Agosta