It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those outré and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.

I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.

I followed you.' I saw no one.' That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.

Anything is better than stagnation.

The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.