The Piccadilly Puzzle by Fergus Hume

Mr. Dowker was a long lean man of a drab colour. His hair was thin, of a neutral tint, his eyes a watery blue, and his somewhat large mouth drawn down at the corners betokened a lachrymose nature. He wore greyish clothes always a little threadbare, and large thick-soled boots chosen rather for utility than beauty. His head-gear consisted of a sad-coloured soft hat pulled well over his eyes, from under which his scanty hair hung in a depressing manner. In fact he had a somewhat sketchy appearance, as if he had been outlined and waited to be filled up with colour, but this stage of development which would have turned him into a thing of beauty, was never arrived at, and his general appearance was dismal in the extreme. He wore a beard, that is several tufts of straggly hair were planted in patches over his face but did not seem to flourish. He never smiled and frequently sighed, so that his manners as well as his appearance were not calculated to inculcate cheerful thoughts.

But notwithstanding this unprepossessing exterior, there was no cleverer man in London, and the most dexterous criminal would rather have had any other detective after him than this apparently unpromising thief-catcher. The outward resemblance of a man is not invariably the index of his mind, and the Puritan physiognomy of Mr. Dowker was a very serviceable mask to the acuteness and brilliancy of his intellect. Consequently, when the Piccadilly Puzzle case promised to be such a difficult one to unravel, it was placed in the hands of Mr. Dowker and the whole affair left entirely to him. Dowker was pleased at this tribute to his cleverness, and sighed in an approving manner as he rapidly reviewed all the evidence which had come under the eyes of the police.