The Technique of the Mystery Story

[The detective of modern fiction is a combination of the stock principles already noticed with such further and varying characteristics as the author may invent. In so far as the personal traits of the detective can differ from Sherlock Holmes, the author is so far less liable to the charge of plagiarism.]

A good example of how one of the later writers has invested his detective with fresh qualities may be noted in this extract from "Midnight at Mears House, " by Harrison J. Holt: At the time of his coming to Mears House, Garth looked very much as he does to-day--a short, slight man of about my own age, well-built and energetic, but of a nervous rather than a muscular type of energy. He has grown a trifle stouter since, to be sure, but otherwise I can see little change in him. He was as bald then as he is now, and had the same trick of carrying his head a little to one side, as though the weight of it were too much for his neck to support. I have never seen a head more beautifully shaped than his, with a wide, high forehead, dark eyes far apart and rather prominent--it was hard to believe them blind--the nose and chin of an old Roman Emperor, and a somewhat small but finely modelled mouth.