Pilot in "Catch-22"

Usage examples of appleby.

PROFILE: Sir John Appleby is undoubtedly the most erudite detective in mystery fiction.

Even when hard pressed, Appleby still comes up with an apt literary quotation to fit the moment-and there is no one better at spotting obscure literary allusions in which may lie the solution to a crime.

A lover of detective fiction from his childhood, he produced his first Appleby story, `Death at the President's Lodging', in 1936 by spending two hours each morning before his day's lectures writing the tale of a murder mystery among the senior dons at a fictional English college.

Even in retirement, Appleby and crime proved inseparable, as `The Memorial Service', written in 1975, demonstrates.

Sir John Appleby (our acute observer) was representing his successor as Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.

Brockbank had been unmarried, and now the front pew reserved for relations was occupied only by two elderly women, habited in old-fashioned and no doubt frequently exhibited mourning, whom somebody had identified for Appleby in a whisper as cousins of the dead man.

In some corner of the globe, Appleby vaguely understood, there was a brother, Adrian Brockbank, who had also distinguished himself-it seemed as a lone yachtsman.

He paused only once, and that was beside the uniformed Appleby, upon whom he directed a keen but momentary glance, before politely handing him his service sheet.

He was gesturing at Appleby in a positively threatening way which Appleby perfectly understood.

If Appleby bolted from this untoward and unseemly incident instead of reacting to it in some policeman-like fashion he would pretty well be treated as in contempt of court.

It was on the strength of no more than this amount of common knowledge, together with only a modicum of private inquiry, that Appleby eventually called upon a bank manager in the City.

He had very clear views, Appleby conjectured, on what information was confidential and what was not.

Retired Police Commissioners don't go fossicking in France, and through the courtesy of his successor Appleby received reports in due season.

All this, Appleby told himself, didn't remain exactly obscure once you took a straight look at it.

The deception you carried out upon the occasion of that disaster-` `My dear Appleby, what can you be thinking of?