Quote of the Day

I've often wondered since what the Rinigen guests in all their gorgeous clothes thought of the procession which now trooped down the stairs. However smart we were when we started the evening, we had been through a lot since then, and we were by no means smart by this time - we weren't even clean. Meieli's eyes widened when she looked up and saw us; but nobody moved. In a deep hush we walked across to Frau Rinigen, and Clarissa held out the bundle of crumpled velvet...

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 9, The End of the Adventure.

Quote of the Day

"We're almost there," said Thomas, self-appointed navigator. "Go straight ahead now and we should just about hit the landing-stage."

"We usually do," muttered Clarissa, who was rowing.

"Tish was busily rehearsing the password in a quiet voice, "Rosen-rot, Rosen-rot-"

"Don't talk so loud," I said. "Remember how voices carry across the water. We don't want the Tall Man to hear us-"

"You need not wor-r-ry," said Meieli's acid voice from the darkness beside us. "He has heard you. The Tall Man has just gone."

From The Tall Man, Chapter 4, Rendezvous with a Robber.

Quote of the Day

Thomas and I had cameras, really decent jobs, thirty-five millimetre, with light filters, telescopic lenses and so on, which I am sure you will agree was much more exciting than pendants, although perhaps not for girls. The first photo I took - by special permission - was of the Red Roses of Rinigen, but unfortunately it didn't come out.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 9, The End of the Adventure.

The Tall Man

This is the frontispiece of the last of the Thomas books, The Tall Man, published in 1960 by Nelson.

The Tall Man

Quote of the Day

And that was the end of the adventure; next day we met Aunt Maddy and Uncle James - looking rather pale - at Interlaken and from then on, our holiday ran on more usual lines. But very nice lines - trips on the lake, excursions up the mountains, cream-cakes and 'caffy-glassys' in Interlaken.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 9, The End of the Adventure.

Willow Green Mystery

A "cleaned up" scan of the frontispiece of Willow Green Mystery, the only one of the three Thomas books set entirely in England.

Quote of the Day

COME and keep us company, wrote Aunt Madeleine. Your Uncle James and I are going to Switzerland for a few weeks. Please come. Meet us at Zurich on the 29th of July and we shall all go on to Böningberg.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 1, Lost - An Uncle and Aunt.

Quote of the Day

This time he really did laugh - at our faces, I suppose. "Och, that wasn't difficult," he said. "Young Thomas was going round all the folks in the hotel this morning asking for the loan of their Kurkartes. He looked quite thrilled when I said that I had lit my pipe with mine."

Tish and I glanced at each other quickly... But of course that was a joke. We weren't likely to be so silly again - it was quite impossible to believe that Dr. Maclaren was a crook.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 7, We Make Our Reports.

Quote of the Day

So we rolled back to the Chalet du Lac in style and thanked Dr. Maclaren again and dashed upstairs to look for the others. Thomas was in bed.

"What's the matter with Thomas?" I asked. Usually Thomas has to be dragged to bed by the ear if there's anything exciting going on.

Clarissa grinned. "Thomas has had a tiring day," she said. "But he wouldn't tell me about it till you came."

"Some people," said Thomas, "go about in taxis doing their detecting. But others have to walk--"

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 7, We Make Our Reports.

The Tall Man (blurb)

The blurb for The Tall Man, the last of the Thomas series. published in 1960 by Nelson.

Quote of the Day

"And you think that the man is in our hotel?" said Dr. Maclaren. "You surprise me. They all look a decent respectable lot to me. Well, come on, we'd better be getting back ourselves or nobody will think that we're decent and respectable. And I don't imagine that there will be a boat or even a train at this time of night, so we'd better have a taxi..."

So we rolled back to the Chalet du Lac in style and thanked Dr. Maclaren again and dashed upstairs to look for the others. Thomas was in bed.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 7, We Make Our Reports.

Quote of the Day

It was a wonderful night, calm and still, without a ripple on the lake, and the sky was fulll of stars. A platform had been built in the main street beside the lake, and a lot of important but rather dull-looking men were making speeches - also dull, although I suppose to be fair that they might have been more interesting if we could have understood them. We liked the children better, as they marched along the street, in their tracht, as the national costume is called, each one carrying a lighted lantern; and we liked the band much better - imagine our delight at the end of the speeches when the band suddenly burst into God Save the Queen! We were thrilled, and Thomas thought it was in our honour - and it was not until ages later that we learnt that it wasn't God Save the Queen at all, but the Swiss national Anthem which has the very same tune.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 8, The First of August.