# The Lazy Detective — Character guide

> Key figures in The Lazy Detective by George Dilnot.

- [Larry Hughes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/larry_hughes.md): To the world Larry Hughes is a cultivated gentleman of leisure, impeccable enough that any officer who dared haul him to a cell would face a ruinous suit for damages. To Labar and police circles worldwide, he is the auda
- [Harry Labar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/harry_labar.md): Labar works the Stebbins shooting and the Streetly House robbery with patient, unglamorous craft — cordoning houses, searching a drunk gunman with his own hands, deferring questions until he's had eight hours' sleep. He 
- [Penelope Noelson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/penelope_noelson.md): Penelope has been spirited into Larry's country retreat, where she and the newly arrived Adèle Gertstein are told they are allies in a common cause — their own safety. Her curiosity is all aflame as she weighs whether Ad
- [Adèle Gertstein](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/adele_gertstein.md): Adèle reclines on the terrace of Maid's Retreat doing the thinking she hates, because a blackmailer wants five thousand pounds within the week or he goes to her husband Solly. She writes to Larry begging the money 'for t
- [Solly Gertstein](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/solly_gertstein.md): Solly calls Maid's Retreat twice a day to wail about the Streetly House robbery and frets over Penelope's disappearance, fond and anxious and entirely unaware of what his wife is hiding. Labar and Superintendent Marlow r
- [Moreland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/moreland.md): Moreland punctures Labar's theorising with the hard question — what if the crook has men, money, and brains too, and can foresee every move? He warns Labar that the abduction charge may collapse if the lady says she went
- [Sophie Lengholm](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/sophie_lengholm.md): Sophie Lengholm belongs to the shadowy earlier history of the Gertstein affair, a figure Labar must look up before he can even place her. Bred to an ingrained distrust and contempt of all police officers, she parries his
- [Gold Dust Teddy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/gold_dust_teddy.md): Gold Dust Teddy is a sobered-up rogue who accepts arrest with the philosophy of a man who knows the police are merely doing a job, though he bristles at being roughed up without cause. Puffy-eyed and hard-faced yet oddly
- [Stebbins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/stebbins.md): Stebbins is a minor thief nearly forgotten by the police, lacking the imagination or skill of more successful rogues, who washes windows at a restaurant until Billy Bungey stumbles across him at a race meeting. Flattered
- [Malone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/malone.md): Malone works the case alongside Labar, and his fruitless trip to Goodwood with the bank cashier costs the inspector an expected identification of Mrs. Gertstein. Steady rather than brilliant, he is the man Labar trusts t
- [Tom](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/tom.md): A valet who serves in the household.
- [Bill Bungey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/bill_bungey.md): A minor character with a distinct name.
- [Winter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/winter.md): A character who speaks dryly, possibly a witness.
- [Marlow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/marlow.md): A minor character mentioned in the narrative.
- [John](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters/john.md): A minor character referenced briefly.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lazy_detective_se/characters