John Appleby was born in 1907 or 1908 (in Silence Observed he states that his age is fifty-three). He first appeared as a youthful Detective Inspector in Death at the President’s Lodging in 1936 and retired from Scotland Yard just after World War II. He then reappeared as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, now with a knighthood; and, despite a second retirement, continued to solve crimes well into the 1980s, 50 years after his fictional debut.
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