Well-oiled Hinges

One of my favorite mystery tropes is the "well-oiled hinge", and it's close relative, the "well-oiled lock" which appear regularly in golden age detective stories. It always brings to mind the well-prepared burglar who always carries a little tin of oil with him to oil all the hinges he may encounter that lie between him and the booty. I have gathered a collection of well-oiled hinges and locks here.

Well-oiled hinges

The Big Shot by Frank L. Packard, 1929.

"Where were you when you saw these [jewels]?" Burger asked.
"I had started to go into her bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. The hinges had been well oiled. She didn't hear me."

The Case of the Glamorous Ghost by Erle Stanley Gardner, 1955.

There was not a breath, not a rustle, not even the almost undetectable whisper of a well-oiled hinge.

Flowers for the Judge by Margery Allingham, 1936.

Tiger Claws by Frank L. Packard, 1928.

The doors were hinged to this wooden wall, and were opened and closed, and locked, quite independently of the columns. Owing to perfectly adjusted ball bearings, and a thoroughly oiled condition, the mechanism worked easily and soundlessly.

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“What first turned your attention to the Room with the Tassels, Ziz? Why did you move into that room to sleep?” “Because the lock was oiled,” Zizi replied, her black eyes glistening. “The first time I got a chance I looked at all the locks in the house, and only two were freshly oiled."

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“You see, Penny,” Zizi summed up, “a criminal always slips up on some minor count. If the Tracy person hadn’t oiled his door and the door of that haunted room so carefully, or if he’d had the wit to oil some other doors too, we might have, overlooked him as a possible suspect, eh?”

The Room With the Tassels by Carolyn Wells, 1918.

Turmoil at Brede by Seldon Truss, 1931.

"This door's been opened quite recently, Miss Bunner. The lock's been oiled and the hinges."

Inspector Craddock, in A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie. Contributed by Bev Hankins.

The oil flows freely in The Adventures of Jimmie Dale by Frank Packard (1917):

Hospitals were quieter places in the 1930's. We musn't have any distracting noises to disturb the patients. Thus, the doors at Dutch Memorial Hospital in Ellery Queen's 1931 The Dutch Shoe Mystery are heavily oiled.  

Sometime in the evening she unbolted the door leading into Madamoiselle Cynthia's room. Possibly she applied oil to the hinges, for I found that it opened quite noiselessly when I tried it.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, 1920

 Hinges That Do Not Squeak appear in Edgar Wallace's 1933 Sergeant Sir Peter, a collection of vignettes of a title detective, which includes the hilarious The Death Watch. 

A mysterious corpse awaits Dr. Abbershaw behind these well-greased hinges in  The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham (Albert Campion #1), 1929.

Well-oiled locks

The Wire Devils by Frank L. Packard, 1918.

"This door's been opened quite recently, Miss Bunner. The lock's been oiled and the hinges."

Inspector Craddock, in A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie. Contributed by Bev Hankins.

Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding, 1931, is awash in olive oil in various locks:

Luke went very carefully along the wall as though he were looking for defects. There was a stout wooden wall door immediately behind the centre of the house. The turf below was scraped and torn. He saw signs of oil on the lock. 

The Green Ribbon by Edgar Wallace, 1930.

Confidently H.M. (Sir Henry Merrivale) took the large key from his pocket, and slid it into the lock of the age-crusted bronze door. Not only did the new key fit, but the lock was oiled. 

A Graveyard to Let by Carter Dickson, 1949