John P. Marquand(1893-1960)

He attended Harvard, where he majored in chemistry, and worked on the Harvard Lampoon.

I was sent to China in 1934 by the Saturday Evening Post with instructions to do a series of stories with authentic Oriental background. Naturally, I did a great deal of poking around in Chinese cities and finally wandered to Japan. There I was constantly shadowed by a polite little Japanese detective. Suddenly, it dawned on me that he was just the protagonist I was looking for - and while my shadow did his duty very conscientiously' 'Mr. Motto', the shrewd, the polite, the efficient sleuth was born.