Fop meaning had been blunted by this time. In the 1900s (decade), fictional heroes began to pose as fops to conceal their true activities. Sir Percy Blakeney of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is a well-known example of this tendency; Sir Percy cultivates the image of being an overdressed and ineffectual social butterfly, the last person anyone would imagine being capable of dashing heroism. A similar image is cultivated by Zorro's public identity, Don Diego de la Vega. This continued with the pulp fiction and radio heroes of the 1920s and 1930s and expanded with the coming of comic books. The fashion and
Sir Henry Merrivale Sir Henry Merrivale Sir Henry Merrivale is a fictional detective created by "Carter Dickson", a pen name of John Dickson Carr (1906–1977). Also known as "the Old Man," by his initials "H. M." (a pun on "His Majesty"), or "the Maestro", he appeared in twenty-two locked room mysteries and "impossible crime" novels of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, as well as in two short stories. He began as a fairly serious character but became more and more comical, at times even grotesque, as the series went on. When first introduced as a character, he was already an older man nearing