Miss Pinkerton Author:Mary Roberts Rinehart Hilda Adams, AKA Miss Pinkerton, was one of the earliest nurse detectives. The creation of Mary Roberts Rinehart--who had studied to be a nurse in 1893--Hilda is a no-nonsense, attractive, thirty-something nurse: "Although I played a double game, no patient of mine had suffered. I was a nurse first and a police agent second" ("Locked Doors"). Sh... more »e begins working for the police at the behest of a hospitalized detective, George L. Patton, who is impressed by her clearheadedness and common sense. He asks, "Has it ever occurred to you that every crisis, practically, among the better classes finds a trained nurse on hand? ... The nurse gets it all--the intimate details that the police miss; the family disputes; the inner motives ..." ("The Buckled Bag"). Hilda agrees to go out on cases for the police and report on the secrets she learns.