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Page, Godfrey. Godfrey Page was created by Victor L. Whitechurch (Thorpe Hazell, Ivan Koravitch) and appeared in six stories in Pearson's Magazine (U.K.) in 1903 and 1904, possibly beginning with “The Murder on the Okehampton Line” (Pearson’s Magazine (U.K.), Dec. 1903). Godfrey Page is the first railway detective in mystery literature.

Godfrey Page is a "railwayac," or "railway maniac" (Whitechurch uses the word “maniac” in its older sense, meaning “excited” or “in a frenzy”). Page is an architect by trade, but he makes a practice of investigating railway-connected mysteries. He says of himself, "I ought to tell you at once that I don't profess to be a detective--or even a private inquiry agent. I have merely sometimes, out of pure curiosity, attempted to fathom certain mysteries connected with the line." The cases he takes involve Russian spies, theft, whisky bootlegging, jewel theft, and cryptograms. His brother-in-law Tom acts as his confidant and rather passive Watson.

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