There was Sherlock Holmes. There was Hercule Poirot. There was Lord Peter Wimsey. They all lived across the pond. I've read the former and the latter, though not the middle, and I've enjoyed them both, and you're welcome to discuss them all, but my post is about the American detective story - the literary version of the film noir.

Actually, my post is going to be about three authors and their most famous characters, because that's what I feel like writing about right now.
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3weasel : Wimsey vs. Wooster cage match!

Which wouldn't really be fair, unless Jeeves cheated (which he would), so Wimsey vs. Psmith would also be acceptable. Doesn't have the alliteration, though.

oh, what IS that trope
"old age and experience vs. youth and [something]"
although of course in a wimsey/psmith match it's age & experience vs. youth & just kind of hoping he can cry off because they go to the same club or something and why are we in this cage in the first place comrade this is all rather pointless don't you think
and wimsey vs wooster jeeves would get in on it somehow and bunter would find out and then jeeves & bunter would be fighting and then lord peter has a flashback and ends up curled up in a ball crying about the jerries
bertie in his irrepressible naiveté says something perfectly innocent that comes off as being About The War and that combined with the stress of the situation just makes poor lord peter drop his gentleman-scout's vademecum and wail about shells

Sherlock Holmes is a fucking asshole, dude.

The idea is to create a crossover 'verse for all the 1920s/1930s literature I can possibly squeeze in there.

Going by the latest publication date for Psmith and the earliest for the Saint, the two characters are the same age.  If you allow for a few years to go by, and assume that Wodehouse knew of what he spoke when he said Psmith ended up being a Perry Mason sort of defense attorney, the type who get their clients declared not guilty by convincing the jury that somebody else who isn't even on trial was the one who really dunnit, and moreover consider that he's not likely to care whether or not his client or the alternate target actually WAS the one who dunnit so long as he wins the argument, circumstances that would lead to Simon Templar and R. Psmith (The P Is Silent As In Pterodactyl and Psychic) making each others' acquaintance readily present themselves to the active and imaginative mind.

Also in the mix are Lord Peter Wimsey, whose detectivey instincts may also lead his path to intersect the Saint's, and Bertie Wooster, who wouldn't get mixed up in anything with anyone except that he's of the right social class and a member of at least one club in common with Psmith (who's never struck me as a good candidate for the Drones, really, but it's canon).

A throwaway remark by Roger Conway in "Saint Overboard" about having spent a dreary weekend holed up at a house party in Shropshire gives us an in - Psmith is from Shropshire, and the population of that county is small enough that it wouldn't be a big stretch to say he was at the party as well.

Cameos may occur from characters in Georgette Heyer's "Blunt Instrument," since I have a copy of it to use and it's also in the same milieu.

If I'm missing anything, suggest!