A C T A U N I V E R S I T A T I S L 0 D Z I E N S 1 S
FO LIA LITTER A R IA A N G LIC A 1, 1997
W itold Ostrowski
T IIE C O M P O S IT IO N O F T H E D ETECTIV E N O VELS O F ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Only tow ards the end o f the [nineteenth] century in the w orks o f A rthur C onan D oyle did E. A. Poe’s poetics o f the detective short-story and the poetics o f the detective novel meet and join. A. Conan Doyle was by n ature a short-story writer, which m ay be seen not only in the overwhelming num ber o f his short-stories a b o u t Sherlock H olm es but also in the three rath er aw kw ard attem pts at enlarging a short-story to the size o f a novel. His only completely artistically successful novel in The Hound o f the Baskervilles.
The purpose of this paper is to justify the quoted opinion expressed by m e in an article over ten years ago.1 My contention has been th at the detective novel is a special variety of the crime novel, but th a t though the detective novel and the detective short-story have, generally speaking, the same kind o f plot, historically their origins were separate and independent.2 The detective short-story was invented as a tale of ratiocination by E. A. Poe in the early 1840’s, at a time when the English crime novel already had a long tradition, but it did not produce its offshoot - the detective novel - until 1860s.3
1 T he quoted passage belongs to my paper “ Historical Sources o f the Poetics o f Crime N ovel and Detective Short-Story” published in Zagadnienia Rodzajow Literackich - Les
Problèmes des Genres-Littëraires vol. 25 (2), (Wroclaw—Łódź: Sociétés Scientiarum Lodziensis,
1982), p. 19.
2 This fact was stressed in 1936 by D orothy L. Sayers in her Introduction to Tales o f Detection published in an Everym an’s Paperback pp. VII and IX.
3 The Woman in White by William W. Collins was published in 1860, it inspired Lady
Audley's Secret by M ary E. B raddon, issued in 1861 and was accom panied by East Lynne
by M rs H enry W ood, printed in the same year. It ought to be remembered th at Collins w rote
The Moonstone in 1868, th a t Miss B raddon w rote 80 detective novels, th at M rs H. W ood
continued writing in this genre, and th at D ickens’s Black House (1852-1853) was an overture to the novels o f mystery and detection in th a t it introduced a professional detective officer and detection. Dickens was to close his literary career with The M ystery o f Edwin Drood in 1870.
A ST U D Y IN SC A R L E T
C onan D oyle’s detective fiction began in 1887 when he published his first novel A study in Scarlet. W hen we start reading the book we realize at once th at the traditional novelistic narrative is used in it. W e get to know the n arrato r, D r W atson, and his new acquaintance, M r Sherlock Holm es, both presented against a well-drawn background of Jin-de-sticle London.4 Also, the theme o f detection is unobtrousively introduced by “ the little m ystery that hung around my com panion” (p. 20),3 by the revelation o f his being “ a consulting detective” and by reference to other detectives - D upin and Lecoq.
In C hapter 3 a corpse in puzzling circumstances is discovered and Holm es is shown in action for the first time.
In C hapters 4, 5 and 6 investigation continues and a trap is set for the m urderer by m eans o f an advertisement about a ring to be called for, but the killer eludes capture.
C hap ter 6 adds to the evidence w hat the policem an G regson has discovered about the victim and his com panion and the news from the policeman Lestrade o f the com panion having been killed in a hotel room.
C hapter 7 goes back to tell us how the second victim was attacked. Then the detective experiments with the pills found near the dead m an and discovers th at only one o f them is poisonous.
He declares: “There will be no m ore m urders!” (p. 50) and a cabm an, ordered by Holmes, comes upstairs to help with luggage. He is handcuffed and bound.
Holm es introduces him as Jefferson Hope, the perpetrator o f the two deaths, and is ready to answer questions.
Two further chapters end the story. In one of them D r W atson tells us how H ope, the avenger of this fiancee and her father, afraid o f his imm inent death of heart-failure, insists on m aking a deposition at Scotland Y ard, explaining how and why he had pursued two criminals and offered them a choice o f two pills.
In the concluding chapter we learn that the prisoner died before his trial. The rest o f the chapter contains Holm es’s detailed explanation o f how he solved the mystery.
4 F o r the decadent features o f Sherlock H olm es’s character I refer the reader to Reginald Hill, “ Holmes: T h e H am let o f Crime Fiction’ ” , in H. R. F. K eating (ed.) Crime Writers.
Reflections on crime fiction (London: BBC 1978), pp. 20-41.
5 All m y quotations from A. C. D oyle and other references will be to The Complete
Sherlock Holmes by Sir A rth u r C onan Doyle with a preface by C hristopher M orley (New
York: D oubleday and Co. G arden City, 1930), which contains all the novels and collections o f short-stories a b o u t the detective, arranged in chronological order.
This is how the novel or a long short story o f 44 large size pages m ight have looked if C onan Doyle had not spoiled its com position by inserting 24 pages o f a western tale between Part I and the last two concluding chapters o f the book.
F o r some reason he wished it to be as long as possible and therefore, having written 7 chapters, be began P art II, entitled The Country o f the
Saints, the action of which takes the reader 31 years back to the settlement
o f the M orm ons in U tah. The story he tells in P art II is a story o f adventure which reminds one of Riders o f the Purple Sage (1912) by Zane Grey.
T he only reasonable purpose behind the insertion was to produce a strongly convincing m otivation o f Jefferson H ope’s relentless pursuit of evil-doers and his acts o f revenge.
By dividing the whole story into two Parts, C onan Doyle enlarged it to 68 pages and gave it a seeming balance: 53% of the text against the subsequent 47% .
But the addition o f the M orm on p art o f the novel has m ade A Study
in Scarlet a hybrid. The first p art of the novel is not a story o f adventure,
but a story o f detection. It is told by D r W atson. A fter C hapter 7 it breaks off to be resumed by the same n arrato r in C hapters 6 and 7 o f P art II. These chapters bear the titles A Continuation o f the Reminiscences o f John W atson M . D ., and The Conclusion.
T he n arrato r o f the western is neither defined n or in any way related to D r W atson and his world. His intrusion remains unexplained. The careful reader will observe th at he is an omniscient n arrato r standing outside and above the world of Jefferson Hope. H e is the witness o f what in the alkali desert happens to a solitary wanderer with a girl o f five and he can enter the characters’ thoughts and emotions and say:
The h u n ter’s mind was o f a hard, unyielding nature and the predom inant idea o f revenge had taken such complete possession o f it th a t there was no ro o m for any other em otion, (p. 15)
As to w hat occurred there, we cannot do better than quote the old h u n ter’s own account, as duly recorded in D r W atson’s Journal, to which we are already under such obligations, (p. 76)
The awkwardness in the com position of the book is at odds with the a u th o r’s ability to create vivid characters, their background and atm osphere.
To say th at this awkwardness is a m ark o f a beginner is not the same as to explain why he failed exactly in this way. But the text o f the novel m ay supply the right explanation. The ghosts o f two writers seem to have hovered over C onan Doyle while he was bent over his desk. One o f them was th at o f the Am erican short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe, the oth er of the French novelist Emile G aboriau. “Y ou remind m e o f E dgar Allan P oe’s
D u p in ” - says D r W atson in C hapter 2 (p. 24) and he asks: “H ave you read G ab o riau ’s works?” , (p. 25)
The two names are m entioned during a discussion o f H olm es’s Science
o f Deduction and Analysis. And the two men - D upin, “the arm -chair
detective” and Lecoq, blamed as “a miserable bungler” , but recommended for “ his energy” , (p. 25) are criticized by the Baker Street genius.
Thus the text hints at two sources of inspiration: the A m erican m aker o f the detective short-story and the French novelist of m anners grown into an a u th o r o f the crim e-and-detection novel.
G ab o riau ’s books were composed, as R. Caillois has pointed out,6 on the principle o f digging up the past. Both in L'affaire Lerouge (1866, translated into English 1887) and in M onsieur Lecoq (1869) a short investigation o f a crime, leads to a m uch longer investigation which reveals certain events th at took place m any years ago, and the third and the longest brings the reader to still older roots of the crime.
This is what C onan Doyle wished to imitate, but he failed in giving his book a complete unity. H e was torn between the idea of m aking Sherlock Holmes an Am erican “ thinking m achine” which solves problem s w ithout leaving his arm chair and pipe and his own natural zest for a story o f adventure with plenty o f fresh air and exciting description o f people and things.
It is to be noted that the two inspirations, to which according to J. Symons,7 R. L. Stevenson’s The Dynamiter m ight be added, implied the need to integrate two types of composition: the short-story and the fully developed novel. A nd that need the author of A Study in Scarlet failed to satisfy.
T H E S IG N OF FOUR
The next book was The Sign o f Four, first printed in F ebruary 1890 in Lippincott’s Magazine in USA and published in England later the same year.
The Sign o f Four is an improvement upon A Study in Scarlet. D r
W atson is the m ain narrato r from its beginning to its end and if other n arrato rs appear - like Thaddeus Sholto and Jon athan Small - they are quoted by the m ain narrator.
The G aboriau m odel o f gradually digging up the past has been retained, but the presentation o f the origins o f all crimes that are com m itted in the course o f the story as consequences o f an unlawful appropriation o f the
6 In “ Le rom an policier” etc., a p a rt o f his book Puisances de roman, M arseilles 1940.
great A gra treasure has been included in the last two chapters o f the novel as a statem ent and thus does not break the unity o f the book.
T he presentation o f the earliest events takes place where usually the detective retells the story as a logical chronological succession o f events. H ere, however, it is Holm es’s m ain adversary who elucidates the past and his own m otives while the detective only adds final touches to the picture. It is to be noted that, as in the first novel, the mainspring of violence is revenge.
Thus the element of the story o f adventure which A. C onan D oyle was unable to integrate with the element o f detection in his first novel, has been fairly well fused with the m ain story. But the author did not resign from using it. It forms 26% o f the text in the final chapters, but it also accom panies investigation.
All stories o f detection appear in two types: the simpler ones in which there is a problem to be solved and the detection proceeds until its end; and the m ore complex ones in which the detective has to face the crim inal’s counteraction which obscures traces, destroys evidence, attem pts to kill the detective or inconvenient witnesses.
This second type introduces, instead o f one problem to be solved, a series o f related puzzles and, very often, an escape and pursuit. These two elements o f com position are to be found in The Sign o f Four. In Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 there is plenty o f outdoor m ovem ent - travelling from place to place, following the dog on a cresote trail, steaming down the Tham es and a steam -boat race between the criminals and Sherlock Holmes and the police. These parts o f the story am ount to about 22% of the text and together with the chapters about the adventures in India m ake up 48% of the book.
But, again, they are well fused with the investigation.
The Sign o f Four begins like A Study in Scarlet. C hapter 1 has
a novelistic character: it paints Sherlock Holmes as a fin-de-siecle character against a fin-de-siecle background. “ Crime is com m onplace, existence is com m onplace” - complains the detective, (p. 93) T he yellow fog swirls outside. Cocaine offers refuge. But then Miss M orstan enters ...
C hapter 2 presents the problem: the disappearance of Miss M orstan’s father, a pearl sent every year by an unknow n person, a strange invitation to a meeting in order to do justice to her, but w ithout the knowledge o f the police.
In C hapter 3 Holmes offers a general answer to the puzzle, some evidence comes to our knowledge and the three people set o ff for the appointm ent.
In the chapters that follow some puzzles are explained, but new ones face the detective and his com panions. An explanation o f Miss M o rstan’s father’s death is given by Thaddeus Sholto, M ajor Sholto’s theft o f the
treasure is revealed, but the circumstances of his death present a new mystery. The hiding place o f the treasure is still unknown.
Then the tragedy o f Pondishery Lodge takes place when T. Sholto and his visitors arrive at his b rother’s house. The Sign of F o u r reappears on Bartholomew Sholto’s body and a poisoned thorn behind his ear and the room locked from inside present a new puzzle. Also the disappearance o f the treasure gives an additional m otivation to pursue the unknow n criminals.
All the tim e Holm es deduces w hat had happened and pushes the investigation on in spite o f the blunders of the police. C hapter 6 characterizes the m ain criminal a m an with a stum p, called Jonathan Small, and signals pursuit which goes on in four following chapters until the m a n ’y detention.
In this way the action o f the novel acquires the dynamics o f m ovem ent, m ystery, conflict, surprise and suspense. Those episodes which introduce some hum our, a dinner, the Baker street urchin “ irregulars” and D r W atson’s wooing o f Miss M orstan serve to provide relief.
It is a m easure of C onan D oyle’s skill that he connects D r W atso n’s chances of being accepted by the girl with her chances o f losing the treasure. The final loss o f it verifies him as a true lover. Their engagement compensates both of them.
W hen we add up all the com ponents of the book we see' th at it belongs to the English novelistic tradition. There are seven distinct characters besides Holm es, a quest for treasure hidden in a house with a secret room , a criminal plot and even a love plot. The story o f an ill-gotten Indian treasure carried away to England reminds one o f The Moonstone.
J. Symons acknowledges the better com position o f The Sign o f Four, but criticizes its ending:
The Sign o f Four is better organized, but the tale o f treasure plays a disp ro p o r
tionately large p a rt in w hat is after all a short novel. B ut he also adds: The prim e defect o f bo th books, indeed is th a t they could have been condensed to sh o rt stories. D oyle did n o t think o f these books in terms o f novels - as Collins, for example, conceived The Moonstone, but as problems, each of which could have been worked out in th e form o f a short story.8
M y correction o f this judgem ent would be th at though Doyle did think o f these books in terms of novels (i.e. he used novelistic technique in the narrative and he wished to m ake the stories long), he conceived his plots as problem s whose best vehicles m ight be short stories.
This m ay be proved not only by the inner evidence o f the texts, but also by external evidence. In the years shaping C onan D oyle’s Holm esian fiction he was busy writing the following books:
1887 - A Study in Scarlet (a novel); 1889 - Micah Clarke (a novel); 1889 - The Sign o f Four (a novel); 1891 - The White Company (a novel);
1891 (July) - The Adventures o f Sherlock Holmes (short stories); 1893 - M emoirs o f Sherlock Holmes (short stories);
1894 (December) - Exploits o f Brigadier Gerard ( l ‘l story);
1895 (April to September) - The Exploits o f Brigadier Gerard (short stories); 1895 - The Stark M unro Letters (a novel in letters);
1901 (from August 1901 to April 1902) - The Hound o f the Baskervilles (a novel);
1902 (A ugust and N ovem ber 1902 to M ay 1903) - Adventures o f
Brigadier Gerard (short stories);
1903 (October 1903) - The Return o f Sherlock Holmes (short stories). The dates (which refer to serialization in magazines, not to publication in final book form ) show how m uch novel writing overlapped short-story writing. The balance seems even: six novels to five collections o f stories. But the impact o f serialization is seen in the growing predom inance o f the short-story form. The epistolary form o f The Stark M unro Letters puts the novel on the verge of a series of tales.
The Brigadier G erard and Holm es stories testify the tru th o f A. C onan D oyle’s statem ent quoted by H. Pearson:
Considering these various journals with their disconnected stories, it had struck me th at a single character running through a series, if it only engaged the attention o f the reader, would bring th a t reader to th a t particular magazine. O n the other hand, it had long seemed to me th at the ordinary serial m ight be an im pedim ent rather than a help to a magazine, since, sooner or later, one missed one num ber and afterw ards it had lost all interest.9
It is, therefore, evident that the m aker o f Sherlock Holmes favoured the form of a cycle of tales with a single m ain character linking them into one whole.
This device was used in The Adventure o f Sherlock Holmes (12 stories) and in The M emoirs o f Sherlock Holmes (11 stories). In the last o f these stories C onan Doyle, who had enough o f the detective and wished to undertake, as he thought, artistically m ore am bitious tasks p u t an end to the m an ’s life by m aking him fall into the Reichenbach Falls in Switzer land while grappling with Professor M oriarty, a criminal intellect equal to Holmes.
THE HOUND OF THE BASKER VILLES
General outcry against this killing forced the writer to invent an account o f an earlier exploit o f the detective. And then he created his best Sherlock Holmes novel with a single plot - The Hound o f the Baskervilles. There is ample evidence that he intended it to be a novel.
It begins, like the other two, with the same kind of overture: Holmes at hom e displaying his m ental powers to D r W atson. This indoor game of ratiocination is contrasted with the gloomy and superstitious legend of a spectral H ound o f D artm oor, which challenges the reason by its connexion with the sudden death o f the late heir to the Baskerville estate. The challenge is taken up by the detective who form ulates the problem od detection when he says:
There are two questions ... The one is whether any crime has been commited a t all, the second is, w hat is the crime and how was it comm itted? (p. 684)
These are the contents of the first three chapters. A dram atic contrast has been achieved by setting off a rational mind against a G othic story and this contrast and conflict will go on through the whole plot because o f circum stantial uncertainty. This pream ble to the dram a form s 16% of the text.
The second phase of the action embraces Chapters 4 and 5 and m akes 14% o f the text. The action develops quickly. The arrival o f Sir Henry, the new heir to the baronetcy, is followed by an “ apparently purposeless series o f small mysteries” (p. 699) and “ three threads” which m ight have led to an explanation are broken.
The disappearance o f a bearded m an in a cab, who called himself Sherlock Holm es, signals an im portant thing - a lurking adversary equal in intellectual power to the detective.
The m ain body o f the novel consists o f C hapters 6 to 11 (44% o f the text). H ere D r W atson, the narrator, is m ade the m ost im portant character, for he guards Sir H enry and acts as a detective and reporter to Holmes who has given him a list o f suspects.
The presentation of the wild p art o f Devonshire with its tors, m oors, bogs and prehistoric hom esteads reads like bits of H ard y 10 and creates a m oody, natural theatre for the dram a about to develop. H ere Sir A rth ur C onan Doyle shows himself as a novelist largely indebted to the English literary tradition:
10 Like H ardy, C onan D oyle in this and other novels changes place-names (e.g. he calls Bovey Tracey Coom be Tracey), but faithfully recreates their character and atm osphere.
We have left the fertile country behind and beneath us. We looked back on it now, the slanting rays o f low sun turning the streams to threads o f gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough and the broad tangle o f the woodlands. The road in front o f us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we passed a m oorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked dow n into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted annd bent by the fury of years o f storm. Tw o high, n arrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip.
“ Baskerville H all” , said he.
Its m aster had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. A few m inutes later we had reached the lodge-gates, a maze o f fantastic tracery in w rought iron, with w eather-beaten pillars on either side, blotched w ith lichens, and surm ounted by the boars’ heads o f the Baskervilles. T he lodge was a ruin o f black granite and bared ribs o f rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first fruit o f Sir C harles’ South African gold.
T hrough the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches in a som bre tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the farther end. (pp. 701-02)
... the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see th a t the centre was a heavy block o f building from which a porch projected. T he whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat o f arm s broke through the dark veil. F rom this central block rose the twin tow ers, ancient, crenellated, and pierced with m any loopholes. T o right and left o f the turrets were m ore m odern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled ro o f there sprang a single black colum n o f smoke, (p. 702)
It is alm ost superfluous to say th at Baskerville Hall belongs to the long English tradition of the novel o f terro r and its heritage present am ong the English and Am erican Rom antic writers and such Victorian novelists as Sheridan Le F anu, Dickens and the Brontes. But, unlike the G othicists and their cheap sensational successors, C onan Doyle never overdoes the sinister atm osphere - as we can see from the following passage:
The fresh beauty o f the following m orning did som ething to efface from our minds the grim and gray im pression which had been left upon both o f us by our first experience o f Baskerville Hall. As Sir H enry and I sat a t breakfast the sunlight flooded in through the high mullioned windows, throw ing w atery patches o f colour from the coats o f arm s which covered them . The d ark panelling glowed like bronze in the golden rays, and it was hard to realize th a t this was indeed the cham ber which had struck such gloom into our souls upon the evening before. (704)
D r W atson and Sir H enry gradually become acquainted with their neighbourhood: the B arrym ore couple o f servants, the rath e r strange Stapleton siblings, the habitual litigant Frankland, and the alm ost respectable local beauty - M rs Lyons. H er portrait subtly renders her not-quite-up-to-the- -m ark character:
A maid showed m e in w ithout ceremony, and as I entered the sitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a Rem ington typewriter, sprang up with a pleasant smile o f welcome. H er face fell, however, when she saw I was a stranger, and she sat down again and asked me the object o f my visit.
The first im pression left by M rs Lyons was one o f extreme beauty. H er eyes and hair were o f the same rich hazel colour and her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with exquisite bloom o f the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the h eart o f the sulphur rose. A dm iration was, I repeat, the first impression. B ut the second was criticism. There was som ething subtly w rong with the face, some coarseness o f expression, some hardness, perhaps, o f eye, some looseness o f lip which m arred its perfect beauty. B ut these, o f course, are after thoughts. A t the m om ent I was simply conscious th at I was in the presence o f a very handsom e wom an ... (p. 733)
T he descriptions and daily occurrences are well fused with the developing investigation. Like in London, a series o f small mysteries faces D r W atson and Sir Henry, one after another. Their arrival coincides with the escape o f a convict from D artm oo r prison. A sobbing in the night, suspicious signals with a candle, a howling dog on the m oor, the strange behaviour o f the Stapletons when meeting Sir H enry and the mystery o f a slim m an on a rock - all help to create surprises, suspicions and tension.
The artistic function o f these episodic mysteries is not limited to the strengthening o f the tension in an episode, but in m ost cases - the escaped convict affair is an exception - has been subordinated to the m ain purpose o f investigation - the discovery o f the m eans of crime and the crim inal.11 The tension also increases owing to the absence o f Sherlock Holmes. S urrounded with a growing num ber o f strange facts and exposed to desperate weather, Sir H enry and D r W atson feel upset as excerpts from the d o cto r’s diary show:
O ctober 16th. A dull and foggy day with a drizzle o f rain. T he house is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the dreary curves o f the m oor, w ith thin, silver veins upon the sides o f the hills, and the distan t boulders gleaming where the light strikes upon their wet faces. It is melancholy outside and in. T he baronet is in black reaction after the excitements o f the night. I am conscious myself o f a weight a t my h eart and a feeling o f im pending danger - ever present danger, which is the m ore terrible because I am unable to define it. (p. 727)
The suspense is balanced by adventure. This element has been m ade subordinate to the element of investigation. It is owing to his brave enterprise th at D r W atson meets Sharlock Holm es on the m oor at night and finds relief.
C hapters 12 and 13 (14% of the text) prepare the reader for thé final solution. Some small, episodic mysteries are elucidated, the crim inal is
11 T he function of episodic mysteries has been discussed by Jo lan ta N ałęcz-W ojtczak in her unpublished Polish doctoral thesis M ystery as an Element o f Composition in the English
named and his plan of a new crime is revealed. But a new difficulty arises: how to set a trap for Stapleton which would prove his guilt?
This p a rt of the novel shows Sherlock Holmes as the m aster of detection. In spite o f all appearances he was not passively waiting for the results of his friend’s research. U nknow n and unseen he was all the tim e on the spot and used D r W atson’s reports and his own inquiries about life o f the Stapletons to discover how the late Sir Charles was killed and how Sir H enry was going to be killed.
The two chapters combine insight with events. T he dram atic death of the convict resolves some m oral doubts about helping him to escape and, a t the same time, reveals the little mystery o f the boot stolen from Sir Henry.
As neatly Holm es’s pretended departure for London is combined with his visit and interrogation o f M rs Lysons at Coom be Tracey where they w ait for Lestrade.
The climax o f the plot is achieved in C hapter 14 which bears the title
The Hound o f the Baskervilles. Two traps are set by the chief antagonists
for the uninform ed baronet, though one with a purpose to kill and the other with an aim to catch the m urderer red-handed while saving Sir H enry Baskerville. The infernal H ound materializes for the first and the last time. Stapleton escapes from Holmes to death, his unhappy wife is released and the accessories to the crime are discovered.
In accordance with the G othic and Rom antic tradition all this happens on a m oonlit night, but in C onan D oyle’s presentation the landscape has the clarity o f a good film scene:
The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and bright, while a half-m oon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain light. Before us lay the dark bulk o f the house, its serrated ro o f and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky. Broad bars o f golden light from the lower windows streched acrose the orchard and the m oor. One o f them was suddenly shut of. (p. 756)
This serenity o f the late evening is significantly disturbed not only by the impending h orror, but also by the slowly creeping veil of fog:
I have said th at over the great G rim pen M ire there hung a dense, white fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and banked itself up like a wall on th at side o f us, low but thick and well defined. The m oon shone on it, and it looked like a great shimm ering ice-field, with the heads o f the distant tors as rocks borne u p o n its surface, (p. 755)
This fog is like a symbol o f some evil power which alm ost frustrates the m aster detective’s efforts to bring the m urderer to justice.
Holm es is conscious o f his failure to ensure Sir H enry Barkeville perfect safety and the baronet m ust pay for his shock with a period o f long gradual recovery.
This chapter which m akes 7% o f the text is balanced and contrasted by the final C hapter 15 (5% o f the text), entitled A Retrospection. The very title o f the chapter seems to be taken from the theory o f the detective fiction. F o r every novel or story o f detection begins with a chaotic heap o f puzzling facts which in the course of investigation are arranged into a retrospective story told in chronological order, with causes and purposes satisfactorily explained. This story is usually told by the detective; this happens in The Hound o f the Baskervilles and the novelist is conscious of it when he uses Holmes as his mouthpiece:
I shall soon be in the position o f being able to p u t into a single connected narrative one o f the m ost singular and sensational crimes o f m odern times, (p. 753)
It ought to be noted that the au th or has happily avoided m aking this retrospection an apotheosis o f a M aster M ind. Just as Holm es was unable to avoid terrible risk, setting his trap, so now he has not got all the answers abou t the criminal either.
This is like life and this is like a realistic novel. The world presented in the book is close to th at created in The Moonstone or in the Miss M arple stories, but very far from artificial whodunnits o f the Ten Little
Niggers type.
Consequently, the book ends with the following words of Sherlock Holmes
And now, my dear W atson, we have had some weeks o f severe w ork, and for one evening, I think, we m ay turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for ‘Les H uguenots’. Have you heard o f the D e Reszkes? M ight I trouble you to be ready in h alf an h our and we can stop at M artin i's for a little dinner on the way? (p. 766)
The dram atic symmetry o f the novel m ay be presented in the following table: I induction chaps 1 + 2 + 3 16% o f the text
The Hound o f the Baskervilles beautifully combines the closed A ristotelian
structure o f a dram atic story (of crime and detection) with the epic structure o f the novel.12
II in i v v
developm ent action leading catastrophe resolution o f conflict to peripety
4 + 5 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 1 0 + 1 1 1 2 + 1 3 1 4 + 1 5
14% 4 4 % 14% 12%
12 A ccording to A ristotle “ the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, o f Tragedy is the p lo t” . It “ has beginning, middle, and end” . “The story ... m ust represent one action, a complete whole, w ith its several incidents so closely connected th a t the transposai or w
ithdraw-A fter its publication C onan Doyle had to reconcile him self to the com eback of his detective and did this in The Return o f Sherlock Holmes (13 stories).
T H E V A L L E Y OF F E A R
His fourth and last novel about Holmes, which was followed by two new collections o f stories - His Last Bow (8 stories, 1917) and The Case
Book o f Sherlock Holmes (12 stories, 1927) - was published in 1914. Its
title was The Valley o f Fear.
Its com position is extraordinary. W hen one looks a t the C ontents o f the book, its symmetry seems to be perfect. It falls into two parts - One, entitled The Tragedy o f Birlstone and Two, entitled The Scowrers. Each o f them consists of 7 chapters and the whole ends with a very short Epilogue. The two parts are well balanced: 47% o f the text against 51% of the text. The Epilogue forms 2% .
And yet the whole reads like two completely different stories joined together by sheer force.
The Tragedy o f Birlstone follows the ordinary pattern o f a detective
story. There is a warning about a crime, then the news ab o u t it having been perpetrated (Chap. 1 and 2). A visit to the scene o f the crime follows (Chap. 3), followed by a discussion of how the m urder m ight have been com m itted (C hap. 4). It is significant th a t the police are no longer presented as obtuse as in A Study in Scarlet. Inspector Alec M ac D onald is an intelligent partner for Holmes and even the local officers, W hite M ason and Seargent W ilson, are not stupid. T he case presents an unusual difficulty, for the m u rd er was com m itted in an ancient m an o r house with a m o at and draw bridge and the m urderer disappeared. This criminal m ystery reminds one o f the one in M ystère
de la chambre jaune (1908) and Parfum de la dame en noir (1908) by
G aston Leroux. A n exam ination o f witnesses takes place and attem pts to restore the course of events continue (Chap. 5 and 6). Then Holmes has a sudden illum ination a t night and is ready to explain everything (C hap. 7).
The homicide occurred in self-defence against an assasin and the death o f M r John Douglas, the owner o f the M anor, was simulated by disguising the body. Douglas comes out o f his secret room where K ing Charles once hid and his wife and a close friend own up.
al o f any o f them will disjoin and dislocate the whole.” I am quoting the philosopher’s text from D . D aiches, Critical Approaches to Literature (London: Longmans, 1964), pp. 27, 30 and 31.
A nd then P art 2 called The Scowrers begins which is a paraph rase of a story written as a statem ent by M r Douglas in his hiding place.
A. E. M urch calls it “ another complete detective story with a different hero ” .13 But I should say th at “detective story” m ay be its courtesy-title only. H esketh Pearson, though not so m uch a literary critic as a biographer, is m ore fortunate when he calls it “ another long story called The Valley
o f Fear, the first and best o f the gangster yarns which achieved such
extraordinary vogue in the heyday o f Edgar W allace” .M
The Scowrers, the title o f which ought to be The Valley o f Fear, is, in
spite o f its a u th o r’s efforts, as different from The Tragedy o f Birlstone as the second p a rt of A Study in Scarlet from its first part. It also takes the reader m ore than ten years back and to America.
It is a tale of violence organized by a group of local leaders o f the Em inent Order of Freem en, a w orkers’ secret organization in a m ining district in Pennsylvania around 1875.
To Vermissa Valley where the rule o f terror and assassination has been established by the local Bodymaster, a m an called Me M urdo comes as a fugitive from the police in Chicago and through his toughness and bravery gains popularity am ong the miners. A t the same time he becomes a favourite o f the Bodym aster and local Councillor in one person, because o f his readiness to kill and his ability to counterfeit dollars.
He takes p art in two or three operations of terror and, together with the m aster o f the Lodge o f Freem en, sets a trap for Pinkerton’s agency detective, Birdy Edwards, about to arrive in the Valley of Fear. T he cream o f the gangster organization take p a rt in the trapping. But it ends with a revelation: M e M urdo declares:
I am Birdy Edwars o f Pinkerton’s. I was chosen to break up your gang. (p. 863)
Birdy Edw ards changes his name to John Douglas, gets m arried, leaves Pennsylvania for Chicago, then goes to California and faced there with the gangsters’ vengeance, escapes to England. But one o f the m urderers released from prison, comes across the ocean to kill him and finds his own death.
It is obvious th at this is a tale o f terror and violence in which a detective secretelly works for the forces o f justice and hum anity; but it is n ot a story o f detection in the sense of solving a criminal puzzle. Its m ain problem is how to ingratiate oneself with gangsters w ithout com m itting a crime and how to create a situation in which they m ight be caught red-handed and brought to justice. Birdy Edw ards is rather an agent provocateur than a detective. A nd the only mystery - th at o f his identity - is m aintained
13 In The Development o f the Detective Novel (London: Peter Owen, 1968), p. 180.
throughout the story by the au th o r who simply withholds the tru th from us and keeps it secret even when he refers to the m ain character’s hypothetical feelings and reflections.
This little dishonesty in the narrative technique m ay produce some disappointm ent in the reader, because, though the n a rra to r never completely enters the m ain character’s m ind, he presents everything in the Valley o f fear from th at m an ’s point of view.
The final result is th at the reader feels uneasy when he finds th at two stories o f completely different genres are served to him under one title.
It is hard to believe that Conan Doyle, writing his “ swan song in fiction” , as he called the book,15 m ade the same m istake in com position as in A Study in Scarlet.
There is considerable evidence th at he wished to weld the two stories into one by all possible means. The initial chapters introduce the shadow o f Professor M oriarty, the M aster M ind of internationally organized crime in which C onan Doyle saw the coming danger for hum an society. As a learned scientist M oriarty appears in public; as the intellectual and scientific schemer o f crime he hides in his com fortable apartm ents, growing richer and richer for his services to gangs.
Sherlock Holmes calls him a second Jo n athan W ild - m aster criminal (p. 777). Sherlock Holm es’s inform er fears the m an so m uch th at he writes warnings ab ou t him in cipher. And, in the Epilogue, when Jo hn D ouglas is released by the court for killing his assailant in self-defence and leaves with his wife for South Africa, he is “lost overboard in gale off St. H elena” (p. 865) by another m ovem ent o f M oriarty’s long hand. Holmes thinks that the Am erican Scowrers in their pursuit o f vengeance paid the professor for the new crime.
So M oriarty is present behind both stories as a new force against which Holm es has to fight with only partial success.
Besides this unifying message o f the novel, the au thor tried to integrate the narrato rs within the presented world.
The first attem pt to release D r W atson as the first-person-singular n a rra to r from the lim itations o f eye-witness narrative and to give him greater freedom in describing what he had not seen but learnt is to be found in C hapter 3 which begins as follows:
N ow for amoment I will ask leave to remove my own insignificant personality and to describe events which occurred before we arrived upon the scene by the light of knowledge which came to us afterwards. Only in this way can I m ake reader appreciate the people concerned and the strange setting in which their fate was cast. (p. 779)
15 Cf. M . and M . H ardwick, The M an Who Was Sherlock Holmes (L ondon: John M urray, 1964), p. 87.
This is followed by a fine novelistie description o f the village o f Birlstone and the M anor House with its inhabitants.
Laer on in C hapter 7 when John Douglas has emerged from the secret room with a written apology for his life, it is D r W atson who retells the story of crime, provocation and vengeance in his own new authorial way. A nd, before he does this, he tries to reconcile the reader to another story:
\
D o n o t think th a t I intrude one story before another is finished. As you read on you will find th a t this is n o t so. A nd when' I have solved this mystery o f the past, we shall meet once more in those room s oh B aker Street, where this, like so m any other w onderful happenings will find its and. (p. 815)
In another place D r W atson, after having presented a chain o f the Scowrers’ iniquities, addresses the reader again:
W hy should these pages be stained by further crimes? H ave 1 not said enough to show the men and their methods? (p. 853)
Such Victorian addresses, condemned by Henry James, show the a u th o r’s need to apologise for what he was doing.
In my opinion the book is an artistic failure. It is impossible to say with certitude why its au th o r reverted to his first failure and tried to improve upon it. But perhaps the message of the “ swan song” m ay help us tu guess.
In the last sentence of The Valley o f Fear, Sherlock H olm es’s “ fateful eyes still strained to pierce the veil” o f the uncertain future (p. 866), but no hope was given. This m ay express A rthur C onan D oyle’s fears about historic changes in the organization o f crime.
He based his story on Am erican materials. In the years 1865-1877 (coinciding with 1875 in the novel) Molly M aguires, a secret Irish w orkers’ organization in the Scranton districts of Pennsylvania, used violence to improve labour conditions in industry.
The attem pt at Birlstone M ano r (1886) coincidea with the feats o f Allan Pinkerton (18*19-1884), the fam ous Scottish-born detective who exposed a band o f counterfeiters in Illinois (Me M urdo bears a Scottish nam e and pretends to be a cointerfeiter from Chicago). Pinkerton set up a private detective agency to protect the property o f railway com panies and acted as the leader of espionage during the Civil W ar (M e M urdo is also P in kerto n ’s spy). His agency, continued by his sons after his death, was notorious for its m ethods in the suppression o f labour disputes, especially in the H om estead strike begun by The A m algam ated Association o f Iro n ' and Steel W orkers near Pittsburgh, where an armed battle was fought on July 6th 1892 between the strikers and 300 P inkerton agents led by
Carnegie’s p artner Henry C. Frick and supported by The N ational G uard. This battle resulted in ten deaths and m any injuries.
T o complete the scene o f the American labour unrest one m ight add th at even the Kinghts of L abor were involved in an incident in Chicago in which seven policeman lost their lives in 1886.16
A. C onan Doyle visited the U nited States for the first time in 1894, only two years after the G reat Strike which resembled w hat happens in
The Valley o f Fear. In the anticapitalist attitudes Of A m erican Labour and
in the use o f terror and violence by some representatives of both sides he m ay have anticipated the rise o f the organized gangsterism o f the times after the F irst W orld W ar. And he expressed it in the co-operation o f the Scowrers with Professor M oriarty, the symbol of the imm inent future.
This hypothesis explains the predom inance o f the gangster story both as to the length of the text and the imposition o f the title on two stories o f different genres.
To convey his message to the reader successfully, C onan D oyle had to show the terrorist organization from inside. But this excluded m ystery which is the essence o f a story o f detection. Thus the only m ystery in the story o f the Scowrers - the identity o f M e M urdo - has become vestigial and the story a story o f crime.
T H E SU M M IN G U P
It is tim e to sum up this analysis. Julian Symons has said: “It cannot be said that either o f D oyle’s first two Holmes books is a very original or well-devised novel. ... The prime defect of both books, indeed, is that they could have been condensed to short stories.” 17
T he same m ight be said about The Valley o f Fear. Only in The Hound
o f the Baskervilles, when G aboriau was forgotten and Doyle concentrated
on genuinely English m aterial did he create his really good novel.
It is significant, besides, th at in all the three faulty novels revenge is the m otive o f criminal action. This is a limitation. A nother lim itation in the detection presented in all four is th at Sherlock Holmes is able to prove guilt only by setting a tra p for the criminal, which is a certain m ark of
16 F o r the American scene compare: C. C. Calkins (ed.), The Story o f America, (Pleasantville N .Y.: The R eader’s Digest A ssociation, 1975), pp. 290, 342-343 and J. D . H art, The O xford
Companion To American Literature, (New Y ork: O U P, 1956). A. Pinkerton was the author
o f three books: Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches (1879), The Spy o f the Rebellion (1883) and Thirty Years a Detective (1864) which m ay have been know n to C onan Doyle.
weakness in detective work. But this involves physical action - an element o f adventure which enlivens the novels.
This also confirms M . A. M urch’s statem ent that C onan Doyle “ was mentally in tune with the spirit of sensational rom ance, for he loved action, adventure and tales o f exciting quests.” 18 He m ay have also been aware of rivalry in himself between the cool “ scientific” detective and the lover of adventure. Some light is cast on this in the following discussion between Holm es and D r W atson on A Study in Scarlet in The Sign o f Four:
“I glanced over it,” said he. “ Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. D etection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unem otional m anner. You have attem pted to tinge it w ith rom anticism , which produces m uch the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopem ent into the fifth proposition o f Euclid.”
“ B ut the rom ance was there” , I rem onstrated. “ I could not tam per w ith the facts” . “ Some facts should be suppressed, or, a t least, a ju st sense o f p roportion should be observed in treating them . The only point in the case which deserved m ention was the curious analytical reasoning from eifects to cause, by which I succeeded in unraveling it” , (p. 90)
It is am using to discover in Sherlock Holmes, who indulged in dram atic last-m om ent revelations, an adm irer of whodunits stripped even o f sensation.
W hatever reservations, critics agree th at Conan Doyle has raised the value o f English detective fiction popular in his time. A. E. M urch writes:
Sherlock H olmes’s exploits are n o t simple tales o f crime, n o r mere puzzles th a t lose their interest as soon as they are solved. They can be read over and over again w ith renewed, even increased appreciation for H olm es’s detective acum en and the artistry w ith which the tale is unfolded. ... W ith C onan D oyle, the detective story came a t last to full fruition. H is sincerity, his great skill as a writer, gave it a new distinction and won for it a wider, alm ost universal, acceptance as a literary fo rm.19
And J. Symons says: “ Doyle was a fine story teller and one quality th at keeps Holmes stories alive ... is that they are such good stories” .20
I should add that in spite o f the fact th at C onan Doyle was by nature a short-story writer - (he has written 57 detective short stories) - he enriched them by two elements carried over from his novels: the novelistic presentation and two im m ortal characters: Sherlock Holmes and D r W atson. In creating the Sherlock Holm es fiction he has achieved something greater th an any m odern writer: he has created one o f the universal m yths of our civilisation, analogous to the m yths o f Robin H ood, D r Faustus and D o n Ju an , but distinctive in his hero’s fight against crime.
18 The Development, p. 182.
M ental brilliance, good social and cultural background, respectability and integrity, the status o f a “scientist” , an international reputation as a celebrity in his own field and Englishness are the detective’s features enum erated by A. E. M urch, which m ade him popular about the end of the Victorian era.21 Introduced in each of the novels in the distinctly
fin-de-siecle London setting, Holmes inpressed everybody.
His alm ost super-hum an stature demanded dom ination over every novel, but his m aker was unable to create a plot great and long enough to counterbalance the m ain character. Consequently, he padded out his plots with blown-up “prehistories” . If The Hound o f the Baskervilles has become successfully balanced as a novel, one o f the reasons is th at though Holmes is active all the time in it, he is absent from the foreground action which fills the whole middle of the book i.e. six chapters out o f fifteen, or 44% o f the narrative.
W hen writing the four novels, A. C onan Doyle was trying to find the literary form best-suited to his talent and in the end he discovered it in a happy compromise between two artistic traditions - th at of E. A. Poe’s story o f ratiocination and that of the English novel o f crime and detection which had developed out the novel o f manners.
The new form was a cycle o f short stories. It allowed the m ain character to dom inate each story and all stories in a way analogous to Hercules or Robin H ood; giving him heroic dimension w ithout disrupting the world o f the novel which requires a m easure of equality for all characters.
This has been C onan D oyle’s historic achievement in the developm ent o f crime fiction.
Institute of English Studies University of Łódź
W itold Ostrowski
K O M P O Z Y C JA PO W IE ŚC I DETEKTYW NYCH A RTH URA CONAN D O Y LE ’A
N awiązując do tezy, któ ra kończy jego rozprawę Historical Sources o f the Poetics o f the
Crime Novel and Detective Short-Story opublikow aną w „Zagadnieniach Rodzajów L iterackich”
(t. 25 (2), W rocław -Łódź, 1982, s. 19) i stwierdza, że dopiero A. C. D oyle przy końcu X IX w. połączył poetykę noweli detektywnej A. E. Poe’a z poetyką angielskiej powieści detektywnej, au to r uzasadnia tę tezę przez szczegółową analizę czterech powieści detektywnych D oyle a, w których występuje Sherlock Holmes.
Postać sławnego detektyw a została w prow adzona po raz pierwszy w powieści A Study in
Scarlet z akcją usytuow aną w atm osferze fmde-siecle. N atchnieniem detektywnej części tej
powieści byli A. E. Poe i E. G ab o riau , od którego C onan D oyle zapożyczył technikę dokopyw ania się coraz głębszej przeszłości. Ale d ruga część, o charakterze westernu, została d o niej doczepiona mechanicznie, narratorem przestaje być D r W atson zastąpiony przez anonim owego n arrato ra wszechwiedzącego. D opiero ostatnie dw a rozdziały pow racają do św iata przedstaw ionego w pierwszej części.
D ruga powieść The Sign o f Four została lepiej skom ponow ana, w prow adzono w niej hierarchię narracji, ale autor nie umiał uniknąć stosunkow o dużej porcji „prehistorii” . Element przygodowy rywalizuje w tej powieści z elementem wykrywania, ale jest z nim logicznie połączony.
The Hound o f the Baskervilles jest najdoskonalszą powieścią detektyw ną A. C. D olye’a,
dzięki pełnej syntezie angielskiej tradycji powieści gotyckiej i obyczajowej oraz akcji detektywnej Holm esa. Postać wielkiego detektyw a nie narusza równowagi kompozycji, dzięki tem u, że w długiej sekwencji rozdziałów działa on poza kulisami zdarzeń z pierwszego planu, n a którym dochodzenie prowadzi D r W atson. Regionalne tło, folklor i prow incjonalne życie są w tej powieści doskonale stopione z dochodzeniem.
C zw arta powieść, The Valley o f Fear, jest artystycznym niepowodzeniem. A u to r wrócił w niej do schem atu pierwszej książki i chociaż tym razem popraw ił błędy narracji i starał się połączyć obie części utw oru jedną ideą, nie zdołał uniknąć wrażenia, że czytamy dwie historie należące d o dwóch odmiennych gatunków , siłą złączone.
A u to r pracy wysuwa możliwe wyjaśnienia tego błędu. Ideą pisarza było ukazanie przewi dywanego przez niego działania międzynarodowej organizacji przestępczej, kierowanej przez geniusza, prof. M oriarty’ego. D latego przeniósł drugą połowę powieści d o A m eryki i akty gwałtu i próbę penetracji zbrodniczego gangu przez detektyw a z agencji Pinkertona.
Podsum owując, A. C. D oyle zamierzał pisać powieści, ale z natury swej był nowelistą. D latego m ateriał wystarczający na nowelę rozszerzał, aby uczynić z niej powieść. Stopniow o jednak, ja k ukazuje świadectwo d a t i tytułów, zmierzał do nowej form y - cyklu nowel połączonych jedną naczelną postacią - Sh. Holmesa, przenosząc d o nich technikę powieściową. W ten sposób połączył n u rt dość prymitywnej detekcji z ukazaniem charakterów i tła. Pisząc 57 nowel o Holmesie, dokonał czegoś, co nie udało się żadnemu innem u pisarzowi nowożytnemu: stworzył m it Sherlocka Holmesa analogiczny do m itów R obin H ooda, d ra F au sta i D on Juana, ale wyróżniający się w alką ze zbrodnią.
