Idiosyncrasies of Fictional Detectives
Most fictional detectives have peculiar and individual tricks of personality which are doubtless intended for the reader to remember them by.
Dupin had the most pronouncedly queer traits of all. Perhaps none of his successors ever achieved anything so freakish as this described below; and which, had he lived to-day, , would have given him a claim to the title of "Sun Dodger. "
It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamoured of the night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all the massy shutters of our old building; lighted a couple of tapers, which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the clock of the advent of the true darkness. Then we sallied forth into the streets, arm and arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.
Sherlock Holmes' idiosyncrasies are too well known to need recapitulation. His morphine habit, his musical taste and his sardonic moods are familiar to all. Holmes also had a habit of listening to his clients' recitals with his eyes shut. Though to be sure this was less radical than the proceeding of Dupin who "sat in his accustomed armchair, the embodiment of respectful attention" but he wore green spectacles which allowed him to "sleep not the less soundly, though
silently" throughout the long account of the case by the Prefect.
Holmes' odd habits are here referred to:
An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellowlodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The rough-andtumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.
These are, we must admit, unusual habits, but still Dr. Watson assures us that:
Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the city. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sittingroom, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning
to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.
Later, Dr. Watson's suspicions were confirmed.
Lecoq's eccentricity was his habit of silent communion with a portrait of his wife which he carried with him:
M. Lecoq had recourse to the portrait on the lozengebox. His look was more than a glance, it was a confidence. He was evidently saying something to the dear defunct, which he dared not utter aloud.
This habit is also noted in Mr. Gryce. This delightful old gentleman had a way of addressing himself to any small inanimate object in his neighborhood. It might be an inkstand or a doorknob, but he treated it, to all appearance, as his guide, philosopher and friend. On one occasion he became very chummy with a statue at the foot of a staircase:
Whereupon I repeated my words, this time very quietly but clearly, while Mr. Gryce continued to frown at the bronze figure he had taken into his confidence. When I had finished, Mr. Van Burnam's countenance had changed, so had his manner. He held himself as erect as before, but not with as much bravado. He showed haste and impatience also, but not the same kind of haste and not quite the same kind of impatience. The corners of Mr. Gryce's mouth betrayed that he noted this change, but he did not turn away from the newelpost.
And, upon occasion, Mr. Gryce is unable to take active interest in the evidence being deposed by a witness because of his intense absorption in a "close and confidential confab with his own finger-tips. "
Sergeant Cuff, however, has a very sane and pleasant fad of his own, but he puts it to its proper use when he employs it to evade impertinent or unwelcome queries. Instead of dashing madly into his "investigations" the celebrated detective goes off on a side track thus:
"Ah, you've got the right exposure here to the south and sou'west, says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak of pleasure in his melancholy voice. "This is the shape for a roserynothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks between all the beds. But they oughtn't to be gravel-walks like these. Grass, Mr. Gardener—grasswalks between your roses; gravel's too hard for them. That's a sweet pretty bed of white roses and blush roses. They always mix well together, don't they? Here's the white musk-rose, Mr. Betteredge—our old English rose holding up his head along with the best and newest of them. Pretty dear!" says the Sergeant, fondling the musk-rose with his lanky fingers, and speaking to it as if he were speaking to a child.
This was a nice sort of a man to recover Miss Rachel's Diamond, and to find out the thief who stole it!
" You seem to be fond of roses, Sergeant? " I remarked.
" I haven't much time to be fond of anything, " says Sergeant Cuff. " But, when I have a moment's fondness to bestow, most times, Mr. Betteredge, the roses get it. I began my life among them in my father's nursery garden, and I shall end my life among them if I can. Yes. One of these days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and try my hand at growing roses. There will be grasswalks, Mr. Gardener, between my beds, " says the Sergeant, on whose mind the gravel-paths of a rosery seemed to dwell unpleasantly.
"It seems an odd taste, sir, " I ventured to say, "for a man in your line of life. "
" If you will look about you (which most people won't do), " says Sergeant Cuff, "you will see that the nature of a man's tastes is, most times, as opposite as possible to the nature of a man's business. Show me any two things more opposite one from the other than a rose and a thief, and I'll correct my tastes accordingly—if it isn't too late at my time of life. You find the damask-rose a goodish
stock for most of the tender sorts, don't you, Mr. Gardener? Ah! I thought so. Here's a lady coming. Is it Lady Verinder?"
The peculiarity of "The Whispering Man, " and what gives him his title, is a curious vocal defect which at times prevents his audible speech.
5. FavoritePhrases of Detectives
"The Thinking Machine, " aside from his petulance and impatience, continually repeats two or three favorite phrases that annoy the reader quite as much as the clients annoy this astute detective. One of them is, "Don't say it is impossible! that annoys me exceedingly! Nothing is impossible to the human mind!" This assertion, innocent enough in itself, is so frequently repeated as to become intolerable. Another phrase of which Professor Van Dusen is inordinately fond, is, "Two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time. " This also is repeated so often as tobecome tiresome. To quote the Professor:
"Two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time, " he began, at last as if disputing some previous assertion. "As the figure two, wholly disconnected from any other, gives small indication of a result, so is an isolated fact of little consequence. Yet that fact added to another, and the resulting fact added to a third, and so on, will give a final result. That result, if every fact is considered, must be correct. Thus any problem may be solved by logic; logic is inevitable. "
Indeed, variations on a theme of two and two making four are hackneyed in detective fiction.
As a figure of speech, the proposition that two and two
make four except in unusual cases, is fair enough. It is paraphrased thus: in "A Mysterious Disappearance:"
"Ican't s'y as I know anythink about it, sir, but by puttin' two and two together it makes four sometimes—not always. "
" Quite right. You're a philosopher. Let me hear the two two's. We'll see about the addition afterwards. "
And it is humorously referred to in "The Circular Staircase, " by Mary Roberts Rineheart:
At this point in my story, Halsey always says:
"Trust a woman to add two and two together, and make six. " To which I retort that if two and two plus X make six, then to discover the unknown quantity is the simplest thing in the world. That a houseful of detectives missed it entirely was because they were busy trying to prove that two and two make four.
The same proposition is quoted as the keynote of a detective's method in "The Holladay Case" where, in praise of the detective, it is remarked, "Your work convinced us that you know how to put two and two together, which is more than can be said for the ordinary mortal. "
And in "The House Opposite" the detective declares that to succeed in his profession requires, "accurate and most minute powers of observation, unlimited patience, and a capacity for putting two and two together. "
Sherlock Holmes shows a grasp of the principle, when he says, "If you were asked to prove that two and two make four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. "
Poe disdained the simple reference to two plus two, but embodied a similar idea in this subtle manner:
In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who
could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that X2 plus px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where X2 plus px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.
The aspiring author, then, will do well to omit further references to the adding of two and two as an illuminating point in his story. Eccentricities or freakish habits on the part of his detective are permissible if not harped upon too continuously. But let them be of a pleasant or at least of an unobjectionable nature, and not like a habit attributed to a detective in a series of stories now current, who pulled at the lobe of his ear, until a fastidious reader was fain to close the book in disgust. Let the habits of your hero be whimsical, mysterious, or erratic, if you choose; but let them be agreeable and not too frequently reiterated.