Lady Geraldine - a Female Detective with a Side-Kick Husband

Richard Arkwright’s second novel The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery is a carefully plotted murder mystery with a married couple doing the detective work. The first person narrator George Pen Owen begins the story describing his idyllic boyhood days spent with his best friend Harry Collingwood, days seemingly filled with vigorous destruction of the local wildlife: killing crows and sparrows; hunting foxes, rats and moths, ferretting and, fishing (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 1). George displays the odd (to modern eyes) but common Victorian mixture of admiration for the natural world and eagerness to butcher it:

“An enthusiastic collector of nature's treasures, I was thus able to add many a rare and novel specimen to my fernery, my store of butterflies, and my display of stuffed birds. I shall never forget my first sight of the Osmunda Regalis.” (Ibid.)

Osmunda Regalis, Source: Wikipedia

The inspired descriptions of Monmouthshire (George’s home) and the Fenlands (Harry’s home) in the opening chapter may have been inspired by Arkwright’s own life. There are other autobiographical echoes. Arkwright, like George and Harry, was educated at Harrow and Cambridge (Ibid.). Arkwright worked as a barrister in Monmouthshire. Harry Collingwood becomes “a handsome and attractive barrister … on the high road to professional distinction.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 2) The most interesting similarity is George’s aristocratic marriage to “Lady Geraldine St. Pierre, only daughter of the Marquis of Stoneyhurst.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 1). The prominent role Geraldine takes in the murder investigation makes me wonder if Richard Arkwright modelled her character on his own wife, Lady Mary Caroline Charlotte Byng, daughter of the Earl of Stratford.

While George’s marriage to Geraldine is a happy one, Harry Collingwood is not so lucky. Harry marries Jessie Clark, from the neighbourhood of George’s Monmouthshire home. The marriage quickly turns sour. One evening, at a dinner table in front of George, she “threw off all restraint, and conducted herself with a violence of manner and language which was inexpressibly painful to witness.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 3) Harry breaks down and tells George: “that the experience of his married life had been miserable almost beyond endurance.” (Ibid.).

How can George help his best mate Harry to escape this terrible prison of a broken-down marriage? The solution arrives in the very next chapter: George is called back from a fishing trip to the Tweed by a telegram: “He is in custody on a charge of murdering his wife! Come at once!” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 4) George rushes back to London to hear “the main facts of the case … Jessie had been poisoned by strychnine, conveyed in a glass of orangeade, which Harry had given her himself in her bedroom.” (Ibid.) Strychnine particles are found in Harry’s writing desk, and he also left the house for several hours during the night in question, refusing to explain the reason for this (Ibid.).

Lady Geraldine and George are determined to prove Harry’s innocence. They hire a private detective Mr Sleuthson to help them (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol 2, Chapter 2). Arkwright uses the legal process to give structure and a sense of urgency to the plot. To begin the investigation of the murder mystery, an inquest at the “Westminster Police Court” presents us with all the known facts; all the servants of the household, and medical experts are interviewed. Later, at “the Central Criminal Court,” Harry is tried for “wilful murder” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 3). Here Arkwright takes the opportunity to complain about a well-noted phenomenon of the age: the courtroom was

“polluted by the presence of a row of women – women of gentle birth and breeding – who now, in their thirst for ab excitement which must be gratified at any cost, had seated themselves, with their fans and scent-bottles, even with their opera-glasses and refreshments, to watch the proceedings in the Sensational Trial of the season.” (Ibid.)

When the “Guilty!” verdict is pronounced, only one of these women faints with shock. George’s view on this can be seen as a (tongue-in-cheek?) comment on sensation novels like the one in which he himself appears:

“I heard long afterwards that this gracious exception among the group of unmoved spectators was no less a person than Mrs Alldon, the celebrated novelist. She alone, in virtue of her profession, could claim a justification for her presence in court, and she by her conduct demonstrated how far the real tragedies acted among us, in their awful routine, surpass in horror the wildest conceptions of imagination.” (Ibid.)

After the verdict, Harry’s day of execution is set for “the second Monday in May” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 4). Now the clock starts running in earnest and tension grows. Will Geraldine and George be able to save Harry’s life? And if Harry did not kill his wife, who did?

Lady Geraldine is the brains of the operation. George is Watson to her Holmes. Throughout their investigation, Lady Geraldine decides what steps to take (for example The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapters 1, 2, 5,12, 14). She examines the evidence, including analysing handwriting with a magnifying glass (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 5). She interviews witnesses from all social classes winning their trust (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 1). Geraldine has all the ideas and theories, and she explains them to George (for example, The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapters 1, 5). She even talks like a detective (or a barrister): “That fact is established as far as human testimony goes. Beyond it, the explanation which I suggested just now rests entirely on circumstancial evidence.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2 Chapter 1)

When it becomes necessary for someone to travel to New York to capture a key witness and possible suspect, George is left home and Geraldine travels across the Atlantic accompanied by her lady’s maid and Mr Sleuthson. She conducts the most delicate part of the murder investigation on her own (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapters 11 and 12). Later, she appears in court to give evidence (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 14).

Lady Geraldine is an unusual character: an aristocratic lady who takes an active lead as an amateur detective breaking a number of social conventions. She is a female detective with a supporting and admiring husband in awe of her intellect and social acumen.

George narrates Lady Geraldine’s adventure. He expresses his admiration for her “determination and confidence” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 7), “the powers of persuasion and discreet investigation with which Geraldine was endowed.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 4) He describes the “rapidity with which she weighed the merits of the various stratagems which instantly occurred to her” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 11). George reveals his inferiority to Geraldine’s detective prowess by his questions and inability to follow her: “George … You don’t understand! … You don’t notice what I mean.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 4, see also Vol. 2, Chapter 5).

Only once (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 12) does Geraldine experience self-doubt. Alone in New York, she has to extract a crucial piece of evidence and thereby potentially incriminate “a sick and helpless woman”: “With her eyes fixed on the goal of her ambition … Geraldine had overlooked the nature of some of the steps which she had taken in the course of her pursuit.” (Ibid.). But the threat of the arrival of the police compels her to proceed: “She fancied the wretched girl already in the custody of the police, and exposed to rough handling and cruel questioning.” (Ibid.)  Despite the opposition of professional men (a medical doctor and a private detective) Geraldine is adamant that the delicate situation is best handled by herself (Ibid.)

George, like the George of Driven Home, is a young gentleman with an interest in sports. He is also “peculiarly sensitive to any mental strain.” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 4). Receiving the news of Harry’s predicaments, George is “in a condition rather to receive than to offer comfort and assistance.” (Ibid.). Falling asleep in Harry’s study, he has a vivid nightmare of Harry performing a magic lantern show of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories. This leads him to discover a clue in Harry’s desk: a love-charm written in invisible ink (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 7).

This love-charm becomes the central clue to the mystery. The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery is very much about women's ambitions and desires. Lady Geraldine takes it upon herself to prove Harry’s innocence. Her investigation starts from the doomed marriage of Jessie Clark and Harry Collingwood and leads her to the working-class love story of Sabrina Reed and Handsome Hugh. Lady Geraldine is by far the smartest and most capable of the characters, but beyond her solid belief in Harry’s innocence, she does not have much emotional depth. Instead, the women of the lower social classes, Nanny Price, Sabrina Reed, Bridget O’Hara, Charlotte Sims and, to an extent, even poor Jessie Collingwood née Clark, provide the emotional colour of the narrative. They succumb to hysterics, feel burning jealousy and desperate love; they have ambitions both professional and social. They also provide moments of slightly patronizing humour. Nanny Price, the village witch, gives a lively courtroom performance (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 14). Charlotte Sims, the housemaid elevated to a position of a lady’s maid by Lady Geraldine, dreams of a career as a romantic heroine when she is asked to help in the investigation:

“The chief recreation in Charlotte’s previous existence had been the study of sensational literature; her most cherished aspiration, that she herself might become the leading spirit in some deed of mystery or daring . . now – could the wildest conceptions of the mot imaginative reader of romances have evolved a situation more desirable?” (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 2, Chapter 11)

Geraldine and George’s marriage is in stark contrast to that of Harry and Jessie Collingwood. Jessie shows no regard for her husband and lacks social skills. Geraldine, on the other hand, is obviously intellectually superior to her husband and has great social skills. It is worth noting that Jessie grew up in “the position of a poor relation” in an aristocratic household (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery Vol. 1, Chapter 2), while Lady Geraldine was the only daughter of a Marquis (The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, Vol. 1, Chapter 1). Again, a character from a lower social class provides the emotional turmoil and passion, while the character from the higher social class retains a calm, rational appearance throughout.

In The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, the style of writing is similar to the earlier Driven Home and the protagonists (the two Georges) share characteristics. But there are some marked differences which serve to illustrate the journey from traditional melodrama to modern detective fiction.

Driven Home derives much of its drama from the supernatural – the appearance of ghosts, an “irresistible power” (Driven Home, Chapter 7) that guides the hero’s actions and his “unreasoning horror” (Driven Home, Chapter 9) for the villain. The suspense and drama in The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery is derived from the suspicions of guilt (who committed the murder) and Lady Geraldine and George’s desperate race against time to save their friend from the gallows. There is no villain in The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, instead there is a circle of suspects. The experience of both the protagonist and the reader is changed by this. Feelings of suspicion and uncertainty fluctuate between characters because there is no clear, stable target for animosity and pursuit.

The plot of Driven Home progresses through coincidences, the plot The Queen Anne’s Gate progresses to a large extent through logical steps taken by the detectives in their investigation. While George’s motivations in Driven Home are often irrational (blind fear, supernatural persuasion), the actions of the amateur detectives in The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery are based on rational reasoning.

Driven Home offers a series of revelations that unveil the mystery. In The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery the early chapters are littered with clues whose significance becomes clear towards the end of the story. Driven Home is a series of more or less sensational surprises: each revelation is a new piece of information. The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery is a series of more or less sensational realizations when each clue falls into place to reveal the truth. In both novels, as typically in sensation novels, details are pregnant with meaning. In Driven Home, that meaning is exposed at the moment the detail is discovered, in The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery, the meaning is delayed; there is space for the reader to wonder and hypothesize. The reading of Driven Home can proceed linearly, each revelation being a new little burst of energy to propel the plot forward. The reading of The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery is more demanding, because each clue, provided it is spotted by the reader in the first place, complicates the story and adds ‘narrative drag’ as the reader has to consider all the potential meanings of the clue within the framework of the continuing story.

Although written only three years apart (1886 and 1889) Driven Home and The Queen Anne’s Gate Mystery offer distinctly different reading experiences. They are both engaging and full of sensation.

"Once More the Cool and Crafty Female Detective" - Mrs Paschal

Revelations of a Lady Detective (1864) is attributed to William Stephens Hayward (1834-1870). His name did not appear on the original title page. Most cheap pot-boilers were published anonymously or 'by the authors of' earlier well-selling stories. Little is known of Hayward, but what is known indicates that he was a bit of a rogue (see Steve Holland's blog http://bearalley.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/william-stephens-hayward.html). Together with Samuel Bracebridge Hemyng, Hayward was associated with the popular "Anonyma" series of sexy and sensational stories. They all feature fearless heroines tackling compromising and dangerous situations.

 Revelations of a Lady Detective has ten cases told in a first-person narrative by Mrs Paschal, a female detective employed by the police. The title, promising revelations, is suggestive of naughty secrets and the cover image of the book (assuming that the 2013 reprint by the British Library retains the cover of the 1864 original) shows quite a saucy, pretty woman with a knowing expression, lifting the hem of her dress to show her petticoat and shapely ankles, with a lit cigarette in her other hand.

 

 Mrs Paschal's adventures are exciting, melodramatic and entertaining. The narratives flow well and there is plenty of action and violence. There are a few logical errors: in "Fifty Pounds Reward," Mrs Louisa Eskell is once called Laura, and later in the story one policeman mysteriously becomes "policemen." In "The Lost Diamonds" Karl Fulchöck's father is dead, but a couple of pages later he dutifully keeps sending him part of his salary. Each story wrings pretty much every last drop of suspense and emotion out of the scenes, sometimes to a ludicrous but amusing degree. It is not clear why the mysterious countess has to dress up as a man and wear "a hideous black mask" when she enters the basement in her own house.  It is also not clear why Mrs Paschal walks into the show at the gipsy fair only to see her suspect Lambrook perform with three rats. Hayward comes up with some terrific chapter titles, and often the action in the chapter is twisted suitably to provide substance to the title: "Eating Rats," "A Very Bad Woman," "Torture," and "Chained to the Wall" are my favourites.

There are many excellent scenes of melodrama; Mrs Paschal is several times spectacularly in danger of her life. In "The Mysterious Countess" she is lost in underground tunnels hiding from the countess: "What could I do? To attack her ladyship would, I thought, be the forerunner of instant death. It would be like running upon a sword, or firing a pistol in one's own mouth." In "The Secret Band," an evil mastermind Zini, the leader of an Italian secret society, amidst flashes of lightning and thunder, attempts to throw Mrs Paschal into the teeth of a gigantic water-mill: "If any one were by chance to fall within its compass, life would soon be extinct, and a mangled corpse would before long be floating down the river." And if her own life is not in danger, Mrs Paschal is witness to some sensational scenes. In "The Nun, the Will and the Abbess" she sees as young novice tortured by the evil abbess. In "Found Drowned" she chases a culprit trough a moonlit graveyard. In "Which is the Heir?" she watches a man kill a rat with his teeth and pretend to eat it: "the crunching of the bones was plainly audible." In "Mistaken Identity," she pretends "to be by no means shy" and plays the role of a wife of a French criminal turned detective in the company of a criminal gang in an ale house. And in "Stolen Letters" she takes a job as a letter-sorter at the General Post-Office ("For the sake of appearances two other women had been introduced at the same time." The men scowl at them "as if we intended to take the bread out of their mouths."), and she witnesses the culprit escape by means of "the tubes of the Pneumatic Company." In short, Mrs Pashcal is no shrinking violet and keeps getting herself into and out of tricky situations.

At the opening of the first story, Mrs Paschal arrives to see Colonel Warner "head of the Detective Department of the Metropolitan Police," he, according to Mrs Paschal, was the first police chief to employ female detectives following the example of "Fouchė, the great Frenchman" (Joseph Fouchė [1759-1820] was Minister of Police in France 1799-1810 and again in 1815).  Although most of her assignments are handed to her by the Colonel, Mrs Paschal is in the detective game to earn her living, and wherever she goes she keeps her ears open for potentially profitable cases. In "The Lost Diamonds" she is posting a letter at the General Post Office when she overhears two people mention that Duke of Rustenburgh has lost his diamonds: "I immediately began to think how I could turn the information to account." In "Found Drowned" she reads about the death of Laura Harwell in a newspaper: "I made up my mind to compete for the reward." Her eye is usually on the reward and almost all the stories mention where it will come from. Only some of the cases are official criminal cases, many of them are problems individuals bring to the Colonel, who then passes them to Mrs Paschal as matters of a private investigation. Many cases, like ""The Lost Diamonds" are "hushed up" and a deal negotiated ("The Nun, the Will and the Abbess", "Fifty Pound Reward") or the culprit is allowed to emigrate ("Who is the Heir?" and "Mistaken Identity"). Mrs Paschal is also aware that she that she is competing against other detectives. To recover Duke Rustenburgh's diamonds, "I was aware that in engaging in this matter I was undertaking a contest with the keenest wits and most fertile brains in the force." ("The Lost Diamonds"). She often takes a different course from her colleagues and solves the cases beating them in the detective game.

Mrs Paschal does not tell us much about herself. She is "verging on forty." She has worked as a barmaid ("Incognita"). Of her past, she says: "It is hardly necessary to refer to the circumstances which led me to embark on a career at once strange, exciting, and mysterious, but  I may say that my husband died suddenly, leaving me badly off." ("The Mysterious Countess") She enters households in the guise of a domestic servant, she "appeared of a mature age" ("The Nun, The Will, and the Abbess"), she talks of "old people like myself," and a young adventuress suggests she could be mistaken for her mother ("Incognita"). Mrs Paschal describes herself as "always happier in harness" ("Stolen Letters"), as "the cool and crafty female detective" ("Incognita") and says that "owing to frequent acquaintance with peril, I had become unusually hardened for a woman." ("The Secret Band"). She is smart, efficient, capable and unshaken by a corpse with a crushed head ("He could not bend down and kiss his wife's brow, for in its entire state it did not exist."), by an old woman falling down the stairs to her death or by seeing a man reduced by lightning to "a scathed mass of charred humanity" (all events in "The Secret Band"). Mrs Paschal is happy to bribe a housekeeper ("The Mysterious Countess"), steal paperwork from an abbess ("The Nun, The Will and the Abbess"), to enter the Pig and Whistle in the Seven Dials ("Mistaken Identity"), examine a drowned body ("Found Drowned")  and even abandon her "obnoxious" crinoline when chasing a criminal ("The Mysterious Countess"). There is nothing to stop this woman from pursuing her investigations.

Mrs Paschal is great fun, and a heroine of this calibre deserves equally formidable female adversaries. There is Lady Vervane, the eponymous "mysterous countess," who was once "on stage" and married "the notorious and imbecile nobleman" who soon died. Lady Vervane is beautiful, rich and resourceful, and "looked upon [Mrs Paschal] very much as a lady in the Southern States of America looks upon a slave." ("The Mysterious Countess"). There is also the evil and greedy abbess in "The Nun, the Will and the Abbess" and the pretty, avaricious Fanny Williams aka 'Incognita' who has Mrs Wareham's son in her clutches. Finally, we have the formidable Mrs Wilkinson, wife of the "keeper of a pork and butter shop" in "Fifty Pounds Reward." She corrupts poor, "muddled" Mrs Louisa Eskell into fraudulently spending her husband's money. This is an interesting story because it deals with a wayward and independent woman who speaks her mind. Mrs Wilkinson is large and loud, we get a long description of her gigantic body in most unflattering terms. It is worth quoting in full:

"She was enormously stout, and to such a size did her corpulence extend, that at the first glance the beholder imagined he was regarding a phenomenon who by some accident had escaped from the caravan in which she was carted from fair to fair, to be shown to the curious as a monstrous mass of humanity, whose adipose tissue had grown to a size altogether beyond reasonable or decent limits. In a house in which beetles abounded she would have been invaluable, for few of the poor insects could have effected their escape from the crushing tread of those huge feet, which more resembled the hoofs of an elephant or a gouty rhinoceros than the lower extremities of a woman. The bloated and swollen lumps of flesh which in her composition represented hands, were like patches of dough formed into half-quartern [sic] loaves before they were subjected to the heat of the oven. Her face might have been made by the amalgamation of two turnips and a pumpkin, with two pig's eyes deeply sunk in the fatty mass. Nature was to blame for having created such a montrosity, or if creation was unavoidable, for permitting it to cumber the earth, who surface groaned beneath the imposition." ("Fifty Pound Reward")

The narrative goes on to describe her voice and mannerisms with equal relish.                    

Mrs Wilkinson has been corrupted by her husband, who "was accustomed with gross indelicacy to speak before his wife as he would have done before his sporting friends, and the consequence was that her mind became vitiated, and her manners contaminated." Louisa Eskell falls under the spell of Mrs Wilkinson. John Eskell tries to control her: "I am the proper person to regulate such things, and to tell you who you shall know and who you shall not." When Louisa stamps her foot at her husband and protests: "a woman who submits to a man is little better than a fool," John Eskell threatens her: "If this sort of behaviour on your part continues, I shall send you home to your mother." And all this takes place under the chapter heading "A Very Bad Woman."

It is very difficult to know how to read "Fifty Pounds Reward." It is funny, quaint and just what we expect of the presumably horrendously prim and proper, misogynistic Victorians. When Mrs Paschal arrives to sort out the mess of the forged signature on Mr Eskell's cheque, she demonstrates her no-nonsense approach and marches to the Wilkinsons' shop and arrests Mrs Wilkinson in front of gaping customers as "an accomplice with one Louisa Eskell" for forgery. She is giving no consideration to poor Louisa's reputation informing the neighbourhood of her crime, even when she knows that Mr Eskell is quite happy to forgive his wife. Mrs Wilkinson "howled out her penitent prayers for forgiveness with a submission that was as servile as it was disgusting." The matter is resolved privately at the Eskells' house. Mrs Wilkinson pays John Eskell twenty pounds in compensation for making Louisa go on a shopping spree. Presumably Louisa also gets to keep her purchases. The Wilkinsons lose their reputation, have to sell their shop and end up "in a state of abject poverty." 

Mrs Paschal is a strong female character, but it would be misguided to read her adventures as in any way proto-feminist. They are, however, melodramatic in the best tradition of penny-dreadfuls. They are full of gruesome violence and Gothic scenes of mystery and terror. Their year of publication (1864) and the similar casebook format invite a comparison between Hayward's Mrs Paschal and Forrester's Miss Gladden. Mrs Paschal and her adventures are drawn with much stronger colours than Miss Gladden's. Miss Gladden's endeavours at detection are puny and pale when set alongside the thickly slapped-on melodrama and sensationalism of Mrs Paschal's investigative triumphs

"I Know Well That My Trade is Despised" - Miss Gladden, The Female Detective

Andrew Forrester's The Female Detective (1864) is a collection of seven separate cases with an introduction. All are told by a first person narrator (even if in the introduction she states that she will "tell the tales in what I believe is called the third person"). This case-book format follows a tradition of similar publications by male detectives both fictional and real. The Recollections of a Policeman by "Waters" appeared in 1852; Recollections of a Detective Police-Officer by William Russell (not a policeman) in 1856. The earliest of them all, Richmond, or, Scenes in the Life of a Bow Street Officer was published in 1827. By the time Andrew Forrester hit on this formula in 1863/4 it was an old hat. He produced The Revelations of a Private Detective in 1863 and Secret Service, or, Recollections of a City Detective in 1864, both before The Female Detective, as well as The Private Detective in 1868.

Andrew Forrester was a pseudonym of James Redding Ware (1832-1909) [In Mike Ashley's introduction to The Female Detective this discovery is attributed to Kate Summerscale.). Ware wrote stories and possibly edited the weekly magazine Grave and Gay, where most of them appeared. It is evident that some the stories featured in The Female Detective were published before Miss Gladden was created, including "A Child Found Dead: Murder or No Murder," which appeared in 1862 under the name J. Ware (hence the connection between the man and his pseudonym) as a pamphlet and with no mention of Miss Gladden.

This story "A Child Found Dead" is little more than a re-telling of the known facts relating to the famous Road House murder case of June 1860. Similarly, "The Unraveled Mystery" outlines a hypothetical solution to the 1857 Waterloo Carpet-Bag Mystery, which was never solved by the police. There is no room in these stories for Miss Gladden and on both occasions the narrative is handed to her by 'Doctor Y-,' a medical man who remains anonymous (detectives do not reveal their sources).

At first glance, the stories in The Female Detective are rubbish. They are predictable and read like pot-boilers, spewed out carelessly without much forethought or effort. Only three of the stories follow the course of criminal investigations by Miss Gladden or 'G' as she is known among her detective colleagues. The remaining four are shorter, anecdotal tales of clever crimes, the two based on true crimes suggesting only their hypothetical solutions.

These tales are not entirely without merit and interest, however. There are a couple of pleasingly melodramatic scenes and mildly sensational turns of events. Perversely, the best scenes for getting the reader to grip the edge of the seat are wasted and their potential thrown away unused. In "The Unknown Weapon," just as they have discovered a crucial, incriminating piece of evidence, Miss Gladden and a female detective colleague find themselves locked up in a burning house. There is plenty of scope for heroic action as they fight to save their lives. The narrative resolves this tense situation: "This tale is the story of the 'Unknown Weapon,' and therefore I cannot logically here go into any full explanation of our escape."

"Tenant for Life" introduces a marvelously melodramatic villain in Sir Nathaniel Shirley. He is a selfish, profligate, sensualist. When, armed with his own police officers, Sir Nathaniel comes to take everything away from the pure-hearted, beautiful Miss Shedleigh, we are on the brink of a sensational scene. Unfortunately, at this moment Miss Gladden decides to leave the room: "Then I left the room. What was said I never learnt." She only returns to the room after Sir Nathaniel has dropped dead.

The Lady Detective is clearly not interested in offering traditional melodramatic scenes of horror, suffering or romance. The narrative sets them up before our eyes and then shuts us out. There is always the possibility that Forrester just is not a very good writer. There is also the possibility that he is making a conscious choice. Instead of sensational thrills and shivers based on spine-tingling scenes of danger and villainy á la The Woman in White (1860) or Lady Audley's Secret (1862), Forrester is grasping for a specific kind of a cerebral and moral thrill: the science of detection and the ethical dilemmas it brings.

In her Introduction, Miss Gladden asks three important questions. It is part of her 'logical' style to ask questions and follow them with answers. She also likes to present numbered lists of items. First she asks "Who am I?" And she answers that it matters little, as long as we accept "that whatever may be the results of the practice of my profession in others, in me that profession has not led me towards hardheartedness." We have detective with a heart - capable of compassion and sound moral judgment. Then she asks, "For what reason do I write this book?" She writes in order to show that the profession of a detective "is so useful it should not be despised." Throughout the book Miss Gladden is painfully aware of the general dislike and distrust for the detective police: "I am quite aware that society looks upon the companionship of a spy as repulsive; but, nevertheless, we detectives are necessary, as scavengers are called for, and I therefore write this book to help show, by my experience, that the detective has some demand upon the gratitude of society." The same argument is repeated in "Tenant for Life" and "The Unknown Weapon." The Female Detective presents itself as an apologia for the detective police. Finally, Miss Gladden asks what will be the value of the record of her experiences. She hopes that it will show how successful detective work can be in exposing evil-doing and, what is much more interesting and important, "that there is much good to be found, even amongst criminals, and that it does not follow because a man breaks the law that he is therefore heartless."

Detectives are sensational. They spend their time dealing with low-life criminals, homicidal maniacs, fraudsters and thieves. What is worse, entering the homes of respectable people they bring an unwelcome whiff of this societal pestilence with them. They are experts in pulling skeletons out of the family closet. Detectives are "family-spies." Miss Gladden observes that "It had appeared as though the English detectives were in the habit of prying into private life, and as though no citizen were free from a system of spydom."

Women detectives are doubly sensational. Miss Gladden's friends think she is a dressmaker, her enemies think she is a prostitute. She hides her true profession. Detection, for so many reasons, is not lady-like. Forrester seeks to present the female detective as a sexy, sensational figure who is a consummate professional in her highly questionable field of expertise. There is a tension between the admiration for the detective's skills and a discomfort with these same skills of spying, deception and ferreting out secrets.

"I am aware that the female detective may be regarded with even more aversion that her brother in profession. But still it cannot be disproved that if there is a demand for men detectives there must also be one for female detective police spies. Criminals are both masculine and feminine - indeed my experience tells me that when a woman becomes a criminal she is far worse than the average of her male companions, and therefore it follows that the necessary detectives should be of both sexes."

At best, this argument by Miss Gladden sounds like a strike for gender equality and feminism. At least, it sounds like a plausible justification for the existence of The Female Detective. There are things, according to Miss Gladden, that female detectives can do better than male detectives. They "are enabled to educate our five senses to a higher pitch than are our male competitors." They have an element of surprise, with people unable to believe a woman can be a detective. In "The Unknown Weapon" the mind of a slow-witted local policeman, "could not grasp the idea of a police officer in petticoats." They can assume an occupation of a dressmaker or a milliner which gains them access into a house for a suitable period of time. There are fewer such male occupations. Miss Gladden observes that "it is the peculiar advantage of women detectives, and one which in many cases gives them an immeasurable value beyond that of their male friends, that they can get into house outside which the ordinary men-detective could barely stand without being suspected."

In The Female Detective Miss Gladden uses the latest forensic technology ('fluff' is sent to a "microscopic chemist" for analysis) and lectures us on the importance of boot prints for identifying culprits. She finds out when the rain started on the night of the murder to estimate the time of the crime. She uses official registers for births and marriages to track down people. She showcases all these professional tricks of the trade of detection. She also lies, pretends and misleads. This is all in a day of detective work: "as evil-doing is a kind of lie levelled at society, if it is to be conquered it must be met on the side of society, through its employees, by similar false action." She condones theft: "we police officers have sometimes to turn thieves - for the good of society of course."

The professionalism, the scientific approach to the detection of crime and the slight bending of the social, even legal, rules to achieve ultimate justice are all features we today recognize as belonging to detective heroes. The most controversial characteristic of the female detective, however, is her sense of justice. The job of the detective police, as Miss Gladden repeats several times, is to uphold the law and bring criminals to justice. But justice according to law is not always in accord with our sense of fairness and just desserts. This is the point Miss Gladden makes at the end of her introduction.

The Female Detective aims to be sensational and thrilling by using a woman detective with specialized knowledge and expertise in the technicalities of crime detection. It can also be argued that a female protagonist and narrator gives the author more scope to explore the moral dilemmas detective work creates. Compassion is one more thing female detectives do better than their male colleagues. In this way, a woman detective opens up new ground for the author to explore and a powerful way to engage his readers. Miss Gladden is placed in situations where the law pulls one way, her moral compass points the other way. "Tenant for Life" labours this point almost to death. It is the main theme in "The Judgment of Conscience," and it resurfaces in different forms elsewhere in the stories.

It is possible, even likely, that Forrester is a lousy writer churning out cheap tales of detection to earn a quick buck. Nevertheless, he has created an intriguing and engaging character: a woman detective who is independent, professional, even mercenary in the pursuit of her trade and at the same time struggling to reconcile the gap between the law she is paid to uphold and her natural sense of justice. Miss Gladden is a sensational heroine, even if the plots of her adventures are not.

The Mystery of the Vanishing Lady Detective

The female detective seems to appear in popular fiction before we encounter her in real life. Once the detective officer was established as a popular hero of sensational fiction by the 1860s, it was but a short step to add more spice into the story by dressing this officer in a petticoat.

In real life, from the 1850s onwards, there were women working as 'police matrons' at police stations to look after and search female suspects. They were usually police sergeants' wives. In 1883 the Metropolitan Police employed the first woman as a female visitor to keep an eye on female convicts on license and women under police supervision. In 1889 fourteen women were engaged to look after female prisoners at the police courts. In The Invention of Murder (2011) Judith Flanders writes: "two women were hired to look after female prisoners at police stations in 1883" (p. 298) (Her information clearly differs from that of the Open University website). The first female police officer worked in Portland, Oregon in 1905. In the UK it was only after WWI that women joined the police force as officers.

Women's Police Service of volunteers was started in 1914, and two years later women were employed as typists by the Metropolitan Police. When an official of the Met was asked by the journalists of women would ever serve as police constables, the official famously replied: "No, not even if the war lasts fifty years." In December 1918 plans were made for new "Metropolitan Women Police Patrols." (This information about the history of the police is from the Open University website and the website of the Metropolitan Police. For more information see also Police Detectives in History, 1750-1950. Ed by Clive Emsley and Haya Shpayer-Makov, 2006 ).

This is the official history of women police. But the obvious question is whether fiction reflects the reality more than we are aware of? There is an argument to be made that women were occasionally employed to assist in investigations on a freelance basis. Until 1884 detectives, and before them Bow Street runners, sold their services as thief-takers and unravellers of tangled skeins to anyone wanting to employ them. It would only make sense that there would be situations where a woman's assistance would come in handy.

British Library has very conveniently re-published the adventures of the two earliest known professional female detectives in fiction. Andrew Forrester's The Female Detective was published in May 1864. At its heels followed The Revelations of a Lady Detective (October 1864) attributed to William Stephens Hayward. Both books have first person narratives, the Female Detective is Miss Gladden and the Lady Detective is Mrs Paschal. They are consummate professionals and a pair of tough cookies. The two collections of stories give a good view into the roots of detective fiction. They stand in the confluence of three traditions: sensational, gothic melodrama and the spine-tingling reporting of real crime can be seen to give way to the equally sensational romance of the newly invented detective police with its scientific methods.

There were surely other detective heroines in addition to Miss Gladden and Mrs Paschal. Flanders mentions Ruth the Betrayer (1862-3) by Edward Ellis (The Invention of Murder, p. 298), and she makes a reference to women attached to a private inquiry office in Collins's Armadale (1866). In "The Lenton Croft Robberies" (1894) by Arthur Morrison, the detective says that "Of course there will be a female searcher at the Twyford police-station." There were also female detectives in stage plays (see The Invention of Murder, pp. 380-1). We know of a tradition of amateur detectives in sensation fiction (Marion Halcombe in Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White in 1860 or, even much earlier, Susan Hopley in The Adventures of Susan Hopley by Catherine Crowe in 1841). By the 1890s there were plenty of female detectives fiction: Dorcas Dene, Detective by George M. Sims (two series of stories in 1897 and 1898); Amelia Butterworth by Anna Katharine Green (3 novels: That Affair Next Door [1897], Lost Man's Lane [1898] and The Circular Study [1900]); Loveday Brooke by C. L. Pirkis (1894). Where are the lady sleuths of the 1870s and 1880s?

In his introduction to The Revelations of a Lady Detective, Mike Ashley mentions Mr Bazalgette's Agent by Leonard Merrick in 1888 and, in the US, "The Lady Detective" by Harlan P. Halsey in his dime-novels, possibly in 1880. Are there more?

Margaret Kinsman is surely right to say that there is a whole hidden history of female detectives in the 19th century. They appear so special to us, because we only know of a handful of women detectives from that period. (Kinsman spoke at a panel discussion on the female detective at the British Library 8.3.2013.)

In her book about female detectives in fiction, Kathleen G. Klein argues about Miss Gladden and Mrs Paschal that "These characters are anomalies" - they have no precedents, and no followers (Klein. The Woman Detective: Gender & Genre, 2005, p. 29). "Certainly, the lack of additional similar characters and the absence of further British female private detectives until the 1890s diminishes the status of these precursors through silence and omission." (Ibid.)

Are Miss G and Mrs P oddities and mere gimmicks to attract readers, or are they part of a lost tradition of Victorian female private eyes? Can you solve the mystery of the vanishing lady detective?