Criminal Inspiration - Gaboriau's The Slaves of Paris (1868)

Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873) has a well-recognized position in the history of detective fiction even if he is read little today (his novels are becoming available as e-books, but there are no recent printed editions). He provided inspiration for mystery writers on both sides of the Atlantic; Anna Katharine Green mentions him in an interview in 1929 (in Bookman, Vol 70, p168) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found in Gaboriau's detective stories a source for Sherlock Holmes. In 1924, Conan Doyle is quoted as writing in his memoir: “Gaboriau had rather attracted me by the neat dovetailing of his plots,” (http://sherlockholmesexhibition.com/path-to-baker-street/) and in an interview in 1900, Conan Doyle explained how he got the  idea for A Study in Scarlet (1887): "it was about 1886 - I had been reading some detective stories, and it struck me what nonsense they were ..." According to Pierre Nordon, Conan Doyle's notebooks for 1885 and 1886 show that among Conan Doyle's reading "almost the only detective stories were by Gaboriau." (Pierre Nordon. Conan Doyle, 1966, p. 225). In the early pages of A Study in Scarlet, Holmes dismisses Gaboriau's detective Lecoq as "a miserable bungler. ... That book made me positively ill." (A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 2). For a more detailed look at traces of Gaboriau in Sherlock Holmes stories, see for example, http://www.worlds-best-detective-crime-and-murder-mystery-books.com/gaboriauinfluenceondoyle01-article.html.)

In France, even before than in England, the idea of detective police had captured people's imagination. This fascination with the detective as an authority moving across class boundaries and ferreting out the hidden secrets of both respectable and criminal classes, was quickly harnessed commercially. Eugène François Vidocq (1775-1857) was  a criminal who became the head of the French detective force Sûreté Nationale and founded what is generally thought to be the first ever private detective agency. In 1828 he published his memoirs in four volumes (they were probably ghost-written). They were a roaring success and gave Vidocq life-long fame. These memoirs and Vidocq's character, it has been suggested, gave Edgar Allan Poe inspiration to create Auguste Dupin, who in turn, together with Vidocq, inspired Émile Gaboriau to come up with M. Lecoq.

(from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne-Fran%C3%A7ois_Vidocq)

 

Vidocq was a thief, a fraud and a womanizer; he was constantly on the run after breaking out from prison and once dressed as a nun to escape his pursuers. In 1809, after having been caught again, he turned his coat and became an informant for the police. First he worked as a prison spy, but after his release in 1811 he became a plainclothes detective. In 1813  Napoleon Bonaparte created Sûreté Nationale with Vidocq at its head. The early 1800s were a turbulent time in France and Vidocq's career had its ups and downs. He is, however, credited with developing many modern policing techniques (record keeping, ballistics, chemical analysis, crime scene investigation). In 1832 Sûreté Nationale overhauled and Vidocq left. In 1833, he founded his own private detective agency Le bureau des renseignements. Vidocq and his organization were in constant loggerheads with the official police and he was plagued by court cases brought against him. Vidocq died in 1857 at the age of 82. He was a well-known public figure and his influence has been spied in the works of writers like Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and Alexander Dumas. For a good summary on Vidocq see Graham Robb's review of the 2003 edition of Vidocq's memoirs in the London Review of Books (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n06/graham-robb/walking-through-walls). (A full text version of Vidocq's memoirs is available at https://archive.org/details/memoirsvidocqpr00cruigoog).

 

Gaboriau's books, at the time of publication, were patchily translated into English; a browse of the catalogue of the National Library of Scotland shows that a number were published in English in the 1880s, but there are very few later editions, once those disappeared from print. Gaboriau's novels would have belonged to that army of yellow-backed, French cheap novels read for thrills and titillation. It is reasonable to assume that merely the multitude of mistresses established in luxurious quarters featured in these tales would have created a pleasurable sense of naughtiness for their English readers.

Emile Gaboriau (from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%89mile_Gaboriau.jpg)

Gaboriau was born in the village of Saujon, Charente-Martime. In 1855 he moved to Paris, where he worked as a journalist and a writer for magazines. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "Gaboriau’s prolific imagination and acute observation generated 21 novels (originally published in serial form) in 13 years. He made his reputation with the publication in 1866 of L’Affaire Lerouge (The Widow Lerouge) after having published several other books and miscellaneous writings." (http://www.britannica.com)

In this novel (also translated as The Lerouge Affair) Gaboriau created police detective M. Lecoq and amateur detective Père Tabaret. Other detective stories, featuring the same serial detectives, followed in quick succession: Le Crime d'Orcival and Le Dossier n° 113 both in 1867 and two-volume adventure of Monsieur Lecoq (L'Enquête and L'Honneur du nom) in 1869. Altogether, Lecoq appears in ten novels in one short story (http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Lecoq.htm, this site offers a detailed look at the character).

It is generally appreciated how Gaboriau's detectives are masters of both disguise and sharp, analytical thinking. Commentators tend to emphasize those features of Gaboriau's stories (plot twists and clues) and his characters (minute observations and the deductive method) which lead in a straight line to Sherlock Holmes and the classic detective story (see, for example, http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gaboria.htm, for more on Gaboriau and detective fiction). Less attention has been paid to Gaboriau as a writer of sensation fiction.

In the middle of his well-known detective novels, in 1868, Gaboriau published another two-volume novel Les Esclaves de Paris, translated as The Slaves of Paris. The two volumes were entitled Caught in the Net and The Champdoce Mystery. The Slaves of Paris does not follow the pattern of earlier Lecoq-novels with a detective character investigating a crime or solving a mystery. It is, however, a sensation novel.

The Slaves of Paris is a story of a cunning plot of manipulation and deception created and orchestrated by criminal mastermind Baptiste Mascarin. It is a tale told as much from the point of view of the scheming villain as from that of his innocent victims. It is a thrilling drama of love and money and, perhaps most of all, love of money. M. Lecoq appears in the story, but only in chapter 32 (of 35 chapters) of The Mystery of Champdoce.

The master criminal and his creator are clearly aware of the sensational genre within which they both operate. When Mascarin explains the course of his dastardly plot to his henchmen, he ends by commenting that it "...  would really make a good sensational novel." (Caught in the Net, Chapter 18).

We may agree with the general view of Vidocq's influence on the analytical, methodical detective work carried out by Lecoq (Dupin and Holmes), but I will also suggest that we can see traces of Vidocq's life of crime (frauds, false identities, cunning plots) in the characters of Mascarin and his gang in Gaboriau's The Slaves of Paris. This time, Vidocq is not a source of ratiocination and the scientific method of detection but a source of excitement, menace and sensation.

The American Idea of Equality and Detectives

Anna Katharine is a very American writer. A Strange Disappearance is set in New York with a trip to Vermont. We move through Mr Blake's aristocratic house with "heavily frescoed ceilings" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2) to the "dark, narrow streets of the East Side" "with hand on the trigger of the pistol I carried in my pocket" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 6) and Pier 48 E.R. to view the body of a drowned girl ("Pity the features are not better preserved." [A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 9]). Detectives glide effortlessly along the social scale and between different milieus. These scenes of New York life, as Patricia D. Maida suggests, give Green's work value as social history. But they alone do not make the tale distinctly American.

In 1828 Frances Trollope (1780-1863) travelled from London to Cincinnati and stayed there for two years. Four years later she published Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832). The book was immensely popular, and it is still a very interesting and entertaining read (note the waste management procedures for Cincinnati). It was the first of many tales of British ladies' travels among the uncouth Americans. Already in this early work, Trollope noted the three qualities that became closely associated with the British view of American life: the idea of equality, the single-minded pursuit of money and the general lack of good manners.

In A Strange Disappearance we see an American class system. The Blake family occupies the top, the Schoenmakers with their rough German accents are pretty much at the bottom. Luttra Schoenmaker manages to move from the bottom to the top and become Mrs Blake. This is extreme upward mobility. The whole plot of the novel depends on this scenario of the wealthy, respectable Blake marrying the poor, (initially) uneducated and unsophisticated Miss Schoenmaker. The first "symptom of American equality" observed by Frances Trollope was a milliner in New Orleans whose "society ... was highly valued by all persons of talent." (Trollope, Chapter 2). Later she writes about her difficulties to find a suitable servant: "The whole class of young women, whose bread depends upon their labour, are taught to believe, that the most abject poverty is preferable to domestic service." - They think "Their equality is compromised." (Trollope, Chapter 6). She employs a girl who stays only as long as she has earned enough money to buy new clothes:  "Her sister was also living with me, but her wardrobe was not yet completed, and she remained some weeks longer, till it was." (Trollope, Chapter 6). When Mr Blake decides to pay for Luttra Schoenmaker's schooling, she is "to go out to service in Melville and earn enough money to provide herself with clothes." (A Strange Disappearance,  Chapter 12).

Frances Trollope wondered if the Americans' eagerness to pursue wealth was due to "the unceasing goad which necessity applies to industry in this country, and in the absence of all resource to the idle" (Trollope, Chapter 5). Nothing, she says, distracts the Americans from the chase for more money; "neither art, science, learning, nor pleasure can seduce them from its pursuit." (Ibid.) Money is the main motivating force behind the actions of both the detectives and the criminals in A Strange Disappearance. Q and Mr. Gryce sell their services as detectives and expect to be paid by Mrs Daniels and Mr Blake. The Schoenmakers aim to make money out of Blake, first by robbing him and later by blackmailing him. Mr Blake's father's will is also important, because it is the threat of disinheritance which gives Mr Blake the idea of marrying Luttra Schoenmaker. Luttra is the only character in the novel who is no driven by the desire to make money. Quite the opposite, she tears up the note that offers her the Blake inheritance.

Americans lack manners, according to Frances Trollope: "The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavouring to account for it." (Trollope, Chapter 5). Men spit incessantly, and seldom hit the spittoon ("But oh! That carpet! I will not, I may not, describe its condition ..." [Trollope, Chapter 2]). They eat their dinners quickly and without conversation. They have no table manners (Trollope, Chapter 3). Q does not spit at the charity ball, but he is quite happy to cut open a seam in the curtains to give him a peep hole (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2). He cosies up to Fanny in order to get information from her (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 8).  He breaks into the Schoenmakers' house  and carries away a ring he finds there (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7). He unashamedly visits Countess De Mirac pretending to be an antique seller and seizes an opportunity to read a letter on the table while her back is turned (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 8). Q is a resourceful young man, keen to do his job and get the credit. But he is not overly burdened with the finer points of social conventions and good manners.

Trollope suggests that all these American qualities are tied together:  "Any man's son may become the equal of any other man's son, and the consciousness of this is certainly a spur to exertion; on the other hand, it is also a spur to that coarse familiarity, untempered by any shadow of respect, which is assumed by the grossest and the lowest in their intercourse with the highest and most refined." (Trollope, Chapter 12)

I have already suggested that this fundamental idea of equality is further reflected in Green's writing in the way all characters whether low- of high-class, are capable of lofty speeches and grand words. It is also reflected in the freedom with which the detectives pursue their investigations. There is no shame in detecting, there is no hesitation in the use of all methods available to spy on people, appropriate evidence and capture the culprits. Yes, ... about capturing the culprits ...

(Plot Spoiler Alert)

Despite the fair game all around (and Green's own religious convictions), justice in A Strange Disappearance  is relative. The final resolution of the mystery is very much what the Audleys of Audley Court might have come up with. Mr Blake gets his wife after she demonstrates that she is not returning to him for money, but for love: "I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love ..." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 18). Under Mr Gryce's benevolent gaze and with Q providing the final piece of leverage, Mr Blake pays off the Schoenmakers, his wife's embarrassingly criminal relatives, with a "liberal" monthly sum. The Schoenmakers promise to stay away from the Blakes, as long as Mr Blake and the two detectives do not reveal that they are murderers: "Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?" (Ibid.) The Schoenmakers avoid the scaffold and get away with murder so that Mr Blake does not have to suffer the shame of being married to a daughter and a sister of such men. Instead, they are bundled off to jail for a few years for the lesser crime of bank robbery. (Ibid.) Such a deal is very 'Victorian' in the way it protects respectable people from the taint of scandal. But it is also disturbing in its implications, because it shows explicitly how the wealthy can buy the law and change reality to suit themselves.

Fair Game

"Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 1).

The opening sentence of A Strange Disappearance (1879) is an advertisement for Anna Katharine Green's first novel as much as an efficient way of setting up the narrative frame. A Strange Disappearance features the same detectives as The Leavenworth Case, and it is another crime mystery. It promises to be sensational by revealing an affair that has been kept secret. Readers know right away what to expect from this "novel case" (that is the title of chapter 1).

The internal, first-person narrator is introduced:

"The Speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting Mr Gryce; ... (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 1).

Q and Gryce are paid for their detective services by the client who comes to the police for help (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 3). Q also hopes to gain a further reward for capturing wanted criminals (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7). In addition to financial motivation, Q has professional ambitions. When Gryce hints that Q has missed a clue: "More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to reëstablish my reputation with Mr Gryce before the affair was over," (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 4).

Q is not then entirely mercenary but takes pride in his work and wants to create a name for himself in the force. The relationship between Q and his superior Mr Gryce provides a useful motor for the narrative when Q aspires to make a good impression on Gryce. Q is, above all, a career detective: "But once in the room of the missing girl, every consideration fled save that of professional pride and curiosity." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2).

There are vague echoes of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes at the opening of A Strange Disappearance (A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887). In his case histories, Watson too refers occasionally to Holmes's other cases. Like Watson, Q is a side-kick to an eccentric master detective whose unfathomable logic both amazes and exasperates those who try to follow his reasoning. One of Green's noted contributions to the detective genre is a serial detective. Q and Gryce were later followed by Amelia Butterworth and Violet Strange in Green's works. Of course, Emile Gaboriau already had M. Lecoq and Edgar Allan Poe had C. Auguste Dupin before Green created Mr. Gryce.

Q begins his story by describing how Mrs Daniels appears at the police station requesting the help of a detective to find a girl who went missing from her employer's house the previous night. The narrative sets up the relative positions of Q and Mr Gryce by showing Mrs Daniels as wanting the professionally reassuring advice of the older master detective and being dubious about Q's abilities: "isn't there someone here more responsible than yourself that I can talk to?"  (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 1) According to Mrs Daniels a seamstress called Emily has been abducted from her room. Mrs Daniels is the house-keeper of Mr Blake, an "aristocratic representative of New York's oldest family" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7), a wealthy, recluse bachelor, with a large house on 2nd Avenue.

The first four chapters of A Strange Disappearance establish the mystery Q and Gryce have to solve. They also establish another convention of the detective genre that has been attributed to Green: fair game. At the scene of the assumed abduction, Q and Mr Gryce examine Emily's room carefully and question Mrs Daniels and other servants. Q is methodical and presents all the details to the reader: "let me state the facts in the order in which I noticed them." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2) Later Gryce assures Q:

"I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight for any body who had eyes to see it. ... You had it all before you ... and if you were not able to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn't blame me for it." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 4)

Green was the author who first turned a story of detection into a neat puzzle that readers were invited to solve alongside the detective. Detection is here moving away from a subversive and morally questionable activity towards a parlour game.

This shift towards crime as primarily an intellectual puzzle, removes much of the dubious aura surrounding the domestic spying associated with detective work in British sensation fiction. There is no shame in detection here. Even the apparently ultra-respectable Mr Blake assures Mr Gryce: "let no consideration of my great inherent dislike to notoriety of any kind interfere what you consider your duty." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 3).

Q follows Mr Blake to a charity ball and spies his meeting with Countess De Mirac:

"I took advantage of the moment and made haste to conceal myself behind a curtain as near that vicinity as possible. .... Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the curtain hanging before me and looked through." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 5)

Q has no qualms about eavesdropping on other people's private conversation. Later Q enlists the help of Blake's servant girl Fanny to listen at doors (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 8). And he persuades his landlady to take part in a plot to capture some of her lodgers. (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 16). There seems to be no shame associated with any of the tricks employed by the detective police. This is distinctly different from British popular fiction of the time, which frequently apologizes for the necessity for detectives. The reason for this difference may be, as suggested above, that Green was looking at crime as an entertaining puzzle rather than as uncomfortable social deviance. Therefore, the intrusive quality of detective work was not to be taken as a serious moral concern. However, the reason may also be that Green was American, and therefore not lumbered with British manners and social conventions (considerably more of that later).

When Mr Blake learns that Q has been shadowing him, he is outraged: "Have the city authorities presumed to put a spy on my movements ...?"

"Mr. Blake," observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my superior at that moment, "no man who is a true citizen and a Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands it." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 10).

Here is another moment of either the American idea of equality or an indication of the shift towards the format of modern detective fiction. No matter how high your position or rank in society, no matter how rigid your apparent respectability, no matter how great your wealth, you are always fair game to a detective.