BOOK REVIEW: “The Consulting Detective Trilogy Part I: University”

Darlene A. Cypser; Publisher: Foolscap & Quill (May 2012)

[Note: This novel is a direct sequel to Darlene Cypser’s The Crack in the Lens, which was published in December 2010. You can read my review of it here. Spoilers for The Crack in the Lens potentially lay ahead, although I always endeavor to avoid them.]

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“Perhaps it would help if they understood what drove him to it,” Sherlock suggested.

“Do you believe that anyone can truly comprehend what goes through a person’s mind at such times?” Dr Mackenzie asked.

“Not if they haven’t been there. But perhaps they can understand the stresses that drove him over the edge of reason.”

It sometimes seems that Sherlock Holmes’s greatest asset is time. His character is at once both timeless and demonstrative of the values and mores of a particular age. It is “always 1895” as the Sherlockians say, but a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, who texts and uses the internet, has found himself at the center of a breathtaking upwelling in popularity – and a likewise resurgence of interest in the original Great Detective from whom he was built. Sherlock Holmes always knew how to make use of time. The Canon is full of instances in which the Detective demonstrates an almost transcendental patience in puzzling out a case (TWIS) or waiting for a quarry, but he also knew how important even one second could be in capturing a suspect, or how disastrous one ill-timed movement could be in the course of a chemical experiment (NAVA).

And at the onset of The Consulting Detective Trilogy Part I: University, by Darlene A. Cypser, it would seem that all Sherlock Holmes has going for him is time. The events of The Crack in the Lens have devastated him. Physically, he is weak, unable (or unwilling) to leave his room for extended periods of time, consuming food is necessary but a struggle, and even doing something as simple as climbing stairs is a trial. Emotionally, he is far worse off. Even the smallest triggers seem to send him into stress-induced trances. He cannot bear to set eyes on and compulsively avoids most female members of the household staff. The eldest Holmes brother, Sherrinford, is expecting his first child and the timing of the child’s birth (or perhaps the child’s mere existence) fills Sherlock with anger and guilt. He cannot even look at the snow, and keeps his curtains constantly drawn.

But he is determined to move on, move away. Sherlock’s first experience with time in the novel is how little of it he is willing to waste in getting into university and away from Mycroft Manor. He finds himself enrolled at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge with what almost seems like lightening-speed, perhaps a testament to Sherlock’s determination to prove that he is well. Unfortunately, he has drastically underestimated how much time his recovery would take, and the first snowfall of the season finds Sherlock hugely unprepared, with devastating consequences. Later, he will make another gross miscalculation as the plot of the novel convergences with that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The ‘Gloria Scott’”. The encounter is unquestionably illuminating. As the elder Trevor states:

“I don’t know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That’s your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.”

But Holmes’s offhand remarks have devastating consequences for Victor Trevor and his father, and certainly there are lasting results for Holmes himself. He learns a lot from his encounter with the Trevors, but more than anything, he learns what he still does not know, and how much time it will take to learn it. Cypser has artfully constructed a Sherlock Holmes who is utterly wrought, his foundation undermined, and all his components stripped away. The Great Detective is a man under construction in this novel; his entire framework has been brought to earth and he is trying to build again from scratch – with all the dangers that entails. The journey is long, and arduous, but Cypser’s young Holmes is certainly a man with the mettle for it.

Sherlock Holmes finds himself flanked on his journey by two companions: the young Jonathan Beckwith, who readers may remember from The Crack in the Lens, has joined Sherlock at university as a personal servant; and Dr. George Mackenzie, who is introduced into Sherlock Holmes’s life when it seems to be at its absolute worst. In The Crack in the Lens, Cypser introduced her readers to Sherrinford Holmes, the eldest of the three Holmes brothers, who seemed a forerunner for Dr. John Watson – earnest and compassionate, a companion for Sherlock Holmes when no one else seemed willing or able to fill the role. Now, Sherrinford is married, with young children, and Sherlock is living away from the manor. It would be unfair and inaccurate to somehow classify every single one of Sherlock Holmes’s pre-Watson companions as a precursor for the Good Doctor, but Jonathan’s and Dr. Mackenzie’s presence prove crucial to Sherlock’s development, nonetheless. From Mackenzie, Sherlock Holmes first learns the necessity of time and patience in the application of knowledge and diligent study (both within and without). From Jonathan, he learns the importance of a companion who remains devoted over any length of time, and through any circumstance.

The transformation of Cypser’s young Sherlock of The Crack in the Lens into the maturing Sherlock Holmes of The Consulting Detective is both subtle and brilliant. By the end of Cypser’s second novel, the reader stands in full knowledge and awareness of the man before them, and you wonder how you missed it, so understated was his development. Where previously there was only the merest hint of the man that would become the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes now stands tall, assembled, if not yet fully-formed. There are miles and years of distance between the “Sherlock” of Mycroft Manor and “Sherlock Holmes” of Baker Street, and while he is not quite yet the man of Doyle’s stories, the readers recognize him. Moreover they know him, and they are glad to see him again. Cypser’s novel is only the first in a trilogy that will take the Great Detective to Baker Street, but right now his path is clear, even if the road is not. And for now, Sherlock Holmes’s greatest asset is still time.

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The Consulting Detective Trilogy Part I: University is available in paperback and e-book formats from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  A full list of booksellers is available here.  More information about the novel and its author is available on its website, follow the novel on Facebook, or Darlene Cypser on Twitter.

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Some Thoughts on Character: Reginald Musgrave

“In appearance [Reginald Musgrave] was a man of an exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom… Something of his birth-place seemed to cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale, keen face or the poise of his head without associating him with gray archways and mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.”

In the 1986 Granada Television adaptation of “The Musgrave Ritual,” Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson arrive at Hurlstone Manor for a holiday – much needed (on Holmes’s part) and much encouraged (on Watson’s part). They are greeted by Reginald Musgrave, and the conservation is polite, if a little stilted. Finally, Holmes and Musgrave walk off alone – leaving Watson in friendly conversation with Brunton, the butler. Musgrave compliments Holmes on making a successful living off of his wits, to which Holmes replies, while looking about absently: “And how is the dear wife?” A brief silence follows before Musgrave replies: “I’m not married, Holmes.” There is another, longer, more awkward silence before Holmes claps Musgrave on the shoulder: “How wise!”

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And that is the disconnect with Reginald Musgrave; that is what separates Musgrave from other figures from Sherlock Holmes’s past – Victor Trevor, for example. Although the plot of MUSG was slightly altered for the Granada adaptation to compensate for the somewhat advancing ages of the series’ stars – Jeremy Brett, for example, was 53-years-old at the time of filming and was therefore perhaps ill-suited to play the 25-year-old Sherlock Holmes as seen in the original text of MUSG – the dynamic between Holmes and Reginald Musgrave remains true to the source material. Holmes and Musgrave are not friends. That is not to say that they are antagonistic, far from it. They are merely acquainted. Musgrave spins in and out of Sherlock Holmes’s orbit in much the same way as any of his other clients. At times there seems to be no difference between Reginald Musgrave and Violet Hunter, Victor Hatherley, or Grant Munro – that is to say, once they have served their purpose, they are rarely, if ever, heard from again. Musgrave at least has the added benefit of being openly appreciative of Holmes’s talents, where many had seemed initially incredulous: “Once or twice we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.”

But like Victor Trevor, Reginald Musgrave intrigues because he knew Sherlock Holmes when. He knew him when he was young and was not yet fully formed or fully in possession of his powers. He knew him when his career as the world’s only consulting detective was not yet sculpted out or defined to his satisfaction. More importantly, Reginald Musgrave knew Sherlock Holmes when Dr. Watson did not. Reginald Musgrave was present at the beginning of Sherlock Holmes – which for some Sherlockians is somewhat equivalent to being present for the Big Bang – and so he is in possession of a piece of the puzzle, which we are not. But does that truly lend any extra weight to Musgrave’s presence in the Canon – does that give him more merit as a character, when Holmes appears to give him the same level of consideration as the dottles and plugs of tobacco left on the mantelpiece of Baker Street every morning?

Unlike Victor Trevor, who was present from the very inception of Holmes’s career (“And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.” [GLOR]), Holmes appears to lose track of Reginald Musgrave for a bit of time before their paths cross again: “For four years I had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked into my room in Montague Street. He had changed little, was dressed like a young man of fashion–he was always a bit of a dandy–and preserved the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly distinguished him.” Holmes’s description of this first meeting with a long-lost acquaintance is rather interesting, in that he manages to both insult and compliment Musgrave in the same sentence. It is up to the reader to determine if the balance of the remark is ultimately neutral. But the casual way in which Holmes marks the length of their separation indicates that it was all the same to him if Musgrave had never walked through his door at Montague Street at all, save for the puzzle he brought with him.

According to Leslie Klinger: “Holmes and Musgrave were never more than ‘slight acquaintance(s)’: thus it is possible that the struggling young detective saw not a social visit but a business opportunity when Musgrave walked through his door. June Thomson speculates that Holmes may have charged Musgrave a fee for his services, pointing to his ‘living by my wits’ remark as ‘possibly a hint that he had turned professional and expected to be paid’” (534). And so, the reader sees Reginald Musgrave present at the time when Holmes has begun to realize that his services had value. Musgrave may not be the Detective’s first paying client, but he was probably one of the earliest. Victor Trevor may have been present for the beginning of Sherlock Holmes, but Reginald Musgrave was present for the event horizon – for the point of no return, for the moment when Holmes’s fate was fully determined and guaranteed.

As has been mentioned before, Holmes ultimately lost track of Victor Trevor – just as he lost track of Musgrave – but that was hardly Holmes’s fault entirely – the sordid circumstances surrounding his father’s death were certainly enough to make a reasonable man want to escape any and all places and persons associated with the events. The weight and merit of Trevor’s character rest largely on what he was present for, and Musgrave bears much the same burden. Though of the two men, Victor is the only one who can honestly wear the title of “friend,” Musgrave is the only one who can be honestly called a “client” – in the fully paying sense of the term. And while Victor Trevor sought out Sherlock Holmes in his hour of need, Reginald Musgrave walked through the door of Montague Street looking for a detective.

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Some Thoughts on Character: Victor Trevor

“You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?  He was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college.  I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year.  Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all.  Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.  It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.” (“The ‘Gloria Scott’”)

In “The Five Orange Pips,” Dr. Watson inquires as to who could be calling at Baker Street on such an inclement evening.  He suggests that their late-night visitor might be a friend of the Great Detective, who dismisses the possibility immediately: “Except yourself I have none… I do not encourage visitors.”  It is not until Sherlock Holmes shares the story of “The ‘Gloria Scott’,” that the reader learns that this declaration is not precisely true.  In GLOR, found in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes reveals the existence of Victor Trevor, one of only three people in the canon that the Detective explicitly refers to as his friend (Klinger, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, 501).  The two others are Dr. Watson, naturally, and perhaps more surprisingly – Inspector Lestrade, whom Holmes amiably refers to periodically throughout the canon as “friend Lestrade” (NOBL, CARD, EMPT, NORW, 3GAR).

The existence of Victor Trevor lends weight to Sherlock Holmes’s existence, gives shape to the person that Holmes was before he ever arrived at Baker Street.  It sometimes seems that Dr. Watson’s stories tell the reader so little about the Great Detective’s early life that it is easy to imagine that the man simply sprang into existence, fully formed like Athena from Zeus’s forehead, and was waiting for Watson to appear in that laboratory in St. Bart’s.  But the presence of a character like Victor Trevor reminds the reader that there was a Sherlock Holmes before there ever was a Dr. Watson, that he had an early life and a history that remain tantalizingly just out of our grasp.  Furthermore, the existence of Victor Trevor demonstrates that there was once a time when the Great Detective was not as the reader knows him, that there was a time when he barely existed at all.

As Sherlock Holmes points out, his first meeting with Victor Trevor was rather inauspicious, and in fact, Holmes’s encounter with Trevor’s dog left him incapacitated for ten days, which indicates a somewhat serious injury.  It’s a wonder that Holmes – a man who loathed extended periods of inactivity – would even tolerate Trevor’s presence afterwards.  However, there is something about Victor Trevor to which Holmes responds: “He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as friendless as I.”

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that there is a bit of Victor Trevor in Dr. Watson.  Upon returning from Afghanistan, Dr. Watson was still ill, and could not honestly be classified as either “hearty” or “full-blooded,” but Holmes immediately identifies him as a soldier and so has the potential to be both those things again.  Furthermore, as a medical man, Watson would have likely shared at least some of Holmes’s love of chemistry (even before the two ever shared a love of adventure), which the Doctor demonstrates in the way he avidly observes his friend’s chemical experiments: “His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments” (STUD).  Finally, Dr. Watson, like Victor Trevor before him, was entirely alone: “I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air – or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be” (STUD).

In fact, to take the analysis a step farther, the same characteristics could even be said to be true of Inspector Lestrade – Holmes’s other canonical friend.  As a policeman, Lestrade would most likely have been “hearty” and “full-blooded,” and he certainly demonstrates these features as he chases after Holmes on many an occasion.  The Detective and Lestrade certainly do not share many common interests, but they most certainly share a love of interesting crime, a desire to see mysteries solved, and justice brought to the guilty parties.  As for being isolated and friendless, not much is known about Inspector Lestrade’s personal life (the reader cannot even be sure of his first name), and due to the competitive natures of his colleagues at Scotland Yard, it might be fair to say that Lestrade found few allies amongst his professional associates.

Amongst his other contributions, Victor Trevor is most famously responsible for setting Sherlock Holmes on the path to becoming the Great Detective.  Trevor invites Holmes to spend a month’s holiday with himself and his father at their home in Donnithorpe, where the young Trevor explains to his father about his new friend’s powers of observation.  The elder Trevor asks Holmes for a demonstration, and is totally unsettled by the result: “I don’t know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands.  That’s your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.”

In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes informs Watson that he is the world’s only unofficial consulting detective, and that he has created his own profession.  But the idea for that profession must have stemmed from somewhere, someone must have planted the seed, and it appears that the readers can thank Victor Trevor for that.  It is not to say that Sherlock Holmes would not have found his way to his chosen vocation without Victor Trevor, but some gratitude must be extended to Victor Trevor and his father, for who knows how long we would have had to wait had it not been for their suggestion.  As Holmes tells Watson, “And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.”

Victor Trevor never really recovers from the tragedy that befell his father, and at the end of GLOR, the reader learns that Trevor is working a tea plantation in India.  Holmes says that he thinks that he is doing well, but it appears that he has lost track of his old friend.  Trevor occasionally makes appearances in various pastiches, recently turning up in the graphic novel, Sherlock Holmes: Year One, where the young Holmes is on a desperate errand to prevent his friend from self-destructing – amongst other plot points.  While the canonical Victor Trevor only appears in the one story, he provides a blueprint for Dr. Watson, and perhaps, in a way, for Inspector Lestrade.  By showing Sherlock Holmes the type of man that the Detective could relate to, he prevented Holmes from being entirely alone.  It might be going too far to say that without Victor Trevor there would have been no Dr. Watson, but he certainly laid the path, and provided precedent and context, for a solitary man to have need of a companion, after all.

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