Somehow, despite my general love of Victoriana, I had until recently never read anything by Wilkie Collins, a friend of Dickens best known for The Moonstone and The Woman in White, both viewed as important early examples of detective novels. So I picked up a copy of the former from the library.
Rachel Verinder, a wealthy and rather high-strung young woman, inherits an Indian diamond said to be sacred to the Hindu god of the moon. On the night after receiving the diamond, it disappears from her bedchamber. This sparks an intense investigation, in which Rachel stubbornly refuses to take part. After the local police prove useless, the case is entrusted to Sergeant Cuff, a detective from Scotland Yard with a passion for growing roses. Cuff befriends Gabriel Betteredge, the head servant of the Verinder estate and the first major narrator of the novel. Betteredge is an excellent character. One of his most unusual traits is a religious faith in Robinson Crusoe to which he looks for answers in times of uncertainty. The interplay between Cuff and Betteredge is one of the high points of the novel.
The investigation is long and complex, with a host of suspects and red herrings. The actual solution to the mystery involves a far-fetched scheme in which the diamond was stolen by a man who had unwittingly taken laudanum and actually didn’t know that he had stolen it. Rachel had seen him take the diamond and remained silent and hostile to the investigation because she was engaged to the thief. Although an unlikely enough story, it provides an excuse for the involvement of Ezra Jennings, a doctor’s assistant who is terminally ill and who takes opium to control the pain. It is Jennings who learns of the practical joke that resulted in the thief accidentally taking the laudanum. He thereby reconciles Rachel with her fiance.
Throughout the novel we are aware of a plot by a group of three Indians to return the diamond to India and its rightful place in the forehead of the moon god. At the beginning of the novel, we see these characters as dishonest, shifty, and murderous. As the book progresses, the Indians begin to take on heroic qualities. We learn that they are Hindu brahmins who have renounced their caste and come to England to recover the diamond, at great personal sacrifice. This is one example of Collins’ liberal social views, another being his very sympathetic and human treatment of the servant characters such as Betteredge.
This is not going to be listed among my favorite books, but it is a fun read, if only for memorable characters like Betteredge and the tract-distributing fanatic Miss Clack. Unlike The Eustace Diamonds this book really is a full-fledged detective novel, so those who particularly enjoy that genre will like the book more than I did. For me the implausibility of the plot and the contrivances made by the author to conceal the real events from the reader left me feeling manipulated and frustrated.