Sims, George Robert - Dorcas Dene, Detective

She was featured in two case books, Dorcas Dene, Detective, First Series (1897) and Second Series (1898), written in a somewhat Holmesian vein by George R. Sims. Dorcas Dene, nee Lester, was a small part actress with a special bent toward impersonation. She had taken up this profession when her artist father died, leaving her and her mother a legacy of unpaid bills and a few unmarketable pictures. She married a young artist named Paul Dene, who was exceedingly promising, and they all moved to a house with a lovely garden in Oak Tree Road, St. John’s Wood, London. Then a terrible misfortunate occurred, as Paul had an illness and became blind, and was never able to paint again. Next door to them lived an ex-superintendent of police, a Mr. Johnson, who had been conducting a high-class enquiry business, and to make ends meet Dorcas became a lady detective. She was extremely attractive, with soft grey eyes. As a pet they had a big brindle bulldog whose name was Toddlekins.

The stories were told by a Mr. Saxon, Dramatist, who gave Dorcas Lester, as she was known then, her first part on the stage. Apart from Mr. Saxon as her Dr. Watson, she worked in great cooperation with the Yard. When Dorcas visited the Yard and sent her name to the chief officer on duty, she was instantly admitted. On another occasion we read this: “It isn’t usual,” the Superintendent said, “for our men to act under the orders of a private detective, even one so talented as Dorcas Dene, but under the circumstances I consent.” One Yard detective who was also very cooperative with her was Inspector Carr. The stories have their sentimentality, too, and on being presented with a jewelled gift, Sims wrote of her: “The one great drawback in her joy in possessing the beautiful diamond brooch is that poor Paul cannot see how beautiful it is. But somehow, when he turns it to the light, he stares at it with his poor sightless eyes and declares that really the stones must be very brilliant, for it doesn’t seem quite so dark when she holds them up before him.”

Jon Jermey

Despite the use of phrases like "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes", most of the detective writers who followed in Doyle's footsteps in the 1890's do not write fiction much in Doyle's style. Arthur Morrison's tales, for example, seem very different from Doyle's in plot and mood. But George R. Sims' "The Man With the Wild Eyes" does seem Doyle-like. There is the same mystery oriented plot, with an ongoing investigation into a continuing mysterious situation that persists through the whole story, rather than just being a puzzle at the start of the tale; the same sense of threat and menace; the same way separate groups of characters seem to carry on independent schemes (in this story, the father, the daughter, and the assailant); the same sort of middle class characters possessed of dynamic energy, who have a certain presence, with forceful personalities all their own. Dorcas Dene's narrator Saxon also seems most Watson-like, with his devotion to the detective, and willingness to assist her with her investigations on a volunteer basis. Like Doyle, Sims also has an international perspective, with characters who have just returned from India. Watching Dorcas impersonate a nurse to do detective work also reminds one of the numerous 20th century nurse detectives: is this the first use of this plot?

Sims' use of such archetypal images as a pool and a gate also seems especially well done. The pool seems to represent the return of repressed images and dangerous events. The heroine is found lying half in and half out of it, just barely alive; later the pool will turn up all sorts of information. The pool is a female symbol; it also represents memory. The way the assailant in the case gradually emerges more and more throughout the story is a fine piece of detection, and also a well done example of mise en scene, with a man figuratively emerging from the mists, or from the unconscious.

Like most of the Dene tales, "The Man With the Wild Eyes" shows Sims' careful creativity with detection. We see step by step how Dorcas Dene discovers each new fact in the tale. We see Dene's stratagems, which allow her to explore areas and locales associated with the crime; we see her using clues to reconstruct the crime; we see her ingenious search for new sources of information; we see her tracking characters and following their trails. The detection is very full bodied. Sims clearly feels that such detection is one of the main subjects of a detective story, perhaps the principal one, along with the nature of the crime itself. It makes for a very well developed traditional detective story, which each new fact following logically from genuine detective work.

Also, it enhances the status of Dorcas Dene as a detective. She comes across as a genuine professional. She always uses real detection, never guess work or coincidence, to solve her cases. Her cases are solved by brain work, and lots of it. Certainly she has equal ability to any male detectives: no detective of either gender could work more intelligently or professionally to detect crime. This professional status for her is deeply embedded in the structure of the plot: it is based on the solid detective work she performs throughout her adventures. The feminism of this portrait of a woman detective is deeply enhanced by the careful plotting of Sims' tales.

"The Diamond Lizard" is a tale about stolen jewelry. It is ultimately comic in tone, with Sims coming up with elegant plot constructions tracing the path of the stolen items. Both the crime schemes and Dene's detective work also build up to elegant patterns of plot in "The Mysterious Millionaire".

The Dorcas Dene tales have some ties to Rogue literature, as well. Elegant stories of the flow of jewelry such as "The Diamond Lizard" recall Max Pemberton's "The Comedy of the Jeweled Links". The night club scenes in that tale look forward to E. Phillips Oppenheim, and his fascination with danger and fighting in sinister but exciting night clubs. The way that Dene is always getting disguised and going undercover in different roles, also anticipates the Rogue tradition.

The Dene stories have a nice plotting flow, in which detail after detail is added to some scheme, either detection by the heroine, or the crime by the villain. The flow is a pleasing reading experience, like listening to a piece of music. The details all fit into a logical pattern. They tend to be bigger and more extended than the reader first assumed was possible; it is pleasant to watch such a logical design be preserved and extended. The plot ideas tend to involve activities: actions taken by a character. Many of these actions are secret, and concealed from others.

Both "The Diamond Lizard" and "The Mysterious Millionaire" have feminist overtones, perhaps not surprising in an author who creates a female detective. Sims looks at the dark side of well to do Victorian men, and their treatment of the women in their lives. Doyle had also looked at the exploitative nature of male-female relationships. Telling such "home truths" about male and female social standing seems to be one of the purposes of the 1890's detective story.

Also interesting is the way Dene orders her "Watson" Mr. Saxon around, directing his activities and providing all the brain work and planning for his actions. There is nothing too unusual about this: Sherlock Holmes similarly directed Watson, and such a brain power / leg work division of labor is standard in detective fiction history. What is unusual is that the detective here is a woman, giving a man orders. Dene is completely successful at this, with her instructions to Mr. Saxon always bearing fruit in unearthing new clues and information. This portrait of an able woman boss must have been quite startling in its day.

The end of the first chapter of "The Diamond Lizard" mentions both Gaboriau's Lecoq and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes - another example of the long tradition of detective writers paying homage to their predecessors. Some features of Sims do seem Gaboriau like. Dorcas Dene is a master of disguise. In "The Mysterious Millionaire" Dene uses physical clues ingeniously to track people, and to reconstruct events at crime scenes. Sims shows considerable inventiveness at such use of clues, in the Gaboriau tradition.

"The Haverstock Hill Murder" is notable mainly for the detection Dorcas Dene does. There is a good reconstruction of the crime, something popular in Gaboriau and Anna Katherine Green. There is also much charming use of disguise, and following of race track crooks. Doyle's stories are full of disguise, and Sims' tale is in the tradition of such Doyle works as "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1891). Not only does Dorcas Dene show ingenuity in her disguises, but she also disguises subsidiary characters in her schemes, just as in Doyle.

That British staple, the tracing of the bank notes, gets some new wrinkles here. This is one of the earliest stories I remember reading in which such notes play a role.

The introductory chapter of Dorcas Dene, Detective, "The Council of Four", sets up Dene as a character, and introduces us to her husband and mother, with whom she lives, as well as her Watson, Mr. Saxon. This is the weakest part of the book. The mystery case Dene solves here, "The Helsham Mystery", is less inventive than most later Dene stories. Worse, Dene is depicted as subservient to the alleged intellect of her obnoxious male chauvinist husband, and as a follower of all sorts of Victorian nonsense about Womanly Ideals of behavior. This chapter seems to be a sop to chauvinistic ideas about women, popular in their day. It has rightly been criticized by Professor Kathleen Gregory Klein in her book The Woman Detective: Gender & Genre (1988). Fortunately, once the actual cases of Dene start getting underway in the subsequent chapters, all of this is ignored. Dene's dismal husband largely disappears as a character, and Dene shows outstanding detective skills throughout the book. This portrait of a highly intelligent, gifted woman excelling in her profession through ability is deeply feminist.

Mike Grost