Something of the awe and terror of crime itself should cling round the figure of the detective: a grim shadow behind a curtain, who might himself be a criminal. Let the author invest him with this sense of gloom and the dark places of the brain, and we may safely leave all the wholesomeness to the murderer.
It will thus be apparent why, in all annals of detective fiction, there has been only one man. The lean hawk-faced gentleman from Baker Street—Sherlock Holmes of the evil laughter and the hypodermic needle—beside him, the rest of them are pygmies. It was not alone that with one glance he could tell that you were left-handed, asthmatic, henpecked, and a retired sergeant of marines from Afghanistan. It was rather the sense of overshadowing knowledge that emanated from him—and you understood that eerie power when night after night you saw the gaunt shadow pass the lighted window. In his efforts to convince you of a cold thinking machine, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle convinced you of a living man. He caught from the London fog a terrible ghost of retribution, and in this day of “significant novels” and “memorable portraits,” it is well to remember just who has created the one character that can never be forgotten.
