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T S Eliot in a 1927 essay on Collins and Dickens called THE MOONSTONE (1868) "the first, the longest, and the best of detective novels." Two years later Dorothy Sayers labeled it, "Probably the very finest detective story ever written." Until now it was one of several gaps in my education. I have to thank Greg Herren for indirectly giving me the impetus to read it. In a bit of metafictional play he boldly lifted the essential plot to use for his own purposes in VIEUX CARRÉ VOODOO (also reviewed this week). Once I began Collins's novel, I was compelled to keep reading until I finished it. Its plot and characters have not lost their power to entertain through time or familiarity, despite how many of its plot devices are now standard gimmicks of the genre. It includes the English country house setting, anticipation of the locked room puzzle, red herrings, reconstruction of the crime, a fairly unlikely villain, both amateur sleuths and professional detectives, eccentric types, romance, and foreign intrigue (bordering just this side of xenophobia). The story is told in the first person by multiple narrators, beginning with the two longest and drollest: an account of events by Gabriel Betteredge, the head servant of the Yorkshire manor house in which the theft takes place, an elderly gentleman who uses his well-worn copy of ROBINSON CRUSOE as if it were the I-CHING; and Drusilla Clack, a religious fanatic who recounts some of the subsequent events in London. The latter is particularly amusing since the reader is able to understand so much more about her character than she will ever be capable of realizing about herself. Among the other eight narrators are the London policeman, two doctors, and one of the chief suspects. The basic plot is a fairly simple one. A family scoundrel, John Herncastle, ends up the owner of the fabled yellow diamond called the Moonstone, which had formerly adorned the forehead of the statue of a Hindu god. In a dream received by three priests Vishnu placed a curse on whoever possessed the gem and the family as well. Thus when Herncastle bequeaths the diamond to his niece, Rachel Verinder, who he felt had insulted him, upon her arriving to her eighteenth year, it is unclear whether his motives are conciliatory or malign. Three Indians mysteriously and somewhat menacingly appear at the Verinders' Yorkshire country home, where the birthday is to be celebrated. That evening, with the full household's knowledge, Rachel stows the diamond in an Indian chest outside her bedroom door. In the morning it is gone. The local police are called in and quickly bungle the case. Thereupon, Rachel's mother summons up the famous London detective, Sergeant Richard Cuff, to conduct his own investigation. It quickly becomes apparent that the diamond has somehow been transferred into the hands of a pawnbroker in London. Suspicion alternately falls upon Rachel herself; her cousin, Franklin Blake, who has conveyed the diamond to her in the first place; and a disturbed young servant, Rosanna Spearman, who was convicted earlier in her life of theft. Both Blake and Betteredge catch "the detective-fever." Though Sergeant Cuff, on his second try, identifies the thief, it is the agency of a young boy in the family lawyer's employment along with one of the amateur sleuths who actually brings the case to its close. It is a tribute to Collins's skills that on this slim plot he was able to construct a relatively long novel that can still hold our interest. Romance also plays a part, but the rivalry between two cousins — Blake and the philanthropist Godfrey Ablewhite — for Rachel's hand takes up relatively little space in the overall story. The very first readers of the novel would have known they were reading some kind of mystery. Betteredge indicates clearly at the beginning of his narrative that it is concerned with "the loss of the Indian Diamond." Too, the author's mystery THE WOMAN IN WHITE had already appeared in 1860. The actual theft does not occur, however, until a sixth of the way through the novel. And more pages go by before Cuff appears. He employs logic as the basis of his detection, thereby identifying the perpetrator on his second try, and literally unmasks the thief in the end. The various amateur sleuths pick up their clues more by happenstance. None, neither Cuff nor the amateurs, ultimately plays as prominent a role, however, in solving the mystery as one would assume from Eliot's and Sayers's placement of the novel at the head of full-length detective fiction. (Poe's importance in the short form is never disputed.) Eliot also was not quite right when he called THE MOONSTONE "the first" detective novel, unless he assumed "English" was implied. The French novelist Émile Gaboriau seems to have as good a claim. As for "best" and "finest" — well, each reader must personally determine the veracity of those labels. My one real quibble with the plot is that Cuff relies on the exactitude of the drying time for paint more than my own experience would indicate he can. I have a strong feeling though that I am going to remember details of what happened in this mystery, including the importance of the paint smear, far longer than I normally recall what happened in the last current mystery blockbuster that I read. Thanks, Greg Herren, for pushing me to read this "gem" of a work. § Drewey Wayne Gunn, Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, is author of THE GAY MALE SLEUTH IN PRINT AND FILM (2005) and editor of THE GOLDEN AGE OF GAY FICTION (2009), a collection of essays, including his own "Down These Queer Streets a Man Must Go," and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Benjamin Franklin Award.
Reviewed by Drewey Wayne Gunn, June 2010
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