Abstract
The most basic use to which Shakespeare is put in detective fiction is to assist with an enquiry into who the detective is, who the criminal is, and what entitles the one to track down and punish the other. Three plays typically prove able to help with these investigations: Macbeth, Hamlet and, perhaps less predictably, Twelfth Night. Less loudly announced but no less important is a related enquiry into who the reader is and what is at stake in their engagement with detective fiction, and central to both these questions is the idea of the double. It is a commonplace of the genre that a fine line divides the detective from the criminal. In Chesterton’s Father Brown story ‘The Duel of Dr Hirsch’ a man adopts two separate personae, one of whom challenges the other to a duel and is discovered by Flambeau, ‘who had the instincts of a burglar (and a detective)’ (223); in ‘The Secret of Father Brown’, ‘Some say a career of crime had left [Flambeau] with too many scruples for a career of detection’ (493). The reader too is frequently incriminated. In Christie’s 4:50 from Paddington, when Inspector Crackenthorpe asks if Cedric is interested in criminology he replies, ‘Oh, we needn’t put it in such highbrow terms! I just like murders—Whodunnits and all that!’ (122), and in Rupert Latimer’s Murder after Christmas, Rhoda explains to the policeman that because of the murder, ‘our Christmas has been much more cheerful than it was last year’ (93), and in Christie’s The ABC Murders, Hastings cheerfully opines that ‘a second murder in a book often cheers things up’ (29); in this sense, the reader is almost as avid for crime as the criminal. The Name of the Rose, which is both a theorisation and a high-concept exemplar of the classic detective story, notes the genre’s profound investment in the idea of the double, and when Adso says, ‘the magic of mirrors is such that even when you know they are mirrors they still upset you’ (Eco, 239), he reminds us of the extent to which the crime story may pack an affective punch even when we feel no emotional attachment to its characters, for the artificiality of the form cannot mask its power to shine a light on the darkness not just of others but of ourselves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
It is a presence throughout Light Thickens, and also surfaces in Enter a Murderer (358), Black as he’s Painted (211), Hand in Glove (41), Opening Night (33, 40 and 94), Off with his Head (170 and 196), False Scent, where Richard’s play is called Husbandry in Heaven, Final Curtain, where Sir Henry Ancred is painted as Macbeth, Swing, Brother, Swing, where Lord Pastern complains to Félicité ‘Ask a couple of people to dine and your mother behaves like Lady Macbeth’ (518), Surfeit of Lampreys, where the Cast List includes ‘A Police Constable who has read Macbeth’ (4) who proves to play a significant part when he gives Alleyn an idea which helps him solve the crime (227–8), and Death in a White Tie (240).
- 2.
In Reginald Hill’s Midnight Fugue we find ‘a wise man would be found to have grappled his influential friends to him with bands of gold’ (177), ‘For which relief much thanks’ (182) and ‘By indirections find directions out’ (200). In The Murder on the Links, Monsieur Renauld leaves everything to his wife, which the French detective Giraud considers ‘possibly a little unfair on his son’ (49), and Poirot says ‘ill fortune, or that obscure justice which shapes men’s ends and will not allow them to evade the consequences of their acts’ (238). In the Father Brown story ‘The Perishing of the Pendragons’, ‘When Flambeau pointed out a rock shaped like a dragon, he looked at it and thought it very like a dragon. When Fanshaw more excitedly indicated a rock that was like Merlin, he looked at it, and signified assent’ (276). and Father Brown is repeatedly said to be staring at vacancy, as for instance in ‘The Vanishing of Vaudrey’ (574), while in ‘The Curse of the Golden Cross’, the little showman emerging from the excavation ‘looked like some particularly preposterous Grave-digger in a burlesque of Hamlet’ (424) and in ‘The Chief Mourner of Marne’ we are told of a character that ‘Like Hamlet and Ophelia—he lost hold of love because he lost hold of life’ (610). Even the relatively unliterary Holmes asks in The Sign of Four ‘Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world?’ (15), and in ‘The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes’, Holmes says of Count Sylvius Negretto ‘This is a proof that he feels my toe very close behind his heel’ (64).
- 3.
In Murder Must Advertise, ‘Before those shoes were old! Why, they only buried little Dean on Friday’ (7); Ingleby says of Copley ‘He goes out for his elevenses, and assumes seniority though he hath it not’ (11) and asks ‘What’s Hecuba’s bank-balance to you, or yours to Hecuba?’ (234), and Wimsey says to Parker ‘Well met. You come most carefully upon your cue, to prevent me from being murdered’ (240). In Have His Carcase, Wimsey says ‘the second law of thermo-dynamics will endure while memory holds her seat in this distracted globe, by which Hamlet meant his head but which I, with a wider intellectual range, apply to the planet which we have the rapture of inhabiting’ (297); later, he exclaims ‘O my prophetic soul! There goes my reputation!’ (404). In Clouds of Witness, he includes ‘Good night, sweet Prince’ among a jumble of other quotations (88); in The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Wimsey wonders why the man tailing George Fentiman runs away at the sight of him: ‘Have I a front like Jove to threaten and command? Or am I wearing a repulsive tie?’ (94). In Lord Peter Views the Body, ‘“Oh, well,”’ said Mr Frobisher-Pym, finding this opening irresistible, ‘“we know there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”’ (96). In Strong Poison, Wimsey observes ‘Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape the Old Bailey’ (20) and says of Mrs Wrayburn ‘the old girl … was so near shuffling off this mortal thingummy’ (127).
- 4.
In Grave Mistake, first Verity and then Alleyn (twice) glances at Polonius’ ‘It must follow as the night the day’ (480, 613, 640) and when Verity watches Bruce digging the grave ‘the gravedigger’s half-forgotten doggerel came into her head: In youth when I did love, did love,/Methought ’twas very sweet’ (616). In Photo-Finish Alleyn muses that ‘The whole scene, he thought, was out of joint’ (39), and Dr Carmichael assures him ‘“Safely stowed”’ (113); in Opening Night, Dr Rutherford, who is, like Hamlet himself, re-presenting a play originally written by someone else, says of those he terms ‘queers’, ‘I have an instinct, my girl. I nose them as I go into the lobby’ (33), and advises Martyn ‘When you play this next scene, my poppet, these few precepts in thy—’ (102). He also quotes Hamlet at Alleyn and Alleyn quotes it back at him, at which point the doctor says ‘the whirligig of time brings in his revenges’ (132). Jacko says to Martyn ‘I see you. Or a piece of you’ (67), Poole tells Helena ‘Oh, God, your only jig-maker!’ (76), and ‘Helena spoke again to vacancy’ (138). In Black Beech and Honeydew, Marsh herself recalls that when her father was making ginger beer ‘my mother made remarks like: “Well said, Old Mole, cans’t [sic] work i’ the earth so fast” and “You hear this fellow in the cellarage”’ (476); she also says (489) ‘I was most effectively hoist on my own petard’ and notes that ‘Of all the plays in the Shakespearean canon, it sems to me, there is most conspicuously in Hamlet, an element that, not so much contradicts as it stands apart from, theory, research, comment and derogation. This is the singular flavour of Hamlet himself’ (632). In Black as he’s Painted, after the failed assassination attempt ‘from many voices like the king and courtiers in the play: “Lights! Lights! Lights!”’ (74) and Alleyn says of the Boomer ‘I’d better beard the lion in his library, I suppose’ (88). At the exhumation in Grave Mistake, ‘They might have been actors in a modern production of the churchyard scene in Hamlet’ (671). In Spinsters in Jeopardy, Baradi says to Oberon ‘you come most carefully upon your hour’ (390). In Scales of Justice, Alleyn says to Phinn ‘your reading spectacles were snatched from your hat by an envious sliver’ (601). In Off with his Head, Alleyn says of Ernie ‘he’s only dumb nor’-nor’-west’ (105) and later ‘had much ado not to reply: ‘“Aye, marry is’t. Crowner’s quest law!”’ (173). In Singing in the Shrouds, the passengers discuss a psychology book called The Show of Violence (305); Alleyn tells Father Jourdain he’s been wondering ‘if you played Horatio’s part just now’ (311) and later ‘Father Jourdain came back. “Safely stowed,”’ he quoted and smiled at Alleyn’ (411). In False Scent, Alleyn says of Miss Bellamy ‘to this favour is she come’ (538), notes that he has ‘been eavesdropping on a pair of lovers. How low can you get? Next stop, with Polonius behind the arras in a bedroom’ (594), and says ‘“No abuse in the world: no, faith, boys, none”’ (604). In Colour Scheme, Gaunt speaks some Hamlet after Barbara says she admired a photograph of him in the role (653), Dikon says Gaunt’s attentions mean Barbara ‘is altogether too much i’ the sun’ (689), and ‘Septimus Falls’ refers to Hamlet (762) and replies when asked if they have found Questing ‘“A part of him.” Forgive the inadvertent quotation. His skull, to be exact’ (804). In Final Curtain, Desdemona says ‘O, my prophetic soul’ (362), Alleyn exclaims ‘What a piece of work is man!’ (413), and Miss Able notes that ‘They merely feel that one protests too much’ (443). In Swing, Brother, Swing, Alleyn tells Troy he is ‘Unhousled, unannealed and un-everything that’s civilized’ (655) and refers to ‘a vile phrase’ (681) and ‘a bare bodkin’ (728). In Surfeit of Lampreys, Lady Wutherwood says ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth …’ (52); when Lord Wutherwood is dying Fox says to Lord Charles ‘if he could see you, my lord, he might make a greater effort to speak’ (79); Alleyn says of the Lampreys ‘They’re only mad nor’-nor’-west’ (131) and of Lady Wutherwood wanting the body ‘The funeral could have been arranged to leave from the house with all the trappings and the suits of woe, if that’s what she’s after’ (205); and Nigel declares ‘“Oh God, your only Watson” is my cry’ (207). In Death in a White Tie, Alleyn says ‘That’s two of his motives. But well?’ (112), and The Winter’s Tale meets Hamlet when we are told of Alleyn and Fox ‘Mrs Harris gave them each a bunch of lavender and rosemary, which flowers, she said, were less conspicuous for gentlemen to carry than the gayer blossoms of summer’ (248). In Overture to Death, ‘“Oh, God, your only jig-maker,” said Nigel’ (473); Alleyn tells Fox ‘you have the wit of a Tyburn broadsheet, but there’s matter in it’ (497); Henry Jernigham says ‘I thought if that splendid fellow Roper held the dogwatch, I might say, “Stand ho! What hath this thing appeared?” and get a bit of gossip out of him’ (507); and Alleyn says of the poacher ‘He says he’s got a story to unfold’ (511). In Death at the Bar, Colonel Brammington exclaims ‘An envenom’d stuck, by God!’ (679), Alleyn calls the dart ‘The bare bodkin’ (694), Cubitt says ‘the way Luke invited Legge to play round-the-clock was not exactly the glass of fashion or the mould of form’ (710), and the PC says Parish ‘answered by fits and starts’ (716). In Death in Ecstasy, Garnette says ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth, Inspector Alleyn—’ (42); ‘“Most foul,” added Alleyn, “as at the best it is. But this most foul—”’ (49); and Alleyn says of Garnette ‘from his fair and unpolluted breath may violets spring’ (88), declares ‘Very like, very like’ (91, also found in Artists in Crime 566) and ‘List, list, oh list’ (166); and laments,‘My dear Bathgate, this is a sad falling-off’ (122). In Vintage Murder, ‘“You look as if you were going on for Hamlet senior yourself, Frankie,” sneered Ackroyd’ (297); Alleyn says ‘No offence in the world’ (343); and ‘“As Mr Singleton would say,” grinned Alleyn, “a very palpable hit”’ (442). In The Nursing Home Murder, Alleyn ‘went to his flat near Coventry Street, bathed, changed into a dinner-jacket, dined, and read the first scene in Hamlet, to which he was partial’ (479); later, he ‘began to whistle Ophelia’s song’ and the chapter ends with the stanza ‘He is dead and gone, lady’ (488). He also says to Nigel and Angela ‘List, list, oh list’ (553), and ‘read the second act of Hamlet, and wondered, not for the first time, what sort of a hash the Prince of Denmark would have made of a job at the Yard’ (612).
- 5.
Ngaio Marsh has a scattering of references throughout her books. In Colour Scheme, Alleyn sings ‘Come away, come away, Death’ and ‘Fear no more’ (739); in Swing, Brother, Swing he asks ‘May I not take mine ease in mine restaurant with mine wife? Shall there be no more cakes and ale?’ (572). In Death and the Dancing Footman Chloris tells Mandrake ‘You ought not to have had all these games thrust upon you’ (450); in Death in a White Tie Gospel identifies the blackmailer as ‘the cakes-and-ale feller’ (59); in Overture to Death the Rector says of the reading club ‘Dinah read a scene from Twelfth Night for them’ (464) and Nigel observes ‘as for the drawing-pins—It’s ludicrous that I didn’t spot the exquisite reason of the drawing-pins’ (474). In The Nursing Home Murder, ‘Hey Robin, jolly Robin, tell me how thy lady does’, whistled the inspector’ (566). In Enter a Murderer, Alleyn asks ‘Your exquisite reason, Bailey?’ (301); in Light Thickens, ‘Lennox, when not involved, sang tunefully: “Not a flower, not a flower sweet,/On my black coffin let there be strown”’ (279), and Peregrine suggests adding Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure to Macbeth to make a season (345). In Scales of Justice Dr Lacklander sings ‘Come away, come away Death’ (463) and later Rose too sings it just before she hears of her father’s murder (520).
- 6.
‘There are more things than are dreamt of in our philosophy’ (186); ‘Spirit of health? Or goblin damned?’ (193); ‘can she tell a hawk from a handsaw? That’s the question’ (261); ‘Gordon was alive, not dead, perhaps the first known traveller to return from the undiscovered country’ (246); ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us and help me Boab’ (327); ‘The time is seriously out of joint in Arden, I fear’ (351); ‘There’s to be no more dying then?’ (354).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hopkins, L. (2016). Wild Justice: Mercy, Revenge and the Detective. In: Shakespearean Allusion in Crime Fiction. Palgrave Shakespeare Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53875-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53875-8_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53874-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53875-8
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)