The Italian Secretary Read online

  More differences, more tension, must be what the doctor ordered.

  ‘“Dr Kreizler, Mr Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.’

  Hmm. This could be going too far in rewriting literary history. Carr himself points out, in his previously quoted essay, that Holmes possessed ‘a positive disdain for matters of the mind generally, even down to the question of motivations for crimes’ – for Holmes, the magnifying glass and the microscope suffice, plus a knowledge of past crime from which to draw patterns applicable to present and future crime. Kreizler presumably would not scorn Holmes’s approach, but he might grow impatient with its limitations – while Kreizler’s approach might seem dangerously metaphysical to Holmes. ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence,’ he constantly warned. Kreizler’s inferences from psychological data not observable by magnifying glass or microscope might seem like sheer flights of fantasy to Holmes – just as his own creator’s claim that his belief in a spirit world was grounded in his scientific training and outlook would have been scornfully rejected by the detective who exclaimed, in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, that ‘This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.’

  Though ghosts may be ‘non-canonical,’ for the previously mentioned collection, Ghosts of Baker Street, I and my co-editors Daniel Stashower and Martin Greenberg invited a number of writers to give Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson new adventures that would be supernatural in theme and tone. I am not sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would approve, even if he himself was convinced of a spirit-world’s reality. It was undeniably, we realised, taking a liberty with his most famous literary character. But as U.S. representative of the Conan Doyle Estate, I was able to give us permission to proceed nevertheless, with The Hound of the Baskervilles as excuse and inspiration. Holmes may have declared that ‘no ghosts need apply,’ but it is surely no accident that his most famous adventure of all is about an ancient family curse and a spectral hound haunting eerie, fog-stricken Dartmoor.

  Caleb Carr was one of the writers in question. We did not suggest to him that his story bring Sherlock Holmes and Dr Kreizler together. For one thing, we did not want to impose a particular approach upon any of the contributors to that collection; for another, we believed that the depiction of such a collaboration would require a considerably broader canvas than a short story. Carr, an historian by education and practice, turned to an historical crime in Edinburgh that took place among the retinue of Mary, Queen of Scots. In fact, he was so much inspired by it that the short story, when it was done, had grown to the rather impractical length of a novel – so it appears separately here, as The Italian Secretary.

  And yet we still dare hope to see Sherlock Holmes and Dr Kreizler brought together someday by the latter’s creator. Holmes was not always the brash young physical scientific type of A Study in Scarlet, and his knowledge of speculative sciences was greater than Watson initially surmised. We learn from the Canon, for instance, that Holmes knew Charles Darwin’s work, and, quoting the father of evolutionary theory on the subject of music, he remarked that ‘One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.’ With that one remark, by no means a solitary example, Sherlock Holmes goes far beyond what the magnifying glass and microscope can reveal, and places himself squarely within a realm of crime detection where the imagination may be more important than a profound knowledge of chemistry, or even the misdeeds of the past hundred years.

  It would take more than Dr Watson to bring out that side of Sherlock Holmes fully. It would require someone whose view of criminal motivation does not turn first and last upon the traditional question cui bono (who benefits)? It calls for someone who realises that some crimes, particularly in the ‘self-actualising’ times that began in the Victorian era of both Sherlock Holmes and Laszlo Kreizler, ignore notions of self-interest and questions of profit and express inner lives too horrible for men like Dr Watson – who like so many other Victorians believed in the inevitability of human progress – to contemplate easily. There is a reason why Sherlock Holmes never investigates a series of murders resembling the Jack the Ripper case of 1888, and that Dr Conan Doyle, so interested in real-life crime normally, never appears to have studied or discussed it either. Some things are unspeakable except in terms of a psychology that Sherlock Holmes would have shrunk from embracing of his own accord, so repulsive its philosophical implications might have seemed to him.

  Still, the desire to see the two approaches – Holmes’s and Kreizler’s – collide with each other cannot be gainsaid. We must be dialecticians ourselves if we are to give both approaches their just due. Whether a collaboration would be set in London or New York at the end of the nineteenth century is immaterial – both of those great metropolises offer fertile ground for a case that would challenge each of these men, and make for a partnership profoundly upsetting to both, but tremendously interesting to the reader. Sparks would fly, and it is easy to imagine Watson and Moore quietly retiring to one of their clubs every so often to get away from the scene and commiserate together. But the temptation is there. I hope Mr Carr succumbs to it eventually.

  *Ghosts of Baker Street, edited by Martin Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006).

  Acknowledgements

  This project was undertaken at the invitation and the urging of Jon Lellenberg, U.S. representative of the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (among a great many other things). Throughout some tough times, and with regard to undertakings including but ranging far beyond this book, Jon’s friendship and advice have been steadfast and vital. He is truly ‘the American’ in the very best sense of that sobriquet: Jefferson Smith’s got nothing on him …

  I have dedicated the book to Hilary Hale, my editor in London. Just to clarify, at a moment of supreme importance in my life, Hilary (along with her late husband, the wise, uproarious, and much-missed James Hale) took me into her life and her home and made sure that I would always have somewhere to escape to, when the pressures of the U.S. became too great. I could not have known, when she dispatched me to Scotland once on a book tour, that a chance visit to the royal palace of Holyrood would one day become this story; but I do know that without the hard work, infinite patience, and support of Hilary (and of her brilliant co-workers at Little, Brown UK), that trip would probably never have taken place. In life as in publishing, Hilary is a perfect anomaly.

  Will Balliett at Carroll & Graf Publishers has been tireless in his advocacy of this book, alternating between the roles of publisher and editor as need has required, and always with grace, good humour, and consideration. He also holds the unique distinction of being an actual editor in the American publishing world, a person willing to sweat over a manuscript rather than simply make deals all day. In crossing paths with him, I have again been most fortunate, and I would like to thank him as well as all his able staff for their hospitality.

  For her continued and invaluable support, I would also like to thank my agent, Suzanne Gluck, as well as her invaluable assistant, Erin Malone. I would also like to note that without the very decent co-operation of Gina Centrello, the publication of this book would not have been possible.

  Tim Haldeman once again took on the job of being my sounding board, and his comments were never more to the point or more valuable. He is as smart as he is compassionate, and he has my sincerest thanks. Also in the category of test audiences, I must once again thank Lydia, Sam, Ben, and Gabriela Carr – as well as Marion Carr, whose opinions are perhaps less gently couched than her cousins’, but are every bit as valuable; as is the support of the rest of my family, and everyone else on Misery Mountain.

  My deepest thanks to William von Hartz for another honest photo, and more years of honest friendship.

  For their continued and unflagging efforts to make sure that I have not wandered off into the woods, never to return, I must thank Ellen Blain, Ezequiel Viñao, Oren J
acoby, Jennifer Maquire, Silvana Paternostro, Melissa and Scott Strickland, Debbie Deuble, and Tom Pivinski.

  Bruce Yaffe, Heather Canning, Douglas Heymann, and Oakley Frost have all kept after the job of refusing to see me succumb to the despair and inertia of chronic illness. Their efforts have, once again, been appreciated more than they can ever know, and have provided a standard for other American doctors that is, regrettably, too high for most to meet. Many thanks, too, to Jim Monahan and everyone at Thorpe’s.

  During the writing of this book, I lost the best friend and mentor a person could hope for: James Chace. That emptiness is still baffling; yet I cannot think of publishing a book without mentioning his name, because without his help I would likely never have published anything in the first place. Joan Bingham, David Fromkin, and Sarah, Beka, and Zoe Chace all share in the sadness, as do James’s students, and many of my own, at Bard College; I am grateful to have had them all to cushion the blow. For their continued support at Bard, I’d like to thank Leon Botstein, Jonathan Becker, Mark Lytle, William Mullen, and, again, my students; some of the latter deserve specific mention, although I dare not, for their own sakes. But they know who they are.Grizedale is a hypocrite.

  Finally, Mark Twain once remarked, ‘If a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve the man, but degrade the cat.’ I hope that my own familiar and companion has not thought it too degrading to play muse, as well.

  I have dedicated the book to Hilary Hale, my editor in London. Just to clarify, at a moment of supreme importance in my life, Hilary (along with her late husband, the wise, uproarious, and much-missed James Hale) took me into her life and her home and made sure that I would always have somewhere to escape to, when the pressures of the U.S. became too great. I could not have known, when she dispatched me to Scotland once on a book tour, that a chance visit to the royal palace of Holyrood would one day become this story; but I do know that without the hard work, infinite patience, and support of Hilary (and of her brilliant co-workers at Little, Brown UK), that trip would probably never have taken place. In life as in publishing, Hilary is a perfect anomaly.

  Will Balliett at Carroll & Graf Publishers has been tireless in his advocacy of this book, alternating between the roles of publisher and editor as need has required, and always with grace, good humour, and consideration. He also holds the unique distinction of being an actual editor in the American publishing world, a person willing to sweat over a manuscript rather than simply make deals all day. In crossing paths with him, I have again been most fortunate, and I would like to thank him as well as all his able staff for their hospitality.

  For her continued and invaluable support, I would also like to thank my agent, Suzanne Gluck, as well as her invaluable assistant, Erin Malone. I would also like to note that without the very decent co-operation of Gina Centrello, the publication of this book would not have been possible.

  Tim Haldeman once again took on the job of being my sounding board, and his comments were never more to the point or more valuable. He is as smart as he is compassionate, and he has my sincerest thanks. Also in the category of test audiences, I must once again thank Lydia, Sam, Ben, and Gabriela Carr – as well as Marion Carr, whose opinions are perhaps less gently couched than her cousins’, but are every bit as valuable; as is the support of the rest of my family, and everyone else on Misery Mountain.