A Prince of Detection

I made the acquaintance of a Prince last week. This was somewhat belated, as Florizel, Prince of Bohemia, had made his London Magazine debut in 1878. Later, seeing his stories plagiarized, Robert Louis Stevenson collected the four stories comprising "The Suicide Club" in the hardback New Arabian Nights.

His Highness is a lively character who forms an interesting comparison to his near contemporary Sherlock Holmes, who appears in 1887. Both inhabit similar, mostly masculine, worlds, have a good-hearted companion, and confront a criminal mastermind.

The Prince lives in London. Despite his marked affection for his homeland, Florizel prefers to reside in the British capitol where he collects interesting experiences and usual characters alongside his Master of Horse, Colonel Geraldine.

In this set up, the Colonel, though younger than the prince and very much the faithful subordinate, is easily the more prudent and sensible of the pair. Indeed, Florizel's adventures would have ended with his initial outing, "Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts", if Geraldine had not, for once, taken matters into his own hand.

Do not, by the way, be deceived by the cozy suggestions of this title. As in the later adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the whimsical and trivial is often reveals some deep and sinister matter. In this case, 'cream tarts' lead direct to the Suicide Club, which, starting with film rights in 1909, has showed up on film, on stage, on TV, and as recently as 2017 in a Caliber Comic.

The Colonel plays a big role in this story, not so in most of the others. Unlike Watson, that most famous of detective companions, Geraldine does not narrate the stories. Rather, his function is to offer good advice and reminders of the political responsibilities of a prince. These Florizel usually ignores, pulling rank and so precipitating the complications that inspire a good story.

Although an intelligent, socially astute, generous, and gentlemanly character, Florizel is young and very far from the coolly analytical Holmes, who was destined not only for monstrous popularity but for a long life post-Doyle, acquiring not only new authors but a wife and child as well.

By contrast Florizel inspired seven stories in New Arabian Nights, all good. In them he is perhaps as much fixer, if that term is not insulting to a royal personage, as investigator. And unlike Holmes, he is not onstage the majority of the time. Indeed, he sometimes appears only toward the end of the narrative to sort matters out.

Florizel is less a sleuth than a collector of interesting people. If they prove to be in difficult straits, he tries to tip the scales toward the good. He is generous with his help but very much the entitled royal when facing the criminal element.

Throughout, Florizel is brave and capable, a man of the world with an admirable sense of humor, a bit of a philosopher, and fond, like Sherlock, of disguises. Since Stevenson was a fine writer, a master of atmosphere, characterization, and plot, and always very much in need of money, the Prince would seem to have been a good candidate for many more stories. Might he also have become a great detective?

Stevenson did bring him back in More New Arabian Nights, written with his wife, Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson, but by this time, Florizel has lost his kingdom after too much time away from Bohemia. He is now running the finest tobacconist shop in London and clearly does not have the resources and agency he enjoyed as prince.

Perhaps the seriously ill Stevenson ran out of energy for Florizel; perhaps the prince's station and character proved limitations, or perhaps Stevenson simply decided to keep him part of an ensemble rather than the star of the show. In any case, Florizel's fame, if lasting, if modest, and, having settled him comfortably as a merchant in his beloved London, Stevenson spared himself the artistic conflicts that so bedeviled his fellow writer, Conan Doyle, who eventually could not rid himself of his greatest creation.

And here, a Stevenson type of story suggests itself: an astute author who spies Conan Doyle's error in sending Holmes over the falls but failing to produce a body. A character can return from the dead, it seems, but not from becoming a tobacconist in London.

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