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Officer
Fred Bishop - A Question of Murder |
 Cover of my copy of the book |
| Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic
Tragedy by William Seil is one of a number
of murder mysteries set on the Titanic.
Other novels of this genre are for example Jim
Walker's Murder on the Titanic, Sam
McCarver's The Case of Cabin 13 and Max
Allen Collins's The Titanic Murders. The main difference is of course that Seil’s novel does not only bank on the marketability of the Titanic but also includes a famous, fictional character: Sherlock Holmes (to be precise obviously, two famous fictional characters, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson). This was, of course not the first nor the last novel in which Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation has been appropriated by another author, who invented new adventures for the famous detective. Just as the Titanic sells, so does Sherlock Holmes. There is even another Sherlock Holmes novel set on the Titanic (Yves Varende, Sherlock Holmes: Les meurtres du Titanic (1999)) but so far, I have been unable to get hold of it. |
| In Sherlock Holmes and the
Titanic Tragedy, instead of enjoying his
retirement and spending quality time with his
bees, Sherlock Holmes finds himself travelling
to America protecting a young lady who in turn
transports top secret information to the States.
But not only does the famous detective have to
retrieve the plans (which, naturally, are
stolen), he also has to foil a plot of
anarchists to sink the Titanic and deal
with a man out for personal revenge, Professor
Moriarty’s brother Colonel Moriarty. -
Convoluted plot? If there ever was one! As the story unfolds, the author also includes a number of scenes tying the fictional events to the actual occurrences of the journey. Captain Smith has to be kept informed about both the missing documents and the attempt to blow a hole in his ship. Several of the officers are ordered to help Holmes and his associates with the solving of the different cases. (In reality, one would not find the first or second officer escorting a passenger round the ship during their watch - even if the passenger in question was Sherlock Holmes.) An additional, fictional officer is mentioned right at the first meeting between Holmes and Captain Smith: Fred Bishop. Bishop had already aroused the Captain's suspicion when he found the officer in his cabin. Not only that, Bishop has worked on German liners and has a German accent to boot! Fred Bishop remains one of the main suspects in the case of the missing documents until his body is discovered in one of the cars in the cargo hold. (According to Seil, the Renault made famous by Jack and Rose in Cameron's Titanic was only one of a number of automobiles being exported to the USA.) Bishop, perhaps this can be interpreted as a sign of his good taste, is killed in a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. |
| The existence of this fictional
officer is therefore easy to explain: he is only
introduced to be killed at the convenient
moment. Due to the multiple plots of the novel, and its relative shortness, fictional officer Bishop does never achieve any substance or character. Not only does his exact rank remain a mystery - Captain Smith refers to him as 'one of my lower-ranking officers', as if he didn't know what rank his officers had - his only role in the novel is to be a suspect and a body. In fact, his role is so insignificant that he never interacts with the main character. The reader only gets a few glimpses of him before his (un)timely demise on the third day of the voyage. Much later in the novel, we learn that Fred Bishop was indeed one of the hired henchmen of Colonel Moriarty, who then killed Bishop to prevent that he is exposed - a fate all too common for minor villains of his ilk. As Bishop is a thief and gets killed, Seil decided to use a fictional character. In part, since the real officers were all very much present when the ship sank. More importantly, I think, because even if the corrupt officer had not been killed at this early stage, Seil would have had problems depicting one of the real officers in such a bad light. He could not choose one of the surviving officers, as this would have created awkward complications to his already complicated plot, and depicting one of the officers who died in the tragedy would be in decidedly bad taste. (That not all authors have qualms to malign the good name of innocent travellers is shown by the appalling treatment of J.B. Crafton by Max Allen Collins.) |
| In the end, fictional Officer Fred
Bishop is what in Star Trek terms would be
called a 'red shirt', a minor character whose
only reason for existence is to get killed. Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Tragedy is certainly an entertaining novel, if somewhat overladen with plot. Unsurprisingly, our two main characters survive the sinking of the Titanic with their male dignity intact. Watson is knocked unconscious and bundled into a lifeboat and Sherlock Holmes (naturally) survives by joining a number of other fictional characters on the upturned lifeboat, Collapsible B. |
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