Augustus Van Dusen and Craig Kennedy American Sherlocks

By Michael Amadio

A number of American writers of mystery and detective fiction have been called “American Conan Doyle,” but only two created fictional detectives that have been called “American Sherlock Holmes,” Jacques Futrelle, creator of Professor Augustus Van Dusen, and Arthur B. Reeve, creator of Professor Craig Kennedy.
Jacques Futrelle was an American journalist and mystery writer. He created Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, also known as “The Thinking Machine,” one of the “American Sherlock Holmes” featured in a number of short detective stories.
Futrelle’s writing career was cut short as he died at the age of 37 in the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In addition to the stories in which The Thinking Machine solves locked-room puzzles, kidnappings, and murders, he wrote seven novels, including “My Lady’s Garter” that was published posthumously.
“The Chase of the Golden Plate,” the first novel-length story written by Jacques One of the short stories, ‘The Yellow Diamond Pendant,’ is lost, but May Futrelle, Jacques’ wife, has written a story with the same title, although without The Thinking Machine.
Arthur Benjamin Reeve (known simply as Arthur B. Reeve), also an American mystery writer, created the character of Dr. Craig Kennedy, scientist detective, the second “American Sherlock Holmes.” Kennedy is a professor at Columbia University, who uses his knowledge of chemistry and psychoanalysis to solve cases. He also employs at time devices like detectors, gyroscopes, and portable seismographs, now common but new at the time.
The adventure of Craig Kennedy have been published in numerous short stories that appeared almost monthly in “Cosmopolitan” magazine between 1910 and 1918, and later in some stories published in the Pulps. The stories were then collected and republished in book form.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Amadio
• Release date: Oct 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005700232

Michael Amadio

Michael Amadio has worked in a number of executive marketing positions and has been a professionalfree-lance translator for 30 years. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Augustus Van Dusen and Craig Kennedy

AMERICAN SHERLOCKs

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‘The Yellow Diamond Pendant’

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

JACQUES FUTRELLE AND PROFESSOR AUGUST VAN DUSEN

The Yellow Diamond Pendant

ARTHUR B. REEVE AND PROFESSOR CRAIG KENNEDY

The Case of Helen Bond

INTRODUCTION

Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.

According to the Guinness World Records, Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the best-selling novelist of all time, with sales of about 2 billion copies, and, according to her estate, her works come third behind only those of Shakespeare and the Bible. Also, according to Index Translationum, she is the most-translated author. Her books have been translated into more than 100 languages, and her novel Then There Were None had sold 100 million copies by 2017, the best-selling mystery ever.

Yet she cannot claim having created the most lasting following of imitators, because that records belongs, arguably, to Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Christie and Doyle were both prolific writers, but, although Christie and Conan Doyle share an enduring impact and influence on the mystery genre and mystery writers, only Doyle, with the character of Sherlock Holmes, can claim to have created in Sherlock Holmes a character who turned out to be the most imitated fictional detective. In fact being called a ‘sherlock’ is a manner of calling someone particularly smart and knowledgeable.

Given the success of Conan Doyle, it is no wonder that many of his contemporary American mystery writes of Conan Doyle were advertised by their publishers as American Conan Doyle. created characters with traits similar to the successful detective on the other side of the Atlantic, and their creations as American Sherlock Holmes.

That is the case of Rodrigues Ottolengui (1861-1937) who Ellery Queen called ‘one of the most neglected authors in the entire history of the detective story,’ and was called an American Conan Doyle in The Daily Herald and the Yorkville Enquirer.

Ottolengui ads in The Daily Herald and The Yorkville Enquirer.

Another writer who were called "American Conan Doyle is Lawrence L. Lynch (1853-1914), the pen name of Emily Medora Murdock Van Deventer who wrote using a man’s name because at that time a female mystery writer was not as commonly accepted.

Natalie Sumner Lincoln (1881-1935) wrote 10 crime mystery novels featuring Inspector Mitchell from the Washington Police Department, and 2 novels featuring Detective Ferguson. The Washington Times called her as The Conan Doyle of Washington.

Natalie Sumner Lincoln in The Washington Times.

Charles Ross Jackson (1867-1915) wrote 2 novels with the detective Quintus Oakes who, in a review in The Philadelphia Inquirer was described is a compound of Sherlock Holmes and Old Sleuth. The Boston Globe called him an American Conan Doyle for his 2nd detective novel featuring Quintus Oakes.

Even Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970), the well-known creator of Perry Mason, has been called an American Conan Doyle on occasion of the publication of his 101st story. In 1959, the Coventry Evening Telegraph called Gardner an American Conan Doyle when introducing his newest novel.

The Coventry Evening Telegraph article title.

But only two American writers created fictional detectives that can really be called American Sherlock Holmes due to their ingenuity, knowledge, and methods of investigation applied to resolving problems, unravel mystery, and unmasking criminals. Also, in both cases, the exploit of these detectives are recounted in short stories, rather than novels, in a way similar to the adventure of Conan Doyle’s creation.

These fictional characters are Professor Augustus Van Dusen, also known as The Think Machine, creates by Jacques Futrelle, and Professor Craig Kennedy, scientific criminalist, created by Arthur B. Reeve.

Besides being fictional characters in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, they are actually very different detectives. Van Dusen believes in the superiority of the human mind and the ability to solve any problem by applying logic. Kennedy solves problems with up-to-date knowledge of scientific discoveries and technological innovations. Physically, they are both unlike Sherlock Holmes, especially Van Dusen. Both do not share Sherlock’s athleticism, gift for music or proclivity for extraneous substances. Van Dusen stretches Sherlock’s mental deduction abilities and Kennedy goes beyond Sherlock in his knowledge of science and technology.

Professor Kennedy (left) and Professor Van Dusen (right), contrasted with Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson, (middle).

JACQUES FUTRELLE AND

PROFESSOR AUGUSTUS VAN DUSEN

Jacques Futrelle.

Jacques Heath Futrelle (1875 – 1912) was an American journalist and writer of mysteries. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, known as The Thinking Machine for his application of logic to any and all situations. Professor Van Dusen is considered by many to be the American Sherlock Holmes and his name could have become as well known and famous as his British counterpart had it not been for the premature death of Futrelle at the age of 37.

At the time of his tragic death, Futrelle was one of the most popular authors of the early years of the 20th century. He married Lily May Peel, also a writer, who wrote under the name of May Futrelle, independently and in collaboration with her husband. After a visit to Europe, the couple was returning to the United States traveling on the RMS Titanic. As the passenger liner was sinking, Futrelle refused his place on a lifeboat, insisting that his wife go instead. May Futrelle was one of the 711 survivors of the sinking of the Titanic.

May Futrelle, one of the 711 survivors of the sinking of the Titanic, and her husband.

In addition to short stories, Jacques Futrelle wrote, in his short life, eight novels, including My Lady’s Garter, published posthumously in 1912 by May Futrelle in memory of her husband.

May Futrelle’s dedication of My Lady’s Garter.

The novels are probably better classified as romantic melodramas, rather than mysteries. But the short stories indeed are mystery stories and some of the best examples of the locked room and impossible crime sub-genre.

The Thinking Machine is featured in one novel, The Chase of the Golden Plate and numerous short stories. The novel was originally serialized in The Saturday Evening Post (1906) and in The Strand Magazine (1907-1908) and involves The Thinking Machine only toward the end. On the other hand, The Thinking Machine is the main protagonist of many short stories in which, as a logician, he solves mysteries with applied logic. In the most celebrated of those stories, The Problem of Cell 13, the character is quoted to say, Nothing is impossible. The mind is master of all things.

It is because of his strict application of logic in solving problems that Professor Van Dusen is called The Thinking Machine, a nickname given to him when he wins a game of chess by pure logic. And it is because of his observation skills and deduction abilities that he has been called the American Sherlock Holmes. And, like Sherlock, he has his Watson in his friend Hutchinson Hatch, a reporter for The Daily New Yorker, a fictional newspaper.

Harlan Ellison, a writer of science and fantasy fiction, says of Van Dusen, in his introduction to a 2003 collection of stories:

This irascible genius, this diminutive egghead scientist, known to the world as The Thinking Machine, is no less than the newly rediscovered literary link between Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe . . . who—with only the power of ratiocination—unravels problems of outrageous criminous activity in dazzlingly impossible settings.

Van Dusen is cold and calculating. He shares with Holmes his irascibility, his lack of consideration for others, his proclivity for logic, with less redeeming features.

He is no Holmes in appearance. As Futrelle describes him in The Problem of Cell 13,

"He was slender with the droop of the student in his thin shoulders and the pallour of a close, sedentary life on his clean-shaven face. His eyes wore a perpetual, forbidding squint – the squint of a man who studies little things – and when they could be seen at all through his thick spectacles, were mere slits of watery blue. But above