Introduction

Indian Diamonds 153
and urban environment which adds to the ‘treasure trove’ image of the Orient.
The “domestic romance” which culminates in marriages upon the loss of the diamonds
and the exotic romance of a removed fairy-tale like Orient, as represented
in the Arabian Nights, are entwined in the narratives.
The romance element is highlighted in all of the stories, which is especially
conspicuous in The Sign of Four as the Sherlock Holmes stories usually do not include
romance in the domestic sense. The insistence on romance contrasts with
the analytical and ‘modern’ prerogative of detective fiction. This reservation is
voiced in The Sign of Four and “The Rajah’s Diamond”. Romance in detective plots
is contrary to readers’ expectations. Simon Rolles, in his role as a reader of detective
fiction in “The Rajah’s Diamond”, is frustrated with Gaboriau’s narrative:
“He [Rolles] was annoyed, moreover, to find the information scattered amongst
romantic story-telling” (Stevenson, “Rajah’s” 95). Similarly, Holmes rebukes Watson
for his writing of A Study in Scarlet:
‘Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the
same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with
romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a
love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.’ (Doyle,
Sign 125)
In The Sign of Four, however, the romance plot like the stock characters of fairy-tale
are deliberately mentioned: “’It is a romance!’ cried Mrs. Forster. ‘An injured lady,
half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take
the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.’” (188) Similarly, in The Eustace
Diamonds, Lizzie imagines herself as the hero or heroine of such an exotic
romance as Mrs. Forster envisions. She chooses the Arabian Nights as a fitting
frame because it unites romance and romantic treasure:
‘I do feel so like some naughty person in the Arabian Nights,’ she said,
’who has got some great treasure that always brings him into trouble; but he
can’t get rid of it, because some spirit has given it to him. At last, some
morning it turns into slate stone, and then he has to be a water carrier, and
is happy ever afterwards, and marries the king’s daughter. What sort of
king’s son will there be for me when this turns into slate stones?’ (Trollope
323-324) 13
As a story from the Arabian Nights, Lizzie imagines the plot of Collins’ and
Doyle’s novels: The possession of the diamonds turns into a curse, and marriage
compensates for the renunciation and loss of the treasure, a hope which is disap-
13 This forms part of Lizzie’s frequent attempts to imagine her life in terms of romance: She fashions
Lord George as her Byronic “Corsair” (Trollope 371), and alludes to Frank’s position as resembling
Lancelot between two women through Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (209) (Trollope
778, ftn. 1).