![]() His conclusions helped to create an era of voyeurism and suspicion, in which the detective was a shadowy figure, a demon as well as a demigod. The scene he uncovered aroused fear (and excitement) at the thought of what might be hiding behind the closed doors of other respectable houses. Mr Whicher exposed the corruptions within the household: sexual transgression, emotional cruelty, scheming servants, wayward children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing. Yet the Victorians also made a fetish of privacy, and many felt that the investigation at Road Hill amounted to a violation of the middle-class home. He was a secular substitute for a prophet or a priest. He turned brutal crimes-the vestiges of the beast in man-into intellectual puzzles. ![]() ![]() In a newly uncertain world, a detective seemed to offer science, conviction, stories that could organise chaos. The Victorians made a romance of detection. ![]()
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