The Petticoat Searchers

a Victorian detective novel

The Petticoat Searchers: Who, What, Where, When and erm, Why?

In Other Words, The Plot and a bit more...

The Petticoat Searchers may seem like a straightforward crime story on the surface. However, scratch a little deeper, and there is more. This is a story about trust, belief, lies, and subterfuge, and what people will do in the pursuit of ambition. It is also about the folly of entitlement and hubris—and the dangerous ideas that can flourish when people begin to believe that wealth, education, or social position make one person inherently more valuable than another.

Class plays its part in the story, as does the growing influence of Marxist and socialist thought. Victorian Britain was a deeply hierarchical, unequal society, shaped by divisions—though social mobility did exist to a limited extent and was improving, it was not a given. The novel touches upon these divides and what can happen when privileged people begin to believe that society itself must be radically reordered. And it is here we detect the influence of eugenics.

Eugenic theory was an emerging concept in the late nineteenth century, presented and promoted in the language of science and progress. The references to the ideas in the final chapter are drawn from ideas and beliefs Francis Galton actually proposed. To be clear, eugenics was, and is, a flawed and destructive theory: born of the hubris of believing that humanity can be improved by controlling who is considered fit to reproduce. And yet, it attracted respectable scientists, as well as academics, politicians, and social reformers. Sadly, there are still those today who continue to believe this nonsense.

These ideas form part of the murky world in which Isidore and Tilley find themselves. They are not simply investigating a crime; they are navigating a society in which belief can be every bit as dangerous as fact—as demonstrated by the mental gymnastics two of the characters go through to convince themselves Isidore and Tilley are infiltrators or foreign agents. Ambition, prejudice, and misplaced certainty can have consequences far beyond the people who hold them.

The Petticoat Searchers is the final part in a loose trilogy of Victorian-set novels. All three stories take place in the 1880s. The character of Fistie in The Carpetbagger resurfaces in The Wretched and forms the pivot point for that story. Isidore Runce appears in The Wretched and returns in The Petticoat Searchers.

The Principal Characters

Isidore Runce and Tilley
These are The Petticoat Searchers or private detectives and have been given backstories in the chapter titled, Interval (Parts One and Two).

Isidore was written from the outset as queer. Her backstory is given in The Wretched, but also outlined in this novel. She could be regarded, even though the movement has yet to split, as a suffragette rather than a suffragist. The former were in favour of direct action and likely more appealing to Isidore, whereas the latter believed in law-abiding methods.

Tilley never gets a last name, nor do we learn if Tilley is her actual name or merely a nickname. Von Tilsit constantly refers to her as a catamite, mostly because whenever he comes across her, she is wearing a man’s suit. Tilley also has short hair and is on the thin side, or as the text says, mort chic. Tilley presents, at times, in a gender-ambiguous way. 

Both women, in their attitudes and at times dress, push the boundaries of acceptable female behaviour. This is a tension that would have been all too well known, good examples being the Rational Dress Society and the more aggressive Rational Dress Association. In some ways mirroring the eventual differences between the suffragist/suffragette movement.

Charles Fraiser—the eponymous traitor—is out of place, someone who adopted the trimmings of the English middle class, changed his accent, clothing, manner, but still did not fit in, or was viewed as a class interloper. Disgruntled, he set about betraying that which did not accept him. His real drive is to get enough money to keep ahead of his gambling losses, buy a plot of land in America, and run a cowboy ranch. Perhaps he had seen Buffalo Bill’s 1887 show at Earls Court in London in May of that year, and this inspired him?

Robert Currie and Hilary Guliford. Both men are gay and in a relationship, although Guliford seems to think sleeping with Currie will help his career. They are spies using the Foreign Office as their cover. Currie is the spymaster, if you like, and Guliford his protégé, who soon finds himself out of his depth and coming to all the wrong conclusions.

Herr Oberst aka Theodore von Tilsit. A place for everything and everything in its place! He is great fun—pompous, entitled, arrogant, and demanding. He has very likely heard just enough about eugenics to conclude it is a good thing. Status for Herr Oberst is everything. 

Müller. Quite possibly everything Fraiser is not. Similar background, but he has no illusions—he knows he has done well, but has come to regard Herr Oberst as a first-class pain! He comes to the conclusion that, in order to save his career, he must go above his head and report the man’s failings.

Neumann. Like Herr Oberst, he too is Prussian and, from Müller's point of view, was gifted his rank and position because of this. Neumann wants to advance his career in the army and therefore accepts Herr Oberst's annoyances. However, he eventually begins to appreciate what Müller had to put up with, but remains loyal.

And last but by no means least—

Cap'n Marion and Boson aka The Waxen Sisterhood©

I guess we could class these two fine sailors as proto-trans. There wasn't really a definition of transgender in the 18th century, but there were many examples of what we would today regard as trans people—men and women choosing to live at variance to their assigned birth sex. History is littered with such examples. Trans people, like gay and queer folk, have always been around. 

I think a good amount of backstory is provided for both characters in the novel, and there really isn't much to add. Cap'n Marion and their sister are Quakers. While Quakers, similarly to Methodists, tended to be teetotal, Cap'n Marion is not. Tilley describes them as being somewhat "luskish." This is a Victorian-era word that, in this context, means they are rather lazy or indifferent to following strict Quakerism.

The Waxen Sisterhood is intended as a Protect the Dolls type of slogan—a pushback against anti-trans rhetoric—that appears on t-shirts, pins, and badges. In the novel, it was imagined by Cap'n Marion and Bosun as a kind of protective society or guild.

NB I regard The Waxen Sisterhood as copyrighted - such a good phrase!

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