What if Dr. Watson Could Read Minds? B.J. Farjeon’s Devlin the Barber

A Detective Tracking Clairvoyance

There is a long line of what I call “divining-detectives,” who turn to clairvoyance, palm-reading, etc. to solve a crime. Such characters are probably not most occult detective fans’ first choice in reading. They tend to like it when the culprit involves the supernatural. If the detective uses supernatural means to solve the mystery, well, meh. (But it can still be pretty cool if they combine some form of divination with their own human wits to win the day. Or, should I say, to win the night?)

Now, what happens when the source of mystery is as much the clairvoyant character as the crime? This is the premise of B.L. Farjeon’s Devlin the Barber (1888). The title character, as his name suggests, has a devilishness about him. Indeed, his landlady is convinced this demon barber is luring her husband toward ruination. The unnamed narrator, though, sees Devlin — and especially his ability to read the minds of those whose hair he cuts — differently. When the mystery of Devlin intersects with a murder mystery, this narrator has been hired to investigate, the prospect of working with an assistant who can read minds becomes very tempting indeed.

A Faustian Twist

Herein lies the beauty of Devlin the Barber as well as the twist that makes this novel something other than a murder mystery with a contrived, clairvoyant cheat. Is this a Faustian story of an amateur detective lured into using sinister if not sinful, supernatural means to solve his case? He is recently unemployed, after all, and he has been offered a lot of money to solve the murder. In this regard, Farjeon’s contribution to the tradition of the divining-detective is particularly inventive.

Unfortunately, I found the novel’s pacing to be a problem. The landlady’s testimony of her dealings with Devlin takes up chapter after chapter after chapter . . . delaying the heart of the story, which is the relationship between the narrator/detective and Devlin. Once the detective forms a pact with Devlin, though, things pick up. The murder mystery is fairly easily solved and resolved, and it’s a touch goofy, too. However, the Devlin mystery provides a counterbalance to this that’s, well, rather hard to resist.

Go to the Chronological Bibliography
of Early Occult Detectives — 1800s page.