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Description

"You see that stain on the carpet? A great deal must have soaked through, for the under-side is as stained as the upper. But you will be surprised to hear that there is no stain on the woodwork to correspond..."

In the year 1897, Scotland Yard had twenty-nine detectives for the whole of London whose population had grown to over five million. London had become a great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire were irresistibly drained, and the job of the police was to stop the "stench" of the under-class from reaching polite society. Shadowed away from the public eye, the Metropolitan Police Department, for years, marketed itself as being straight, just, and moralistic. The reality of it, however, was far from such an image: Corruption had run rampant and beyond control. After the Turf Fraud Scandal of 1877, which rocked the its reputation to its core, a heavy anti-corruption campaign renovated the force, but the public opinion against "peelers" and "bobbies" have been irredeemable since, and yet, certainly, the life of a policeman is an increasingly rough one. As a civil servant of the law, an officer endures a great deal of guff for long, labourious hours and for minuscule wages, as he places his life in everyday harm for an adverse, displeasured populace who does not appreciate him nor acknowledge the thought. Despite this, Vole has no complaints.

Recently promoted to the rank as Detective Chief Inspector, Sherringford Basil has praised Vole as the "best of the professionals" — the "pick of a bad lot." Official attitudes, at the time, were based on class prejudice. The appropriated detectives believed on that all the evil and corruption of the crime lie in the filth and squalour of the lower orders, not by the gentry; however, it was Vole who separated and transcended himself away from his contemporaries in the force: He is well aware that the grace and gentry that crime, with their wealth and power, can easily exist in the drawing-rooms and salons of the West End of London, as it can in the stews and alleyways of the East End. He is an active campaigner in the corruption reform, and is well recognised and praised for his heroism as well. In 1884, the departments of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Special Branch fell victim to a terrorist bombing planted by the Fenians, a popular, extremist Irish nationalist syndicate whom have been on a terrorist campaign. Live at the scene, Vole quickly led an immediate evacuation after the terrible explosion, rescuing from the salvage several officers and innocent bystanders. With the offices were almost completely destroyed by the Fenian bombing, the Scotland Yard and Criminal Investigation Department were permanently transferred in 1890 to its new red-and-white-brick premises at New Scotland Yard on the Victoria Embankment, near the Houses of Parliament, of the Thames River.

Chief Inspector Vole is an intelligent, industrious, diligent, no-nonsense individual who is neither an uppity snob nor an incompetent bungler. Quick and energetic, but conventional and shockingly so, lacking the creative imagination that Basil finds necessary for all criminal investigations, he is, nonetheless, a meticulous and capable investigator who prefers to solve crime the old-fashioned way — by putting in the hours! Vole looks into everything with a jaundiced eye, scribbles copious notes in his official black book, and piles up the evidence before he draws up an expert conclusion towards the guilty party. This, of course, is not the most colourful of methods, but it is an effective one! He does not offer great leaps of deductive logic, nor does he talk like an elocution expert, or dine like epicures, or dress like a peacock from Savile Row. He is a simple, hard-working honest cop, as colourful as boiled cabbage, who sees the enormous amount of injustice and suffering in the world and concludes that his only moral choice is to devote his life a hundred-per-cent to his work. It was his bull-dog tenacity and stinging honesty that propelled him to the top of Scotland Yard. He does have a patronising attitude towards Basil's eccentric methods, proclaiming that he could have be "one of the best officers in the force, if he'd only stay to traditional means." Vole initially finds Basil a bit of a nuisance, constantly poking his nose where it's not wanted and occasionally embarrassing him and taunting his abilities — abilities which Vole takes great pride in — but, regardless, he will swallow his ego with munificent humility when Basil proves him in the wrong. Despite their constant rivalry and one-upmanship, they do share a great respect for one another, even though they might deny this when asked.

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I never finished this drawing and probably never will, because it's old and all I see are the flaws. It's based on the story of "The Second Stain," which is one of my favourite tales from the Sacred Writings, as both Holmes and Lestrade solve the case together, but at two different starting (and ending) points. Yet it proved that Lestrade was a capable investigator on his own (with his own methods) and I loved that Lestrade couldn't help but "show off" to Holmes, too. This image is based on this Frederic Dorr Steele's illustration from COLLIER'S MAGAZINE and this Granada SHERLOCK HOLMES promo photo from the same story. I'd love to adapt this story for the GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE, but really you can read it here and watch it here .

Medium - Col-erase (blue), mechanical pencil.

The Great Mouse Detective © Disney (and Eve Titus)
Chief Inspector Vole © Diane N. Tran

Description

"You see that stain on the carpet? A great deal must have soaked through, for the under-side is as stained as the upper. But you will be surprised to hear that there is no stain on the woodwork to correspond..."

In the year 1897, Scotland Yard had twenty-nine detectives for the whole of London whose population had grown to over five million. London had become a great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire were irresistibly drained, and the job of the police was to stop the "stench" of the under-class from reaching polite society. Shadowed away from the public eye, the Metropolitan Police Department, for years, marketed itself as being straight, just, and moralistic. The reality of it, however, was far from such an image: Corruption had run rampant and beyond control. After the Turf Fraud Scandal of 1877, which rocked the its reputation to its core, a heavy anti-corruption campaign renovated the force, but the public opinion against "peelers" and "bobbies" have been irredeemable since, and yet, certainly, the life of a policeman is an increasingly rough one. As a civil servant of the law, an officer endures a great deal of guff for long, labourious hours and for minuscule wages, as he places his life in everyday harm for an adverse, displeasured populace who does not appreciate him nor acknowledge the thought. Despite this, Vole has no complaints.

Recently promoted to the rank as Detective Chief Inspector, Sherringford Basil has praised Vole as the "best of the professionals" — the "pick of a bad lot." Official attitudes, at the time, were based on class prejudice. The appropriated detectives believed on that all the evil and corruption of the crime lie in the filth and squalour of the lower orders, not by the gentry; however, it was Vole who separated and transcended himself away from his contemporaries in the force: He is well aware that the grace and gentry that crime, with their wealth and power, can easily exist in the drawing-rooms and salons of the West End of London, as it can in the stews and alleyways of the East End. He is an active campaigner in the corruption reform, and is well recognised and praised for his heroism as well. In 1884, the departments of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Special Branch fell victim to a terrorist bombing planted by the Fenians, a popular, extremist Irish nationalist syndicate whom have been on a terrorist campaign. Live at the scene, Vole quickly led an immediate evacuation after the terrible explosion, rescuing from the salvage several officers and innocent bystanders. With the offices were almost completely destroyed by the Fenian bombing, the Scotland Yard and Criminal Investigation Department were permanently transferred in 1890 to its new red-and-white-brick premises at New Scotland Yard on the Victoria Embankment, near the Houses of Parliament, of the Thames River.

Chief Inspector Vole is an intelligent, industrious, diligent, no-nonsense individual who is neither an uppity snob nor an incompetent bungler. Quick and energetic, but conventional and shockingly so, lacking the creative imagination that Basil finds necessary for all criminal investigations, he is, nonetheless, a meticulous and capable investigator who prefers to solve crime the old-fashioned way — by putting in the hours! Vole looks into everything with a jaundiced eye, scribbles copious notes in his official black book, and piles up the evidence before he draws up an expert conclusion towards the guilty party. This, of course, is not the most colourful of methods, but it is an effective one! He does not offer great leaps of deductive logic, nor does he talk like an elocution expert, or dine like epicures, or dress like a peacock from Savile Row. He is a simple, hard-working honest cop, as colourful as boiled cabbage, who sees the enormous amount of injustice and suffering in the world and concludes that his only moral choice is to devote his life a hundred-per-cent to his work. It was his bull-dog tenacity and stinging honesty that propelled him to the top of Scotland Yard. He does have a patronising attitude towards Basil's eccentric methods, proclaiming that he could have be "one of the best officers in the force, if he'd only stay to traditional means." Vole initially finds Basil a bit of a nuisance, constantly poking his nose where it's not wanted and occasionally embarrassing him and taunting his abilities — abilities which Vole takes great pride in — but, regardless, he will swallow his ego with munificent humility when Basil proves him in the wrong. Despite their constant rivalry and one-upmanship, they do share a great respect for one another, even though they might deny this when asked.

---

I never finished this drawing and probably never will, because it's old and all I see are the flaws. It's based on the story of "The Second Stain," which is one of my favourite tales from the Sacred Writings, as both Holmes and Lestrade solve the case together, but at two different starting (and ending) points. Yet it proved that Lestrade was a capable investigator on his own (with his own methods) and I loved that Lestrade couldn't help but "show off" to Holmes, too. This image is based on this Frederic Dorr Steele's illustration from COLLIER'S MAGAZINE and this Granada SHERLOCK HOLMES promo photo from the same story. I'd love to adapt this story for the GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE, but really you can read it here and watch it here .

Medium - Col-erase (blue), mechanical pencil.

The Great Mouse Detective © Disney (and Eve Titus)
Chief Inspector Vole © Diane N. Tran