[4] Wilkie Collins was also inspired by Detective Inspector Jack Whicher in creating Cuff, particularly his investigation of the 1860 murder of Francis Saville Kent.

Several plot details from The Moonstone derive from the Road Hill Case, including the missing nightdress stained with paint and the incriminating laundry book.

[5] Cuff differs from later portrayals of the 'Great Detective' by not arriving at the correct solution, accusing Miss Rachel Verinder instead of the actual culprit, Godfrey Ablewhite.

Collins ignored the official solution in favour of "the notions of somnambulism, unconscious deeds, double selves that the Road case had aroused, the dizzying whirl of perspectives that had been brought to bear upon the investigation.

"[5] An anonymous review in The Times, published on 3 October 1868, highlighted the role of Sergeant Cuff: "Cuff is the inevitable detective, a character apparently so regularly retained on the establishment of sensational novelists that it would be convenient for a due appreciation of their new works to find appended to advertisements of them, along with extracts from critical journals, such remarks as 'Very true to life' and the like, dated from Scotland Yard.