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from The Technique of the
Mystery Story (1913)
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To trace the origin and history of the mystery story is simply to trace the origin and history of man's mind. Mystery stories were told and wonder tales invented before the days of old Rameses, before the Sphinx was hewn or Samson born. And indeed the rousing of latent curiosity, the tempting with a promise to divulge, which is the vital principle of the mystery story, began no later than with the subtlety of the Primal Serpent.
There is no country which has not its quota of traditional and folk-lore tales, founded almost invariably on some element of mystery, surprise or suspense. And why? Because the interest of the eternal audience is "gripped" by a desire to know the unknown. Because the ancients told and retold stories of mystery with never failing success. These tales lived. Translated, rewritten, paraphrased, they are still living, because of their ever new appeal to the very human trait of curiosity.
Take the story of "The Clever Thief." It comes from the Tibetan, from an ancient Buddhist book that goes back nearly a thousand years. But even then it was not new. Missionaries had carried it thither from India in an odd corner of their bags, or in some chamber of the memory not filled with the riddles of being. Where did they get it? Who can say? It was old when Herodotus wandered through sun-lit Egypt twenty-four centuries ago, gleaning tales from the priests of Amen and of Ptah. He tells it, point for point, as did those Buddhist missionaries, but lays it in the days of Rameses, nigh four thousand years ago. Everything is there; the cutting off of the head to elude detection, the tricks by which the relatives mourn over the headless trunk, the snare set for the thief and his outwitting it. And that same tale, like good merchandise, was carried both east and west. It found its way to India, over the vast Himalayas, to the gray roof of the world. It came with equal charm to the Mediterranean isles, up the Adriatic coasts, and as far as Venice. There Ser Giovanni told it, transmogrifying Pharaoh of the Nile into a worshipful Doge, as he had already been made over into a Buddhist magnate, but in no way altering the motive, the suspense, the artfulness of the tale. What is this story then? Is it Venetian? Is it Pharonic? Is it Greek? Is it Tibetan? It is all these, and perhaps something more, vastly older than them all. Its craft, mayhap, goes back tot that primal serpent who, more subtle than all the beasts of the field, has ever inspired darkling feints and strategies.
Stories whose motive is a subtly discerned clew are not less primordial. The most vivid of these tales of deduction are, perhaps, those which come to us through the Arabs, in their treasure store, "The thousand and one nights." The Arabs gleaned them from every land in southern Asia, and from most ancient Egypt, in those days when Moslem power overshadowed half the world. And then they retold them with a charm, a vivid freshness, a roguishness, and a dash of golden light through it all that make them the finest story-tellers in the world.
Can we fix the dates of these Arabian stories? Only in a general way. Some of them came from Cairo, some from Syria, some from the Euphrates and Tigris Valley, some from Persia and India and China; and they were gathered together, it would appear, in the century before Shakespeare was born, by some big-hearted, humorous fellow, among the great anonymous benefactors of mankind. But he made no claim of inventing them. If he had he would have been laughed at for his pains. For old men had heard them from their grandfathers, generation after generation, and the gray grandsires always began to tell them, saying: "So 'twas told to me when I was such a tiny child as thou art."
Though many of these tales excite merely wonder and surprise, others have the germ of that analytic deduction from inconspicuous clues, that we call ratiocination, or the detective instinct.
There is an Arabic story, called "The Sultan and his Three
Sons." From this we quote two illuminative passages which
employ the principle of deductive analysis.
And they stinted not faring till the
middle way, when behold they came upon a
mead abounding in herbage and in
rain-water lying sheeted. So they sat
them down to rest and to eat of their
victual, when one of the brothers,
casting his eye upon the herbage, cried,
"Verily a camel hath lately passed this
way laden half with Halwa-sweetmeats and
half with Hamiz-pickles." "True," cried
the second, "and he was blind of an
eye." Hardly, however, had they ended
their words when lo! the owner of the
camel came upon them (for he had
overheard their speech and had said to
himself, "By Allah, these three fellows
have driven off my property, inasmuch as
they have described the burden and eke
the beast as one-eyed") and cried out,
"Ye three have carried away my camel!"
"By Allah we have not seen him," quoth
the Princes, "much less have we touched
him;" but quoth the man, "By the
Almighty, who could have taken him
except you? and if you will not deliver
him to me, off with us, I and you three,
to the Sultan." They replied, "By all
manner of means; let us wend to the
sovereign." So the four hied forth, the
three princes and the Cameleer, and
ceased not faring till they reached the
capital of the King.
Presently, asked the Sultan, "What say
ye to the claims of this man and the
camel belonging to him?" Hereto the
Princes made answer, "By Allah, O King
of the Age, we have not seen the camel
much less have we stolen him."
Thereupon the Cameleer exclaimed, "O my
lord, I heard yonder one say that the
beast was blind of an eye; and the
second said that half his load was of
sour stuff. They replied, "true, we
spake these words;" and the Sultan cried
to them, "Ye have purloined the beast,
by this proof." They rejoined, "No, by
Allah, O my Lord. We sat us in such a
place for repose and refreshment and we
remarked that some of the pasture had
been grazed down, so we said: This is
the grazing of a camel; and he must have
been blind of one eye as the grass was
eaten only on one side. But as for our
saying that the load was half Halwa-
sweetmeats and half Hamiz-pickles, we
saw on the place where the camel had
knelt the flies gathering in great
numbers while on the other were none; so
the case was clear to us (as flies
settle on naught save the sugared) that
one of the panniers must have contained
sweets and the other sours." hearing
this the Sultan said to the Cameleer, "O
man, fare thee forth and look after they
camel; for these signs and tokens prove
not the theft of these men, but only the
power of their intellect and their
penetration."
Later Voltaire used this method for his "Zadig," Poe for his "Dupin," and Gaboriau for his "M. Lecoq;" while later still it reappeared as the basis of the "Sherlock Holmes" stories.
The story of "The Visakha" is nearly a thousand years old,
but the following quotation will prove that the element of
acute observation is the same as that described in a
previous story proving the wisdom of Solomon.
After she had taken charge of the boy
the father died. A dispute arose
between the two women as to the
possession of the house, each of them
asserting that it belonged to her. They
had recourse to the King. He ordered
his ministers to go to the house and to
make inquiries as to the ownership of
the son. They investigated the matter,
but the day came to an end before they
had brought it to a satisfactory
conclusion. In the evening they
returned to their homes. Visakha again
questioned Mrgadhara, who told her
everything. Visakha said, "What need is
there of investigation? Speak to the
two women thus: 'As we do not know to
which of you two the boy belongs, let
her who is the strongest take the boy.'
When each of them has taken hold of one
of the boy's hands, and he begins to cry
out on account of the pain, the real
mother will let go, being full of
compassion for him, and knowing that if
her child remains alive she will be able
to see it again; but the other, who has
no compassion for him, will not let go.
Then beat her with a switch, and she
will thereupon confess the truth as to
the whole matter. That is the proper
test."
Mrgadhara told this to the ministers,
and so forth, as is written above, down
to the words, "The king said, 'The
Champa maiden is wise.'"
(End of Chapter III)