The Technique of the Mystery Story | Page 8

in the books of charades written by his friend and
colleague, Professor William Bellamy.
Indeed, the hasty and inconsiderate judgment that relegates all
detective fiction to the trash-pile, might be modified by the knowledge
of the college professors and deep-thinking scholars who turn to
detective stories for recreation and enjoyment.
A well known member of the English Parliament has such a taste for
detective literature that his friend speaks thus of him:
"The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply
engrossed," he said, "is called 'The Great Rand Robbery.' It is a
detective novel, for sale at all bookstalls."
The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
"'The Great Rand Robbery?'" he repeated, incredulously. "What an
odd taste!"
"It is not a taste, it is his vice," returned the gentleman with the pearl
stud. "It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a stranger,
could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr. Gladstone
sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in Gaboriau.
Since I have been a member of Parliament, I have never seen him in the
library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He brings them even
into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the Government
benches reads them concealed inside his hat. Once started on a tale of
murder, robbery, and sudden death, nothing can tear him from it, not
even the call of the division-bell, nor of hunger, nor the prayers of the
party Whip. He gave up his country house because when he journeyed
to it in the train he would become so absorbed in his detective stories
that he was invariably carried past his station."
Perhaps such an inordinate relish is not to be entirely commended,
but the fact remains that an analytical mentality gets an intense

enjoyment out of the solving of puzzles or mysteries, that a differently
constituted brain cannot in the least understand or appreciate.
It all comes back to the incontrovertible philosophy:
"Different men are of different opinions,
Some like apples, some like inions."
And this same thought Henry James voices thus:
"In a recent story, 'The Beldonald Holbein,' it is not my fault if I am
so put together as often to find more life in situations obscure and
subject to interpretation than in the gross rattle of the foreground." One
could not find a more luminous comment upon his short stories than
these words contain. The situations that he prefers are, as he says,
obscure" but "subject to interpretation." Hawthorne's situations,
however, even when obscure, are always vital. We cannot imagine
Hawthorne saying, as James says, "It is an incident for a woman to
stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a
certain way."
If, then, Mr. James gets exquisite satisfaction out of the careful
consideration of this incident, why may not another equally great
intellect become absorbed in finding out who stole the jewels?
The curiosity aroused by Mystery Fiction is not then, a mere idle
curiosity but an intellectual interest.
CHAPTER III
THE HISTORY OF MYSTERY
Ancient Mystery Tales
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.

1. Ancient Mystery Tales
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