The Technique of the Mystery Story | Page 9

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