DO TELL

by James Lincoln Warren

I have three busts of famous people, heroes of mine, sitting on top of one of my bookshelves.

One of them is of William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest story teller of all time. Shakespeare’s genius did not lie in his plots, which he almost always cribbed from some other source, but in the depth of expression and understanding of human behavior. It doesn’t hurt that he had a way with words like no other, too. Like the Bible and Classical mythology, Shakespeare is an inexhaustible mine for me in terms of the riches he provides.

When I worked at Barnes & Noble, we carried a series of Shakespeare’s plays that featured the original text on the left and a translation into “modern” English on the right. Never mind, of course, that Shakespeare is already in modern English. All right, I admit that Shakespeare’s language is difficult for contemporary speakers, but it is hardly unintelligible. The biggest problem is that the “modern” versions are anemic compared with the muscular and evocative originals. (If you’re at all interested in this topic, you might visit No Fear Shakespeare or Shakespeare in Modern English at eNotes.com.) But there are words that Shakespeare used completely differently from the way we use them today. It seems to me that the best way to explain these variances would be with footnotes, like the old Folger Library editions I was familiar with in high school, rather than having “translations”, which discourage the reader from parsing out the meaning for himself.

But I’m getting a little far afield from my point about Shakespeare’s perspicacity. It’s just that the passage I had in mind contains one of those misunderstood words.

Hamlet, Act III, scene ii: The melancholy Dane has prepared a play which parallels the murder of his father the King to put pressure on his mother Gertrude, who has cast off her widow’s weeds to marry Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius, who murdered her husband to gain the throne.

The Player Queen on stage proclaims her love for her (first) husband:

Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
Sport and repose lock from me day and night:
To desperation turn my trust and hope,
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope,
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well and it destroy:
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife
If once a widow, ever I be wife!1

Which essentially says that if the Queen should lose her husband, she would prefer to be afflicted by misery than ever to remarry. Hamlet wants to know if his mother has gotten the point:

Hamlet. Madam, how like you this play?

Queen. The lady protests too much, methinks.

And here we have it. In Shakespeare’s day, the verb to protest did not mean to object to or to demonstrate against. It meant to affirm in a solemn manner, or to formally proclaim, from the Latin protestari.

So Gertrude is not saying that the Player Queen is being contrarian, but rather that she’s going overboard in her declaration of love by claiming she would rather embrace a life of misery than remarry if her husband should die. In other words, Gertrude is contrasting her own behavior with that of the Player Queen.

But is that all?

Of course not.

The Player Queen does not keep her word, and does remarry after her husband is murdered, just like Gertrude. By protesting too much, the Player Queen shows her hypocritical hand to the audience—even Gertrude realizes that the Queen on stage is lying. She is being a drama queen. (All right, I could not resist that little joke, but the point is valid.)

In poker, an action that telegraphs a player’s strength is called a tell. Sometimes these are completely physical and involuntary, such as dilating eyes, shaking hands, or a sudden flush, but usually they are exaggerated reactions intended to conceal excitement on the one hand or disappointment on the other. If somebody leans back in his chair immediately after getting a card and tries to seems nonchalant, it almost always means he got the card he needed and is trying to avoid notice. Likewise, a disproportionately high bet usually indicates a bluff—instead of trying to suck his opponent in, the bettor is trying to scare him off, which he wouldn’t do if he believed he had the stronger hand. Of course, a professional poker player will deliberately use false tells (so please don’t enter the World Series of Poker based on my advice).

You see such tells all the time during criminal interrogations. As soon as a suspect exclaims, “I had nothing to do with it, I swear to God,” the odds are better than even that he’s lying—he wouldn’t have invoked the oath if he were confident that no connection could be made between him and the crime. A good interviewer will pick up on such details—such perceptions are mother’s milk to shows like Lie to Me and The Mentalist.

The Player Queen’s tell is false only in the sense that it is meant to be detected, because Hamlet intends that it be understood by Gertrude. Through it, he’s accusing her. As with all really good writing, the exchange illuminates more than one character at the same time. It simultaneously demonstrates Hamlet’s sly anger as well as Gertrude’s sardonically pragmatic view of life—their disastrous collision cannot be long delayed. For a crime story, it’s a perfect moment.

Shakespeare obviously got it.

In case you were wondering, Hamlet informs Polonius that the title of the play-within-a-play is The Mousetrap, an apt title, since it is sprung to avenge a murder. Agatha Christie obviously thought so, too.

1. No Fear Shakespeare translates this as:

   May the earth refuse me food and the heavens go dark, may I have no rest day and night, may my trust and hope turn to despair—may the gloom of a prison overtake me, and may my every joy be turned to sorrow.
   May I know no peace either in this life or the next one, if I become a wife again after I am a widow.

   eNotes paraphrases it thus:

   Earth won’t me give food, or heaven light!
   I will avoid leisure and rest day and night!
   My trust and hope will turn to desperation!
   An anchor’s cheer in prison will be my aim!
   Every opposite feeling that makes the face of joy blink,
   Connect with what I would do well, and destroy it!
   Both here and hereafter unending pain follow me,
   If, once I am a widow, I ever become a wife!

   As far as I’m concerned, the first goes too far in making the language plain, elucidating its meaning but removing all emotional impact, and the second eviscerates the poetry without bothering to explain anything at all. What the Player Queen means by anchor is not a weighted metal hook used to keep your boat from drifting away on the tide, but a shortened form of anchorite: “A person who has withdrawn or secluded himself from the world; usually one who has done so for religious reasons, a recluse, a hermit.” (OED) [↩]

CRIME & FICTION

by Leigh Lundin

If you’re like me, you receive a lot of ‘fiction’ in your eMail, no-longer-thinly disguised diatribes about someone else’s race or religion. These rants pretend toward ‘truth’, which make them worse than fiction, since the best fiction opens a window upon truth itself.

At the last moment last week, I pulled a couple of news stories. The stories were intended to make us shake our head at silly criminals (and horrid punishments) and show we have more similarities around the world than differences. At the final instant, I realized these particular stories about the Middle East would fall in the shadow of this coming Saturday, the anniversary of 9/11, not merely one of the great crimes of our era, but the indulgence and promulgation of great evil.

Looking at the stories, I spent this past week trying to shape what I want to say. It’s easy to showcase a nutcase preacher (in Florida, naturally) who claims he’ll burn the Holy Qur’an on 11 September or point up the fool who stabbed a New York cab driver who happened to be Muslim… and American. The harder I tried to articulate the underlying message, the more my writing skills failed me. I wished Dick Stodghill was around. He had a marvelous way of sharp expression, but was never unkind.

It troubles me Americans know so little of our world, as John Floyd hinted at yesterday, but as large and great as our insular nation is, we’re best at dealing ‘in the small’ with individuals.

Decades ago, a magazine writer visited a racist redneck bar. A black man ascended the stage and began singing country and western. Raucous talk fell silent as the audience listened in awe.

Finally, one man said, "Who’s the {n-word}?"

A couple of rednecks turned angrily upon him and said, "That ain’t no {n-word}, that’s Charlie Pride."

Charlie Pride– He transcended their larger prejudice. That writer strove to make the point his audience stopped seeing the artist as a black man. Perhaps, but I think something else happened. They grew to focus ‘in the small’ upon the individual whom they came to respect and love, Charlie Pride, conquering one man at a time. That’s what we do best.

As I said, I get a lot of ‘fiction’ in my eMail trying to disguise embedded ugliness. More disturbing, much of our eMail fare make the Turner Diaries look tame. Don’t believe it? Load it on your Kindle or iPad and check it out. Madness has become mainstream.

For a while, I meticulously dissected some of these screeds, laying bare the fabrications they were predicated upon. To my thinking, anything built on a lie is still a lie, it’s rotten at its core. One of the eMail perpetrators hotly fired back a note arguing the fact the assertions weren’t true didn’t matter, they represented ‘a greater truth’.

How can one answer that? We can’t. People who look for differences see only differences. For those who see similarities, differences fade into nothingness.

The only thing we can do is look at what binds us– we as Americans or British or Canadian, New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans or perhaps a sprinkling of elsewhere. Most of all, we’re human– we love, we fear, we make mistakes. We may (or not) be Jewish or Hindu, Christian or Muslim. When a Christian harms a Muslim or vice versa, they damage a brother or sister, they hurt a child of God.

As authors, we try to keep our prejudices in check as we write, unless we target a niche audience. I’m content reading a thriller or watching a good movie without knowing or caring the writer’s personal views unless he lets them intrude into the story.

Take Mel Gibson who manages to personally offend damn near everyone with his off-screen foibles. In contrast, a reviewer remarked Clint Eastwood managed to offend everyone equally. He seemed to do it impersonally with a wink that hinted at something slyer.

MWA Edgar Award winner Costa Gavras is another study, accused by the Greek camarilla of being communist following his 1969 film Z, then in 1970 accused by the Soviets of being anti-communist for L’Aveu (The Confession), and still later anti-Vatican for his 2003 Amen. He must be doing something right.

More detail would merely obscure my message about approaching 9/11: Read lots, research more, reject the ‘fiction’, but especially, don’t let the bad guys win. In other words,

Be kind to those around you— and peace be with you.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR BURRO FROM A BURROW

by John M. Floyd

Two guys are sitting in a tavern, sipping their beers. One says to the other, “See that girl at the end of the bar? I think I’ll ask her for a date.”

The second guy takes a look, then says, “Forget it. She won’t be interested.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’s a lesbian.”

“So?” the first guy says. “That won’t matter. Watch this.”

He stands, struts over to the young lady, leans on the bar, and says, “Hi darlin’. How are things in Beirut?”

Yes, I know, it’s an old joke — but it illustrates a point: most of us just don’t have very good vocabularies.

With the assistance of several of my favorite books and articles on the subject, here are a few “word-choice” and style mistakes we as writers often make — and ways to avoid them. (Among my references are Lapsing Into a Comma and The Elephants of Style, Bill Walsh; “Words That Wound,” Byline Magazine; and Woe Is I, Patricia T. O’Conner.)

NOTE: Some of the following are firm rules; others are informed opinions. (I have friends who insist that “T-shirts” should be “tee shirts.”) But, as I said in a comment to Steve’s who/whom column last week, I think it’s always fun to hear others’ thoughts on the subject of word usage. I aren’t no grammarian, but I’m glad I know people who is.

Convince/persuade — “Convince” involves thought; “persuade” involves action. She convinced him she was right. He persuaded her to drive him home.

T-shirt/tee shirt — “T-shirt” is correct. Hint: when spread out, it looks like the letter T.

Continuous/continual — “Continuous” means without interruption. “Continual” means frequently or often repeated. The entire film was made up of one continuous scene. The bill died after continual objections.

Hone in/home in — You can hone your knife or your skills, but you can’t “hone in” on something. The investigator homed in on the fact that Judy was absent the night of the murder.

Till — The word “till” is an informal version of “until,” not a contraction (’til), and is perfectly acceptable. We’ll stay here till you get back.

Alright — This one, like “alot,” is not acceptable. Alright is never all right.

Minuscule — Spelling hint: when something’s minuscule, it’s minus (lacking) size.

May/might — Sometimes they mean the same thing. Often, though, “may” involves permission and “might” involves possibility. Jimmy may go to the movies (his mom’s allowing him to). Jimmy might go to the movies (he hasn’t decided).

When choosing whether to use “a” or “an,” pronunciation of the following word — not spelling — is what matters most. An hour and a half. A European vacation. Always include an SASE.

Data and media — These are collective nouns, and should be treated as singular. The data is conclusive. The media has arrived. Bill Walsh of The Washington Post says writers who use them as plurals are educated but misguided, and Patricia O’Conner notes that “data” seems to have gone the way of agenda, opera, and insignia — technically plural words that have become singular nouns.

Hung/hanged — Unless capital punishment is involved, “hung” is the correct past tense of “hang.” Anyone who thinks otherwise should be hanged.

Fellowship and dialogue — These are among those nouns that shouldn’t be used as verbs. “It’s been suggested that we meet and fellowship at seven p.m. Should we dialogue about that?” No!

Nauseated/nauseous – Nauseated means sick; nauseous means sickening. “I’m nauseated” is a statement; “I’m nauseous,” is an admission.

Accommodate — Spelling hint: it’s big enough to accommodate two c’s and two m’s.

Imply/infer — A speaker implies; an audience infers.

Momentarily — It doesn’t mean “soon”; it means “for a moment.” When I was confronted, I hesitated momentarily. But if the skipper says, “We’ll be afloat momentarily,” you might want to get the hell off his boat.

Articles, prepositions, and conjunctions used in titles of books and movies are usually capitalized if they contain four or more letters. Gone With the Wind.

Between/among — We all know the rule here; but “between” is also used for multiples when talking about physical relationships. Sand gets between your toes, not among them (even if you have more than two toes).

Straitjacket and straitlaced — There’s no “gh” in either one; I’m being straight with you, here. “Strait” comes from the Latin “strictus,” which means constricted or tight. Think Bering Strait.

Ingenious/ingenuous — “Ingenious” means “brilliant” (it has the pronunciation of “genius” built in). “Ingenuous” means “candid” or “innocently open” (“ingenue” is a word for an inexperienced girl).

If you’re adding -ed or -ing or -er to a verb, double a single final consonant only if the accent is on the final syllable. Canceled, traveled, controlled, patrolled. Words like transferred and kidnapped are exceptions because (I assume) they might otherwise be mispronounced.

Some words, like irregardless, utilize, orientate, preregister, and preventative, shouldn’t be used at all. And I love this quote from The Elephants of Style regarding the phrase “per se”:
“It means ‘in itself.’ But beware: Even when used correctly, it identifies the speaker or writer as a geeky, pretentious high-school student.”

I’ll close with a note from the The UPI Stylebook: “A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a writer you are expected to know the difference.”

Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon I met with an English teacher from the local high school who was developing a curriculum on mystery fiction. She was looking for a short, simple introduction to the genre that would provide a definition and would give kids a framework to begin reading mysteries with a critical eye. I couldn’t find one, so I wrote the following:

WHY DO WE READ MYSTERIES?

by Steven Steinbock

On any typical week, if you scan the New York Times Book Review Bestseller lists for hardcover fiction or mass market paperback fiction, eight of the top ten titles fit under the broad category of mystery/thriller/suspense. Despite the fact that mysteries are criticized, vilified, dismissed, or ignored by America’s literary elite, they outsell every other genre. How can that be?

The obvious reason is that people buy and read mysteries because people like them. But that begs the question. Why do we enjoy them? Whether browsing for fiction, whether online, on physical bookstore shelves, or at the public library, four out of five people will choose a mystery.

What is a mystery?

Before trying to explain mystery fiction’s popularity, we should clarify what we mean by mysteries. As suggested in the opening paragraph, the mystery genre is a broad umbrella that includes detective fiction, suspense, and thrillers. Spy and espionage fiction is sometimes considered a sub-category of thrillers. Bookstores will often include them with mysteries, or if they are by bestselling authors, will get stuck in with general fiction.

Technically speaking, a mystery is a story in which the solution comes as a surprise at the end. In other words, there needs to be a mystery to solve. But that excludes most of the books being published today that readers, writers, and publishers count as mysteries. If I had to propose a definition that covered the entire genre, it would look something like:

. . . any work of fiction in which the solution, prevention, or commission of a crime is central to the plot.

This definition includes standard detective stories and traditional mysteries, as well as thrillers and suspense novels (in which we often know who the villain is, but we read the story to find out how the villain is stopped), as well as caper fiction (in which the heroes are crooks, and the object of the story is to commit a successful crime, usually a robbery).

Horror writing, while often seen as a close cousin to the mystery, is outside of the realm of mystery although books like Robert Bloch’s Psycho and many books featuring serial killer villains are considered to have a foot in both genres.

Why Do We Like Them So Much?

I often find that most realms of human experience can be understood through the lens of “The Wizard of Oz” – which is not a mystery by anyone’s definition. This might be a stretch, so bear with me. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, then stop reading this immediately, rent or borrow the DVD, or better yet, read the book. When you’ve rejoined the human race, come on back and finish reading this article.

“The Wizard of Oz” – the MGM movie in any event – begins in black and white, and ends in black and white. The beginning and ending are completely clear to the viewer. The adventure itself is filmed in color.

One of the central features that distinguish mysteries from most other genres is the clear and strict structure. A mystery has a beginning, middle, and end. As the reader moves through the work there is a distinct progression forward from problem to solution. In other words, mysteries have plots, something that many modern fiction writers seem to have forgotten. At the beginning, something goes wrong: a crime is committed. At the end, everything is set right: the crime is explained, the villain is punished, and order is restored. The middle is the hero’s search for clues in spite of the many obstacles put in his or her way.

A critical approach to reading mysteries would include paying attention to how well the story follows through on this promise. Is there a crime or crisis that unsettles the world of the story? Does the conclusion provide a satisfactory resolution to the problem? And finally, does the body of the story move the characters (and the reader) in a logical progression toward the resolution?

The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion.

The three companions that Dorothy meets along her journey each represent one aspect of human experience and perception. In fact, I would argue that all human experience can be separated into three categories: Mind (thought, speech, and intellect, personified by the scarecrow), Emotion (feelings and relationships, personified by the Tin Man), and Action (or “guts” as personified by the Lion).

Some of us favor one of these realms over the others. But we wouldn’t be human without all three. When reading a mystery novel or story, we’re apt to judge its quality based on how well it appeals to our intellect, our emotion, or out guts. So one approach to critically understanding mysteries is to pay attention to how a story appeals to our inner scarecrow, tin man, and lion.

In the early days of the mystery and detective genre, the intellect was paramount. In fact, most of the more famous mysteries placed so much emphasis on the puzzle element that many modern readers find them too intellectual. Nevertheless, a good mystery will surprise the reader not just with guns and saps in the head, but with clues, red herrings, and revelation.

The emotional appeal of mysteries has two elements: moral and interpersonal. A mystery, with its emphasis on crime and punishment, is a vicarious opportunity for readers to see justice on the page even when they realize that the real world isn’t always fair. In a good mystery, the reader will care enough about the characters – rooting for the heroes and disliking the villains – that justice gives us a satisfying resolution. Related to this are the interrelations of the characters. In the past twenty or thirty years, the social lives of fictional characters have taken on increasing importance. Mystery novels are more apt to be part of a series than standalone works, and as readers move through the series, they enjoy revisiting character as they would old friends, and they come to care about the sidekicks, acquaintances, and lovers of the detective heroes.

Action speaks louder than words. But it takes a good writer to use words effectively portray action. Readers read mysteries for the excitement, the thrill, the vicarious pleasure or risk and violence for the same reason people like a roller-coaster ride. It’s probably true that male readers lean more toward action stories, which is why books written by and predominantly for men tend to emphasize action at the expense of the emotional and intellectual aspects of writing.

As you read a mystery story, take note of whether the writing is appealing to your sense of intellect, emotion, or action. Are all three areas represented? Try to recognize that your own biases may be different from those of the author. Accept those differences, and even if a story isn’t your particular cup of tea, read it for its own merits.

LONE STAR SLEUTHS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Like most Criminal Brief readers, I’m always on the lookout for a new book to read. First on my list are mysteries (although I am open to all sorts of genres). In my search, I found Lone Star Sleuths: An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction, a collection of excerpts of some fine novels. This book is an introduction to mystery writers I know well and some others that are new to me, which is always a treat.

According to the book’s website , Texas has seen fictional crime stories staged from “the highest point of the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas to the Piney Woods of East Texas, from the High Plains of the Panhandle to the subtropical climate of the lower Rio Grande Valley.”

The Table of Contents reads:

• Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr
• Camino del Rio by Jim Sanderson
• Time Bombs by Nancy Herndon
• Bordersnakes by James Crumley
• Death of a Healing Woman by Allana Martin
• The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
• A Twist at the End by Steven Saylor
• The Rock Critic Murders by Jesse Sublett
• Buck Fever by Ben Rehder
• Rosemary Remembered by Susan Wittig Albert
• Armadillos and Old Lace by Kinky Friedman
• Heat from Another Sun by David L. Lindsey
• Interstate Dreams by Neal Barrett, Jr.
• Drowned Man’s Key by Ken Grissom
• Bay of Sorrows by Gaylord Dold
• Umbrella Man by Doug J. Swanson
• Prime Suspect by A. W. Gray
• The Sheriff and the Panhandle Murders
• The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe R. Lansdale
• Gone Fishin’ by Walter Mosley
• Funny as a Dead Relative by Susan Rogers Cooper
• Death on the River Walk by Carolyn Hart
• The Last King of Texas by Rick Riordan
• The Case of the Hook-billed Kites by J. S. Borthwick
• Partners in Crime by Rolando Hinojosa
• Winning Can Be Murder by Bill Crider
• Hot Enough to Kill by Paula Boyd
• Do Unto Others by Jeff Abbott
• Agatite by Clay Reynolds
• The Red Scream by Mary Willis Walker

Recognize many names or titles? While some of my favorite authors are included here, several authors or titles were new to me. Although I enjoy crime stories from many locations, I look forward to reading these stories about my home state and hope you will, too.

If this listing tempts you, ordering from the website offers a 33% discount on the paperback book. I think you might find it a killer read, Texas style.

TIME WARPED

by Rob Lopresti

Time is on my mind this week, though not on my hands, or on my side. So let’s spare it a minute or three.

Zoning out

As you may remember I was recently in Copenhagen. One of the interesting consequences of having easy wireless access in our apartment there was the constant reminder that I was nine hours away from my usual time zone.

I would get up in the morning and check Criminal Brief and often be met by yesterday’s column, because it was still yesterday where James lives. And even if the column had been updated before I got there, there would be few if any comments, because our readers were mostly asleep.

In the same way, all my email habits were reversed. I got most of my mail at night and very little during the day. We all know the world is facing a different part of the day than us, but somehow the Web made it more obvious than ever before.

Lagging ahead

But that was nothing compared to the trip back home. Twenty-four hours of travel (Memo to Scotty: We need that transporter online now.). Several days of jet lag. I truly felt like I could feel my brain adjusting bit my bit. Now it’s over the mid-Atlantic. Now it’s reached the East Coast. Maybe by tomorrow it will hit the Pacific time zone.

Sometimes our bodies seem to say, okay, you can zip around the world in a day, but I don’t have to like it, and you ain’t gonna either.

Writing time

So how does all this relate to writing? Glad you asked. I am in the middle of first drafts of three stories. By sheer coincidence they are set in:

Victorian England

Turn of the Century California

1967 New Jersey

That’s three different environments, vocabularies, moods, to throw myself into, not even mentioning all the research I need to do. I feel like the science fiction writer Howard Waldrop who used to lose money on his stories, because he spent so much time digging up the details he needed.

Time travel is so broadening

And speaking of science fiction, a couple of decades ago Spider Robinson wrote a story called “Time Traveler,” about a man who was locked in a South American prison for twenty years with no news from the outside world. One day he was released and felt exactly as if he had jumped ahead by two decades in a single moment. We all travel through time, but we do it at the rate of one day per day, and we don’t always notice the changes accumulating..

When Robinson’s story was published in a science fiction magazine some people cancelled their subscriptions, claiming it was not science fiction. I’m not sure they are right. Maybe – said the man who is complaining that it took a whole day to travel halfway around the world – science fiction is what we are living right now.

I first discovered the Thinking Machine stories of Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912), one of the victims in the sinking of the Titanic, when I was in the fourth grade. I was smitten. This story was first published in 1907.

Futrelle never says so, but I’ve always thought that the “S. F. X.” initials between the Thinking Machine’s first and last names must stand for “Saint Francis Xavier”, but I could be wrong. I can say that they definitely do not stand for “Special Effects”.

The story’s ending has always amused me—perceptive readers will realize that Dr. Ballard’s final question is stupid, since the result is the same in either case, and that Professor Van Dusen’s answer actually expresses nothing but contempt for his fellow (an emotion of which the Thinking Machine is never in short supply).

I hereby dedicate the appearance of this particular story to Leigh’s companion Valentine, for reasons which should be entirely apparent.

And last but not least, this will be the last appearance of the Surprise Witness column for a while. I have a real surprise in store for the Gentle Reader next week.

—JLW

THE PROBLEM OF THE HIDDEN MILLION

by Jacques Futrelle

     The gray hand of Death had already left its ashen mark upon the wrinkled, venomous face of the old man, who lay huddled up in bed. Save for the feverishly brilliant eyes—cunning, vindictive, hateful—there seemed to be no spark of life in the aged form. The withered lips were mute, and the thin, yellow, claw-like hands lay helplessly outstretched on the white sheets. All physical power was gone; only the brain remained doggedly alive. Two men and two women stood beside the death bed. Upon each in turn the glittering eyes rested with the merciless, unreasoning hatred of age. Crouched on the floor was a huge St. Bernard dog; and on a perch across the room was a parrot which screeched abominably.
     The gloom of the wretched little room was suddenly relieved by a ruddy sunbeam which shot athwart the bed and lighted the scene fantastically. The old man noted it, and his lips curled into a hideous smile.
     “That’s the last sun I’ll ever see,” he piped feebly. “I’m dying—dying! Do you hear? And you’re all glad of it, every one of you. Yes, you are! You are glad of it because you want my money. You came here to make me believe you were paying a last tribute of respect to your old grandfather. But that isn’t it. It’s the money you want—the money! But I’ve got a surprise for you. You’ll never get the money. It’s hidden safely—you’ll never get it. You all hate me, you have hated me for years, and after that sun dies you’ll all hate me worse. But not more than I hate you. You’ll all hate me worse then, because I’ll be gone and you’ll never know where the money is hidden. It will lie there safely where I put it, rotting and crumbling away; but you shall never warm your fingers with it! It’s hidden—hidden—hidden!”
     There was rasping in the shrunken throat, a deeply drawn breath, then the figure stiffened and a distorted soul passed out upon the Eternal Way.

     Martha held a card within the blinding light of the reflector, and Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, with his hands immersed to the elbows in some chemical mess, squinted at it.
     “Dr. Walter Ballard,” he read. “Show him in.”
     After a moment Dr. Ballard entered. The scientist was still absorbed in his labors, but paused long enough to jerk his head toward a chair. Dr. Ballard accepted this as an invitation and sat down, staring curiously at the singular, childlike figure of this eminent man of science, at the mop of tangled, straw yellow hair, the enormous brow, and the peering blue eyes.
     “Well?” demanded the scientist abruptly.
     “I beg your pardon,” began Dr. Ballard with a little start. “Your name was mentioned to me sometime ago by a newspaper reporter, Hutchinson Hatch, whom I chanced to meet in his professional capacity. He suggested then that I come and see you, but I thought it useless. Now the affair in which we were both interested at that time seems hopelessly beyond solution, so I come to you for aid.
     “We want to find one million dollars in gold and United States bonds, which were hidden by my grandfather, John Walter Ballard, sometime before his death just a month ago. The circumstances are altogether out of the ordinary.”
     The Thinking Machine abandoned his labors, and dried his hands carefully, after which he took a seat facing Dr. Ballard. “Tell me about it,” he commanded.
     “Well,” began Dr. Ballard reminiscently, as he settled back in his chair, “the old man—my grandfather—died, as I said, a month ago. He was nearly eighty-six, and the last five or six years of his life he spent as a recluse in a little hut twenty miles from the city, a place some distance from any other house. He had a spot of ground there, half an acre or so, and lived like a pauper, despite the fact that he was worth at least a million dollars. Previous to the time he went there to live, there had been an estrangement with my family, his sole heirs. My family consists of myself, wife, son, and daughter.
     “My grandfather lived in the house with me for ten years before he went out to this hut; and why he left us then is not clear to any member of my family, unless,” and he shrugged his shoulders, “he was mentally unbalanced. Anyway, he went. He would neither come to see us, nor would he permit us to go to see him. As far as we know, he owned no real property of any sort, except this miserable little place, worth altogether—furnishing and all—not more than a thousand or twelve hundred dollars.
     “Well, about a month ago some one stopped at the hut for something and found he was ill. I was notified, and with my wife, son and daughter went to see what we could do. He took occasion on his death bed to heap vituperation upon us, and incidentally to state that something like a million dollars was left behind, but hidden.
     “For the sake of my son and daughter, I undertook to recover this money. I consulted attorneys, private detectives, and in fact exhausted every possible method. I ascertained beyond question that the money was not in a bank anywhere; and hardly think he would have left it there, because of course, if he had, even with a will disinheriting us, the law would have turned it over to us. He had no safe deposit vault as far as one month’s close search revealed, and the money was not hidden in the house or grounds. He stated on his death bed that it was in bonds and gold, and that we should never find it. He was just vindictive enough not to destroy it, but to leave it somewhere, believing we should never find it. Where did he hide it?”
     The Thinking Machine sat silent for several minutes, with his enormous yellow head tilted back, and slender fingers pressed together. “The house and grounds were searched?” he asked.
     “The house was searched from cellar to garret,” was the reply. “Workmen, under my directions, practically wrecked the building. Floors, ceilings, walls, chimney, stairs,—everything,—little cubby holes in the roof, the foundation of the chimney, the pillars, even the flag stones leading from the gate to the door,—everything was examined. The joists were sounded to see if they were solid, and a dozen of them were cut through; the posts on the veranda were cut to pieces; and every stick of furniture was dissected—mattresses, beds, chairs, tables, bureaus—all of it. Outside in the grounds the search was just as thorough. Not one square inch but what was overturned. We dug it all up to a depth of ten feet. Still nothing.”
     “Of course,” said the scientist at last, “the search of the house and grounds was useless. The old man was shrewd enough to know that they would be searched. Also it would appear that the search of banks and safety deposit vaults was equally useless. He was shrewd enough to foresee that too. We shall, for the present, assume that he did not destroy the money or give it away; so it is hidden. If the brain of man is clever enough to conceal a thing, the brain of man is clever enough to find it. It’s a little problem in subtraction, Dr. Ballard.” He was silent for a moment. “Who was your grandfather’s attending physician?”
     “I was. I was present at his death. Nothing could be done. It was merely the collapse consequent upon old age. I issued the burial certificate.”
     “Were any special directions left as to the place or manner of burial?”
     “No.”
     “Have all his papers been examined for a clue as to the possible hiding place?”
     “Everything. There were no papers to amount to anything.”
     “Have you those papers now?”
     Dr. Ballard silently produced a packet and handed it to the scientist.
     “I shall examine these at my leisure,” said The Thinking Machine. “It may be a day or so before I communicate with you.”
     Dr. Ballard went his way. For a dozen hours The Thinking Machine sat with the papers spread out before him, and the keen, squinting, blue eyes dissected them, every paragraph, every sentence, every word. At the end he arose and bundled up the papers impatiently.
     “Dear me! Dear me!” he exclaimed irritably. “There’s no cipher—that’s certain. Then what?”

     Devastating hands had wrought the wreck of the little hut where the old man died. Standing in the midst of its litter, The Thinking Machine regarded it closely and dispassionately for a long time. The work of destruction had been well done.
     “Can you suggest anything?” asked Dr. Ballard impatiently.
     “One mind may read another mind,” said The Thinking Machine, “when there is some external thing upon which there can come concentration as a unit. In other words, when we have a given number the logical brain can construct either backward or forward. There are so many thousands of ways in which your grandfather could have disposed of this money, that the task becomes tremendous in view of the fact that we have no starting point. It is a case for patience, rather than any other quality; therefore, for greater speed, we must proceed psychologically. The question then becomes, not one of where the money is hidden, but one of where that sort of man would hide it.
     “Now what sort of man was your grandfather?” the scientist continued. “He was crabbed, eccentric, and possibly not mentally sound. The cunning of a diseased brain is greater than the cunning of a normal one. He boasted to you that the money was in existence, and his last words were intended to arouse your curiosity; to hang over you all the rest of your life and torment you. You can imagine the vindictive, petty brain like that putting a thing safely beyond your reach—but just beyond it—near enough to tantalize, and yet far enough to remain undiscovered. This seems to me to be the mental attitude in this case. Your grandfather knew that you would do just what you have done here; that is, search the house and lot. He knew too that you would search banks and safety deposit vaults, and with a million at stake he knew it would be done thoroughly. Knowing this, naturally he would not put the money in any of those places.
     “Then what? He doesn’t own any other property, as far as we know, and we shall assume that he did not buy property in the name of some other person; therefore, what have we left? Obviously, if the money is still in existence, it is hidden on somebody’s else property. And the minute we say that, we have the whole wide world to search. But again, doesn’t the deviltry and maliciousness of the old man narrow that down? Wouldn’t he have liked to remember as a dying thought that the money was always just within your reach, and yet safely beyond it? Wouldn’t it have been a keener revenge to have you dig over the whole place, while the money was hidden just six feet outside in a spot where you would never dig? It might be sixty, or six hundred, or six thousand. But then we have the law of probability to narrow those limits; so—”
     Professor Van Dusen turned suddenly and strolled across the uneven ground to the property line. Walking slowly and scrutinizing the ground as he went, he circled the lot, returning to the starting point. Dr. Ballard had followed along behind him.
     “Are all your grandfather’s belongings still in the house?” asked the scientist.
     “Yes, everything just as he left it; that is, except his dog and a parrot. They are temporarily in charge of a widow down the road here.”
     The scientist looked at Dr. Ballard quickly. “What sort of dog is it?” he inquired.
     “A St. Bernard, I think,” replied Dr. Ballard wonderingly.
     “Do you happen to have a glove or something that you know your grandfather wore?”
     “I have a glove, yes.”
     From the debris which littered the floor of the house, a well worn glove was recovered.
     “Now, the dog, please,” commanded the scientist.
     A short walk along the country road brought them to a house, and here they stopped. The St. Bernard, a shaggy, handsome, boisterous old chap, with wise eyes, was led out in leash. The Thinking Machine thrust the glove forward, and the dog sniffed at it. After a moment he sank down on his haunches, and with head thrust forward and upward, whined softly. It was the call of the brute soul to its master.
     The Thinking Machine patted the heavy-coated head, and with the glove still in his hand made as if to go away. Again came the whine, but the dog sank down on the floor, with his head between his forepaws, regarding him intently. For ten minutes the scientist sought to coax the animal to follow him, but still he lay motionless.
     “I don’t mind keepin’ that dog here; but that parrot is powerful noisy,” said the woman after a moment. She had been standing by watching the scientist curiously. “There ain’t no peace in the house.”
     “Noisy—how?” asked Dr. Ballard.
     “He swears, and sings and whistles, and does ’rithmetic all day long,” the woman explained. “It nearly drives me distracted.”
     “Does arithmetic?” inquired The Thinking Machine.
     “Yes,” replied the woman, “and he swears just terrible. It’s almost like havin’ a man about the house. There he goes now.”
     From another room came a sudden, squawking burst of profanity, followed instantly by a whistle, which caused the dog on the floor to prick up his ears.
     “Does the parrot talk well?” asked the scientist.
     “Just like a human bein’,” replied the woman, “an’ just about as sensible as some I’ve seen. I don’t mind his whistling, if only he wouldn’t swear so, and do all his figgerin’ out loud.”
     For a minute or more the scientist stood staring down at the dog in deep thought. Gradually there came some subtle change in his expression. Dr. Ballard was watching him closely.
     “I think perhaps it would be a good idea for me to keep the parrot for a few days,” suggested the scientist finally. He turned to the woman. “Just what sort of arithmetic does the bird do?”
     “All kinds,” she answered promptly. “He does all the multiplication table. But he ain’t very good in subtraction.”
     “I shouldn’t be surprised,” commented The Thinking Machine. “I’ll take the bird for a few days, doctor, if you don’t mind.”

     And so it came to pass that when The Thinking Machine returned to his apartments he was accompanied by as noisy and vociferous a companion as one would care to have.
     Martha, the aged servant, viewed him with horror as he entered. “The perfessor do be gettin’ old,” she muttered. “I suppose there’ll be a cat next.”
     Two days later Dr. Ballard was called to the telephone. The Thinking Machine was at the other end of the wire.
     “Take two men whom you can trust and go down to your grandfather’s place,” instructed the scientist curtly. “Take picks, shovels, a compass, and a long tape line. Stand on the front steps facing east. To your right will be an apple tree some distance off that lot on the adjoining property. Go to that apple tree. A boulder is at its foot. Measure from the edge of that stone twenty-six feet due north by the compass, and from that point fourteen feet due west. You will find your money there. Then please have some one come and take this bird away. If you don’t, I’ll wring its neck. It’s the most blasphemous creature I ever heard. Good bye.”

     Dr. Ballard slipped the catch on the suit case and turned it upside down on the laboratory table. It was packed—literally packed—with United States bonds. The Thinking Machine fingered them idly.
     “And there is this too,” said Dr. Ballard.
     He lifted a stout sack from the floor, cut the string, and spilled out its contents beside the bonds. It was gold—thousands and thousands of dollars. Dr. Ballard was frankly excited about it; The Thinking Machine accepted it as he accepted all material things.
     “How much is there of it?” he asked quietly.
     “I don’t know,” replied Dr. Ballard.
     “And how did you find it?”
     “As you directed—twenty-six feet north from the boulder, and fourteen feet west from that point.”
     “I knew that, of course,” snapped The Thinking Machine; “but how was it hidden?”
     “It’s rather peculiar,” explained Dr. Ballard. “Fourteen feet brought the man who had measured it to the edge of an old, dried up well, twelve or fifteen feet deep. Not expecting any such thing, he tumbled into it. In his efforts to get out he stepped upon a stone which protruded from one side. That fell out, and revealed the wooden box, which contained all this.”
     “In other words,” said the scientist, “the money was hidden in such a manner that it would in time have come to be buried twelve or fifteen feet below the surface, because the well, being dry, would ultimately, of course, have been filled in.”
     Dr. Ballard had been listening only hazily. His hands had been plowing in and out of the heap of gold. The Thinking Machine regarded him with something like contempt about his thin-lipped mouth.
     “How—how did you ever do it?” asked Dr. Ballard at last.
     “I am surprised that you want to know,” remarked The Thinking Machine cuttingly. “You know how I reached the conclusion that the money was not hidden either in the house or lot. The plain logic of the thing told me that, even before the search you had made demonstrated it. You saw how logic narrowed down the search, and you saw my experiment with the dog. That was purely an experiment. I wanted to see the instinct of the animal. Would it lead him anywhere?—perhaps to the spot where the money had been hidden? It did not.
     “But the parrot? That was another matter. It just happens that once before I had an interesting experience with a bird—a cockatoo which figured in a sleep walking case—and naturally was interested in this bird. Now, what were the circumstances in this case? Here was a bird that talked exceptionally well, yet that bird had been living for five years alone with an old man. It is a fact that, no matter how well a parrot may talk, it will forget in the course of time, unless there is some one around it who talks. This old man was the only person near this bird; therefore, from the fact that the bird talks, we know that the old man talked; from the fact that the bird repeated the multiplication table, we know that the old man repeated it; from the fact that the bird whistles, we know that the old man whistled, perhaps to the dog. And in the course of five years under these circumstances, a bird would have come to that point where it would repeat only the words or sounds that the old man used.
     “All this shows too that the old man talked to himself. Most people who live alone a great deal do that. Then came a question as to whether at any time the old man had ever repeated the secret of the hiding place within the hearing of the bird—not once but many times, because it takes a parrot a long time to learn phrases. When we know the vindictiveness which lay behind the old man’s actions in hiding the money, when we know how the thing preyed on his mind, coupled with the fact that he talked to himself, and was not wholly sound mentally, we can imagine him doddering about the place alone, repeating the very thing of which he had made so great a secret. Thus, the bird learned it, but learned it disjointedly, not connectedly; so when I brought the parrot here, my idea was to know by personal observation what the bird said that didn’t connect—that is, that had no obvious meaning, I hoped to get a clue which would result, just as the clue I did get did result.
     “The bird’s trick of repeating the multiplication table means nothing except it shows the strange workings of an unbalanced mind. And yet, there is one exception to this. In a disjointed sort of way, the bird knows all the multiplication tables to ten, except one. For instance—listen!”
     The Thinking Machine crept stealthily to a door and opened it softly a few inches. From somewhere out there came the screeching of the parrot. For several minutes they listened in silence. There was a flood of profanity, a shrill whistle or two, then the squawking voice ran off into a monotone.
     “Six times one are six, six time two are twelve, six times three are eighteen, six times four are twenty-four—and add two.”
     “That’s it,” explained the scientist, as he closed the door. “ ‘Six times four are twenty-four—and add two.’ That’s the one table the bird doesn’t know. The thing is incoherent, except as applied to a peculiar method of remembering a number. That number is twenty-six. On one occasion I heard the bird repeat a dozen times, ‘Twenty-six feet to the polar star.’ That could mean nothing except the direction of the twenty-six feet—due north. One of the first things I noticed the bird saying was something about fourteen feet to the setting sun—or due west. When set down with the twenty-six, I could readily see that I had something to go on.
     “But where was the starting point? Again, logic. There was no tree or stone inside the lot, except the apple tree which your workmen cut down, and that was more than twenty-six feet from the boundary of the lot in all directions. There was one tree in the adjoining lot, an apple tree with a boulder at its foot. I knew that by observation. And there was no other tree, I knew also, within several hundred feet; therefore, that tree, or boulder rather, as a starting point—not the tree so much as the boulder, because the tree might be cut down, or would in time decay. The chances are the stone would have been allowed to remain there indefinitely. Naturally your grandfather would measure from a prominent point—the boulder. That is all. I gave you the figures. You know the rest.”
     For a minute or more, Dr. Ballard stared at him blankly. “How was it you knew,” he asked, “that the directions should have been first twenty-six feet north, then fourteen feet west, instead of first fourteen west, and then twenty-six feet north?”
     “I didn’t know,” replied The Thinking Machine. “If you had failed to find the money by those directions, I should merely have reversed the order.”
     Half an hour later Dr. Ballard went away, carrying the money and the parrot in its cage. The bird cursed The Thinking Machine roundly, as Dr. Ballard went down the steps.