“Count Jalacki Goes Fishing,” and “The Mystery of Andorous Enterprises.” In each, Poggioli takes disparate elements with no conceivable connection and shows how truly interwoven they are. Along with the much earlier “A Passage to Benares,” these are stories that ought never to go out of print (but, alas, already have).
The weaving together of disparate elements is Stribling’s modus operandi. In his autobiography, Laughing Stock, Stribling commented on his short, unhappy, unsuccessful foray into journalism: “I had no interest in news. Single isolated happenings did not attract my attention; to command my pen they had to be a series of closely connected events that led up to a situation.” Likewise was Stribling’s approach to the Poggioli tales.
What Makes Poggioli Tick
Ellery Queen once wrote: “Poggioli’s trial-and-error deductions are unorthodox and humorous, but successful.” He described Poggioli as having “an impersonal attitude towards his clients” and judged the author’s style as “cunning—factual, conversational, and yet he shows a complete grasp of Southern character, builds up an authentic atmosphere.”
Two other elements make the Poggioli series special. One is Stribling’s mastery of social observation. He can, for instance, paint a scene where people of different nationalities dine at the same table; describe in detail the dining methods peculiar to each land; and then show how each diner is repulsed by the habits of the others. Or he might quietly point out that wares in the market on a particular island are sold by the pile, without regard to weight or measure.
The second special element lies within Poggioli himself. We tend to see him as a detective, a professor, a psychologist; but equally valid is Poggioli as a philosopher. In any story Poggioli can start philosophizing, as he did this way in “The Refugees”: “What we call our reason is never the fatally sure, mathematical progression we fancy it is. If you will examine reason in the making you will find it a very cloudy process, a kind of blind jumping among hypotheses. When it finally hits the right one, it then proceeds to build a logical bridge from its point of departure to its goal, and it imagines it has crossed on that bridge, but it has not. The bridge was flung out afterward.” Those who enjoy such speculations will surely enjoy Poggioli.
Race, Dialect, and “Nigger”
It is hard to read some of these stories without stirring a certain race-consciousness. The author asserts that whites and blacks differ in ways unrelated to skin pigment—such as the sound of their laughter.
Nevertheless, Stribling was ahead of his time in depicting race relations, especially in his breakthrough novel, Birthright (The Century Co., 1922). Edward Piacentino, a modern scholar in southern literature, wrote about Birthright: “Stribling dared to portray the black man and his plight sympathetically, emphatically showing him to be a helpless object of hatred and oppression, an individual denied political and social equality . . . Stribling in Birthright sharply disparages all his white characters, making it emphatically clear that they are responsible for the black man’s dehumanizing existence.”
Birthright is the story of Peter Siner, a Harvard-educated young black man who encounters great difficulties after returning to his small Southern hometown to build a school for blacks. Although Siner, a black, speaks with intelligence and dignity, his black neighbors, uneducated and untraveled, often speak in dialect, as do some of the black and oriental and other characters in the Poggioli stories. For instance, the mother of the accused killer in “Bullets,” rooting for the pending ballistics results to help her son Slewfoot’s defense, prays: “Oh, Lawd, let dem bullets be jes’ alike an’ save po’ Slewfoot.” Yet the power of “Bullets” as a detective story and as a story of human conflict is based on Stribling’s knowledge of race relations in Florida during the 1930s. We learn that a black man “done what he was told—he was a nigger.” But Poggioli remains above the racism and the racial epithets, while knowing their effects. “Negroes,” he explains, “don’t walk behind white men’s counters. They have been accused of stealing too many times when they were innocent for them to take a chance of being seen behind a white man’s counter.”
“Bullets” is an uncomfortable story on several levels, and I think that Stribling hoped for that response from readers.
Stribling rendered accurately the speech patterns of all those around him, from the educated to those ethnic social groups who have been marginalized by society. It is not strictly the blacks but all poor people—white, brown, or yellow—whose speech is rendered phonetically. But no matter how much the dialect may reflect the reality of the time period, some readers will be offended.
Certain words that give offense today were standard in the early part of Poggioli’s career. Although Stribling let his non-recurring characters speak the word “nigger,” neither he himself nor Poggioli comes across as racist.
On the race question, Poggioli can speak for himself. In “The Governor of Cap Haitien” he is asked: “You don’t believe a nigger is the equal of a white man, do you?” After giving the matter a moment’s thought, Poggioli replies with a question of his own: “Do you believe the leopard is the equal of the polar bear, or the dodo the equal of the wallaby?” He is saying that, like peaches and carrots, the races are far too dissimilar for either to claim superiority—and this is where Stribling differed from his own time (he did not believe in the inferiority of blacks) and from our time (he did believe that the races are fundamentally different).
Stribling showed a strong social conscience. “Judge Lynch,” a powerful short story without Poggioli, tackles the question of lynching—and this was in the 1930s South, before lynching had become quite so rare. The point is driven home that yes, maybe you can make a plausible case for lynching a black man suspected of a crime, but only if you were to lynch a white man just as eagerly and unhesitatingly when he is suspected of the same crime. Whatever the punishment should be for a particular crime, the skin color of the perpetrator should have nothing to do with the punishment imposed.
Final Point
One final point. Throughout his career, Poggioli was referred to as “Mr. Poggioli,”
“Dr. Poggioli,” and “Professor Poggioli,” all with roughly equal frequency. None of the appelations is wrong; it’s personal preference. To me he will always be Professor Poggioli. But on this question, too, Poggioli can speak for himself. In “A Passage to Benares” he says, “I am not a professor, I am simply a docent.” Hence this collection of Doctor Poggioli tales.
As for Stribling, who is buried in Clifton, Tennessee, the final word comes from his tombstone: “Through this dust these hills once spoke.”
Arthur Vidro April 2004
A PEARL AT PAMPATAR
THE hot wind that blew across the town of Pampatar in the island of Margarita kept Mr. Henry Poggioli more or less marooned in the lobby of El Grand Hotel Rey Phillipe Segunda de Espagñe, and reduced him to conversation with Mrs. Gelleman. It was either that or read the paper backed Spanish novels which lay about on the tables; and, as the insides of the novels were as torrid as the outside of the hotel, Mr. Poggioli talked to Mrs. Gelleman.
On this particular morning she was saying: “I had the oddest dream last night. I couldn’t wait to tell you about it. I dreamed Mr. Gelleman gave me a large pearl. Does that mean he is really going to give me one, or do dreams go by contraries?”
“I daresay it doesn’t mean much of anything.” Mrs. Gelleman lifted a penciled brow.
“I thought you were a psychologist?”
“That is my profession.”
“And you don’t know whether dreams go by contraries or not?”
“Dreams don’t really ‘go’ at all. They are supposed to be more a reproduction of one’s wishes and desires than a prophecy of the future.”
The lady made a moue with her small buttonhole mouth. “Good gracious, there’s no use in dreaming; you already know what you want.”
“No, I don’t suppose dreaming could be listed as one of the gainful occupations.” The ma
tron sat with disappointment on her round face because she had thus casually lost a pearl.
“Have I ever shown you my pearls, Mr. Poggioli?” Without waiting for an answer, she called aloud, “Chrysomallina! Oh Chrysomallina, bring my jewel case, will you? I’m down here in the lobby.”
She looked with distaste at the dust blowing past the doors of the hotel.
“The only reason I keep Mr. Gelleman here in Margarita is to collect a necklace of real pearls for myself. Mr. Gelleman works for the pearl company, you know. My mother told me once that when I was born she had wanted a pearl necklace, very bad, she said, very bad . . . Do you believe I inherited that desire?”
“Probably not, a momentary desire like that.”
“Doesn’t psychology teach that whatever an expectant mother desires, her child will get?”
“That’s a folk belief, but science has not adduced any proof—”
“Huh! It seems to me psychology misses out on everything a person is interested in.”
The topic was dropped through the advent of Chrysomallina at the head of the staircase. She was one of those black West Indian Junos whose physical perfections are entirely overlooked because there are so many of them. As she glided down the steps with the carved jewel case in her ebony upspread hands she had a heraldic quality which her white overlords entirely neglected to observe.
As Mrs. Gelleman reached for the chest she moistened the small circle of her red lips with her tongue. “Some of these pearls are real and some imitations. I try to think the imitations into real ones. The harder I keep my mind on making them real the sooner I’ll get them. Doesn’t psychology teach that?”
Mr. Poggioli pondered a moment just what Mrs. Gelleman meant, then answered with a grave face—
“So far as science has investigated, Mrs. Gelleman, no tendency has been detected in real pearls to substitute themselves for imitation pearls through the process of their owner’s thinking.”
“A Hindu mystic told me that, Mr. Poggioli,” interrupted the lady tartly. “He said when I concentrated on an imitation pearl it helped my atman mold a real pearl and then—”
In the midst of this explanation the door was flung open and a black boy was blown in by the wind. He was out of breath.
“I was lookin’—for the Americano—who works voodoo—on t’ieves.”
“You mean the psychologist,” ejaculated Mrs. Gelleman in sympathetic excitement. “What sort of thieves?”
“Some black boy stole Mr. Gelleman’s pearl.”
“Oh goodness, what a shame! You know I despise a thief more than a snake . . . to take something that doesn’t belong to . . . this is the man, he’s the psychologist. Here, Chrysomallina, take my chest back to my room and lock it in my trunk!”
The black boy looked at Poggioli.
“He don’t seem much like a voodoo doctor.”
“American voodoo doctors never do, Taprobane,” hurried Mrs. Gelleman. “Now direct Mr. Poggioli to my husband’s office.”
The jet Taprobane watched the retreating form of Chrysomallina.
“Si, señora; at the second turn let him take the third door on the left. Chrysomallina, where do you feel like you is goin’?” He made rather a graceful bow with his peaked head, at the same time keeping a respectful mien toward the whites.
“I feel like you is goin’ back to the playa and show Señor Poggioli where Señor Gelleman’s office is located,” rebuked the black girl pointedly.
“Now, Chrysomallina, the gentleman is forced to know the pearl office is the third door on the second turn.” He moved after the girl with a sidelong movement which kept him virtually attentive to the whites until distance should remove him from their influence.
Mrs. Gelleman walked to the door with the psychologist.
“To steal a pearl,” she bewailed. “I think that’s the worst sin . . . I hope you’ll find it, Mr. Poggioli; anybody who would steal a pure, innocent pearl . . . I wonder if this has anything to do with my dream?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said the psychologist, and he passed through the door.
In the gale outside Poggioli caught the faint scent of decaying oyster meats which taint the air of Pampatar. It had not occurred to the psychologist when he sailed for Pampatar that pearl fisheries were smelly. One somehow does not connect pearls with malodors.
In the Gelleman office Mr. Gelleman was walking nervously up and down in front of his desk. He was a small dried up little man, and when the scientist entered he turned to him in a sort of tentative relief.
“Awfully good of you to come, Mr. Poggioli.” He drew around a chair and stood tapping his fingers on its back. “Did Taprobane tell you what I wanted?”
“He said you had a pearl stolen.”
“Yes, taken from the box before it started from the boiling vat for this office.”
“How do you know just where it was taken?” inquired the psychologist. “Because Taprobane brought them in, and I asked how many he had. He said six. I thought he meant six carats, and when I looked into the package I said, ‘I don’t believe there are six here.’ Then he looked in and gasped out, ‘Dios mio, I meant six pearls; the big one’s gone!’ I said, ‘For heaven’s sake, go back and check it up!’ He ran back and when he returned he was all shaking. He said, ‘Señor Gelleman, there was a five-grain pearl in the package!’
‘Who do you suppose took it?’ I asked. But there was no way to tell. You know how clannish the blacks are, Mr. Poggioli. Not one will breathe a word against another one, not if he hangs for it. Well, we stood there all torn up; then I thought of you and sent Taprobane up for you.”
The psychologist observed the pearl factor’s chest rising and falling. “You’re all torn up about this, Mr. Gelleman?”
“Yes, my firm is already—well they are naturally careful, so many gems passing through my hands.”
“Of course, and just what did you expect me to do for you, Mr. Gelleman?”
“Well, you know the negroes are all alike. Any one of them might have done it.”
“M-m. Yes?”
“So I thought I might get the pearl divers before you and you could pick out the thief: some sort of scientific test, you know; hypnotism, I didn’t know what.”
“I might devise a word reaction test, something of that sort.”
“Do you think you could spot the man and get the pearl back in two days?”
“Why precisely two days?”
“You see the Trinidad steamer is due here two days from now and I think— I’m afraid she will have a—” the little man moistened his lips nervously— “an auditor from my company aboard.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yes. So of course, I want everything straight. To have a five-grain pearl missing, and the auditor expected—” The agent’s face wrinkled in misery.
“Sure, I see.” Poggioli was moved. “Where are the boys you want me to test?”
“Up at the pearl beds now. We can walk up there right now. If they get wind of what we’re up to, they’ll be off.”
“I believe I can disguise my tests so they won’t know what it’s all about,”
suggested the psychologist.
Mr. Gelleman hoped this could be done, and the two men started out for the pearl beds. Out in the street they angled into the wind along an old stone flagged walk until they reached the beach which they followed up to the pearl fisheries.
The sea was too rough for diving. The men were ashore, and Poggioli could see them far down the strand, boiling their oyster shells in a cauldron. The smoke whipped down the beach bearing the smell of dead oyster meats.
As the two white men hurried forward a disconcerting thing happened. Of a sudden all the black men rushed to their boats, hoisted their scraps of sails and the whole tiny fleet went bobbing out to sea.
Mr. Gelleman stopped in his tracks.
“Isn’t that the devil?” he cried in frustration. “They caught on to us somehow. I don’t know how. You never know how, but i
nvariably these damned nigger divers find out any—”
“Why are they all running? They didn’t all steal one pearl.”
“Because they think you are a voodoo doctor; and every man-jack has done something he doesn’t want you to find out—the beggars!”
The two men stood and watched the boats disappearing and reappearing, sails and all, amid the marching waves.
“Where are they going?” asked the scientist.
“They will probably sail around to Porlamar and hide there until they think the hunt is over.”
Poggioli watched the diminishing boats with the feeling of a duck hunter who has flushed his game before he gets a shot.
“It’s gone,” bewailed the little man, “a fine pearl gone and the auditor coming in two days—” His complaint was cut short as he stared off across the foam spangled sea; his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open and he blurted out, “Oh, my Lord, I have no time at all. He—he’s right on me!”
The psychologist looked at his companion.
“What do you mean, Mr. Gelleman?”
“Why, look yonder.” He pointed.
Poggioli looked and saw a faint feather of smoke lying flat on the horizon. “Well, what do you make of that?”
“The Trinidad steamer—two days before her schedule. It’s this damned wind!”
he reasoned bitterly. “A howling stern wind all the way; no wonder she—”
“See here!” cried Poggioli. “Don’t be so upset. Thefts occur everywhere. If this were the first crime of the sort in the world a fellow might take it hard, but—”
“Say,” ejaculated the little man, his eyes coming back to the tiny sail boats. “Those niggers are not running away.”
“No?”
Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist (The Lost Classics Book 14) Page 2
