by Howard Mason
“Both things, eh?” returned the lawyer, almost visibly pricking up his ears. “Both—well, darned if I can see how the Chin—but I pass! What was it?”
“Well,” was Boyce’s sober reply, “it was a fable, no less, out of old China, and of around 500 years before Christ. When oxcarts plodded along the roads, instead of glider freight-planes zooming along overhead, as they do today. And when—but here—” He reached forth suddenly, and from the half-opened desk slide where he’d deposited it, took up the scarlet-bound book. Opened it to a page with a downturned corner. Went on speaking. “And when it comes to situations in life, there certainly is nothing new under the sun! As now I know. For—but here ’tis—the fable written by an author whose name is given at the end of it as—but here—the poor author is dead, and the fable not—and so here is the fable itself. And which appears to be none too plentiful amongst the laconically speaking Chinese.”
The lawyer, plainly perceiving from the way in which Boyce cleared his throat that the younger man was going to read the narrative aloud, actually turned one ear—probably the better of the two Tydingsonian ears—toward Boyce and his book. While Boyce, in turn, seeing that all was waiting on him, now proceeded to read off, aloud, the old fable in question, even to its heading and the explanatory sub-head its compiler had included, which sub-head indicated quite clearly that the quaint narrative was the earliest instance of the modern detective story.
CHAPTER XIX
THE MURDER OF CHUNG PO: THE FIRST DETECTIVE STORY
THE FABLE OF THE MURDERED HERMIT, THE ASSORTMENT OF VARIEGATED EGGS, THE 3 SUPERFICIALLY-THINKING WISEMEN, AND THE COGITATING MAGISTRATE
[This fable, to which students of this work, The Way Out, are specifically referred in Section Il-b, dealing with “Thoroughness in Thought,” Sub-Section XXI-c-3 dealing with “Systems,” the small Section XL dealing with the “Enigmatic,” and Sections IV, XI, LIII, and LXI, covering particular phases of human problems, is beyond any doubt the earliest instance of the modern detective story utilizing pure deduction. Particularly since the fable, written in about 500 B.C. as per its author, was penned in a day before China was even an Empire; when, indeed, she was yet but a set of feudal kingdoms. And just as there are today two schools of detective-story writing—that which lays its story in purely theoretical places, and that which lays it in actual places, naming actual streets and buildings—and any narrative must belong to one or the other—this tale belongs definitely to the latter field, since all the towns and places mentioned in it are known to have existed in that old China of many kingdoms then known collectively as “The Flowery Kingdom.” As for the applicable wisdom of the fable, it lies for the most part, perhaps, in the veritable wealth of colorful bits of Chinese sapience brought out in its telling, though this is not to say that its moral is not indeed the most valuable of all precepts for any man to guide his life by!]
A King, one Huang-Sun, ruling over the Province of Wei, set his 3 court wise men, Ting, Tang, and Tung, to finding the explanation of a strange murder which had occurred on the far outskirts of a village called Shu, near the King’s Palace at Yang-Yang.
The murdered man, a ragged hermit named Chung Po, had been slain by a blow which had crushed in the back of his skull, and was so found in his lonely, isolated, wretched, poverty-stricken hut. Chung Po had come but recently to Shu, or rather to its outskirts, and no one knew anything whatsoever about him. Only an open bamboo box of variegated eggs was found on the dirt floor near his body; but, along a crude shelf above his body, were a row of 3 and 30 also variegated eggs laid out in a line. Which latter eggs, carefully gathered up and transferred to a woven reed basket by the finders of Chung Po’s body, and brought, together with the bamboo box containing the others, to the King himself, had been the real cause of the King’s seeking enlightenment. And causing him to call in his wise men.
The 3 Wisemen, presented the facts of the affair, and regarding in turn both the eggs in the bamboo box and those in the woven basket, did give forth immediately their respective opinions, after the manner of the Times in which the more instantaneous the opinion, and the more facilely arrived at, the wiser was its giver. Their unanimous verdict, based on the poverty-strickenness of the victim, was that he was slain by an enemy; and since, as was known, he communed with no one in Shu, then that Enemy must have been one from out of his past—from, in short, such village just beyond Shu from whence he had come to Shu. But the differing verdicts of Ting, Tang and Tung, based upon the eggs, ran:
TING: “The man was crazy.”
TANG: “The man was a miser in eggs, instead of money.”
TUNG: “The man had become, from advancing age, like a child, and played with eggs as does a child with dolls.”
But the King of Wei, not satisfied, because these verdicts led to no practical conclusions such as who did the crime, or why—in short, what village Chung Po may have come from, so that to it an expedition of soldiers might be sent—did proceed to call into the affair a magistrate, one Hu Fong, of a neighboring village, who was said to have solved many crimes occurring in his village through a process of laborious and detailed study, coupled with investigation of quite unimportant elements, plus elaborate thought and reasoning in which ideas were moved about exactly like chessmen, and the time consumed in reaching judgment was utterly ignored.
Hu Fong, after having rendered profound thanks to the King for permitting him to direct his mean and ignoble faculties toward a riddle so tremendously disturbing to the King’s tranquility of mind, did then leave Yang-Yang and proceed to Shu, and did there proceed, for one full day, to study, by the aid of a huge burning candle of shark’s-fat, every square li of the wretched hut where the crime had been committed, as well as the dead man’s body, both clothed in his rags and unclothed. This done, Hu Fong did then return to Yang-Yang, and did for the first time examine the woven-bucketful of eggs taken from the shelf above the dead man, and then the bamboo-boxful of eggs found upon the floor. Not yet, however, did he vouchsafe any opinions, but did make announcement that he was now about to set out, afoot, to a village lying west of Yang-Yang, by 3 full suns’ travel, and to which, he declared, he could not be transported by oxcart, either provided by the King or otherwise, since 3 broad streams must be swum. And did indeed depart. And did return only after 6 suns had passed.
But even yet did Hu Fong render no opinion, stating that he must now rest for 24 hours, after which time must he set out upon another journey, opposite to the first, and even more difficult. And did then so rest. And during this 24 hours’ rest, the wise men, Ting, Tang and Tung, did stoutly adjure the king: “We urge thee, Most High One, to dismiss this man before he create from a simple nothing an affair which shall go down in the annals of our Flowery Kingdom as the ‘Thousand Years’ Investigation,’ being carried, as it will be, to the 9 and 90th descendant of this Snail of Snails.” To which the King did reply, though troubledly, for he himself was now beginning to believe he had indeed acquired the dubious services of a futile chaser of geese and lasher of waves: “I have brought him in upon the affair, and so shall go through with it.” Adding, to bolster up his position: “For did not the Sage Nung Fu say: ‘If you have taken poison, lick even the plate’? So calm thyselves, Ting, Tang and Tung.”
And now Hu Fong, having rested from his arduous 6 suns’ journey, did announce that he was now departing for another village, in exactly the opposite direction from Yang-Yang, and again afoot, since a great quicksand must be adroitly traversed, as well as the Plain of Woo-Ten, whereon the herbs were fatally poisonous to oxen. And he was this time gone for 8 long suns. And now, at last returning, did enter, for 24 hours, a temple wherein, in the peace and quietness thereof, he did contemplate deeply. And only then at last did come before the King as evidence that he had elicited at last something further—something not ascertained by Ting, Tang and Tung.
The King, who on hearing that Hu Fong would have audience, and not kno
wing in the least whether failure was to be confessed, or success of some sorts, had nevertheless immediately—as a courtesy to Hu Fong—brought forth the basket of eggs taken from the shelf in Chung Po’s hut, and which the King had been zealously guarding within his own bedchamber so that, in case of failure, a greater Wiseman might someday arise to cast light upon them. And from the bedroom of his favorite concubine, the beautiful Ah Lee, he had brought forth the bamboo-boxful.
And now, framed on both sides with eggs, did Huang-Sun, King of Wei, speak to Hu Fong first. Using the tsou—or formal form of address which was not permitted one such as Hu Fong himself to use.
“Hu Fong, I did select thee to cast thy alleged talents in this problem because thou wert said to utilize a new form of judgment. In which laborious investigation, and involved reasoning, take the place of quick utterance, as would perhaps a tortoise escape from the great carven jade Maze of the King of Chu. Thou hast toiled, I do hear, for many days, with candle of shark’s-skin fat and without, examining the dead man’s premises, himself as well, and even such things as the uneaten rice within his earthen bowl; and going hither and thither across our land till thy very sandals, as I observe, are in rags; and even contemplating deeply, within the peace and quiet of the Temple. Presuming then that thou hast followed thy own laborious and slow methods successfully, why then was this strangest of all strange circumstances: a man murdered, but with eggs at his feet—and eggs above his head? Poverty-stricken, and therefore not worth the murdering; consequently, murdered by an enemy? In short, to what village beyond Shu, if I deem myself to be a ruler worthy of keeping order, must I send soldiers to try to ascertain who therein may have hated Chung Po? Do I ever even ascertain the hidden and undoubtedly strange events from which such hate did spring?”
And Hu Fong troubledly spoke.
“Most High One, this Lowest of all Low Ones does know why Chung Po was murdered. Though, to reach his village, would your soldiers have to travel for 7 and 70 days, from our noble country here around the Yellow River, into a land where few penetrate.”
“Which is where?” asked the King, at first taken aback, and then not convinced he had heard truth.
“The far upper reaches of that little-known river, called the Yang-Tse.”
“How knowest thou that?” demanded the King. “Not that I could even spare soldiers for a journey such as that.”
“I know from whence he came, Most High One, because his box is built of a bamboo which grows not at all in the northern latitudes where flows our Yellow River here; but, since it is bamboo, must grow along a river of some sort. And south of us. In short, the Yang-Tse itself. For I did travel, with a piece broken from the bamboo box, to the village of Pau, 3 suns’ distant, to none less than the noble Mandarin Koo Loo who has traveled much, and has discoursed much with travelers, and who has specimens of grasses, leaves, and shrubs from all over our Flowery Kingdom. He declares the piece of bamboo I showed him to be Yang-Tse River bamboo.”
“So far so good,” nodded the King. “And even do I now note—though for the first time to be sure—that it is slightly thinner, and slightly whiter, than that bamboo which we find in Wei. But how knowest thou that Chung Po came from the far upper reaches of that river?”
“Because, Most High, amongst the eggs in his bamboo box are 5 not native to our river. The pink, elongated ones! And noting which, did I, in the course of my gentle handling of the same, quietly abstract one, and did take it, over 4 long suns’ distance, to the village of Wan, in the Province of Han, where dwells a noble mandarin, one Hai Jai, who has for 40 years collated eggs from all over our Land. This strange egg, he says, is that of a fowl called the Ssu-hen—or crested red hen—which, though it may live upon any river, never leaves the mouth of same.”
“By the yew tree that groweth over the grave of my revered grandfather,” declared the King admiringly, “but thou dost indeed, Hu Fong, play actual chess—with ideas. For thou hast done no less just now than to cross two idea—two pieces of knowledge—to obtain a third more exact than either. And—but if Chung Po’s village lieth 7 and 70 suns away, does it mean his enemy came from such vast distance afar?”
“No, Most High One. For Chung Po was not even murdered for enmity.”
“But he was poverty-stricken,” argued the King. “And if not murdered for enmity, why was he slain? And by whom?”
“Well,” Hu Fong declared troubledly, “Chung Po, Most High One, was a secret musician—most probably, I surmise, upon the hzien-ch’in, or stringed great-guitar. And since said guitar was not found within his hut, it must have been for it he was bludgeoned. For ’tis more than possible that there was one who, not fearful of the witchcraft that surrounds a hermit, did peep some dark night through the cracks of Chung Po’s hut and see this hzien-ch’in. And—but the point is, Most High One, that the non-presence of the hzien-ch’in, which we may be said to know did exist, proves Chung Po was bludgeoned for it. And if bludgeoned for it, then it must have been a very fine hzien-ch’in, inlaid with jewels and bound with gold, such as a true musician would wish to own, despite all his poverty. The hzien-ch’in will be found in the village of Shu in the home of such a man as, because possessed of devils, always becomes poisoned on eggs—for he stole not the eggs at all.”
The King did strike a gong, and immediately soldiers appeared, and he did order an investigation in the village of Shu as to who there might be who, because possessed of devils, could not eat eggs. And Li Win, a man who because of devils had never been able to eat eggs, even when old and luscious, without becoming violently ill, was taken immediately up, and brought to the palace, where he was flogged upon the bare souls of his feet with hot copper thongs till he confessed all. And told where the stolen hzien-ch’in was. It was found exactly where he stated it to be, and was, indeed, jewel-studded and gold-adorned.
But the King was not yet satisfied. Even after Li Win had been led off, to be beheaded at sunrise the following morn. For the King spoke as follows:
“Thy work, Hu Fong,” he told the magistrate, “was splendid. For it obtained results. Confirming in full a thing which my own honorable grandfather, Huang-Fen, did often say: ‘Patience and the mulberry leaf become a silk gown.’ For now we have the silk gown—the complete clearing up of this enigmatic mystery. And thou, Hu Fong, I shall reward handsomely, if for none other reason than thou hast, as I hear, 20 offspring to feed and worry about.”
“I thank you, Most High One,” said Hu Fong modestly. “But as for my allegedly sad fertility, that is to me but a satisfying thing. For my own grandfather, Hu Ai, did always say: ‘If we have none to wet the bed, we shall have none to burn paper at our graves.’”
The King studied deeply upon this sapient utterance, for all of a minute. Then nodded hearty approbation at its profundity.
“For thy honorable grandfather’s utterance,” he declared, “I shall have his name inscribed as one of the Sages of our Land of the Yellow River. And shall myself, in humility, burn 9 and 90 pieces of gum-gnun-yee-chee paper at his grave. But now reverting again to thy results in the murder of Chung Po, absolutely nothing do we know of how thou reached them—other than perhaps thy long laborious trips afoot, in 2 directions, to those noble mandarins who could render verdicts upon bamboo and ssu-hen eggs alike! Wilt thou deign to explain thy wise ratiocinations?”
At this juncture Ting, Tang, and Tung, given places of honor at the hearing, but sitting nevertheless with extremely long and dour faces, and apparently no longer able to contain themselves, started to expostulate. Crying aloud, practically all in unison: “This man, Most High One, has used up so much time that no longer can it even be said his work was wise.”
“Silence!” said the King. “Rightly indeed did the Sage Weng Lo say: ‘Those who have free seats at the play hiss first!’” He turned to Hu Fong. “Now proceed, Hu Fong. Recount thy detailed and no doubt laborious mental workings.”
“Most gladly,
Most High One,” returned Hu Fong. He was reflective a second, then spoke. “Well, since there were but 5 varieties of eggs being utilized by Chung Po, out of a possible hundred kinds, to presumably create a simple line of such atop a shelf—which line itself, incidentally, includes but 4 of the 5 kinds—and since there are, in our musical scale, 5 notes—and 5 exactly—then the dead man must have been illiterate—unable to write—to write even music—and had lain out the eggs in the process of recording a beautiful musical composition he had composed. Setting the piece meticulously down egg by egg, as he no doubt painstakingly composed it, note by note. And being in this wise ever in position to re-play its earlier parts over, as he built it up. And to hold it unimpaired and unchanged within memory during those intervals when, asleep upon his miserable pallet of rushes, his mind communed with happier events. Thus, by analogy of the 5’s in the case—and naught else—did I ascertain undoubted possession of a musical instrument—presumably the hizen-ch’in with its 5 strings—and thus the cause of the crime. And, by the unstolen eggs in turn, though regardless of whether such had been 5 kind or 500 kind, the identity of the murderer.”
“Very excellent so far,” pronounced the King. “And a great tribute to this new form of investigation, in which swiftness gives way to painstaking slowness, and quick verdict to laborious examination and toil. But now I am intrigued! Having learned thy reasoning. For in connection therewith was I like the humble creature of whom the Sage Ni Fing, in rendering his lone but famous utterance, did say: ‘The frog in the well knows nothing of the high seas.’ But now, having established the motive for this crime both through proving Chung Po to have come from too afar for enemies to follow, and through his possession of a certain object—having, indeed, captured the very thief and murderer himself—and possessing, moreover, the very eggs Chung Po had painstakingly laid out, though, alas, all jumbled together in yon basket by those witlings who did gather them up and bring them thither—how may we extract Chung Po’s undoubtedly melodious composition, and thus, in turn, have attained the true and complete clearance of this riddle?”
