The Birth of a Great Detective —— Reading The Stolen White Elephant

Issue 14 of Little Black Book is a collection of short stories by Mark Twain, including four short stories, of which the title accounts for more than half of the book.

In The Stolen White Elephant, Mark Twain took his satirical art to the extreme.

The King of Thailand entrusted an Indian colonial official to send a distinguished white elephant to the King of England as a gesture of friendship. Officials transported the white elephant to new york Port and settled there. Unexpectedly, two weeks later, the white elephant was stolen. He reported the case, and the new york police staged an elephant-seeking farce.

Detective Blunt inquired about the details and characteristics of the white elephant in detail, so that 50,000 instructions were printed and distributed on the spot, which triggered 50,000 photos of the white elephant. He quickly sent nearly 100 detectives to ports, intersections in and out of new york and other key points. The investigation of two recidivists was also arranged. The action was as fierce as a tiger, making the informant think that he had met a famous detective.

Next thing you know, it's stale.

The inspector general asked for secrecy and not to divulge a word. Results In the newspaper the next day, all the details of the case, investigation measures, plans and schemes were reported in the newspaper.

Before the start of the operation, the inspector general asked the informant to offer a reward of 25,000 yuan, which was eventually raised to100,000 yuan, plus more than 40,000 yuan for handling the case.

Detectives went to more than 50 States in the United States and sent the latest tracking reports from all over the country. The newspaper is full of relevant news. The news is contradictory, self-contradictory, showing where white elephants go, bodies everywhere, and walls falling down.

A few weeks later, the white elephant was not found, but it gave birth to a business-using the body of the white elephant as a mobile advertisement, asking for 7000 yuan.

A few weeks later, the white elephant disappeared into the fog, and newspapers began to get tired of reporting the bravery of detectives. Then began to satirize them with comics, jokes and other artistic forms.

In another brilliant move, the inspector general wrote to the wives of two famous thieves, hoping to solve the problem of the disappearance of the white elephant through negotiation. The reply will come soon. The two thieves were executed one and a half years ago and two years ago respectively. Crime is impossible. Everyone knows it except the detective.

The inspector general calmly put an encrypted letter in the newspaper, asking the informant to contribute100000 yuan to compromise, and confidently said that the thief would contact the police after seeing the news.

Money talks. When the money arrived, the white elephant was found in the cellar where the detectives rested, but unfortunately it had turned into a corpse.

Detectives happily divided the reward of 50 thousand yuan, and another 50 thousand fell into the pocket of "big detective" blunt

The informant went bankrupt completely, lost his elephant and job, and became a tramp in the world. But he always felt that "that gentleman is an unprecedented detective in the world" and his admiration for him "has not faded so far and will never change." This is the end of the story.

In this way, Mark Twain told a story that satirized the American police to death, which made the readers laugh, but he didn't show a smile.

In hot summer, reading this book seems to bring a little coolness.