Читать книгу The Technique of the Mystery Story - Carolyn Wells - Страница 21

The distinguishing feature of the Riddle Story is that the reader should be confronted with a number of mysterious facts of which the explanation is reserved till the end. Now this reservation of the final solution, in order to pique the reader's curiosity, excite his ingenuity, and lead him on to an unexpected climax, is a quite legitimate artistic effect. The only question to be asked about it in any particular instance is whether it succeeds, whether the effect is really accomplished? And for its success two primary qualifications are necessary,—first, that the mystery should really be mysterious; second, that the explanation should really explain.

The Riddle Story, then, is based entirely on a puzzle whose solution is a clever trick of the author and usually not to be guessed by the reader. Unlike the Detective Story, there are no clues, either true or misleading. The reader goes swiftly from his first surprise to sustained wonder, and then to an intense and abiding curiosity that lasts until the solution is flashed upon him. The plot is meant to catch the reader napping, and seldom indeed is he wide awake enough to solve the riddle.

A distinct type of Riddle Story is that which describes a search for lost treasure. In so far as the searchers encounter mysterious conditions, or the reader is held in suspense concerning the meaning or outcome of the situations, in so far is the tale a Riddle Story. But to be a real Riddle Story, the mystery must be carefully built up, sustained and finally revealed with careful and coherent sequences.

Poe's story, "The Oblong Box," is one of the greatest Riddle Stories ever written. The mystery is seemingly inexplicable. The interest is intense and the conditions partake of all the elements of ghastliness and horror. The solution is unguessable but entirely logical, and Poe's inimitable workmanship makes the story a masterpiece of its kind.

Equally clever, in a totally different vein, is Kipling's "His Wedded Wife," and, different still, Aldrich's "Marjory Daw."

In both of these, the surprise is perfect, and so inherent a part of the plot, so skillfully and swiftly worked up, that all demands of the true Riddle Story are complied with.

In some Riddle Stories the interest is not in the unraveling of the web, but in the weaving of it. In De Quincey's "The Avenger" this is the case, and also in Bulwer's "A Strange Story." It is the strangeness of the story that captivates in these instances. The maze of mystery and hazard, and the confidence that it will all be made plain to us at last, provide sufficient charm to the lover of the Riddle Story. Crime and its detection have no part here, but mystery and paradox reign supreme.

Another sort of Riddle Story employs the cypher or cryptogram plot, but this is of such importance as to require a chapter to itself.

Poe's "Gold Bug" includes both the cryptogram and the buried treasure, and is of course the greatest story built upon either or both of these plots.

A novel by James DeMille is called "The Cryptogram," and the cypher is the main point of the story. But more often, cypher or secret writing is used as a side issue or a picturesque device in a stronger mystery plot.