GREAT STORIES OF A GREAT DETECTIVE
The Adventures of
DR. THORNDYKE
(The Singing Bone)
By R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
POPULAR LIBRARY • NEW YORK
POPULAR LIBRARY EDITION
COMPLETE AND
UNABRIDGED
Originally published under the title of
THE SINGING BONE
COPYRIGHT MCMXXIII
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
By arrangement with Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
PREFACE
The peculiar construction of the first four stories in the presentcollection will probably strike both reader and critic and seem tocall for some explanation, which I accordingly proceed to supply.
In the conventional “detective story” the interest is made to focuson the question, “Who did it?” The identity of the criminal is asecret that is jealously guarded up to the very end of the book, andits disclosure forms the final climax.
This I have always regarded as somewhat of a mistake. In real life,the identity of the criminal is a question of supreme importance forpractical reasons; but in fiction, where no such reasons exist, Iconceive the interest of the reader to be engaged chiefly by thedemonstration of unexpected consequences of simple actions, ofunsuspected causal connections, and by the evolution of an orderedtrain of evidence from a mass of facts apparently incoherent andunrelated. The reader’s curiosity is concerned not so much with thequestion “Who did it?” as with the question “How was the discoveryachieved?” That is to say, the ingenious reader is interested more inthe intermediate action than in the ultimate result.
The offer by a popular author of a prize to the reader who shouldidentify the criminal in a certain “detective story,” exhibiting asit did the opposite view, suggested to me an interesting question.
Would it be possible to write a detective story in which from theoutset the reader was taken entirely into the author’s confidence,was made an actual witness of the crime and furnished with every factthat could possibly be used in its detection? Would there be anystory left when the reader had all the facts? I believed that therewould; and as an experiment to test the justice of my belief,