Mystery Trivia

In the late 1860’s, when mystery novels were still relatively new, Wilkie Collins challenged his friend Charles Dickens to turn his pen in that direction. Taking up the challenge, Dickens began his first and only mystery story, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The novel was to be serialized in twelve monthly instalments by a magazine; published in Britian and shipped across the Atlantic to America. Unfortunately Dickens died halfway through the fascinating story. Oddly, it was the only time in his writing career that the writer had insisted on a contract stating that his heirs would be paid for the work should he die before it was finished.

Three years later, a young gadabout named Thomas James checked into a boarding house in Vermont, intent on avoiding anything resembling work. Shortly after, James announced to his landlady, a spiritualist, that he had been contacted by the spirit of Charles Dickens, who wished James to finish Edwin Drood. Eager to help out, the landlady offered him free room and board until the task was completed. Witnesses testified that James would go into long trances and write furiously as Dickens dictated the remainder of the novel. As word got out, James was accused of fraud and failure. However the book, attributed to ‘the spirit pen of Charles Dickens’ made an appearance in the bookstalls on Hallowe’en of 1873.

Controversy over the ‘genuine’ outcome of the story and the identity of the villain of Edwin Drood circulated among the early scholars, based on the working notes left behind by Dickens and the vignettes on the cover of the monthly instalments. The case was investigated by Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle insisted that Thomas James did not have a literary bone in his body and was incapable of creating the prose of Edwin Drood without assistance of some kind.

Many years ago in a small village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the village money lender.

The money lender, who was old and horrible, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt f he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. The cunning money lender suggested that they decide the matter this way: He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven.

2. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven.

3. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

Standing on a pebble-strewn path in the farmer’s field, the money lender bent over to pick up two pebbles.
As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag. Now, imagine that you were standing in the field that day. What would you have done if you were the girl?

If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.

2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money lender as a cheat.

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her Father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over this story.

Experts use it to make people appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking.

The girl’s dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chose any of the logical choices. What would you recommend the girl do?Do not look at the answer yet, give your advice after a few minutes of your own lateral thinking…. …………

Well, here is what she did.

She put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles. “Oh how
clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.”

Since the remaining pebble was black, they had to assume that she had picked the white one.

And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous
one.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution, which you can find if you stretch your mind. If logic isn’t working, try lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is a creative exercise. Practice it every day.

            In December 1944, Glenn Miller, famous 40s’ band leader, mysteriously disappeared. Tales of intrigue, changed planes, missing files, Parisian brothel brawls, altered documents, government cover-ups, and advanced cancer are tangled together, obscuring the final hours of the man who made famous such hits as In the Mood and Tuxedo Junction.

            Glenn Miller joined the army in 1942, formed a band and introduced swing music into the military marches. His superiors told him that John Philip Sousa’s music had been good enough for World War I, so he asked, “Are you still flying the same planes you flew in the last war, too?” They accepted swing.

            In December 1944 Miller’s 60-piece orchestra was booked in Paris to give a Christmas concert for Allied troops. At the last minute Miller wanted to precede the band to France. The confusion begins:

            Did he fly out on the single-engine Norseman aircraft that vanished over the Channel;

either from mechanical problems or unknowingly shot down by friendly fire? Was he on the Dakota that arrived safely in France, only to die in a drunken brawl? Did he survive the fight to be secretly transported to a military hospital in Ohio? Was he moved due to cancer? Was he a spy who had to be terminated? Circumstantial, physical evidence and eye-witnesses can be found to support all these scenarios. Reports are conflicting: the weather was good, the weather was bad; there was a search to find Miller, there was no search to find Miller.

            Whatever the truth is surrounding his death, swing lovers have reason to hope Miller did not go down in the English Channel. When the band leader left England, he carried with him a case full of new music scores. If Glenn Miller disappeared in Paris, they may still be found.

I also wanted to mention that The Vancouver Province, which is the newspaper I read that carried the story of Lillian Asplund, Titanic survivor, reported that the Titanic sank on April 12. In fact the Titanic hit the iceberg late in the day on April 14 and actually sank on April 15th. So what does that tell you about the accuracy of what you read in the newspaper?

There was an article in the paper this week about Lillian Asplund, the last Titanic survivor. She died at the age of 99 having outlived 710 other survivors from the sinking ship.

Many strange stories surround that notorious ‘night to remember’. One such story comes from Winnipeg, Manitoba - about as far away from a coastline as you can get. The Reverend Charles Morgan, minister of the Rosedale Methodist Church was taking a cat nap in his study the evening of April 14th, 1912, when he fell into a trace like sleep in which he heard the crushing sounds of water and cries for help. Above the noise he heard strains of an old, seldom sung hymn. He asked the congregation to sing that hymn in his church the next morning. The opening lines were: “Hearing Father, while we pray to Thee, / For those in peril on the sea.” It was one day later that the Winnipeggers discovered that the Titanic had hit an iceberg on the evening of April 14th and the ship’s chaplan was giving an evening service at the time. After they had hit the iceberg, the ship’s chaplan lead his congregant passengers in the singing of “Hearing Father, while we pray to Thee, / for those in peril on the sea.”

This is so cool! The mind really is a powerful mystery. It can read this weird message:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Such a cdonition is arppoiately cllaed “Typoglycemia”

Hey Mystery Fans,

I am a brand new blogger, initiated by THE Technology Evangelist, Robert Sanzalone, at an S.C.C. session this morning. It is so exciting! Now I get a chance to share all the mystery jokes, quotes and anecdotes I have been collecting and always on the watch for. Today in the paper I saw that the search for treasure at the infamous Money Pit on Oak Island is about to be started again. Over two hundred years ago, two boys saw a depression in the grass on this tiny island off the coast of Mahone Bay NS and the events connected with that discovery make the Da Vinci Code look like a walk in the park!