ose," one added, "or else
she will explain you the Mystery." The name of the gentleman who asked
whether the Bow Mystery was not 'arrowing shall not be divulged. There
was more point in "Dagonet's" remark that, if he had been one of the
unhappy jurymen, he should have been driven to "suicide." A professional
paradox-monger pointed triumphantly to the somewhat similar situation in
"the murder in the Rue Morgue," and said that Nature had been
plagiarizing again--like the monkey she was--and he recommended Poe's
publishers to apply for an injunction. More seriously, Poe's solution
was re-suggested by "Constant Reader" as an original idea. He thought
that a small organ-grinder's monkey might have got down the chimney with
its master's razor, and, after attempting to shave the occupant of the
bed, have returned the way it came. This idea created considerable
sensation, but a correspondent with a long train of letters draggling
after his name pointed out that a monkey small enough to get down so
narrow a flue would not be strong enough to inflict so deep a wound.
This was disputed by a third writer, and the contest raged so keenly
about the power of monkeys' muscles that it was almost taken for granted
that a monkey was the guilty party. The bubble was pricked by the pen of
"Common Sense," who laconically remarked that no traces of soot or blood
had been discovered on the floor, or on the nightshirt, or the
counterpane. The "Lancet's" leader on the Mystery was awaited with
interest. It said: "We cannot join in the praises that have been
showered upon the coroner's summing up. It shows again the evils
resulting from having coroners who are not medical men. He seems to have
appreciated but inadequately the significance of the medical evidence.
He should certainly have directed the jury to return a verdict of murder
on that. What was it to do with him that he could see no way by which
the wound could have been inflicted by an outside agency? It was for the
police to find how that was done. Enough that it was impossible for the
unhappy young man to have inflicted such a wound and then have strength
and will power enough to hide the instrument and to remove perfectly
every trace of his having left the bed for the purpose." It is
impossible to enumerate all the theories propounded by the amateur
detectives, while Scotland Yard religiously held its tongue. Ultimately
the interest on the subject became confined to a few papers which ha