|
 |
 |
| Destroy mystique by revealing technique There is enough genuine mystery without introducing false mystique. I constantly attempt to destroy mystique. The price I pay is that, after I have explained it, it is dismissed as obvious. When a supernatural explanation was suggested in a number of cases, I said --- we must exhaust all natural explanations before we fall back on a such a theory as this [LAST] The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply [SUSS]. A devil with merely local powers like a parish vestry would be too inconceivable a thing [HOUN].Watson was constantly attributing superhuman powers to me, and I was as constantly reminding him that they were merely human. When he was convinced that I had eyes on the back of my head, I pointed out that, on the contrary, I had a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me [HOUN].
As a rule ---------- the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify [REDH]. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive [IDEN]. It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn [STUD]. The more outré and grotesque an incident is, the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it [HOUN]. It is only the colourless, uneventful case which is hopeless [SHOS].
|