“Couldn’t it be dragged away?” enquired a Municipal Councillor, desirous of offering helpful municipal counsel.
“Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” said the Mayor, “if only we had ten thousand traction engines and the means of harnessing them to it.”
“Couldn’t one of our leading contractors, such as Señor Pedro Hernandez, construct a sort of platform on wheels and attach…?”
“Oh, doubtless, doubtless,” smiled the Mayor. “Given a few months, I am perfectly certain he could build ‘a sort of platform on wheels’ of sufficient strength to bear the immeasurable weight of that gigantic rock… And he having done so, perhaps you yourself would be good enough to push the stone on to it, my dear friend?”
Undeterred by the Mayor’s sarcasm, another Councillor made a suggestion.
“What about a crane?” he said. “Are not such contrivances made for the lifting of great weights?”
“True, true,” agreed the Mayor. “Brilliant. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised to learn that in Pittsburgh, U.S.A., or Birmingham, England, there exists a crane that could lift a stone as big as a house and weighing hundreds of tons. But this is San Antonio, Sonango; and I do not at the moment recollect seeing a crane a hundred feet high and a million horsepower strong in anybody’s back-yard.”
In silence the Council sat biting its nails, gnawing its knuckles, nibbling its beard, or merely scratching its head.
Then, as was his place and duty, the Vice-President of the Municipal Council did his bit, and was delivered of a helpful suggestion.
“Dynamite!” he said explosively.
The Mayor suppressed a groan, refrained from rudeness, and observed:
“The Señor would suggest blowing the Boulder, San Antonio, and half the State of Sonango to… to…”
“To hell,” murmured a Councillor readily.
“To dust, I was about to say,” continued the Mayor. “But doubtless our friend knows his own destination best.”
But dynamite, like many other dangerous subjects, has a certain attraction.
“Couldn’t we have holes drilled in the Boulder and then let sticks of dynamite be inserted in the holes; and then, not exactly blow it to pieces, but… er… break it up, disintegrate it,” suggested a grave and reverend Señor.
“Oh, we could. Undoubtedly we could,” replied the Mayor. “Suppose you go and tell the proprietor of the Hotel Imperiale, outside which the Boulder rests, that you propose to do it.
“And ask him if he has any objection to having his windows blown in, his ceilings brought down, and such of his guests as are not killed, driven insane, or deafened for life,” he added.
Other solutions were propounded, each more fantastic than the last, until, through sheer weariness and a laudable desire to prevent a free fight, if not murder, the distracted Mayor dissolved the Council, with nothing accomplished, nothing done to earn a night’s repose — or achieve the removal of the Boulder.
One thing he could, and would, and did do; and that was to offer a reward of one thousand pesos to anyone who could make a practicable suggestion for the removal of the colossal stone; and ten thousand pesos to him who should achieve it without further damage to life and property in the city of San Antonio…
Returning that night from his office in the City Hall to his once happy home, weary and worn and sad, dejected and depressed to the lowest depths, he passed the seat in the Plaza on which rested Don José Hernandez.
“Señor!” languidly murmured that gentleman. “You want the Boulder removed. I will remove it for you this very night — at the stated price.”
The Mayor was not amused and briefly intimated the fact.
“Nevertheless, Señor,” smiled José gently, “if the sun should rise tomorrow upon the spot where the Boulder now rests and find it empty; find the Boulder vanished with the other miasmas and mists of the morning, I shall apply to you for the sum of eleven thousand pesos.”
“Yes. And you’ll get them!” grunted the Mayor. “And eleven thousand more,” he added contemptuously. “Doubtless you propose to eat it.”
“The money? Most of it. I shall drink some of it, of course.”
“I meant the Boulder,” replied the Mayor, added a little blasphemy, and went on his way, not rejoicing.
And in the morning the sun rose as usual upon the town of San Antonio and beheld it as usual, inasmuch as no gigantic boulder lay paralysing the transport activities of the city.
Informed of the fact ere yet he had left his bed the Mayor could not believe his ears; and five minutes later could not believe the evidence of his eyes.
Slowly, and in a sense reluctantly, he did believe that of the tired-born, languid-bred and lazy-living Señor José Hernandez who, looking if possible more weary than ever, approached him and murmured:
“Would you rather pay the twenty-two thousand pesos into the Bank of Mexico in a lump sum, or hand me two pesos daily for the next thirty years?”
The Mayor appeared to swallow something large, and drew a deep breath.
“Name of the Eternal Father!” he stammered. “But… But… How did… you… do… it?”
Well, how did Don José do it? For this brilliant little story of Percival Wren’s is not only a literary pleasure, it is a mystery puzzle, too, with the added fascination of all such pleasant pastimes… Can you figure out Don José’s solution to the Problem of the Obstructive Boulder? If you cannot, read what Mr. Wren has to say — in the last two paragraphs of the story, printed upside down directly below!
A Frosty Morning
or, The Mystery of the One-Thousand-Pound Note
by Rodrigues Ottolengui
Our favorite department brings you this month No. 4 in our League of Forgotten Detectives. This time it is a brace of detectives — Mr. Robert Leroy Mitchel, scholar and artist, who “turned his trained powers of analysis to the study of crime,” and Mr. Barnes, known as “the cleverest professional detective” of his time. The time is 1898, the author Rodrigues Ottolengui, one of the most neglected of the early mystery writers — although occasionally someone with a long gray beard will speak of Ottolengui’s once-famous book, “An Artist in Crime.” It is interesting to note that writing detective stories runs in the Ottolengui family; for his notable contemporary relative is none other than Octavus Roy Cohen, creator of Florian Slappey and Jim Hanvey… We warn you: “A Frosty Morning” is old-fashioned. But it has a charm that many modern stories lack; and it makes warm, enjoyable reading.
“Then as I understand it, you know that there is a thousand-pound note in this room, and yet you can’t find it. In other words, Mr. Van Rawlston, you wish to know whether a thing can be lost when you know where it is.”
The speaker’s companion, a man of fifty, with the bearing of one accustomed to large affairs, frowned impatiently. A trusted and powerful financier, one grown gray in the management of huge interests, he chafed at the smallness of the mystery which yet seemed to reflect on his executorship of the estate to which the thousand-pound note belonged. And it was with some stiffness that he began —
“Of course I understand that to a man of your experience this matter seems insignificant; but I am up to my ears in mystery. Mr. Barnes, the cleverest professional detective in New York, has spent hours in searching this room — without success. In despair I thought of you, with your cool, analytical brain, and I sent for you. But if you are in a jesting humor—”
“A thousand pardons,” said the other, seating himself in the carved oak library chair. “That’s one for each of your pounds. But there, forgive me and I will be serious. I received your note late because I did not reach home until dinner time. But here I am within half an hour of reading your message. Now, then, about this thousand pounds sterling. You are sure that the money is in this room?”