Once upon a time, a merchant approached Emperor Akbar with a
problem. A box containing some jewels was stolen from his house in the morning
while he was away. “I don’t know who has done it,” he says, “but I am sure it
is one of my neighbours.” Akbar refers the case to Birbal.
Birbal summons the merchant’s seven neighbours to the palace
that evening at 8pm.
“One of you has stolen the jewels,” he says, “and I will
catch the culprit by morning.”
“Here,” he begins, handing around sticks to each suspect,
“these are magic sticks. They’re all the same size. They’re magical because they’re
sensitive to the physical touch of a thief. If you’re the culprit, your stick
will grow by two inches overnight (an idea an Italian author may or may not rip
off in spirit three hundred years from now while writing a story called
Pinocchio).”
“To make sure you can’t get away,” he continues, “you’ll be
locked up in separate rooms in the palace until tomorrow morning. I’ll unlock
the rooms in the morning, collect the sticks and catch the thief.”
The first suspect is the merchant’s next door neighbour. He
knows both the merchant and Birbal very well, having helped them out with some
business dealings in the past. The merchant trusts him too, so before the
suspects are to be locked up for the night, he approaches Birbal and the
merchant and asks them to let him go. The merchant agrees. Birbal sees no
objection. The neighbour walks out into the cool evening breeze a free man.
The second man is locked in a room with a small window. He
props open the window to let some fresh air in. He alerts the attention of a
passerby who passes him some food through the window. He’s really upset about
the rising crime in the neighbourhood and can’t wait to see the thief caught.
The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that Birbal is a genius.
These are magic sticks, after all – what can possibly go wrong?
The third man is in a room with no window and no light. He
hasn’t eaten all day and has no idea why Birbal has locked up everyone like
this. He didn’t even know the merchant had jewels in the house. Tired and
hungry, he stays awake all night.
The fourth man is in a dark room with no window. Being
locked up for the night is causing him extreme despair because he had to
conduct private business with some traders this evening. The traders owed him a
large sum of money, which he needed to feed his family. That opportunity is
gone now, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to meet the traders again.
The fifth man stole a jewel from the merchant’s house last
month and promptly sold it on. He doesn’t know if the sticks are actually
magical, though, and that’s making him nervous. Desperate to find a way out of
the predicament, he probes around the room and finds a loose panel in one of
the walls. He has a confederate waiting outside, to whom he explains the
situation. The confederate searches around outside and quickly finds another
stick that’s the same size as the magic stick. The man then cuts off two inches
from the magic stick. If the stick is magical, it’ll grow back overnight and be
the same size. If it doesn’t, he’ll just show Birbal the second stick instead.
The sixth man is extremely sick. His room is completely dark
and cold. He feels utterly helpless and is struggling to see out the night.
The seventh man knows he’s ruined. He stole jewels from the
merchant’s house this morning. He checks his room carefully for any means of
escape but doesn’t find any. There’s no way he can get rid of the jewels from
his house before sunrise. More than that, he’s worried about the damn stick.
Like a lamb to slaughter, he chops off two inches from his stick thinking it’ll
grow back.
It doesn’t grow back, of course.
Birbal rounds up the suspects the next morning and proceeds
to collect the sticks.
The first man left the previous evening. There is no stick
to collect.
The second man hands over his stick with a smile on his
face. When Birbal asks how he spent the night, he brushes off any concerns. “It
was only a minor inconvenience,” he says.
The third man is confused, upset, tired and hungry but he
dare not say anything to the mighty Birbal. Dejected that he has not even been
compensated for the night in restraint, he quietly leaves.
The fourth man is furious with Birbal. “Do you have any idea
how much I have lost overnight?” he asks angrily. There is nothing he can do,
though. He, too, leaves.
The fifth man has called Birbal’s bluff about the magic
stick. He notices that the stick hasn’t grown, so he coolly hands over the second
stick that was slipped to him by his confederate at night. Birbal doesn’t
notice the difference in sticks and lets him go.
The sixth man’s condition has worsened considerably
overnight. He needs urgent medical attention and is taken away. An unaltered stick
is found in his room.
The seventh man is caught with a stick that is two inches
shorter. Birbal declares him the criminal. He tells the merchant to go to the
man’s house and recover the jewels.
The merchant is ecstatic. He goes to the seventh man’s house
and finds the same box that he had left unattended the previous morning. He takes
the box home and shows it triumphantly to his wife.
She unlocks the box, surveys the contents and goes, “WTF? These
are only 6% of the jewels – where are the rest?”
