“The Stolen White Elephant” (1882)

Mark Twain sets his sights on cliches of detective fiction, even before Sherlock Holmes was around to explain everything. “The Stolen White Elephant” is obvious and probably longer than it needs to be, but I think it still works. Humor pieces are so hit and miss, among the hardest to do, that you can’t ever guarantee anything for anyone about them. Perhaps I should be less critical of the various miscues because he can also be pretty good at this. The case involves a white elephant that is a gift from Siam to Queen Victoria. The storyteller accompanied the elephant on the voyage, which for some reason requires a layover in New York. The elephant is put up in New Jersey but stolen in due order. Thus begins the investigation and the parody. First, a detailed description of the elephant is required by police investigators. It’s not enough that the elephant is white and an elephant. One of their questions, for example, is “Parents living?” A team of detectives descends on the case, all with many different theories. The side of the barn where the elephant was kept has been destroyed, but none of the detectives think that’s how the elephant was taken. Most of them, in fact, think the broken-down wall is a ruse intended to distract them. And so forth. They refuse to believe anything credible but eventually find the carcass of the beast. And yet, even still, some of them stay on the case. One tracks footprints across the North American continent into Canada. He’s still working the case as the story ends, reporting in from the road. So that’s how it goes. Twain is once again mocking literature, but this time it’s mystery fiction instead of Romantic literature, his usual hobbyhorse. He is prolix about it. It’s another era and a much slower pace. And he’s obvious, for example with the cretinous police demanding a detailed description of a white elephant. But this piece does go on a long time. Every good comic element is protracted and tortured within an inch. I’d still call it a good one. Twain’s voice carries it when nothing else does. He often stays in character well and the jokes land because it can all be so deadpan. Worth remembering for any dips into Twain you may be contemplating.

Mark Twain, Humorous Stories & Sketches
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