Why We Read Fiction_ Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine [82]
Here is how Thomas's argument can be qualified using the cognitive perspective: We care about the clues provided by the criminal bodies because other people's bodies are our pathways to their minds (however misleading and limited these clues may turn out to be). Furthermore, it can certainly be argued that the desire to read minds via bodies becomes particularly pronounced at the times of "urban growth, national expansion, and imperial management," when one is constantly thrown in with strangers whose social accountability is virtually unknown. Overwhelmed by the influx of foreigners in their community, people can indeed be particularly hungry for the fictional narratives that assure them that bodies, if read correctly, can offer them some valid information about the states of mind behind them. What Thomas characterizes as the desire to manage the criminal body is in reality a desire to manage the criminal mind.5
It seems almost superfluous to quote a passage from a detective story in order to demonstrate that "physical evidence" matters only insofar as it helps the detective to reconstruct the states of mind behind it, for no functional whodunit uses clues in any other fashion. Still, I will turn to one such passage, coming from Leblanc's 1907 story "The Red Silk Scarf" (not least because Leblanc had prefigured some of the later experimentations with combining the detective and the criminal in one figure, which I will discuss in one of the following subsections). At one point in the story, Arsene Lupin, an amateur sleuth, presents Chief Inspector Ganimard of Paris (a stock "dense policeman" character) with a pile of objects presumably relevant for the crime that Ganimard will soon need to solve, and invites him to figure out the meaning of these objects:
There were, first of all, the torn pieces of newspaper. Next came a large cut-glass inkstand, with a long piece of string fastened to the lid. There was a bit of broken glass and a sort of flexible cardboard, reduced to shreds. Lastly, there was a piece of bright scarlet silk, ending in a tassel of the same material and color. (182)
After ascertaining that the objects don't hold any meaning for the dumbfounded inspector, Lupin tells the story that he has deduced from them, still leaving out, however, with small titillating exceptions that I will italicize, the stuff that we really want to know—the history of minds behind the "exhibit" as well as Lupin's own thought processes:
"I see that we are entirely of one mind," continued Lupin, without appearing to remark the chief inspector's silence. "And I can sum up the matter briefly, as told us by these exhibits. Yesterday evening, between nine and twelve o'clock, a showily dressed young woman was wounded
3: Metarepresentationality and the Detective Story
with a knife and then caught round the throat and choked to death by a well-dressed gentleman, wearing a single eyeglass and interested in racing, with whom the aforesaid showily dressed young lady had been eating three meringues and a coffee eclair. (183)
"Interested in racing" is a pretty straightforward attribution of a state of mind. Thomas may argue, however, that some of the other descriptions that I have highlighted, such as "showily dressed" or "well-dressed," indeed point to the text's "preoccupation with physical evidence and with investigating the suspect body" rather than with "exploring the complexities of the mind" of the young woman and the gentleman in question. However, this would be an untenable distinction. "Showily dressed" catches our attention because it implies a mind concerned with impressing other people in a certain way. "Well-dressed," on the other hand, implies a person who can afford to dress well and has taste. Moreover, contrasted with "showily dressed," "well-dressed" indicates the workings